Thursday, May 2, 2013

The Store- I Ain't Studdin' You


We were talking and laughing one night and I teased a co-worker about a man we saw in the store earlier fine as they come, and I said he was in there looking for her, was that the man she was running from and she said I ain’t studdin' you . When was the last time you heard someone say I ain’t studdin' you, that sounds like something my grandmother’s mother generation says I ain’t studdin' you.

I believe it is a variation of the word studying, meaning paying any attention to what you are saying or doing to arouse interest, a familiar southern normal response by a black person being teased by another.

I said, “Do that mean you ain’t studying me?, right, that mean you ain’t paying me attention right, you ignoring me, right, not exactly, but along those lines, right?” It’s like acknowledging you, but it’s like ...let’s say, a more universal understanding might be, with a smile, saying, “Stop it”, “you crazy”, “you a trip”, “stop picking on me” and “I ain’t thinking about you.”

I like it; maybe I’ll bring it back, though it is from my grandmother’s era. I like it, it’s part of history, and it is an identifier of our group’s use of the English language we knew nothing of before coming to this land, in this country, “yeah…let’s bring it back”.

2 comments:

  1. I'm pale as morning snow and my entire family uses "studdin". I just thought it was a country thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even though we are very different, we are very much the same.

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Oh yeah?

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