CUL-DE-SAC

I work at a radio-TV station located on a college campus. It’s got a big staff and there are two people I’m thinking of. One is a man that’s an editor who’s been in journalism for a long time. The other is a female student employee. They both say Gotcha.

You know what I’m talking about. I tell them what I think about something, and they say Gotcha.

I’m not saying they give me a big exclamatory “Gotcha!!” They both say it in a sober, serious manner to tell me they get me. But Gotcha is a funny thing to say. Kind of old-fashioned, like something you’d hear from some colorful old codger. But the gal who says it to me is 21 years old.

The one thing I know these two people have in common is they’re from Kansas. He’s from Kansas City and she’s from a little town in the north-central part of the state. I thought maybe this could explain it. But then I was listening to a podcast of the show RadioLab, which is produced in New York.

The host was listening to the response of a guest on the show. The guest was done making her point. Gotcha, he said.

I actually looked up the guy’s bio on the show’s website, and he wasn’t from Kansas. It says he grew up mostly in Tennessee, and maybe that’s kind of like Kansas.

When I lived in Minnesota they’d answer in the affirmative by saying, You Betcha. You could compound the term by saying ‘Yah sure, you betcha’ or ‘You betcha, by golly.’

Maybe it’s just a part of the American language to take the word ‘you’ and turn it into ‘cha’ when the previous word ends with a T. And I guess we should make the most of it.

I heard that big dog bitcha. I knew he was gonna gitcha.

You should stay away from dogs like that.

Gotcha.

This entry was posted on May 22, 2020 at 4:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.