Deborah, The archived posting on this subject was locked and you did the right thing by starting another posting. I’ve now consolidated your posting with the older one so we have both discussions under one heading
This is very interesting and I’ve never given the question any thought. But I know exactly what you are talking about because my Arkansas-born stepmother, who now lives just down the road from you in Kimberling City, Missouri, uses
DIRECTLY just as you described. In fact, she would sometimes say something like “Hold on. I’ll be there directly.” And here
DIRECTLY never did mean right away. It was sort of “I’ll be there when I’m finished with what I’m doing.” It meant the open ended
SOON but definitely not right away. Actually, it has much the same meaning – but perhaps a little slower – as
JUST A MINUTE because when someone says that they often mean much more than a minute – “I’ll be there when I’m done with what I’m doing.” Mark Twain had one of his characters explain how Americans as opposed to the English thought of
DIRECTLY in just this way. (see 1882 quote below), although that is probably not true today and might not have been true in the time of Twain either.
My New York City mom, on the other hand, never used the expression and I don’t recall hearing it out of NYC folks when I lived there. So it seems like it might be a regional thing and the
Oxford English Dictionary lists it as ‘dialect’ of the U.S. (although the 1891 quote below has it as British Dialect at that time). Several other dictionaries also gave it as one of the alternate definitions in contrast to ‘immediately’ or ‘at once.’:
DIRECTLY: shortly, soon, in a little while after a little, presently, as soon as one could. <“They will be here directly.”> <We'll discuss that directly; first we must act on this motion.”>
Exactly how this expression came to have this alternate meaning among some people and not others is hard to say, but one can see how to soften the blow of saying I can’t come immediately, one might come up with, “I’ll be there as directly as I can, but not right away,” which might eventually have gotten shortened to “I’ll be there directly.”
<1851 “Supper?—you want supper? Supper'll be ready DIRECTLY!”—‘Moby Dick’ by Melville, I. iii. page 20>
<1882 “When you say you will do a thing ‘DIRECTLY,’ you mean ‘immediately’; in the American language—generally speaking—the word signifies ‘after a little.’”—‘The Stolen White Elephant’ by Mark Twain, xvi. page 268>
<1891 “Drackly or dreckly, DIRECTLY; in the dialect this does not mean immediately, but shortly. ‘I'll kom drackly; I mus' finish ot I'm 'bout fust.’”—‘Dialect of Hartland, Devonshire,’ by R. P. Chope, page 40>
<1936 “Scarlett leaned over the banisters. ‘I'll be down TERRECLY, Rhett,’ she called.”—‘Gone With the Wind’ by Mitchell, xlvi. page 824> [[ And three hours later she came down! (<:)]]
<1976 “He told me to go down to the boat and he would be there DIRECTLY.”—‘The Winterhur Portfolio’ (Soldier and Seamen in the American Revolution), Vol. 11 page 68>
Ken G – February 28, 2006