![Screen shot of the game](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WPp2j.png)

I'm playing a video game (Final Fantasy VI), in which a character is reading
her lines and stage directions for a play. The stage directions contain the
following sentence:

> この芝居を間奏の間に **こなしてちょ** 。

I don't understand `こなしてちょ`. I think it's the verb `こなす` inflected to `こなし`
plus `て`, and then `ちょ` added to that, but I don't know what `ちょ` is. I think
this is some sort of command form.

My question: **what is`ちょ`?**

* * *

Here are my guesses:

  1. `こなして **ちょ**` ← `こなして **てよ**` ← `こなして **いてよ**`
  2. `こなして **ちょ**` ← `こなして **ちょうだい**`

I think the first is plausible because it's similar to `ちゃ` ← `ては`, and I
think the second is plausible because it's similar to the `な` command form
shortened from `なさい`. However, I can't tell if either of my guesses is
correct. (I have a feeling I'm likely to be wrong...)

Sometimes 大辞林 lists colloquial contractions, so I decided to look it up. There
is one [entry for
ちょ](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%A1%E3%82%87&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=112750100000),
but it doesn't seem like the right answer. It says it attaches to nouns and
the roots of adjectives, and this doesn't seem like either of those. (But
maybe `て` can be considered a noun...?)
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2013-05-20T20:16:21.597
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2013-08-18T02:26:48.030
2013-05-20T20:53:54.350
question
words dialects
What is the ちょ in こなしてちょ?
According to yutaro82さん on [this Chiebukuro
post](http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1048483265), it
sounds like this 「〜ちょ」 could possibly be part of 名古屋弁{なごやべん}.

Looking at [this list of
words](http://www.unisys.co.jp/CHUBU/nagoyaben/njun/ta.html) within
名古屋弁{なごやべん} shows that「ちょう」can translate to the standard Japanese word「ください」.

Both of these references don't appear to give an exact reason as to
why「ちょう」came to be used to mean「ください」(at least in 名古屋弁{なごやべん},) but your
second guess (and in particular,「ちょうだい」) could very well be where this word
originated... _though I can't state that with absolute certainty._
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-05-20T20:45:38.433
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answer
According to [this
edit](http://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E5%90%8D%E5%8F%A4%E5%B1%8B%E5%BC%81&diff=2721210&oldid=2715704)
to the [Wikipedia article on
名古屋弁](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%8D%E5%8F%A4%E5%B1%8B%E5%BC%81), `ちょ`
seems to be a shortened form of `ちょうせ` (the imperative form of `ちょうす`, which
is the 尊敬語 form of `くれる`).
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answer