Friday, March 24, 2006

Lost

I can't find the Arnold Bakery outlet store. It's somewhere on this road according to Mapquest, but none of the buildings seem to have numbers, and I think I've gone too far. I pull into the lot of a state-owned liquor store and ask a man going in if he knows where the Arnold Bakery place is. He points the way I've come and says, "It's on the right side about a mile

thataway
adverb
Chiefly Southern and Midland U.S.
That way.
[Alteration of that way.]
REGIONAL NOTE The history of the English language is full of examples of epenthesis, the addition to a word of a vowel or consonant not part of the original word. This process is still active in regional dialects. Two examples now used chiefly in Southern and Midland dialects are thisaway and thataway, which show epenthetic vowels intruding between this way and that way.
"thataway." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 24 Mar. 2006. http://www.answers.com/topic/thataway