Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: Becca72
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 03:15 PM

Northern New England here (Maine) and I use this expression regularly, myself...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 03:03 PM

"Yah, yah, sure sure" tends to get caricatured here as yuppy speak. Have your people call my people...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 02:39 PM

... and in UK generally. Pretty well the usual idiom, I should say

Really? I'm not sure I've ever heard it without the pronoun.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 01:43 PM

I don't hear it here on the Missouri- Kansas border. I believe I used to hear it in Milwaukee. It probably comes from German "mitkommen."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: mg
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 01:08 PM

Not to my knowledge in NW USA. And we have lots of Scandinavians and Germans here..

But it should be another thread but someday I will ask what the answer would be if someone wanted to say yes...here we do say ya sure a lot..want to got to the store..ya sure..mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 01:05 PM

I agree with John from Kemsing.

German has one of its compound verbs "mitkommen".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: Bert
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 12:59 PM

I heard it in Essex (UK) in the Sixties.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 12:39 PM

can't see how it comes under heading of "Folklore" by any definition

Language, usage, custom, tradition, pragmatics, vernacularisms, accents & dialects; all sounds like folklore to me, Michael.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 12:24 PM

I`ve lived in S.E.England for many years and I`ve hardly ever heard it used as common parlance.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 12:22 PM

Heard it used a lot in Chicago. Midwestern thing?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 12:12 PM

... and in UK generally. Pretty well the usual idiom, I should say, though the addition of the pronoun would not be misunderstood or regarded in any way as eccentric.

~M~

Note re category heading: this surely a matter of semantics ~ can't see how it comes under heading of "Folklore" by any definition.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: theleveller
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 12:06 PM

It's often used here in Yorkshire.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 11:52 AM

We have a lot of Scandinavians in Minnesota, and after that, I think Germans are the biggest group. I have often wondered whether "come with" is a direct translation of one or more of those languages.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: Ebbie
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 11:23 AM

I have always felt that it derives from the 'plain' folk and their dialects. I grew up Amish on the West Coast and then in Virginia speaking a strange mixture of high German and an off-shoot of German- dialect, peppered with English words and phrases. 'Can I come with' is a direct transliteration of the dialect.

Subject: Folklore: Who says 'Can I come with?'
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 15 Feb 12 - 11:11 AM

Is this expression common where you live?

"I'm going to the grocery store. Do you want to come with?" (Instead of: "...come with me?")

-or-

"I'm going to the grocery store."
"Can I come with?" (Instead of: "...come with you?")

I grew up in St. Louis, and never heard it there. When I moved to Minnesota, and first encountered it, it sounded very strange and ungrammatical. I always figured it was a local expression. Now I am told it is "everywhere." Is this true? Maybe Garrison Keillor propagated it.

If you answer this query, don't forget to tell me where you're from. I have only a dim memory of where some Mudcatters are from.