What a funny word already is; it lends itself to so many misuses! Some Yankees say things like, “Enough already!” – an intensive usage which grates unbelievably on Southern ears and sensibilities. We in the South use already as an adverb – only as an adverb – remember those? They are sort of adjectives for verbs. But your compiler thinks he already covered that in an earlier Talking Southern article. (Note how seamlessly he used “already” in that sentence as an adverb – the sole correct usage of the term in his opinion.)
But to be fair about things, Southerners misuse the word in a totally different way: by substituting a completely different word altogether – the word, done. Normally, done is the past participle of the verb do. It can also serve as an adjective, as in, “The roast is almost done.” Here, though, one is liable to hear it take the place of already, as in, “I done told you that!” This is a misuse, purely and simply, and it is one not often heard in more polite circles of society, except perhaps as emphasis of a matter in an informal setting.
Your compiler’s paternal grandmother arrived home from the schoolhouse one day in the early 1950s and asked her cook, Mamie, where Mr. Hubert (her husband and your compiler’s grandfather) was. Mamie, her brow creased with worry, wrung her hands together. “Oh, Miss Kathryn, he’s in his garden now, but he’s done been to the bank and done borried some money to buy some more land!” (Mamie knew the question of buying more land had been a point of contention between her employers.) The story goes that the formidable school principal stormed out of her house and confronted her husband in his rose garden about spending their hard-earned money on more land, when land in Brooks had been worth only about ten dollars an acre for the better part of fifty years by that point and there was no reason to think it would ever be worth more.
Your compiler’s grandfather had a particular charm about him and was almost always able to calm his excitable wife when she got wrapped around the axle about something. He did so that day, by calling the seventy-five-acre tract he had bought, Dunborrie, after what Mamie had said. It was an enduring purchase in a couple of ways: land in Brooks has been worth more than ten dollars an acre for several years now, and when the Dunborrie tract was surveyed in the late 1980s, it was found to contain ninety-three acres, not seventy-five. Today it is owned by the couple’s grandchildren, and it is still called, Dunborrie, as in, “I’m’o take the truck over to Dunborrie and see if I can find some nice rocks for my garden.”
Another memorable usage of the substitution of done for already occurred when your compiler was a student at the University of Georgia in the early 1980s. He was walking with his friend Keith one afternoon to Keith’s apartment, to study for a major exam with Keith and his roommate, Rob. Time was rather of the essence for both Keith and your compiler, and as Keith drew abreast of his apartment window, which contained a window fan, he turned in disgust.
“Rob’s not here,” he spat in frustration.
“How do you know from out here?” your compiler asked.
“Because he’d be done turned the fan on by now if he were.”
“Be done turned the fan on” – that is some serious wallowing in the language! But Keith was an honor student and absolutely knew better – as demonstrated in the same sentence by his usage of the subjunctive, were – he just said that for emphasis in his momentary frustration with his roommate, as one raised-right Fayette County boy to another.
And your compiler believes he has done written enough on this subject, so he will write nothing else at this time, except to say that he was tempted to write, “done wrote,” as that sounds more natural to one misusing done in this fashion. But he is willing only to go so far in his language wallowing.
