Amy's words of the week

Amy's words of the week

1. Okey Docky

       As an English language Learner,  the variation of english words always confuse me. I  often think in my mind, 'Is this the right word to use?' 'Is it the proper circumstance to use this word?' ' Doesn't X and Y mean the same? So when to use it?' etc.  Okey Docky is one of them.  When I first heard it,  I thought it was some entertaining effect that is needed in the TV shows. And then I heard different version of them, like ' Okey Dock', 'Okey Docky, Artichokey'. After several times, I think, oh, ok, that's the way American speak in TV shows. Then, after I came here, I found it real life when Professor Eric Raimy says that all the time in class. It makes me think, it is about time to look it up. So, here it is: 

Meaning:

   
       Okay. There are some late 20th century alternative meanings, limited to the USA, e.g. 'absurd or ridiculous' and 'to swindle or deceive'.

Origin:      

       This little phrase is a variant of okay. It is 20th century American and first appears in print in a 1932 edition of American Speech. There are several alternative spellings - okay-doke, okey-doke, okee-doke, etc. In addition to these is the comic version that has brought the phrase back to popular attention in recent years - The Simpson's Ned Flanders' 'okely-dokely'.
       All of them are just a perky reduplicated variants of okay, utilizing that favourite device of two-word phrases - rhyming. As a reduplication it is properly spelled with a hyphen, although it is often given without. Like okay, 'okey-doke' is used to indicate that all is well, e.g. 'everything is okay here', but may be used when responding positively to a request. That is exemplified in this piece from Colin MacInnes' book City of Spades, 1957:

"One Guinness stout, right, I thank you, okey-doke, here it is. 

        The playfulness of okey-dokey is evident when it turns up as the name for a recipe inFondue by Lenny Rice and Brigid Callinan, published in 2007. The artichoke fondue “Okey-dokey Artichokey” is to be paired with Austrian grüner veltliner, which “has a crisp, peppery quality that makes it one of the only reliable artichoke-friendly wines we know.”

        Perhaps the name of the recipe was inspired by a children’s book published four years earlier, Okie-dokie, Artichokie! by Grace Lin. That’s the story of a new downstairs neighbor named Artichoke who bangs mysteriously on his ceiling, the protagonist’s floor. “Hey, if I get too loud or something, you can just bang on the ceiling and let me know,” says the protagonist, who happens to be a monkey. The downstairs neighbor is a giraffe, hence the inadvertent banging.

        By now, okey-dokey (and variants like okely-dokely) has long lost its freshness—hence its suitability for a not-so-cool character like Ned Flanders. For some, it’s an annoyance. Slang expert Tom Dalzell, in The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2007), acknowledges that okey-dokey is “used for communicating agreement,” but he can’t resist grumbling that it is “an old-fashioned, affected, still popular perversion of OK.” 

2. Onomatopoeia

     Summer this year, I got myself a part-time job in English First, a English learning institution for little kids. And for children, it is always interesting to see animals and images of them. However, it's not that easy. They have to learn the sounds of the animals before they learn animals name, like ' woof, woof, little dog, meow meow, big cat, quack quack, little duck, oink oink big pig.' At that time, I was thinking, these kids are so lucky to have foreign teachers to teach them those words, cause I don't even know pigs are supposed to sound like 'oink oink'. I mean of course I know how a pig sound like, I can even make the sound, but not the exact English words for it. Then, I look it up, those words for sounds are called onomatopoeia. 
       I have noted about writing animal sounds in English is that often the words are written with repeated letters to emphasize the sounds, for example: buzz (the sounds many insects make) may be written as “buzzzzzzzzzzzz” or 'moo' (the sound a cow makes) may be written as “mooooooooo”.   Also some animal sounds are written twice connected by a hyphen, for example: cluck-cluck (the sound a chicken makes).  I look it up and list some common examples of onomatopoeia for animals.

bee: buzz                          bear: grrr*, growl          birds: cheep-cheep*, chirp, tweet*, squawk

cats: meow, purr            chicken: cluck (or cluck-cluck)                 cow: moo

dog: arf*, woof* (or woof-woof), ruff* (or ruff-ruff), bow wow*, bark               dove: coo

donkey: hee-haw         duck: quack (or quack-quack)          frog: croak, ribbit (or ribbit-ribbit)

horse: neigh                sheep or goat: baa*                  pig: oink (or oink-oink)
mouse: squeak (or squeak-squeak)              owl: whoo-whoo      rooster: cock-a-doodle-doo*
snake: hiss          tiger: grrr*, raaa*, growl, roar            turkey: gobble (or gobble-gobble)
wolves: ou ou ouooooo*, howl

I have also included a video below of a children’s song that you can listen to in order to hear how all of these examples of onomatopoeia sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99ULJjCsaM&feature=player_embedded#at=25

Question: why some of the onomatopoeias come with a asterisk? 

3. ain't

       American English have a lot of contractions, but 'ain't' is a unconventional one, at least, for me. It turns out is more than one meaning, which as know, means 'am not'. 

Definition:

1:  am not :  are not :  is not2:  have not :  has not3:  do not :  does not :  did not —used in some varieties of Black English

Usage:

       Although widely disapproved as nonstandard and more common in the habitual speech of the less educated, ain't in senses 1 and 2 is flourishing in American English. It is used in both speech and writing to catch attention and to gain emphasis <the wackiness of movies, once so deliciously amusing, ain't funny anymore — Richard Schickel> <I am telling you—there ain't going to be any blackmail — R. M. Nixon>. It is used especially in journalistic prose as part of a consistently informal style <the creative process ain't easy — Mike Royko>. This informal ain't is commonly distinguished from habitual ain't by its frequent occurrence in fixed constructions and phrases <well—class it ain't — Cleveland Amory> <for money? say it ain't so, Jimmy! — Andy Rooney><you ain't seen nothing yet> <that ain't hay> <two out of three ain't bad> <if it ain't broke, don't fix it>. In fiction ain'tis used for purposes of characterization; in familiar correspondence it tends to be the mark of a warm personal friendship. It is also used for metrical reasons in popular songs <Ain't She Sweet> <It Ain't Necessarily So>. Our evidence shows British use to be much the same as American.

Examples:

1. It's a free country, ain't it?

1. Those people ain't got a clue.

1. Her husband left and she ain't never been the same.