365* New Words a Year [Merriam Webster] (Workman Publishing 5/3/8: druthers

druthers n, dialect : free choice : preference

Here's the DYK section (which I should have paraphrased or edited down, but am too lazy): "'Druther' is an alteration of 'would rather'. 'Any way you druther have it, that is the way I druther have it,' says Huck to Tom in Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Detective. This example of metanalysis (the shifting of a sound from one constituent of a phrase to another) had likely been around for some time in everyday speech when Twain put those words in Huck's mouth. By then, in fact, druthers had already become a plural noun, so Tom could reply 'There ain't any druthers about it, Huck Finn; nobody said anything about druthers.' Druthers is essentially a dialectal term and tends to suggest an informality of tone, but in current use it doesn't necessarily suggest a lack of sophistication or education." I seem to come across this word only in the phrase "If I had my druthers, . . . ." Rating 8/10 painted fences.