The Blog of Daniel

Just my place to write without any delusions of self-importance.

"Calling out" your friends?

I'm very curious about something.

When I was a little kid growing up in Detroit we had what now seems like an odd tradition.  When we went over to a friends house to play we didn't knock on their front door to get their attention.  Instead, we would stand on their front porch, or in their front yard, and just scream out their first name (with a little added melodic inflection) as loud as we could.  When our parents wanted us outside, they might encourage us to "go call out your friend so'n'so."

This worked best with two syllable names but with a careful linguistic massaging, you could do almost any name.

Calling out my friend Ronnie would be:

Raaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh-Neeeeeeeeeee!"

Calling out Mike would be:

Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiiiiike!

So, here is my question:  Was/is this just a Detroit thing or is/was this done in other parts of the country too? 

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