The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #27740 Message #153419
Posted By: Gary T
23-Dec-99 - 12:48 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Worried Man Blues
Subject: RE: it takes a worried man
I grew up in a part of the U.S. where if you asked for a pen you would get a writing instrument and if you asked for a pin you would be asked "straight or safety?". I now live in an area where if you ask for a pen you get the question "an ink pen or a straight pen(pin)?". In speaking and hearing, no distinction is heard between "pen" and "pin". This leads me to wonder if possibly the word "worry", when pronounced in some American black dialects, sounds like "weary" to American whites. In the context of the song, "worried" makes more sense to me than "wearied", and sinced I don't believe "weary" is a verb, "wearied" isn't even a "real" word. Rural/southern whites like the Carters may have had ears trained to hear their black neighbors dialect, and therefore understood that "worried" was being said even though it sounded like "wearied" to others' ears. What do you think?