Dialect nerding with Mris

[mrissa]

Okay, another dialect question. Haven’t done one in awhile. Does your home dialect contain the phrase “a goin’ concern,” usually applied to small children? And if not, would you still have some sense of what “that child is a goin’ concern” might mean if someone else used it, or would you be completely in the dark?

(Sometimes when I’m talking to my grandmother things come out of my mouth that I never, ever say to my friends, and then I stop and realize that I have no idea if I don’t say them because it’s an old-fashioned phrase we just don’t really use or if I don’t say them because my friends would find me incomprehensible. And this is what the internet is for! Someone might have told you it was for porn. Someone nicer might have told you it was for kitten pictures. They were wrong, or rather, they were right but in the broader sense. It is for assuaging random curiosity. And I do have a most ‘satiable curtiosity.)

Also: if you are a person who says “a goin’ concern,” at what age does a person stop being a goin’ concern? Because I am now a little worried.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

Comments

[elsmi.livejournal.com]

I can apply that phrase to businesses, but applied to children I haven't the foggiest idea what it would mean. (Northern California dialect.)

[jry.livejournal.com]

This.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I've never used it, but I would get what it meant if I heard it.

Many years ago, when Terry Bisson and I were scouting locations for the SF in SF reading series, he asked one of the people in a bookstore a question. I don't remember exactly what the phrasing was, but it was very Southern. (He's from Kentucky, I believe.) I understood it, because my family is from Texas, but the woman looked blank until he translated. I thought it was va ery interesting exchange.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I love dialect nerding like that.

[tewok.livejournal.com]

I've never heard it and don't know what it means. (Maryland/DC)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Same for me. Delaware/Philadelphia.

[fmsv.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever heard that phrase applied to any small children before this. I'd think of applying it to a business, without the apostrophe. (Native Minnesotan)

[genevra.livejournal.com]

Same here, also Native Minnesotan.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

I'm from Northeast Iowa, and I would apply that phrase to businesses or events, but not to people.

[carbonel]

Urban Midwesterner all the way (Chicago and Minneapolis), and I've never heard the phrase except as applied to businesses.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I don't use it but I (believe that I) understand the meaning.

(I distinctly remember railing against the "needs verbed" construction when I was in college in rural Illinois, but guess what construction I now use on a regular basis and find soothing to see/hear crop up other folks...)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Like others, I use "a going concern" for businesses and events and such, but not children. I could guess at its meaning in the context of a kid, but I wouldn't be sure. (Knowing a more specific context would help.)

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Usual business blah. I would have no idea what it meant when applied to a kid.

[sraun]

I'm in the 'apply it to business' camp. Born in Ohio, moved to Duluth to start 1st grade, lived in MN & the UP since then.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

I know the business meaning (currently doing well, or at least well enough that it can be expected to continue going for the indefinite future) but I would have no idea what that meant as applied to a small child. If it was in a positive, approving tone of voice I would guess it meant something like the business meaning, like growing up healthily, an active child, developmentally on track or slightly ahead, something like that. But I don't know if that's what someone using it would mean.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

at what age does a person stop being a goin’ concern?

In at least one case, apparently 94.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, no idea what that means applied to children. Business, sure.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I have only heard it applied to a business or something along those lines. A growing or thriving business, so I could extrapolate to a child. . .but Constance Seeger's son was still a going concern long after he stopped outgrowing his clothes.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, and in fact the way I was using it, the way my family tends to use it at least, is not at all about growth spurts and a great deal more about spark/personality/engagement with ideas.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I could make a guess from context but this is the first I've even heard that phrase.

Grew up in Texas (Houston) and, well, one year in Missouri.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I'm from Boston area (and a little Maryland), and am among the legions who haven't heard it in that context, but can guess at the meaning (apparently correctly).

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Another vote for business-only. I would have to guess a child who is growing and developing at a normal or ahead-of-normal rate. My dialects are Massachusetts and New York.

[fritzkat.livejournal.com]

I understand it, as it is applied to kids/people, to mean that they are someone you're concerned about due to poor life choices (usually in terms of attitudes/behaviour) and the stresses that puts on the "poor, long sufferin' parents".

Some people can be a "goin' concern" from the "terrible twos" until death.

(Originally from New Brunswick, Canada here)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ah, that is the opposite of what we use it to mean in my family. In my family if a child is a goin' concern, they are bright-eyed, engaged, opinionated (in a good way), sassy (in a good way), etc.

[pameladean]

I wonder if it's similar to what Raphael means when zie refers to Saffron as "a whole lot of cat."

I had never heard it before, but it's really a great phrase.

P.

[pameladean]

Born in Illinois, raised in Missourie and Nebraska, went to college in Minnesota except for one semester in London, graduate school in upstate New York, then Minneapolis. Also, David.

P.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

No, and "completely in the dark", respectively. (Born in 1968, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, just for the sake of demographics.)

ETA: As with others, I know the phrase as applied to businesses.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I have only heard this phrase applied to businesses, never to people.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Missouri Ozarks, and I'd find it a little old-fashioned* there in the usage you're asking about--and I'd say the same applies here in Tennessee.

One memorable application I recall from a few years ago was:
"The fight was still a goin' concern when me and Dad and Tommy went out the back door of the bar. I don't know how it come out but I reckon nobody got killed since they didn't call the sheriff."** The speaker was a native of Fentress County, on the eastern side of the Cumberland Plateau, not too far from the failed colony of Rugby. I've also hear him apply it to his mother-in-law and his wife's grandmother as well, although in different senses. It was more flattering in the latter case than the former.***

*But not archaic or obsolete. I'd use it, in certain circumstances, and I gave kin in both Missouri and Mississippi who would as well.

**Not the usage you're asking about! but a similar extrapolation. Similarly, I've heard it used for political campaigns of dubious viability, and also for beater cars, with full relish of the play on words there.

I think the bar fight resulted from a musical debate, starting with a specific song request and ending with a direct insult to the band's singer, whose emulation of Dolly Parton did not extend to her actual talent.

***For the record, he mused how anyone with so little good sense could continue as a going concern (mother-in-law) and admired that "at her age and all she's still a goin' concern, putting in her garden ever' year and hangin' the washin' out on the line ever' week." (Grandmother-in-law)

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Tennessee/Georgia/East Texas family, I grew up in West Texas. Most of Fidelio's observations resonate with me, though I'd use it rarely if ever, and always in the business sense. Which would mean that the (small town, single owner/proprietor (never corporation) business had got into the black, was self-supporting, growing.

Tho someone's explanation of 'sold as a going concern' would make sense, and I might say that myself.

"The fight was still a goin' concern when me and Dad and Tommy went out the back door of the bar.

The fight hadn't begun to wind down. Everybody was still going at it with full energy, and new fighters may have been joining. -- I wouldn't say it, and I'd hear it as something that belonged in Mark Twain, or that my father (born in1903 in Georgia) might say, more or less humorously. But I understood it immediately.

***For the record, he mused how anyone with so little good sense could continue as a going concern (mother-in-law) and admired that "at her age and all she's still a goin' concern, putting in her garden ever' year and hangin' the washin' out on the line ever' week." (Grandmother-in-law)

Independent, self-sufficient, having steady or increasing energy.

[katallen.livejournal.com]

Yorkshire, England... primarily a going concern would be a business (and I'm actually having trouble defining what going means :P ) not just one that was making money but which was making money the way I'd say a story has legs... I've heard it appled locally(ish) to people as in marriages more than to kids but if applied to a person I'd assume he was up and running and had prospects (in more than just an earnings sense)

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Yah, 'has legs' or has 'gone viral'. That is, self-supporting, self-maintaining.

[rosefox]

NYC and not a clue what that means.

[redbird]

I doubt I would use it to describe anything other than a business, or similar non-profit organization (such as a not-for-profit hospital or clinic); I wouldn't be too surprised to hear the analogy taken as far as "Is Syria still a going concern?" but I've not heard it used for individuals. As in, Syria may or may not be a going concern, but "Is Assad a going concern?" would make me wonder if I had misheard you and you meant to ask whether he was a growing concern, meaning one to worry about more now than last week.

ETA: You know this, but for your other readers, I was born and raised in New York City (and lived there until less than a year ago).