The Phrase ‘Making Strange’
Here’s an article from the Marshall-Democrat News which seems to believe that the phrase “to make strange” as applied to children particularly, is unique to a small area in Iowa, even if it did arrive there via Germans or Irish people:
In the 30 years since I first heard that phrase, I have asked a lot of people in a lot of places if they’ve ever heard that particular language construction and not one person has ever said yes. I’ve concluded that it’s a phrase peculiar to Dubuque and a very small surrounding area. Just across the river and up Highway 151 about 10 miles, people in Platteville, Wis., had never heard it, either. I’ve been in every state but one, and several foreign countries, and every person I asked about it looked at me oddly and posed the same question I did: “What?”
It’s certainly familiar to me, though whether that’s an Irish or English thing I don’t know - it all blurs after a while.
And I know it’s used in the Isle of Man and in Newfoundland, which again could mean either an Irish/Celtic origin or an English one.
And then quite some time ago the Germans came up with the idea of ‘making the familiar strange’, which isn’t exactly a million miles away.
So I don’t know who started it, but it does go a lot further than Dubuque, Iowa. Do you use it?
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Etranger in French can be translated as stranger or foreigner.
The whole “making” or “fixing” is one of those hang-overs too from the French verb “faire” which seemed to find its way into Southern dialects and then up.
While there doesn’t appear to be any French in his area of question, this making/fixing thing is as old as is the French reflexive version of verbs that we lost in English.
For example - I’m fixing me some… I’m gonna get me some…
There’s really no “faire etranger” but these things don’t find their way into English that way.
Just my $.02
i’m not from as far south as brettski is, but i am a southerner. i have never in my life heard of a baby ”making strange”. however, i am frequently ”fixin’ to get ready to” do something.