Timeline for Is "ima" spoken or only written? How casual is it?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
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| May 17, 2017 at 16:58 | comment | added | 1006a | It's something I hear pretty regularly, and can use, though I don't (I grew up in a predominantly Black town in the industrial Midwest, but am not Black myself). You're right that it replaces the entire phrase "I am going to" when prefacing a verb, and it's said pretty much like the name Ima (of Ima Hogg fame). I do hear it in the office (e.g. "listen, I'ma let you get back to work, but thanks for helping me out with this"). BUT I would find it very odd, bordering on cultural appropriation, coming from someone for whom that dialect is not native, in any circumstances. | |
| Jul 18, 2015 at 0:25 | vote | accept | Kit Z. Fox | ||
| Feb 21, 2013 at 3:29 | comment | added | user264 | @Snailplane: I'd agree that all those examples look like AAVE dialog, & I don't think I say "Ima goin' to the store", but y'all prolly don't know how the country folk in the SE USA say it: I used to live there, but it's been more than half a lifetime, so I done plum furgot. Anyways, it's strickly spoken English &, IMHO, shuun't be written 'cept in Twain, Faulkner, and Ishmael Reed imitations. OP should say "I'll get the spec to you by Thursday." That seems to be his natural idiom. It's certainly mine. Never parrot other people's speech patterns unless you understand their social value. | |
| Feb 21, 2013 at 3:19 | history | edited | user230 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 21, 2013 at 3:14 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @snailplane: I often use/encounter it in mock-Italian gangster "I'm a gonna smasha ya face in" contexts, but that's by no means the only place it crops up. It's pretty widespread and not "dialectal" in the UK. | |
| Feb 21, 2013 at 3:05 | comment | added | user230 | @BillFranke "I'm going to go" certainly contracts in standard English, but I think "Imma" is eye dialect for a particular non-standard contraction seen in AAVE and some other dialects, which has its own usage distinct from standard contractions like the one you just wrote. I don't have this "imma" in my idiolect; I can't say any of the examples on this page: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Citations:Imma | |
| Feb 21, 2013 at 2:57 | comment | added | user264 | Garsh, Mickey, Ima speaker of standard English & I say things like "Ahmuhnnago [= I am going to go] to the store later" allatime. Who the hell says "I am going to go" when not on stage delivering a formal speech or slowly repeating what someone couldn't understand? Your friend, Goofy. | |
| Feb 21, 2013 at 2:08 | comment | added | J.R.♦ | Wordnik would back you up – it lists Imma as a "contraction of I'm gonna, that is, I am gonna or I am going to", and Ima as a variant that can also serve as a "non-standard" synonym for I'm. | |
| Feb 21, 2013 at 1:58 | history | answered | user230 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |