Well, I do declare if there isn't the dodo.

[sitifan]

Well, I do declare if there isn't the dodo.

https://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/viewtopic.php?t=33398
Can anyone please explain the meaning and structure of the above sentence?

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[Tarheel]

I would need context to understand what was intended.

 

[sitifan]

I would need context to understand what was intended.

When the dodo came along he [Adam] thought it was a wildcat. But I saved him. I just spoke up in a quite natural way and said, 'Well, I do declare if there isn't the dodo!'
https://books.google.com.tw/books?i...f there isn't the dodo.""Eve's diary"&f=false

 

[Tarheel]

I am guessing the speaker was talking to a person, not an animal. Also, humor seems to be the point. (Mark Twain was known for that )

 

[GoesStation]

The extract is taken from Eve's Diary by Mark Twain, published in 1906. "I do declare" was an affirmative exclamation common in American speech in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, mainly in the South (the present-day southeastern United States). It has the same meaning as "Goodness gracious!" and various other short phrases; a modern equivalent is something like "How about that?"

Eve says "if there isn't the dodo" in the story to point out a previously-unnamed creature in a way that won't embarrass Adam, who's supposed to be "... giving names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field" but seems to have overlooked one. It's not natural in today's language but Twain, who had an excellent ear for usage, must have found it natural in early-1900s American English.

 

[emsr2d2]

I find it odd as a single sentence. I would expect "Well, I do declare! If it isn't the dodo!"

 

[GoesStation]

I find it odd as a single sentence. I would expect "Well, I do declare! If it isn't the dodo!"

Me too, but I'm pretty confident Twain reproduced an idiom you might have heard in parts of 1900 America.