Yonder

Josh Lalonde   Tue Mar 13, 2007 3:18 am GMT
Is this word in common usage in any dialect? What about yon, hither, thither? I've read that at one point it represented a third object, farther than 'this' or 'that'.
Skippy   Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:53 am GMT
In the South you'd hear it more often... I say it and I'm from Dallas, but it's more idiomatic... I started saying it when I got out to California as kind of a joke, and now it's habit.
Franco   Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:55 am GMT
People say it sometimes, but it is always with an intentional goal, ie it is not naturally what they would normally say. It could be for diversion, or to sound poetic, but everyone recognises that it is anomolous.
Lazar   Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:57 am GMT
Yonder and yon are completely absent from my lect, unfortunately. But I do occasionally use "hither, thither, whither"

<<I've read that at one point it represented a third object, farther than 'this' or 'that'.>>

That reminds me of "este, ese, aquel" in Spanish. (I suppose this would be called a "proximal-mesial-distal" system, rather than the simpler "proximal-distal" system that we generally have in Modern English.)
Lazar   Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:58 am GMT
That should be:

<But I do occasionally use "hither, thither, whither" in a facetious manner.>
Travis   Tue Mar 13, 2007 7:04 am GMT
>>That reminds me of "este, ese, aquel" in Spanish. (I suppose this would be called a "proximal-mesial-distal" system, rather than the simpler "proximal-distal" system that we generally have in Modern English.)<<

In actual usage, though, at least here there seems to still be such a "proximal-mesial-distal" system, except that "yonder" has been replaced by "over there".
13RB   Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:22 am GMT
And who can forget the classic Tony Curtis line in the cod-Medieval adventure epic "Prince Valiant":

""Yonda lies duh castle aw me fadda!"
O'Bruadair   Tue Mar 13, 2007 1:31 pm GMT
Skippy is right. Yonder is still used quite frequently in everyday Southern English.

"I started saying it when I got out to California as kind of a joke, and now it's habit."

I'm glad you are doing your part to educate those west coast yankees! Keep up the good work!
Skippy   Wed Mar 14, 2007 1:46 am GMT
lol West Coast yankees... I like that... I'm gonna use that!

"I like to consider myself bicoastal... Y'know, if you consider the Mississippi River a coast..." Waiting For Guffman
O'Bruadair   Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:18 am GMT
You mean they don’t know they are yankees? Well, they may not have the puritan pedigree or the funny accent but some I have run across certainly have the attitude!

Bet you could scratch more than a few “California yankees” though and find a Bakersfield redneck in the woodpile.
Guest   Wed Mar 14, 2007 4:23 am GMT
Much better a yankee than a stupid Southern redneck. LOL
Ell   Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:36 pm GMT
They are not used very often in many places at all now, unless like others have said if there is an intentional goal
Geoff_One   Fri Mar 16, 2007 2:15 am GMT
Here
There
Yonder

Equivalent to the Spanish:
aqui
alli
alla

"Yonder" quicker than "over there".
Josh Lalonde   Fri Mar 16, 2007 3:34 am GMT
Geoff_One, do you mean that you use 'yonder' in everyday speech without any ironic, formal, sarcastic, etc. effect intended? Where are you from? Do you also use 'hither' and 'thither'? (I also think these are pretty handy words, though of course I could never use them in normal conversation).