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In old movie 'Lady Chatterley', the actor says "as knows all the tiptop young fellas?".

Is 'as knows all the tiptop young fellas' grammatically correct? Is it like old English or some dialects?

If not, what is the correct version?

Movie Script

Woman: I saw you once, washing.

Woman: I thought you were beautiful.

Man: Me?

Woman: your body was beautiful. I wanted you.

Man: My body, beautiful? To you? As knows all the tiptop young fellas?

Woman: I don't mean handsome.

Man: Handsome is as handsome does.

Mohd Zulkanien Sarbini
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nhjy
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3 Answers3

27

Both answers given are completely wrong.

The subject is not "all the tiptop young fellas", but "you". "As" is a dialect version of the relative pronoun "who", or "that". The meaning is

To you? Who knows all the tiptop young fellas?

Formally, the verb should still be "know", to agree with "you", and I think in formal speech of the time, anybody would have said

You, who know ...

but in the dialect that uses "as", that sounds odd.

I think "as knows" can almost be treated as an idiom at the time.

Colin Fine
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    +1. https://books.google.com/books?id=UB8TaTggBvQC&q=%22you+as+knows%22&dq=%22you+as+knows%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjS74yPiMrUAhUBcj4KHfHKAggQ6AEIKDAA – TimR Jun 19 '17 at 13:57
  • +1 The script's punctuation is odd—when I've seen this usage written down, there's usually no punctuation between "you" and "as" (like in @Tᴚoɯɐuo's citation). – 1006a Jun 19 '17 at 17:38
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    +1 I might posit the that there is an elided "someone" to explain the know/knows discrepency: To you? [Someone] who knows... – Sabre Jun 19 '17 at 18:15
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    You may want to rephrase your first sentence to explain what the wrong interpretation was more explicitly. Some answers have been edited, and now there are 3 of them. – ColleenV Jun 19 '17 at 21:05
  • The sentence structure is quite awkward. It's equally possible to parse it as "My body is beautiful, to you? As all the tiptop young fellas know it is?", implying that the speaker (somewhat boastfully) considers it common knowledge that he has a nice body and is merely surprised the the woman thinks so too. I see little to bias against such an interpretation, apart from the context of a (presumably straight) man talking to a straight woman, and the unlikelihood that a straight man would know or want to boast about what other men think of his body. – aroth Jun 20 '17 at 04:49
  • @aroth In the context I don't think it's possible to parse it the way you imply. The preceding sentence "To you?" pretty much precludes it. Also if you were to parse it the way you suggest the "knows" would actually need to be "know". – DRF Jun 20 '17 at 06:54
  • @DRF - The "To you?" could associate with either sentence, insofar as that fragment produces a valid result when appended to the preceding or prepended to the following sentence. A clear way to indicate that it definitely goes with the following sentence would have been to make the second '?' a comma instead, as in 'To you, as ...'. And as the answer points out, even with "you" the "knows" should technically be "know". – aroth Jun 20 '17 at 07:22
  • @aroth The you isn't the subject in my opinion. Rather there is an elided someone as Sabrr points out. So really it's "To you? As [someone who] knows all the tiptop young fellas?" Of course there is the fact that part of the reason he talks like this is to point to the large class difference thua there might be aome exageration. – DRF Jun 20 '17 at 08:51
  • I don't accept the "As someone who knows" explanation. In dialect speech "as" is fully normal as a relative pronoun., usually with the antecedent explicit. It's only because it's tagged on to the sentence "To you?" that there is any doubt that "you" is the subject. – Colin Fine Jun 20 '17 at 19:02
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After a little research I have to admit I wasn't right the first time. This is indeed a dialect version of "who/that".

  • Woman: Your body was beautiful. I wanted you.
  • Man: My body, beautiful? To you? As knows all the tiptop young fellas?

The man is actually saying this:

  • You think my body is beautiful? To you, who knows all the tiptop young fellas?

"As" is referring to the woman - singular so the verb "knows" is correct here.

More examples of such usage:

Fatal Elixir by William L. DeAndrea
Sixpenny Girl by Meg Hutchinson
The Wheelwright's Shop by George Sturt
The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: Accurately Printed from the Text by William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens, Isaac Reed

SovereignSun
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  • What's with the down-votes? I've edited my answer! – SovereignSun Jun 19 '17 at 14:46
  • I think the downvotes relate to the issue of number agreement of the verb You know is standard (you, who know) but here the third person is being used with the second person, another dialect/sociolect feature. https://books.google.com/books?id=lVg2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA211&dq=%22you+as+was%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi9kJS-tMzUAhXBaD4KHfqBC18Q6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=%22you%20as%20was%22&f=false "You're the old woman...as was that disgraceful intosticated [sic]...." or "I can swear, mum, as you was as sober as a judge..." – TimR Jun 20 '17 at 12:24
  • Here's another example of as :) https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/280095/if-cow-beef-pig-pork-and-deer-venison-then-where-is-the-word-for-human/280096#280096 – TimR Jun 20 '17 at 12:26
  • You have my upvote for finding additional examples, which makes it easier to extrapolate beyond this one specific sentence. – ColleenV Jun 20 '17 at 14:55
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No. It's simply English slang. "As knows" would properly be written "Who knows", and "tiptop" should be hyphenated "tip-top".

Don
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