In a message dated 12/15/05 8:39:25 AM, didrwood1@netcommander.com writes: > > Rick, “hain’t” sort of rings a bell with me, too.  I am sure my grandmother > must have said it.  I don’t remember if she said “we-uns” or not.  Her > father was born in Mercer, but his father was born in Virginia, so you may be > right about those expressions being from the south.  Very interesting.  Thanks. >   > Donna > Donna, We "modern" Americans have all been bombarded with Broadcast English for so many years that a lot of regional language is fading away, Mark Twain was claiming that even back in his day and he often wrote in dialect to preserve old speech patterns. Having gone to school in California, I really noticed the different expressions I heard when visiting my Iowa/Missouri kin on summer vacation in the 1940s and early '50s. I now wish I'd paid even more attention than I did and very few "civilians" had tape or wire recorders in those days. My Iowa-born family also used to refer to any human illness as "The Epizootie," a corruption of the medical term for illness in livestock. My wife and I still use that expression as a humorous homage to the past. Rick