This here is...another dialect thread

[SnM]

"This here is..." colloquial, but is it regional?

[Rocky Hillian]

Wrong.

[James]

Wrong.

That there ain't wrong, this here is.

[toby]

"This here is..." colloquial, but is it regional?

Yes, but not Appalachian.

[SnM]

Yes, but not Appalachian.

I have heard it in the South frequently, but in other parts of the country as well. If it's specific to one part of the country, has it spread, like Nascar and rednecks?

[SnM]

And "Look it," is that New York, Chicago, New Jersey or Northern generally?

[Hildegard]

My hypothesis - "This here" is country Americana, found only in this hemisphere, but in any rural area. I know a Minnesotan who says it all the time.

[Hank IV]

My hypothesis - "This here" is country Americana, found only in this hemisphere, but in any rural area. I know a Minnesotan who says it all the time.

I know some hurtin' Albertans who say that. Not that that is much different than Minnesota.

[G-Ho]

"This here."

I suspected it was also an English colloquialism, so I googled "this here" and Dickens. This popped up in Great Expectations, Chapter XXIX:

"Burn me, if I know!" he retorted, first stretching himself and then shaking himself; "my orders ends here, young master. I give this here bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till you meet somebody."

[SnM]

"This here."

I suspected it was also an English colloquialism, so I googled "this here" and Dickens. This popped up in Great Expectations, Chapter XXIX:

Thanks G-Ho. I hadn't considered Dickens - or Shakespeare, for that matter. Guess Dickens gets credit for coining it then.