Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary

Y

270 yard about 1912 (Partridge). Another such idiom appeared in the 1942 film White Cargo: “If you show up here again I’ll cut my initials across your back.” Y yard . . . That must be the bedbug, you know a chinch can’t bite that hard Asked my sugar for fifty cents, she said:“Lemon ain’t a dime in the yard.” —Blind Lemon Jefferson,“That Black Snake Moan,” 1926 House, a sense found in Jamaica: “They seldom speak of going to a friend’s home.They say they are going to the yard”(Walter Jekyll,Jamaican Song and Story [1907], quoted in OED). See also: My black woman she needs the money, that’s why I work so hard And if I don’t keep on rollin’, she’ll have another black man in my yard. —Buddy Boy Hawkins,“Yellow Woman Blues,” 1927 It must be a black cat bone, jomo can’t work that hard Every time I wake up, Jim Tampa’s in my yard. —Lucille Bogan,“Jim Tampa Blues,” 1927 I got a gal in the white folks’ yard She don’t drink liquor but she do play cards. —Blind Willie McTell,“Hillbilly Willie’s Blues,” 1935 The latter is in reference to a domestic. yas-yas-yas Now the funniest thing I ever seen: Tomcat jumpin’ on a sewing machine Sewing machine run so fast Took ninety-nine stitches in his yas-yas-yas —Memphis Minnie,“New Dirty Dozen,” 1930 A favorite song euphemism for ass, used with humorous intent. yellow (a.) Black woman’s skin stay smooth an’ pretty, until the day she’s dead Yellow woman’s face get wrinkled, hair drops from her head. —Lee Green,“Sealskin Black Woman,” 1937 your time now, be mine after while 271 Along with black and brown, a standard complexion designation used by African Americans during the blues era, usually applied to females. It was similarly employed in slave speech:“I was a good lookin’yeller gal in dem days and rid free wherever I wanted to go” (“Aunt” Charity Anderson, as quoted in Born in Slavery). yellow (n.) Unlucky with my yellow, unlucky with my brown The black bitches keep on throwin’ me down. —Papa Charlie Jackson with Ma Rainey,“Big Feeling Blues,” 1928 A black person of perceptibly mixed ancestry, producing a sallow complexion . yere Just like a doggone rabbit I ain’t got no doggone den Oh I been in trouble Lord, ever since yere I been. —Charlie Patton,“Joe Kirby,” 1930 A dialect pronunciation of here: “I wuz baw’n ’yer in Nashville” (Francis Batson ,as quoted in Born in Slavery).The above lyric transposes“I been here”for the sake of rhyming. yon, yonder Look over yonder, on the buryin’ ground Yon stands ten thousand, standin’ to see them let me down. —Bukka White,“Fixing To Die,” 1940 There; over there; regarded as archaic or dialectal English (cf. OED). you can’t tell the difference when the sun goes down I ain’t crazy ’bout no yellow, fool ’bout no brown You can’t tell the difference when the sun go down. —Papa Charlie Jackson,“Shave ’Em Dry,” 1925 A proverbial sentiment regarding women, expressed by the ancient Greeks as “[w]hen the candle is taken away, every woman is alike”; in Don Quixote (1605) as “[a]ll cats are gray in the dark”; and by Francis Bacon (“Of Unity in Religion,” 1612) as “[a]ll colours will agree in the dark.” your time now, be mine after while It’s your time now, be mine after while You know that you hurt me, daddy ’cause I seen you smile. —Bessie Tucker,“Bessie’s Moan,” 1928 A black catchphrase occurring in Zora Neale Hurston and Dorothy Waring’s Polk County (1944) as:“Your time now, be mine after while.” In this instance time connotes a period in which one is favored by fortune. ...