@tapestryofregret I guess because the first time I ever heard it a black person said it, and I was not sure what they were talking about, so I had to think about the question. A few years ago, and this is the example I have written before on fluther, I was at a party and a black woman told a white woman she stayed near her and could drop off some food she wanted her to try. The white woman clearly had no idea what the sentence meant. The black woman reworded and they understood each other.
I notice these things. I notice that people who are ESL Spanish speaking have a lot of trouble using the past tense that requires did (I don’t know the correct name of that tense) like I did went, or I did said, is a very common mistake, understandable, because they are thinking they need to conjugate the word to the past tense. Someone pointed out to me I organize my sentences like Jewish people, or maybe it is a Northeast thing, the person who said it to me was not sure, what the prevailing factor was. Black people also say other things that are like tells that I cannot think of right now. Even Oprah has said, “English is your friend,” on her show, and it is said in a context of knowing she is speaking to black people, and everybody.
But, again, I think it has to do more with social class than race, it just happens that unfortunately many of our poor are black, and so statistics and generalizations about the poor many times are true in the black community also.
Listen if I am talking to someone who “sounds” black 9 times out of 10 they probably are black. If I am talking to someone who I have no idea what race they are, then it is exactly that, I have no idea. They could be black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Italian, Irish, Pakestani, no idea. If they say yoos guys, probably Italian from PA, Jersey, or Brooklyn. If they use hun, short for honey, probably Jersey or Staten Island. If they say y’all, southern. If they say pop, midwest. If they say bubbler, Wisconsin, if they say come with, leaving off the me, likely Chicago.