Avva (Russian link) just learned the wonderful word druthers, usually heard (as he heard it) in the phrase "If I had my druthers..."; it's a contraction of "would rather," as explained in this Phrases.org entry, and the OED has the following:
U.S. dialectal alteration of (I, you, etc.) would rather. Hence 'druther(s), 'ruther(s), a choice, preference.
1876 [see DERN a.]. 1895 Dialect Notes I. 388 Bein's I caint have my druthers an' set still, I cal'late I'd better pearten up an' go 'long. 1896 ‘MARK TWAIN’ Tom Sawyer, Detective ix. 74 ‘Any way you druther have it, that is the way I druther have it. He—— .’ ‘There ain't any druthers about it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything about druthers.’ 1941 W. A. PERCY Lanterns on Levee (1948) xxii. 292 ‘Your ruthers is my ruthers' (what you would rather is what I would rather). Certainly the most amiable and appeasing phrase in any language, the language used being not English but deep Southern.
As I say in the Avva thread: I can't find what they're trying to point the reader to with that "see DERN a." Dern is an archaic adjective meaning 'secret; dark; dreary,' and there are no citaions later than 1856 ("The awful, twilight dern and dun").
Posted by languagehat at September 26, 2007 10:09 AMI can't read Russian, but isn't "dern" in this context more likely to be a version of "darn" e.g. "them derned varmints"?
Posted by: Kate M. at September 26, 2007 11:23 AMYes, but the OED says "see DERN a," where "a" means "adjective." Of course it occurred to me that dern = darn was a more likely source, so I went to that entry and there was indeed an 1876 quote, but it was this:
‘MARK TWAIN’ Tom Sawyer vi. 56, I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water.
Which isn't much help.
Posted by: language hat at September 26, 2007 11:57 AM@Kate M.: The OED has a few different entries for "dern", but as far as I can see, only one has an 1876 quote, and it's for a noun sense, not an adjective sense. Further, the quote doesn't seem relevant:
1876 ‘Mark Twain’ Tom Sawyer vi. 56, I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water.
Posted by: Ran at September 26, 2007 12:01 PMYou want the later entry that says, dern, U.S. var. DARN a. That has the 1876 Twain quote with both dern and druther.
Posted by: MMcM at September 26, 2007 12:03 PM1876 ‘Mark Twain’ Tom Sawyer ix. 97 I'd druther [rather] they was devils a dern sight.
Posted by: MMcM at September 26, 2007 12:19 PMI suspect, given the date, that it's a contraction of "had rather" rather than "would rather".
Posted by: John Cowan at September 26, 2007 01:16 PM@MMcM: Odd, that doesn't seem to be in the OED Online. Searching for entries with "druther" in quotations, all it pulls up is the entry for "druther".
Posted by: Ran at September 26, 2007 02:36 PMBut is 'druther' a word? For me (who uses the phrase 'If I had my druthers' a _lot_) it's always 'druthers' and 'druther' sounds decidedly peculiar.
Posted by: Michael Farris at September 26, 2007 03:38 PMOdd, that doesn't seem to be in the OED Online
Odd indeed; thanks for finding it, MMcM!
I suspect, given the date, that it's a contraction of "had rather" rather than "would rather".
The OED says "would rather," and that's good enough for me.
Posted by: language hat at September 26, 2007 05:02 PMMichael: I agree, it's only "druthers" for me too, but the English language is older and bigger than both of us.
Posted by: language hat at September 26, 2007 05:03 PMI'm not a great believer in 'synchronicity' (just a more 'woo' name for the recency illusion), but I saw this expression used just the other day on one of my regular haunts (but Pharyngula and The Bad Astronomer both come up blank, so I have no idea where it might have been). I did have to stop for thought, but I understood it quite readily. (But perhaps I've just come across it before in a more obvious context and promptly 'forgotten' about it.)
Posted by: Sili at September 26, 2007 05:06 PM