# Adding "a-" in front of a verb: why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2018, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411 "2018-02-23T14:46:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/21 "2018-02-23T19:46:20Z")
Here we go a-wassailing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/22 "2018-02-23T21:09:35Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > I await further replies My heart is aflutter with anticipation. In fact, you could say it’s aflame. > [@cochrane](#): > > In Dylan’s case, in my opinion “the times they are a-changing” is a more folksy way of expressing it. His roots were in folk music and he was both singing to and singing for the common man. And besides, it fits the music. Many songwriters will compose the music first, then write the lyrics to fit the tune. Perfectly acceptable way to do things IMO. I’m pretty sure Dylan isn’t that kind of songwriter. He is a poet, and I highly suspect he wrote the words first. Or maybe not. I don’t know him personally. Also, I think the reason “a+verbing” is considered “folksy” is due to Appalachian folk singers speaking that way. In other words, I think this is a spoken dialect that became associated with music later on, rather than a purely musical style that people started including in their speech after listening to records, like “doo wop” for example. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2018, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/23 "2018-02-23T21:47:20Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > My heart is aflutter with anticipation. In fact, you could say it’s aflame. > > I’m pretty sure Dylan isn’t that kind of songwriter. He is a poet, and I highly suspect he wrote the words first. Or maybe not. I don’t know him personally. > > Also, I think the reason “a+verbing” is considered “folksy” is due to Appalachian folk singers speaking that way. In other words, I think this is a spoken dialect that became associated with music later on, rather than a purely musical style that people started including in their speech after listening to records, like “doo wop” for example. You’re probably right. His Nobel Prize was for poetry. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/24 "2018-02-24T00:29:19Z")
To be clear, it’s an Appalachian thing? I don’t know about that, Slim. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/25 "2018-02-24T01:56:35Z")
It appears in the book _Robinson Crusoe,_ so it’s been around, and in different places, for quite a while. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/26 "2018-02-24T02:15:06Z")
“Frog Went a-Courting”[http://https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog\_Went\_A-Courting](http://https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_Went_A-Courting) dates to 1548 England. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Hackenbush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Dr.Hackenbush](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Hackenbush)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/27 "2018-02-24T03:20:32Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > I’m pretty sure Dylan isn’t that kind of songwriter. He is a poet, and I highly suspect he wrote the words first. Or maybe not. I don’t know him personally. > > Also, I think the reason “a+verbing” is considered “folksy” is due to Appalachian folk singers speaking that way. In other words, I think this is a spoken dialect that became associated with music later on, rather than a purely musical style that people started including in their speech after listening to records, like “doo wop” for example. Okay last post before I hop off and get on with real life stuff… I can clarify the Dylan stuff but not so much the linguistic origins, although it does seem to be a rural thing. It is a feature of the stereotypical hillbilly patter “a fussin’ and a feudin’” as parodied by the Clampetts in Beverly Hillbillies, Cletus in the Simpsons and by musicians such as Tennessee Ernie Ford (who Dylan admired greatly) and [Woody Guthrie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTnVMulDTYA) (who Dylan pretty much wanted to be) who tended to speak and sing with the “a” prefix a flyin’ this-a-way and-a that-a-way… sometimes it would even appear as a suffix or in the middle of words. I guess you could speculate that it may be a deliberate pacing device used to control the rhythm and cadence of both speech and singing, which coupled with the fact that few people in rural America were literate back in those days created many anomalies and idiosyncrasies in the rural American dialect. Dylan is basically just parroting this way of singing and speaking because that is the musical tradition he is following. As for the way he writes songs, it’s typically what I like to call the “spitfire technique” where you sit with your instrument and some paper and a pen and essentially write both the music and lyrics at the same time. The process usually kicks off with a chord progression, then singing over the top mostly just playing with vowel sounds until you settle on a melody that feels right against the chords you are playing, then the next phase is singing the first things that come into your head until you start “spitting fire”… and that’s when you pick up the pen and start writing stuff down. Although sometimes a songwriter might find themselves in the zone and spitting so much fire that they get to the end of the song before picking up the pen, at which point they will typically scrawl down as many lyrics as they can remember. Alternatively the songwriter might start “spitting fire” and pick up the pen at which point they put the instrument aside and keep writing according to the pattern and structure dictated by the chords played and the “fire spat”. But Dylan, like most of the better songwriters or creatives in general, isn’t really a “one way to skin a cat” kinda guy. There are times when a poem will evolve into a song (a bit of early material with an irregular chord pattern was most likely written this way; the songs where he might have to hang on a chord for a bar longer than normal just to fit the words in, like in the verses of ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m only Bleeding)’ or ‘Talkin World War III Blues’) and there are other times when something will start out as an idea for a song (likely born from the “spitfire technique”) and then evolve into a poem if for some reason he decides that the music is getting in the way, or if the words take on a life of their own and refuse to play ball with the music. In general, for a song writing process to start with lyrics first, or music first, this only really occurs when the vocalist/lyricist and instrumentalist(s) are separate people. Most of the time when the song writer and singer are the same person, “spitfire” is the primary method. This is true for Dylan, John Lennon, Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley, just to name a handful. Usually lyrics are refined on a note pad over days or weeks (or in the case of Cobain, not until the very last minute when it’s time to record), any corny lyrics are substituted for some cunning word play or a line about crying like a fire in the sun and voila, you’re cookin with gas. Hope that was somewhat helpful and informative. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Hackenbush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Dr.Hackenbush](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Hackenbush)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/28 "2018-02-24T03:30:01Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > “Frog Went a-Courting”[http://https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog\_Went\_A-Courting](http://https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_Went_A-Courting) dates to 1548 England. That’s what I was wondering too, I looked for Irish, and Scottish examples but all I could find was “O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road, And I’ll be in Scotland a’fore ye” but the afore mentioned song only uses the prefix on the word “a’fore” so it didn’t feel like a strong enough example, even though “fore” and “a’fore” mean exactly the same thing. Still I had a strong feeling that in rural England as well as Wales, Ireland and Scotland some extra "a"s were bandied around the place. Nice researchin’, Tex. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/29 "2018-02-24T04:01:18Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > In Dylan’s case, in my opinion “the times they are a-changing” is a more folksy way of expressing it. His roots were in folk music and he was both singing to and singing for the common man. And besides, it fits the music. Many songwriters will compose the music first, then write the lyrics to fit the tune. Perfectly acceptable way to do things IMO. Seems that you are right. > [@Bob Dylan](#): > > “The words are just as important as the music. There would be no music without the words. I do the words first. I know what music I want when I hear the words. But sometimes on a gentle instrument like a harpsichord or a harmonica, I hear the melody first and know the words that should fit to it. That never happens with the guitar. It’s too hard an instrument.” from: [Bob Dylan’s 1965 San Francisco Press Conference](http://kripes.proboards.com/thread/1) ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/30 "2018-02-24T05:16:48Z")
IANALinguist and I have no cites to offer. The few times I’ve heard it in the wild were when elders were telling a story. It always seemed to me to imply a stronger intent. If a man went courtin’ he might just be going to flirt. But if he went a-courtin’, why then he meant to bring back a bride. Same with “She was just a-running.” “She was just running” means that’s all she was doing, and she might have been just barely doing it. but “just a-running” means she was doing it with all her might. I have a nagging memory that I can’t quite catch, of Andy Griffith using it this way. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/31 "2018-02-24T05:19:19Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > … It may also be the source of slang ker- in words like _kerfuffle_ although if so, it must have entered modern English from modern German recently, not via Old English. That would appear to not be the case. The etymologies that I see for “kerfuffle” identify it as a construction of Gaelic origin. The “ker-” is from a word that means to turn and the rest is from evocative playfulness. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/32 "2018-02-24T05:26:34Z")
“I’m a-comin’ Mr. Dillon!” ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/33 "2018-02-24T06:01:59Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > To be clear, it’s an Appalachian thing? I don’t know about that, Slim. I wasn’t implying anything about the linguistic origin, that’s just the stereotype of the Appalachian hillbilly I’m familiar with from TV and music. That stereotype may be completely wrong, or it might have passed through Appalachia from some earlier origin. Or some third thing. I just meant that this is a dialect trait that later got associated with folk music, rather than vice versa. From what original dialect, or what geographical path it took, I don’t claim to know. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/34 "2018-02-24T12:52:46Z")
> [@Dr.Hackenbush](#): > > That’s what I was wondering too, I looked for Irish, and Scottish examples but all I could find was “O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road, And I’ll be in Scotland a’fore ye” but the afore mentioned song only uses the prefix on the word “a’fore” so it didn’t feel like a strong enough example, even though “fore” and “a’fore” mean exactly the same thing. I think you’d have had better results if you’d looked at English folk songs. There seems to be an entire sub-genre which stereotypically start with some variation on “As I was a-walking one morning in May” or “… a-going to the fair” or somesuch, and go on to detail how the singer came upon a fair maiden “a-watching her sheep” or “a-waiting for her true love”, who subsequently acts in a very unmaidenly fashion after surprisingly little persuasion. [Here’s one example,](http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/old-english-songs/as-i-was-a-going-to-derrydown-fair.htm) but there are many others. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/35 "2018-02-24T15:09:11Z")
On further reflection, I realize that what I said would make sense only if it was used with the past participle, not the present. From locutions like, “the house is a-building”, it now seems to me that it is likely a vestige of some sort of causitive particle, as suggested above. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/36 "2018-02-24T16:45:50Z")
> [@Dr.Hackenbush](#): > > …“fore” and “a’fore” mean exactly the same thing. Not exactly. “Fore” = front, head. “A’fore” = _be_-fore, _in_ front, _a_-head. Though in some dialects the first syllable of the latter word is elided, “'fore,” so it sounds like the former. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/37 "2018-02-24T17:17:28Z")
You might say “_I’ll be a-leavin’ now_” to break up “be leaving” so that it does not sound like “believing”. If the mood is a-striking you at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/38 "2018-02-24T21:02:45Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Huh. Good interesting. The etymology is on the level? [Ayup.](https://www.etymonline.com/word/await) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2018, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/39 "2018-02-24T23:51:38Z")
From the [Yale Grammatical Diversity Project, English in North America](https://ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/a-prefixing): > [@](#): > > A-prefixing > > A-prefixing is a phenomenon whereby a prefix, a-, attaches to a verbal form inflected with the suffix -ing, as in the following Appalachian English examples from Wolfram (1976) […] > > In examples containing a-prefixing, the progressive suffix -ing is often spelled as -in’ to reflect a sound change from \ (a velar nasal) to \ (an alveolar nasal). […] > > Studies of a-prefixing have focused on predominantly white speech communities. As such, it is unclear whether a-prefixing is present in varieties of speakers of other ethnicities. Within white speech communities, a-prefixing is found in Southern American White English […] most specifically in Alabama, West Virginia and east Tennessee. Feagin […] mentions attestations spread throughout the United States, starting as early as 1846 […] and points out that Wright (1898) noticed it in varieties spoken in Scotland, Ireland and parts of England. Montgomery (2009) argues that the origin of the a-prefix in Appalachian English arose from the speech of settlers from southern England. […] > > Many researchers have attempted to uncover the semantic properties of a-prefixing, but all have characterized their proposed meanings as tendencies […] Some researchers have suggested that there is “no formal evidence for a distinct semantic category” […] Others have suggested that the meaning is discourse-related […] Feagin (1979) describes the prefixed present participle as conveying “immediacy or dramatic vividness,” and views it as a stylistic device that adds color and immediacy to a story. Christian et al. (1988) suggest that a-prefixing could be a “stylistic indicator of vernacular style” based on the fact that two-thirds of their examples containing a-prefixing arose in narrative discourse within their interviews. They also propose that a-prefixing has a “stylistic function of intensity” based on a native speaker intuition task which required participants to select between two sentences. [**I.e., what TruCelt said.**] […] > > Historically, the prefix has been said to derive from the unstressed prepositions _on_ […] or _at_ […] Montgomery (2009) argues that the prefix developed from the preposition an/on in Early Middle English. More specifically, he suggests that the a-prefixing on participles arose from the erosion of prepositional on when it occurred before gerundives ending in the -ing suffix in locative phrases. An example containing _on_ from 1594 is given in (20a) while an example containing _a_ from 1611 is given in (20b): > > > [@](#): > > > > 1. a. hee set before his eyes king Henrie the eight with all his Lordes on hunting in his forrest at Windsore. (Thomas Nashe, “Unfortunate Traveller,” 1594) > > b. Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. (John 21:3, “King James Version of the Bible,” 1611) > > Christian et al. (1988, p.58-9) argue that the a- prefix is still a preposition in contemporary Appalachian English. See the link for a nifty usage-data US map and references. ---
**Author:** ![Bayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bayaker/32/3454_2.png) [@Bayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411/40 "2018-02-25T15:33:52Z")
I’ve used the _a’_ prefix all my life and never lived in Appalachia. While it certainly seems to be dying out, I don’t think it’s quite archaic yet. People in my former workplace used that construction often enough that it was unremarkable even to the transplanted Yankees. It seems to me that it’s sort of a mild intensifier. A few days ago my SO told me not to start putting in some bedding plants in the garden because he was making dinner. I said “That’s ok, just let me know when it’s ready and I’ll come a’runnin.” It implies an intensity of purpose a little more than saying “I’ll come running”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/adding-a-in-front-of-a-verb-why/809411.md?page=1)