I sometimes ask myself ridiculous questions. This morning, I tried to nail myself down on this important topic:
What bothers me more, when people say, “Alls I need…” or “So I says….”? It’s a tough call really, because if someone said either of those in a face-to-face conversation with me, I’m not sure my body would be able to stifle the little automatic cringe.
I have more of a history with one of the incorrect phrases. In the greatest movie of all time, “Real Genius,” there’s a character named Lazlo Hollyfeld. We’re told he’s super-duper smart, and we find out at the end that he’s the smartest person in the world (by one woman’s estimations at least). Oh yeah, and he lives in a closet, but that’s not really relevant here. Anyway, in a pivotal scene at a bar, the main characters are celebrating their successful completion of a five megawatt laser. Lazlo asks what societal use it will have, and then he drops this bombshell on them: (paraphrasing but damn close I’m sure) “Alls you need is a big spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space.” Our heroes’ jaws drop realizing in horror the weapon they’ve created, which sets off the rest of the plot. Even as a kid watching that scene, I couldn’t help but think that the word “alls” coming out of Lazlo’s mouth was a mistake. It made him sound unintelligent, when they’d spent a good part of the movie trying hard to show us the exact opposite. Someone should’ve caught that, right?
My main history with “So I says” has to do with a woman at job I had years ago. She was fond of telling stories about the stupid people she spoke to on the phone throughout the day. “He says, ‘I need to talk to the Dean right now,’ and so I says, ‘That’s impossible because he’s in Wisconsin.'” I always sat there thinking, “What are you, a 30s gangster or something?”
So I’m torn. I hear “Alls I need” more often that “So I says,” which makes it bug me more, but it reminds me of a movie I love, which is definitely a plus. What do you all think? I’ll have to give this more thought before picking a “winner.” That’s right, I ask myself the tough questions.