Sunday, March 29, 2015

1658. Interesting idiom

Today I was eating some chow
Where I chanced to run into a sow
I'd once dated.  She said,
"Hey!  Last week I saw Fred!"
"Oh, really?  Well, wha'd he allow?"

That is a southern colloquialism that's rarely heard nowadays (so is 'nowadays,' I suppose.)  Today we might say, "What did he have to say?"  You may remember that Mark Twain often described what had been said with, "He 'lowed as how..."  As a child, I pronounced it 'lo' and wondered what it meant. 

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