One of the things I’ve noticed about Joe Pesci’s characters in Goodfellas and Casino is that often they use a very specific form of insult: bookending the expletive with the word “you.”
There are countless other times in those two movies where he does this, usually with the word “motherfucker.”
I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone else swear this way. Is it perhaps a regional thing, from Newark, New Jersey, where Joe Pesci is from?
The "you"s aren’t part of the expletive; they refer (as is normal) to the person to whom he is speaking. He is saying that that person is whatever insulting epithet he is applying.
It’s a very common construction to add “you” at the end when calling someone an insult. I don’t know that it’s regional. Here’s Cab Calloway singing I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal, You (1931).
I think it’s falling into disuse, though. I mostly hear it in old movies, cartoons or songs like the above. It now sounds old-fashioned to me. Of course, Goodfellas is a period piece, where it fit.
It’s not at all limited to insults, though. I’ve certainly heard it used coyly in phrases like, “Aw, you sweetheart, you.”
And Spike Jones’ Chinese Mule Train: You mule, you!
(ETA: Which is, admittedly, not a current release. But the whole song flashes through my head when Pesci talks like that.)
Possibly. My parents and grandparents used it a lot. Still, I’m surprised the OP says he has never heard it other than in Goodfellas.
Not just insults. It’s also used with complements. (Like in the song: “Where are you from? You sexy thing. You sexy thing, you.”)
I haven’t seen any evidence that it’s falling into disuse, it’s still a common usage.
Fairly standard construction from those of around my vintage on this side of the puddle.
What the millennials use, buggered if I know.
For those of us geezers who were in their youth during the 70’s with Aunty Jack and Bob Hudson’s “The Newcastle song” the construction was “You’re an idiot [or alternative], what are ya?”.
I’ve a feeling that I’ve heard of this kind of construct in some old English/pre-English language like Anglo-Saxon poetry or something, but I can’t put my finger on it.
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As a native speaker of English for 50 years, I’ve always heard this construction used in a playfully affectionate way, e.g. “you wonderful person, you”, being said to a romantic partner.
I remember hearing it once in a comedy sketch called the $99,000 Pyramid, a parody of the TV game show Pyramid, where contestant A is trying to get contestant B to guess the category “What a pinata might say”. A says, “Hit me with your big stick, you wild Mexican, you”, to which B guesses “things Angie Dickinson would say?”. The usage of “you wild Mexican, you” is whimsical and implies a romantic relationship.
I don’t remember every hearing it used in a hostile way. “Drop your weapon, you motherfucker, you” just sounds weird to me.
“You monkeys you! You give me back my caps!” From Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
I spent half their childhood calling my sons “You monkeys, you!”
I don’t think it’s common anywhere. Having said that. . . .
–A Clockwork Orange
That’s why Joe Pesci’s lines stood out to me so much. It’s very weird.
The playful/affectionate usage, I’ve heard before, though rarely.
Rapper MF DOOM uses this: “You dweeb, you.” Sounds quaint and charming to my ears.
In The Music Man, doesn’t the constable call Tommy “ya wild kid, ya” several times? The 1957 Broadway play was trying to sound quaint and anachronistic for the time, as it was set in 1912.
Weird. It really doesn’t sound odd to me in either positive or negative construction. “You dumb motherfucker, you” sounds perfectly copacetic to my ears.
To me it’s just repetition for the purpose of emphasis, either negative or positive. Every time I’ve heard this, it was either an angry rant (as in the OP’s Pesci examples) or used to express fondness. Either way, it’s emphasizing the emotion behind the sentiment.
Repetition or redundancy for emphasis is not unusual in colloquial English (one might say it’s very very common).