From: Automatic digest processor (2/28/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 26 Feb 1998 to 27 Feb 1998 98-02-28 00:01:18 This message contains more text than QuickMail can display. The entire message has been enclosed as a file. There are 14 messages totalling 789 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Executive privilege 2. Brooklynese (2) 3. thong (2) 4. March hare (3) 5. dialectal loanwords - mebos 6. Zori redux [long] 7. Rearend/seat (was Re: Butt (was Re: thong)) 8. March hare madness 9. Thomas L. Clark 10. Spelling Bee (long!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 01:05:33 EST From: Bapopik Subject: Executive privilege CSPAN's Washington Journal had on today the American University's Mark Rozell, author of a book called EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE. Rozell stated that although the privilege has been used since George Washington's time, it acquired the name "executive privilege" during the Eisenhower administration. William Safire's THE NEW LANGUAGE OF POLITICS didn't include the term. It is, however, in SAFIRE'S NEW POLITICAL DICTIONARY Citations from 1954 and 1958 are given. Fred R. Shapiro found "executive privilege" in a 1940 U.S. Court of Appeals case, _Glass v. Ickes_. Safire states that the _e_ in "executive privilege" should be capitalized because it refers to the Office of the President. Any opinions/observations on this? Anyone read Rozell's book? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 00:46:04 -0600 From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Brooklynese A week or so ago, there was a comment on "Brooklynese" pronuncations of 'third', 'join', etc. The initial thread lay there lifeless, not even able to aspire to b---thongness. Other items in the query elicited some discussion, but not Bunkerisms like 'terlet'. By chance, my eye caught something in, of all places, AMERICAN SPEECH. In the fall 1996 issue, p. 331, David Schulman cites this poem: Brooklyinese Champion 1926 I thought the winner had been found The day I heard a woman make The butcher cut her off a pound Of fine and juicy soylern steak ....... DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 01:17:57 -0600 From: Ed Deluzain Subject: Re: thong In my neck of the woods, the thong bathing suit or underwear is referred to as "anal floss." Ed Deluzain At 05:42 PM 2/26/98 -0500, you wrote: >Has anyone else heard "butt floss" for the thong bathing suit? Heard from >a mid-30s secretary in Marietta on the Ohio R. > >======================================================================= >David Bergdahl Ellis Hall 114c Ohio University / Athens >Associate Prof/English tel: (740) 593-2783 fax: (740) 593-2818 > bergdahl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]oak.cats.ohiou.edu > http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl >======================================================================= > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Ed Deluzain bethed[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]interoz.com--Home deluzhe[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dolphin1.mosley.bay.k12.fl.us--School Web Sites: http://interoz.com/usr/bethed--The Names Page http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/1912/ --Mosley English Resources * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 02:20:29 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: Re: March hare Barry (bapopik) wrote: > ------------------------------------------- > MARCH HARE > > It's almost March. "March Madness" was posted a year ago. "Mad as a > March hare" is not in Christine Ammer's new book of idioms, and it's poorly > explained in Bartlett's, where John Skelton and John Heywood are both cited. > This item was also in my files from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Questions and > Answers, 24 March 1929: > > "Mad as a March hare." > Will you kindly inform me how the expression, "Mad as a March hare," > originated and where it is found? > Our correspondent may have in mind the March hare of > "Alice in Wonderland." Bringing up the the subject of "the Mad Hatter", who shares the stage of the Mad Tea Party with the March Hare and the Dormouse. A long time ago, Isaac Asimov commented on the apparent insanity of Isaac Newton's last years. He thought it was highly probable that Newton had gone mad as a result of mercury poisoning -- which certainly wasn't unlikely, given that Newton did play around with mercury a lot. Asimov went on to say that "mad as a hatter" had its origin in the fact that hatmakers treated felt with mercury to get a more attractive pile. Insanity in hatters was simply an occupational hazard. Anyone have a sighting on whether Asimov was right about mad hatters? -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 00:44:18 -0800 From: Kim & Rima McKinzey Subject: Re: Brooklynese >A week or so ago, there was a comment on "Brooklynese" pronuncations of >'third', 'join', etc. The initial thread lay there lifeless, not even able >to aspire to b---thongness. ... Ok - thread continues. In my youth in Brooklyn, I definitely remember our Jr. High School principal making announcements to the "Boys and Goyls." I have no memory of the Bunker "terlet," though. (Winthrop Jr. High, 1956-58) Rima ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 18:51:47 +0900 From: Daniel Long Subject: dialectal loanwords - mebos I think the subject of "dialectal loanwords" is kind of interesting. In Japan, for example, the word *rafuransu* is listed as a dialect word in a part of Toyama prefecture for "fire engine". (A U.S. company called American LaFrance used to make fire engines.) But I have a question about a Japanese borrowing that may show regional variation within the English world. OED2 has the following entry for *mebos*. Considering the devoicing processes of high vowels in Japanese, their story here makes perfect sense. My question is just this: Is this word known and used in South African English or it just some obscure thing those wonderful and wacky UK lexicographers dug up? There must be some South Africans on the list! Danny Long mebos (_______, Afrikaans _______). S. Afr. Also meebos. [Afrikaans, prob. ad. Jap. umeboshi, a dried, preserved plum.] A confection made from apricots dried, flattened or pulped, and preserved in salt and sugar. 1793 tr. C. P. Thunberg's Trav. Europe, Afr. & Asia III. 120, I saw several kinds of fruit, the produce of this country [sc. Japan], either dried or preserved in yeast, in a mode which is, I fancy, only practised at Japan or China. The fruit that was only dried, such as plumbs and the like, was called Mebos. 1912 Northern Post 27 Sept. (Pettman), I have now come to the conclusion that our old navigators became acquainted with this delicacy in Japan, learned to like it, and afterwards at the Cape attempted to imitate it, but used the fruit of apricot trees.., and that the word Meibos or Meebosje had its origin in [Jap.] Umeboshi. -- Daniel Long, Associate Professor tel +81-6-723-8297 Japanese Language Research Center fax +81-6-723-8302 Osaka Shoin Women's College dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp 4-2-26 Hishiyanishi http://www.age.ne.jp/x/oswcjlrc/ Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577-8550 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 09:26:01 -0500 From: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: thong I agree. Two of the purdiest words I know are dupa (Polish for butt) and bundas (Portuguese for butt). I wish we had one or the other (or both). dInIs > "Butt" has to be one of the ugliest words in the language, and I cringe > every time I hear it. What ever happened to "seat" and "rear end"?! Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 13:13:01 -0500 From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: March hare At 2:20 AM -0600 2/27/98, Mike Salovesh wrote: > >Bringing up the the subject of "the Mad Hatter", who shares the stage of >the Mad Tea Party with the March Hare and the Dormouse. > >A long time ago, Isaac Asimov commented on the apparent insanity of >Isaac Newton's last years. He thought it was highly probable that >Newton had gone mad as a result of mercury poisoning -- which certainly >wasn't unlikely, given that Newton did play around with mercury a lot. >Asimov went on to say that "mad as a hatter" had its origin in the fact >that hatmakers treated felt with mercury to get a more attractive pile. >Insanity in hatters was simply an occupational hazard. > >Anyone have a sighting on whether Asimov was right about mad hatters? > I have no idea, but Martin Gardner invokes the same theory at the point of his _The Annotated Alice_ at which he comments on the tea party. (There's also a nice discussion of the respective resemblances Tenniel's drawings of the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse bear to three early 20th-century philosophers at Cambridge University, one being Bertrand Russell, if I recall correctly (my copy is hiding at the moment). Larry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 14:51:28 -0500 From: "Patrick L. Courts" Subject: Re: March hare I ask any of you, have you ever met a sane hatter? At 01:13 PM 2/27/98 -0500, you wrote: >At 2:20 AM -0600 2/27/98, Mike Salovesh wrote: > >> >>Bringing up the the subject of "the Mad Hatter", who shares the stage of >>the Mad Tea Party with the March Hare and the Dormouse. >> >>A long time ago, Isaac Asimov commented on the apparent insanity of >>Isaac Newton's last years. He thought it was highly probable that >>Newton had gone mad as a result of mercury poisoning -- which certainly >>wasn't unlikely, given that Newton did play around with mercury a lot. >>Asimov went on to say that "mad as a hatter" had its origin in the fact >>that hatmakers treated felt with mercury to get a more attractive pile. >>Insanity in hatters was simply an occupational hazard. >> >>Anyone have a sighting on whether Asimov was right about mad hatters? >> >I have no idea, but Martin Gardner invokes the same theory at the point of >his _The Annotated Alice_ at which he comments on the tea party. (There's >also a nice discussion of the respective resemblances Tenniel's drawings of >the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse bear to three early >20th-century philosophers at Cambridge University, one being Bertrand >Russell, if I recall correctly (my copy is hiding at the moment). > >Larry > ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:25:22 +0000 From: Jim Rader Subject: Zori redux [long] While the rest of you have gone on from huaraches and zoris to more elevated topics such as butt thongs, I'm still thinking about zoris. I don't know if anyone mentioned the note on_ zori_ that appeared in _American Speech_ in fall, 1985 (by Edith Trager Johnson & C. Douglas Johnson); it discussed the failure of dictionaries to list _zoris_ as a plural of _zori_ and gave a list of synonyms and their relative frequency based on an informal survey. I ran a quick Nexis search on _zori_, _zoris_, and _zories_. The word is less common than I would have thought. The figures that follow were done hastily and are probably not exact. Cancelling out multiple hits from reprinted articles, I got 39 newspaper hits for the form _zori_. Of these, 14 were from English-language newspapers published in Japan, and hence are not valid for judging American use. Of the 25 other occurences (some of which came from sources such as the _Jerusalem Post_), nine were glossed in on way or another; there were seven instances where _zori_ was pretty definitely plural. Most of the uses were attributive (e.g., _zori sandal_, _zori slipper_) and most specified a Japanese cultural context. A search for _zoris_, however, gave a very different result. Again cancelling out multiple hits, I got 38 cites; of these, 24 were from California newspapers (of which three glossed the word) and one from Hawaii. The rest were scattered: New Mexico (1), Florida (2), Texas (1, in an article on Japanese loanwords by Garland Cannon), _Newsday_ (1), _New York Times_ (2), _Washington Post_ (2), _Footwear News_ , a trade publication (2), _Christian Science Monitor (1), _Chicago Tribune_ (1). Almost all the occurrences lacked Japanese context and referred to thongs/flip-flops. A piece in the _San Diego Union-Tribune for 5/18/84 gave a number of synonyms (thongs, flip-flops, go-aheads, beach-walkers, sand-walkers, tar-shoes, shower shoes). Amazingly (to me), I found five cites for _zories_ as plural, in scattered sources (_Los Angeles Times_, an Arizona paper, _Toronto Star_, _Bergen (N.J.) Record_, _Cleveland Plain Dealer_, all referring to flip-flops without Japanese context and three glossing the word. The strangest was the Plain Dealer cite (10/5/95), from a q & a fashion column by Marylou Luther (syndicated?)--so strange it's worth quoting in full: -Dear Marylou: When Conor O'Brien interviewed Isaac Mizrahi on "Late -Night" about his movie "Unzipped," the designer mentioned a fashion -item called zories. What was he talking about?--E.O., Chicago -Dear E.O.: --I had never heard of zories either, so I went straight -to the source. Mizrahi reports that the word is Brooklynese for -flip-flops. In case it ever comes up, flip-flops are go-aheads in -Los Angeles. In any dialect, they are a summertime favorite at the -beach. Mizrahi brough them to the runway. [A new chapter in the annals of Brooklynese.] The periodical cites were marginal (_zori_: 3, _zoris_: 2). My conclusion is that _zori_ is a regionalism (West Coast & Hawaii) and even on the West Coast it may be fading because of the lexical competetion. I'm still wondering if the concept of a sandal held to the foot by a Y-shaped thong was a Japanese import (along with the word _zori_) or if the Japanese word was applied to something we already had (and hence is a counterexample to my claim about Japanese loanwords). I'm also still amazed by the paucity of cites on Nexis. I think I found more cites for the word _osha_, even after weeding out all the cases where Nexis failed to filter out OSHA or gave me the url for OSHA. Anyone on the list know what what _osha_ refers to without looking it up on Nexis or in DARE? I think DARE is the first dictionary I've seen _osha_ in. Unfortunately, it gives no etymology. I'm still working on the history of this word. Jim Rader ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:43:01 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: Rearend/seat (was Re: Butt (was Re: thong)) A great story, Bethany! But hey, everybody, I was talking tongue-in-cheek when I offered alternatives to 'butt'; I suspect my childhood 'seat' (our family's unmarked term) and 'rear end' (a bit more risque) might be equally offensive to other people. It's hard for us oldtimers to adjust to new terms, esp. those for body parts; the word in question has just always sounded "bad" to me--strictly an aesthetic judgment. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 16:30:26 +0000 From: Peter McGraw Subject: Re: March hare madness Remarkable! To think I never realized until now that Erasmus was so fluent in English! Peter On Thu, 26 Feb 1998 20:37:10 EST Bapopik wrote: MARCH HARE > > It's almost March. "March Madness" was posted a year ago. "Mad > as a March hare" is not in Christine Ammer's new book of idioms, and > it's poorly explained in Bartlett's, where John Skelton and John > Heywood are both cited. This item was also in my files from the > Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Questions and Answers, 24 March 1929: > > "Mad as a March hare." > Will you kindly inform me how the expression, "Mad as a March > hare," originated and where it is found? > A. L. H. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says the > saying grew out of the fact that hares are usually shy and wild in > March, which is their mating season. Nuggets of Wisdom quotes the > foregoing and adds: "This explanation is discounted by a statement by > Erasmus in 1542. After using the expression, 'Mad as a March hare,' > Erasmus says, 'Hares are wilder in marshes from the absence of hedges > and cover.' This indicates that in the days of Erasmus the saying was > 'mad as a marsh hare.' It is not difficult to see that 'marsh' might > have been corrupted into 'March' after the original meaning of the > word was lost sight of." Our correspondent may have in mind the March > hare of "Alice in Wonderland." ---------------------- Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]linfield.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 17:14:16 -0800 From: Grant Smith Subject: Thomas L. Clark I am sad to report that Tom Clark of UNLV, a past president of ADS, and long time member of ANS, passed away yesterday, 2/26, after a lingering illness. He was from the Spokane area and an old friend as well as colleague. I have no information at this time about memorial arrangements. Grant W. Smith VP, American Name Society ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 22:30:53 EST From: Bapopik Subject: Spelling Bee (long!) The "spelling bee" is a great American institution, yet the research on it has been shoddy, and nearly non-existent. This posting will correct that. (I may lecture on the "spelling bee" at the ADS in January and publish this in book form--I don't know yet.) Spelling contests burst upon the scene to form a national spelling mania in the spring of 1875. It's so forgotten now, however, that when the authors of AMERICA IN SO MANY WORDS chose their word-of-the-year for 1875, they ignored "spelling bee" (which doesn't appear anywhere in the book) and went with the very trivial "P. D. Q." In THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, H. L. Mencken states on page 116 that spelling- bee "and a hundred and one other such compounds were in daily use before the Revolution." In Supplement One, pages 202-203, "spinning-bee" is traced to 1769, "husking-bee" to 1816, "apple-bee" to 1827, "quilting-bee" to 1832, "logging-bee" and "raising-bee" to 1836, "pigeon-picking-bee" to 1841, "paring-bee" to 1845, "cellar-digging-bee" and "sewing-bee" to 1856, and "spelling-bee" to 1875. "All of them are probably older, especially _spelling-bee_," Mencken says. In Supplement Two, page 304, note 4: The spelling-bee was promoted by Noah Webster's famous blue-black speller, for many years the only book, save the Bible, in general circulation in the country. But the name _spelling-bee_, though it had congeners running back to the Revolutionary era, is not recorded until the 1870s. Before that, beginning in the 30s, _spelling-class_, _-match_ or _-school_ was used. Introduced by the radio, the _spelling-bee_ had a brief but furious vogue in England in the late 1930s. The new Flexner-Soukhanov SPEAKING FREELY leaves out "spelling bee" entirely! Flexner's LISTENING TO AMERICA has "Husking Bees, Quilting Bees, and Spelling Bees" on pages 316-317: _Spelling bees_ were a New England invention, very popular after the Civil War. The _National Spelling Bee_ was inaugurated by the _Louisville Courier-Journal_ in 1925 and continued under the Scripps-Howard newspapers after 1939 ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/27/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 25 Feb 1998 to 26 Feb 1998 98-02-27 00:00:14 This message contains more text than QuickMail can display. The entire message has been enclosed as a file. There are 23 messages totalling 619 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Thong (sandals) 2. hurache? Huarache! 3. Fruit boots (was thongs/zoris) (2) 4. RE>Fruit boots (was thongs/zoris) 5. NADS on the web 6. RE>"Till the last dog dies" (3) 7. last dog 8. footwear 9. thong (5) 10. Butt (was Re: thong) (2) 11. Gay nineties; United States of America; March hare 12. RE>Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" (2) 13. Rearend/seat (was Re: Butt (was Re: thong)) (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 00:04:48 -0500 From: Alice Faber Subject: Thong (sandals) Larry Horn wrote: | At 3:03 AM -0600 2/25/98, Mike Salovesh wrote: | > | >Of course, we already had sandals . . . but the Japanese word "zori" has | >become so accepted that it now takes a regular English plural, as in | >"zoris". (Japanese would have "one zori", "two zori", or "many zori".) | >Of course, zori (flat rubber or plastic soles held to the foot with a | >Y-shaped thong designed to pass through the space between the big toe | >and the next one) have latterly been acquiring another label, "thong | >sandals", perhaps capitalizing on the minimal titillation that might | >carry over from "thong bikinis". | > | Actually, 'thong' was in my vocabulary for those rubber beach shoes long | before 'zori'; this was on Long Island and in California in the late | 1960's. Rather than "capitalizing on the minimal titillation" from thong | bikinis, I take the use of the longer "thong sandals" to be a classic | retronym (cf. acoustic guitar, analog watch, natrual turf, biological | mother, World War I), in which a previously unmodified label takes on a | modifier (or in the "thong" case, a head) to distinguish it from a new | cultural innovation that invades its referential space. If I want to make | it clear I'm talking about something to wear on my feet, it would behoove | me to specify "thong sandals" rather than "thongs" tout court. I'm with Larry on this one. I grew us in the New York area in the 50s/60s. Beach and pool sandals were always called "thongs". I never encountered the word "zori" until I moved to Texas for graduate school in the mid 1970's; my first encounter with the term was via a classmate from northern California. It hadn't occurred to me that the term "thong" might have been usurped from the bathing suits (when was it that we first started reading about thong suits [in Brazil?]?). Alice Faber ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 02:16:31 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: Re: hurache? Huarache! Larry Horn wrote: > > Actually, 'thong' was in my vocabulary for those rubber beach shoes long > before 'zori'; this was on Long Island and in California in the late > 1960's. Rather than "capitalizing on the minimal titillation" from thong > bikinis, I take the use of the longer "thong sandals" to be a classic > retronym (cf. acoustic guitar, analog watch, natrual turf, biological > mother, World War I), in which a previously unmodified label takes on a > modifier (or in the "thong" case, a head) to distinguish it from a new > cultural innovation that invades its referential space. If I want to make > it clear I'm talking about something to wear on my feet, it would behoove > me to specify "thong sandals" rather than "thongs" tout court. > > Larry This is NOT a disagreement or an argument; it's a reflection of different experiences. "Zori" came into my own vocabulary in 1952/53, when I lived in Japan and Korea for a year -- courtesy of the U.S. Army. Maybe that biased what I saw and remembered in U.S. stores afterward. I have a clear memory of zori, labeled as such, being sold in a Chicago Walgreen's drugstore I frequented before my 1955 marriage. I remember commenting to my fiance that it was nice to see that "familiar" word properly applied. You are quite right to point out that my memory lapsed regarding thongs. With your reminder, now I do remember seeing a different label in California stores in the 1960s. My reaction was "I wonder why these people are calling zori 'thongs'. Must be some kind of lingering xenophobia from World War II that makes them reluctant to use a Japanese loanword." NOTE: No, that's not a reflection on California bias. It reflects MY bias at the time. Anyhow, I retract my misattribution of any association between thongs as footgear and thongs as beachwear. (Surely not SWIMwear.) I still wonder why people call them thongs, when they "really" are zori. -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 08:42:48 -0500 From: "Bethany K. Dumas" Subject: Fruit boots (was thongs/zoris) When I was a grad student in Fayetteville, Ark., about 1960-61, we referred to certain kinds of footware as "fruit boots." I have not heard that for many years. I picked the term up from a gay man from Columbus, Mo. Is the term still around? Was it widespread? Bethany ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 09:05:19 -0500 From: Jesse T Sheidlower Subject: Re: Fruit boots (was thongs/zoris) > When I was a grad student in Fayetteville, Ark., about 1960-61, we > referred to certain kinds of footware as "fruit boots." I have not heard > that for many years. I picked the term up from a gay man from Columbus, > Mo. Is the term still around? Was it widespread? We have eight cites in HDAS for this term, from 1960 to 1982. I don't think I've heard the term myself recently. Jesse Sheidlower ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 10:26:05 -0500 From: Grant Barrett Subject: RE>Fruit boots (was thongs/zoris) > From: Bethany K. Dumas > I picked the term up from a gay man from Columbus, Mo. I think you probably mean Columbia, Mo. Yes? When I was growing up in Missouri, they were always thongs, but "flip-flops" started creeping in the older I got. I am now at the point where I start to say" thongs", then mumble "flip-flops" and kind of point at the feet or the footwear in question, to clear up confusion about what kind of thong I am referring to. The Victoria's Secret catalog has done a lot to bring thong underwear to the attention of America at large. I have never heard "zoris" and God forbid I should now have three different words to choose from when referring to them. I refuse to wear them, anyway, because I cannot stand the flip-flopping sound they make. Grant Barrett gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]jerrynet.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 11:28:40 EST From: Allan Metcalf Subject: NADS on the web Thanks to Grant Barrett's painstaking efforts, the new issue of the Newsletter of the American Dialect Society, vol. 30 No. 1 for January 1998, is now available at our website www.jerrynet.com/ads/index.htm The format is different from the print (my hopes to preserve the original with the HTML generator in PageMaker 6.5 were far from fulfilled), but the content is the same. Two items in the print newsletter aren't in the web version because those items are elsewhere on the website. These items are the news about the 1997 Words of the Year, and the constitution and bylaws. We will do this for future issues of NADS. With this initial experience, I'll be able to provide Grant with the material in better form. And it will be on our website at the same time it's in the mail for ADS members. If you should prefer *not* to bother with the print version, let me know and I'll remove you from the USmail list for future issues. Your comments on this new feature are welcome! - Allan Metcalf Executive Secretary American Dialect Society ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 08:34:21 -0800 From: Devon Coles Subject: Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" Grant Smith wrote: >Peanuts strips . . . "Boy, that kid will stick around until the last dog >is hung." > >"until the last dog is hung" must be considerably older than Peanuts. I >remember my father using the phrase (late 40s in Bellingham, WA). > >Yes, indeed. My 78-year old mother tells me this expression was around in the 1920s (Toronto, Ontario) and she remembers it vividly as 'til the last dog is dead and the rope is put away.' > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 12:08:42 -0500 From: Gregory {Greg} Downing Subject: Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" At 08:34 AM 2/26/98 -0800, several successive people wrote: >>>Peanuts strips . . . "Boy, that kid will stick around until the last dog >>>is hung." >> >>"until the last dog is hung" must be considerably older than Peanuts. I >>remember my father using the phrase (late 40s in Bellingham, WA). >> >Yes, indeed. My 78-year old mother tells me this expression was around in >the 1920s (Toronto, Ontario) and she remembers it vividly as 'til the last >dog is dead and the rope is put away.' > I've been wondering about this locution in spare moments, and am away from my dictionaries today.... I don't believe anyone addressed the following questions on this thread yet (he wrote, crossing his fingers): (1) What kind of activity (if jocular) does this actually refer to? When do people hang dogs? Or is it just a joke-scenario that never happens? If so, what's the point of the joke? It certainly adds an unintended new overtone to "hang-dog".... (2) Isn't the past participle of hang "hung" in the phsyical sense of the verb, and "hanged" in the sense of executing by rope? Or is that some just normativism that I just happen to have seen arguments for a number of times over the years? But nobody has mentioned any usage of "till the last dog is hanged".... Confusedly, Gregory {Greg} Downing, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 10:03:59 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: last dog Here's something that I think is an extension of the expression: At science-fiction fan conventions, there are typically "Dead Dog" events -- DD party, DD dinner, DD filking* -- that come at the very end of the (typically) weekend, when all the regular scheduled events are over and the regular programming is done or winding down, for the diehards who want to prolong the socializing as long as possible. * filksinging [sic], the activity of singing filk music, which is the genre of (originally folk-based) music arising out of the subculture of sf/fantasy fans. See http://www.hooked.net/~kirib/filkfaq.html . Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 10:58:58 -0800 From: Peter Richardson Subject: Re: footwear To thongs, zoris, and flip-flops add "go-aheads," so called, as I remember, because "ahead" was a much better direction to go in the things than "behind." At least that was the explanation I received when I questioned the word upon first hearing it. All these but zoris were current in rural northern Illinois in the late 50s. Peter Richardson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 17:42:34 -0500 From: David Bergdahl Subject: thong Has anyone else heard "butt floss" for the thong bathing suit? Heard from a mid-30s secretary in Marietta on the Ohio R. ======================================================================= David Bergdahl Ellis Hall 114c Ohio University / Athens Associate Prof/English tel: (740) 593-2783 fax: (740) 593-2818 bergdahl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl ======================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 17:38:21 -0500 From: Evan Morris Subject: Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" Various people wrote: >>>>Peanuts strips . . .=A0 "Boy, that kid will stick around until the la= st dog >>>>is hung." Has anyone here actually seen this particular strip? It strikes me as ve= ry uncharacteristic of the usual tone of _Peanuts_.=20 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 15:08:43 -0800 From: Judi Sanders Subject: Re: thong Yeah, "butt floss" is used for thong bathing suits in CA . . . and thong underwear. Judi Sanders ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr. Judi Sanders Professor, Communication Cal. State Polytechnic U., Pomona The Web: http://www.intranet.csupomona.edu/~jasanders The College Slang Page: http://www.intranet.csupomona.edu/~jasanders/slang ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 18:14:52 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: thong "Butt" has to be one of the ugliest words in the language, and I cringe every time I hear it. What ever happened to "seat" and "rear end"?! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 16:03:28 +0000 From: Peter McGraw Subject: Re: thong You mean as in "seat floss" or "rear end floss"? C'mon, Beverly, get real! Peter On Thu, 26 Feb 1998 18:14:52 -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > "Butt" has to be one of the ugliest words in the language, and I > cringe every time I hear it. What ever happened to "seat" and > "rear end"?! ---------------------- Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]linfield.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 17:48:34 -0500 From: Jesse T Sheidlower Subject: Re: thong > Has anyone else heard "butt floss" for the thong bathing suit? Heard from > a mid-30s secretary in Marietta on the Ohio R. I first heard _butt floss_ in 1994 from a Miami-based political science professor. I think we've accumulated three or four more examples since then, most recently from the 1997 book _Buzzwords,_ about L.A.-speak. Jesse Sheidlower ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 19:08:39 -0500 From: "Bethany K. Dumas" Subject: Butt (was Re: thong) On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > "Butt" has to be one of the ugliest words in the language, and I cringe > every time I hear it. What ever happened to "seat" and "rear end"?! You mean as in "Seat out, would you!" or "Rear end out, would you!" Peter's right, Beverly -- get real! Bethany ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 20:37:10 EST From: Bapopik Subject: Gay nineties; United States of America; March hare GAY NINETIES I was recently asked about the posting I made on "Gay Nineties" (written after new year's of 1997). It should be in the ADS-L archives. At that time, I stated that Richard Vincent Culter of LIFE magazine (the humor magazine, not the picture news magazine) coined the phrase about 1925. A recent checking of some other portions of my files turned up this confirmation, from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Questions and Answers, 10 March 1929: The "Gay Nineties." Kindly let me know through your paper how and from what sources the expression, "The Gay Nineties" originated, and also to what period of time it refers. MRS. R. SHIELDS. "The Gay Nineties" was the title of a series appearing in one of the humorous papers--Life, if we mistake not--and afterward put out in book form. The pictures represented the dress, manners and customs of the period from 1890 to 1900. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA My "America Papers" are indeed massive, and I haven't had time to look through them all. I haven't had the time to recheck my Yankee Doodle parodies and the humor magazines THE LANTERN and YANKEE NOTIONS for "canoodle" antedate, either. Heck, I'm goin' to Guatemala next week and I haven't packed a thong. "Is the Name _United States_ Singular or Plural?" by Allen Walker Read is in NAMES, vol. 22, no. 3, Sept. 1974, pp. 129-136. I have a ton of stuff on this topic that the paper doesn't mention. "THE NAME 'UNITED STATES OF AMERICA'" by Edmund C. Burnett was in the AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, Notes and Suggestions, vol. 31, no. 1, Oct. 1925, pp. 79-81. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- MARCH HARE It's almost March. "March Madness" was posted a year ago. "Mad as a March hare" is not in Christine Ammer's new book of idioms, and it's poorly explained in Bartlett's, where John Skelton and John Heywood are both cited. This item was also in my files from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Questions and Answers, 24 March 1929: "Mad as a March hare." Will you kindly inform me how the expression, "Mad as a March hare," originated and where it is found? A. L. H. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says the saying grew out of the fact that hares are usually shy and wild in March, which is their mating season. Nuggets of Wisdom quotes the foregoing and adds: "This explanation is discounted by a statement by Erasmus in 1542. After using the expression, 'Mad as a March hare,' Erasmus says, 'Hares are wilder in marshes from the absence of hedges and cover.' This indicates that in the days of Erasmus the saying was 'mad as a marsh hare.' It is not difficult to see that 'marsh' might have been corrupted into 'March' after the original meaning of the word was lost sight of." Our correspondent may have in mind the March hare of "Alice in Wonderland." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 20:12:52 -0500 From: Grant Barrett Subject: RE>Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" From: Evan Morris > Has anyone here actually seen this particular strip? It strikes me as very uncharacteristic of the > usual tone of _Peanuts_. Please. I was merely remembering the strip, but I would bet you a thick steak it exists. Somebody somewhere still has those Peanuts books to prove it. Grant Barrett gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]jerrynet.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 21:27:55 EST From: RonButters Subject: Re: Butt (was Re: thong) In a message dated 2/26/98 7:09:35 PM, dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTK.EDU wrote: < "Butt" has to be one of the ugliest words in the language, and I cringe > every time I hear it. What ever happened to "seat" and "rear end"?! You mean as in "Seat out, would you!" or "Rear end out, would you!" Peter's right, Beverly -- get real!>> Dear Wordgang: I'm not about to change my name to Ronald Rearenders, I'll tell you what! Sincerely, Ronaldo de Mantequilla ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 21:36:49 -0500 From: Evan Morris Subject: Re: RE>Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" At 08:12 PM 2/26/98 -0500, Grant Barrett wrote: >From: Evan Morris >> Has anyone here actually seen this particular strip?=A0 It strikes me = as very uncharacteristic of the >> usual tone of _Peanuts_. > >Please. Please? I think you want the Valspeak thread. > I was merely remembering t ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/26/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 24 Feb 1998 to 25 Feb 1998 98-02-26 00:00:35 There are 15 messages totalling 365 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. "Till the last dog dies" 2. hurache? Huarache! (2) 3. CD-ROM Dictionaries 4. CD-ROM dictionaries (6) 5. Usage Newsletter Topic 6. RE>"Till the last dog dies" (4) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 02:20:39 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: "Till the last dog dies" "Mugger" (a Conservative columnist, probably publisher Russ Smith) writes in this week's NEW YORK PRESS, Feb. 25--March 3, 1998, pg. 6, col. 4: The _Washington Post_'s Mary McGrory, a bleeding heart till the last dog dies... And on page 9, col. 1: Begala wasn't the only exile invited to the Last Dogs club, as Howard Fineman dubbed it in _Newsweek_... This COULD be the phrase-of-the-year. Anyone read _Newsweek_? In the New York Times, 4 May 1997, section 4, pg. 15, William Safire wrote that "The name of the game is 'Stonewall'...Deny till the last dog dies." A 12 February 1998 article by Walter Shapiro on USA TODAY Online (www.usatoday.com) ended: Six years ago, his campaign in tatters, Clinton gave the speech of his life at an Elks Club in Dover, telling New Hampshire voters that he would remember their support until "the last dog died." Tuesday night, Clinton did not rise to those majestic heights, but neither did he falter in his moment of supreme peril. The California Folklore Quarterly (now Western Folklore), July 1946, "Folk Sayings in a Pioneer Family of Western Oregon," pg. 230, has: 5. He'll stay till the last dog's hung. He never leaves until there is no longer a pretext for staying. This is even after the fat lady has sung. This is absolutely the bitter end. I feel for Buddy! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 03:03:11 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: hurache? Huarache! Jim Rader wrote: > If Japanese gets chic enough, and enough people > in the Western Hemisphere learn some, maybe English and Spanish will > start borrowing Japanese words for things we already have. But I > wouldn't hold my breath waiting. Of course, we already had sandals . . . but the Japanese word "zori" has become so accepted that it now takes a regular English plural, as in "zoris". (Japanese would have "one zori", "two zori", or "many zori".) Of course, zori (flat rubber or plastic soles held to the foot with a Y-shaped thong designed to pass through the space between the big toe and the next one) have latterly been acquiring another label, "thong sandals", perhaps capitalizing on the minimal titillation that might carry over from "thong bikinis". Do Japanese words also carry over into Spanish? OK, one block from the first Internet Cafe in Guatemala City there is a place called "Sushi", which is a sushi bar, of course. Not to mention zori themselves, sold under that name in such places as the Pais stores that sort of resemble supermarkets. So you don't have to hold your breath: Japanese loans are already making it here. Loan words, that is. Never mind the current currency crises in Asia. -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 08:46:05 -0500 From: Orin Hargraves Subject: CD-ROM Dictionaries Two dictionaries not on your list are: Longman Interactive American Dictionary (Longman). A learner's dictionary= =2E No etys, but some fun "live-action" videos for ESL students with archetypally bad acting. Longman Dictionary of the English Language, on a CD-ROM called Infopedia = UK (Softkey). Orin Hargraves ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 09:33:14 -0500 From: Enid Pearsons Subject: Re: CD-ROM dictionaries For Danny Long (and FYI for others) And don't forget the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary on CD-ROM. If you can't get it where you are, let me know, give me your snail-mail address, and I'll see to it that you get one. Enid Pearsons Reference & Information Publishing Random House, Inc. 201 East 50th Street New York, NY 10022 ))))))))) Previous Notes Mail (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( To: ADS-L [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] UGA.CC.UGA.EDU cc: (bcc: Enid Pearsons/Trade/RandomHouse) From: dlong [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] JOHO.OSAKA-SHOIN.AC.JP Date: 02/24/98 08:55 PM Subject: CD-ROM dictionaries I am looking for English dictionaries on CD-ROM. I want to do electronic searches (of etymologies and other things). I have the following four. Does anyone know of others available? Thank you. Danny Long (1994) Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed.(CD-ROM). Merriam-Webster. (1992) American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed. (CD-ROM). Houghton Mifflin. (1992) Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd. ed. (CD-ROM). Oxford University Press. (1994) Webster's New World Dictionary, 3rd college ed. (CD-ROM). Simon and Schuster. -- Daniel Long, Associate Professor tel +81-6-723-8297 Japanese Language Research Center fax +81-6-723-8302 Osaka Shoin Women's College dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp 4-2-26 Hishiyanishi http://www.age.ne.jp/x/oswcjlrc/ Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577-8550 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 09:24:00 -0600 From: Thomas Creswell Subject: Re: CD-ROM dictionaries Danny Also available: Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary: Based on the Second Printed Edition, Newly Revised and Updated 1996 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 09:30:25 -0600 From: Alan R Slotkin Subject: Usage Newsletter Topic Chuck Meyers has suggested the following as a topic for the next issue of the Usage Newsletter: "How to use the Internet to study and teach usage." I'd appreciate any submissions. Thanks. Alan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan R. Slotkin Professor of English/English Major Adviser Box 5053, TTU Cookeville, TN 38505 931-372-3262 aslotkin[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tntech.edu http://gemini.tntech.edu/~aslotkin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 09:38:10 -0600 From: "Alvin L. Gregg" Subject: Re: CD-ROM dictionaries Dear Enid, I read your comment to Danny Long on the ADS-L. I wonder if the CD-ROM of the unabridged Random House Dictionary has been improved since I got one several years ago. I was somewhat disappointed in search mechanism, etc. Sincerely, Alvin L. Gregg Department of English Wichita State University Wichita, KS 67260-0014 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 10:23:19 -0500 From: Grant Barrett Subject: RE>"Till the last dog dies" I was a big Charles Schultz fan as I kid and I distinctly remember one of the compilations of Peanuts strips had one with one of the characters (Lucy, I believe), saying about another something like "Boy, that kid will stick around until the last dog is hung." Snoopy, of course, got an appropriately aghast look on his face. I'm not trying to source the saying, just remembering. Grant Barrett gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dfjp.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 09:12:19 -0800 From: Grant Smith Subject: Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" Peanuts strips . . . "Boy, that kid will stick around until the last dog is hung." "until the last dog is hung" must be considerably older than Peanuts. I remember my father using the phrase (late 40s in Bellingham, WA). Grant W. Smith Eastern Washington University ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 12:15:12 -0500 From: Enid Pearsons Subject: Re: CD-ROM dictionaries I hope this is not considered spam, but since several of you have inquired about how to get the RHW Unabridged CD-ROM, the easiest thing for me to do is to post a single answer: Price: $39.95 Ordering: voice phone: 1-800-733-3000 (RH warehouse in Westminster, Md.) ISBN: 0-679-44998-1 ))))))))) Previous Notes Mail (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( To: ADS-L [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] UGA.CC.UGA.EDU cc: (bcc: Enid Pearsons/Trade/RandomHouse) From: agregg [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] TWSUVM.UC.TWSU.EDU Date: 02/25/98 10:38 AM Subject: Re: CD-ROM dictionaries Dear Enid, I read your comment to Danny Long on the ADS-L. I wonder if the CD-ROM of the unabridged Random House Dictionary has been improved since I got one several years ago. I was somewhat disappointed in search mechanism, etc. Sincerely, Alvin L. Gregg Department of English Wichita State University Wichita, KS 67260-0014 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 13:01:39 -0500 From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: hurache? Huarache! At 3:03 AM -0600 2/25/98, Mike Salovesh wrote: > >Of course, we already had sandals . . . but the Japanese word "zori" has >become so accepted that it now takes a regular English plural, as in >"zoris". (Japanese would have "one zori", "two zori", or "many zori".) >Of course, zori (flat rubber or plastic soles held to the foot with a >Y-shaped thong designed to pass through the space between the big toe >and the next one) have latterly been acquiring another label, "thong >sandals", perhaps capitalizing on the minimal titillation that might >carry over from "thong bikinis". > Actually, 'thong' was in my vocabulary for those rubber beach shoes long before 'zori'; this was on Long Island and in California in the late 1960's. Rather than "capitalizing on the minimal titillation" from thong bikinis, I take the use of the longer "thong sandals" to be a classic retronym (cf. acoustic guitar, analog watch, natrual turf, biological mother, World War I), in which a previously unmodified label takes on a modifier (or in the "thong" case, a head) to distinguish it from a new cultural innovation that invades its referential space. If I want to make it clear I'm talking about something to wear on my feet, it would behoove me to specify "thong sandals" rather than "thongs" tout court. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 13:17:53 -0600 From: Joan Houston Hall Subject: Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" DARE has "last dog is hung, until the" with quotes going back to 1902. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:25:53 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: RE>"Till the last dog dies" "Peanuts" goes back to the early '50s, as I well recall, so Charles Schulz probably grew up with the "dog dies/is hung" phrase too; if DARE dates it to 1902, Schulz could have heard it in the '30s, when he was young. He's from St. Paul--any ideas on a regional origin for the phrase? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:42:21 EST From: Ron Butters Subject: Re: CD-ROM dictionaries are any of the CD-ROM dictionaries available for mac? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 15:44:20 -0600 From: Thomas Creswell Subject: Re: CD-ROM dictionaries MWC10 CDROM will run on either PC or Mac ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 24 Feb 1998 to 25 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/25/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 23 Feb 1998 to 24 Feb 1998 98-02-25 00:00:16 There are 10 messages totalling 361 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Chocolate in Guatemala ??? 2. hurache 3. Slimed (6) 4. WOTY Posted 5. CD-ROM dictionaries ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 00:39:13 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: Re: Chocolate in Guatemala ??? Barry A. Popik wrote: > From March 5-20th I'll be in Guatemala (no internet!), touring the Mayan > sites and investigating the origin of "chocolate." There is a safety risk, > and it was a tough choice between being robbed in Guatemala or dying from > anthrax poisoning on the New York City subways. Now you're walking in my bailiwick, Barry. I've been doing fieldwork in Guatemala and Mexico for many years. If you're looking for the origin of chocolate _beans_, of course there are some plantations in Guatemala. But if you're true to your metier, you must be talking about the _word_ chocolate . . . and you'll be at least a thousand miles southeast of where the word came into European speech. Its origins are in Nahuatl, the language of central Mexico. Nahuatl was spoken by the Mexica, the inhabitants of the city of Tenochtitlan. They were the people we usually call the "Aztecs", and the heart of their city became the center of Mexico City. The ancient inhabitants of Guatemala spoke various languages of the Maya family. Today, roughly 60% of the people of Guatemala grow up with some one of 23 extant Maya languages as their first language. As far as I know, every single one of those languages uses some form of Nahuatl loanword for chocolate. Among Maya speakers, infusions of a mixture of chocolate, cinnamon, and coffee are served on a number of ceremonial occasions, including fiesta celebrations, marriages, curing cermonies, and other rituals. That beverage is usually NOT called "chocolate"; the tendency is to use a word also applied to medicine, potions, and home-brewed alcohol. When Guatemalan Indians speak of chocolate, using either a direct loan from Nahuatl or a form derived from the loan that took root in Mexican Spanish, they mean the growing plant, or chocolate beans, or the mass that comes from grinding those beans, or a heavenly concoction that is the apotheosis of what we call "hot chocolate". Freshly-prepared hot chocolate, Guatemalan style, IS a treat -- but the ne plus ultra in (non-alcoholic) things to drink is called "licuada de pin~a". You have never known the full delights of pineapple until you eat a round of field-ripened fruit fresh picked in Guatemala or southeastern Mexico -- and the drink made from it is an even more delightful experience. Who told you there's no internet in Guatemala? There are even Internet cafes in Antigua and Guatemala City and, I think, in Flores (the base town for visits to the great prehispanic city of Tikal). Fees are surprisingly modest, the computers and software are adequate, and it's easy to remain connected if you want to. I was even able to log on to my own account back home via Telnet anytime I wished. Cafe Internet's services were a helluva lot cheaper than calling my wife on the phone! Take the warnings about getting robbed seriously. Keep your New Yorker street smarts turned on at all times. Be as defensively aware of your surroundings as you would be when walking through the borderland between the turfs of rival urban gangs. Armed robberies happen even on the Guatemala City bus system, in broad daylight, at that. (Three years ago, I watched one go down on Sixth Avenue in Guatemala City at lunchtime -- right across the street from the main police headquarters. Things can be even worse in the boondocks, where the robbers may actually be the cops.) Don't get me wrong: I love Guatemala, and I will be there for five or six weeks this summer. But I take my behavioral cues from my Guatemalan friends. Like them, I always keep my antennae in scan mode when I'm not in places that provide high security as one of the costs of doing business. iFeliz viaje! -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 08:57:48 +0000 From: Jim Rader Subject: Re: hurache > > Sandals made out of one material or other were worn by Mexican Indians > > before Cortes; a Japanese origin for such a word is wildly > > improbable. > > Again, I appreciate the detailed etymological information that was > sent. Now I'll have actual evidence to use again this claim. I think > that coming up with a more plausible alternative etymology is the best > way to discredit wobbly explanations like this. However, just because a > thing (a word for it) already existed in a culture is no indication that > those people will not adopt a foreign word. This kind of "wildly > improbable" thing happens in language all the time. Japanese had milk > and strawberries for centuries (along with perfectly good names for > them), but that hasn't stopped them from borrowing "miruku" and > "sutooberii". And then there are all those words that the Anglo-Saxons > borrowed from the Normans for things that they had already had, just > cause those Norman words sounded so chic. They already had *swine*, but > I'd say they did a pretty wildly improbable thing by adopting *pork*. > > Danny Long > When I said "wildly improbable," I meant this particular etymology. It goes beyond saying that there are many cases where a language has borrowed words for items that the speakers of the language already possessed. Japanese borrows words for "strawberry" and "milk" from English, proto-Welsh borrowed words for "knife" and "milk" from Latin, and English, of course, replaced significant portions of its vocabulary with Anglo-French words--but these are all cases where the donor language had/has some cultural allure--chicness, if you will. English tends to borrow words from East Asian languages that denote items specific to East Asian culture--words for things we don't already have. The same would apply mutatis mutandis to Japanese and Mexican Spanish in the 19th century. The Japanese did not introduce sandals to Mexico. If Japanese gets chic enough, and enough people in the Western Hemisphere learn some, maybe English and Spanish will start borrowing Japanese words for things we already have. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting. Jim Rader ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:56:08 -0600 From: Tom Head Subject: Re: Slimed On Fri, 20 Feb 1998, Fred Shapiro wrote: > Karen Lubell asked about the political usage of _slimed_. The earliest > occurrence yielded by a Westlaw search is an op-ed piece by David Nyhan in > the Boston Globe, Dec. 3, 1987. Nyhan wrote, "Ted Kennedy ... knows > something about running for president, and even more about getting slimed > by the press." > > The second earliest occurrence I can find is in U.S. News & World Report, > June 20, 1988: "If [House Speaker Jim] Wright were a ghostbuster, he'd > say he's been slimed. But as the new sleaze pinup for the GOP, he can't > say much of anything." Would this mean that the word actually came from _Ghostbusters_ (1985)? I'd always thought the movie got it from another source. Peace be with you, Tom Head http://www2.netdoor.com/~tlh "I have associated and studied with the 'objective observers' and am convinced that, for all their virtues, they invariably miss the point and eat the menu instead of the dinner." -- Alan Watts ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:31:46 -0500 From: Grant Barrett Subject: WOTY Posted I have finally posted Allan's Word of the Year report on the ADS web site. http://www.jerrynet.com/ads/index.htm Please accept my apologies for the delay. The ad agency I work for is undergoing a name change, and this involves me working long and late. Grant Barrett gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]jerrynet.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:47:45 -0500 From: Fred Shapiro Subject: Re: Slimed On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Tom Head wrote: > Would this mean that the word actually came from _Ghostbusters_ (1985)? > I'd always thought the movie got it from another source. The term was probably popularized by _Ghostbusters_, and this is probably where the political usage came from. But it was used on Nickelodeon (I don't have the name of the exact show handy as I'm typing this) prior to _Ghostbusters_. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Coeditor (with Jane Garry) Associate Librarian for Public Services TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD and Lecturer in Legal Research ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES Yale Law School Oxford University Press, 1998 e-mail: fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu ISBN 0-19-509547-2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 13:32:32 -0500 From: Bob Haas Subject: Re: Slimed Fred, I think the name of that show was _You Can't Do That on Television_. It was a kid's show in which members of the cast were frequently drenched from above with nasty green goo. I don't know if they called the practice "sliming." I didn't watch the show. I do know that it was a Canadian production (I believe), and that Alison what's her name, whose album _Jagged Little Pill_ was a hit a couple year's ago, was a member of the cast. The other possiblity was Nik's game show for kids--Double-Dare-- where contestants were also doused with slime. The problem with these shows as sources for "slimed" is that they both aired after the original _Ghostbusters_ film, which I believe premiered in 1982 or 1983. I think that both Nik shows came afterwards. Anyone? On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Fred Shapiro wrote: > On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Tom Head wrote: > > > Would this mean that the word actually came from _Ghostbusters_ (1985)? > > I'd always thought the movie got it from another source. > > The term was probably popularized by _Ghostbusters_, and this is probably > where the political usage came from. But it was used on Nickelodeon (I > don't have the name of the exact show handy as I'm typing this) prior to > _Ghostbusters_. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fred R. Shapiro Coeditor (with Jane Garry) > Associate Librarian for Public Services TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD > and Lecturer in Legal Research ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES > Yale Law School Oxford University Press, 1998 > e-mail: fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu ISBN 0-19-509547-2 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Bob Haas UNCG Department of English rahaas[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hamlet.uncg.edu "No matter where you go, there you are." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 15:21:08 -0500 From: Fred Shapiro Subject: Re: Slimed On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Bob Haas wrote: > Fred, I think the name of that show was _You Can't Do That on Television_. > It was a kid's show in which members of the cast were frequently drenched > from above with nasty green goo. I don't know if they called the practice > "sliming." I didn't watch the show. I do know that it was a Canadian > > cast. The other possiblity was Nik's game show for kids--Double-Dare-- > where contestants were also doused with slime. The problem with these > shows as sources for "slimed" is that they both aired after the original > _Ghostbusters_ film, which I believe premiered in 1982 or 1983. I think > that both Nik shows came afterwards. Anyone? _Ghostbusters_ came out in the summer of 1984. Apparently _slimed_ was used in "You Can't Do That on TV" on Nickelodeon prior to that. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Coeditor (with Jane Garry) Associate Librarian for Public Services TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD and Lecturer in Legal Research ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES Yale Law School Oxford University Press, 1998 e-mail: fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu ISBN 0-19-509547-2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 15:40:25 -0500 From: Jesse T Sheidlower Subject: Re: Slimed While I have little doubt that the political sense of _slime,_ and the verb's general currency, was popularized by the movie _Ghostbusters,_ I feel obligated to point out that OED2 does record _slime_ as a transitive verb meaning 'to smear or cover with slime', with citations to 1628, including two from Tennyson. Jesse Sheidlower ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 10:55:15 +0900 From: Daniel Long Subject: CD-ROM dictionaries I am looking for English dictionaries on CD-ROM. I want to do electronic searches (of etymologies and other things). I have the following four. Does anyone know of others available? Thank you. Danny Long (1994) Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed.(CD-ROM). Merriam-Webster. (1992) American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed. (CD-ROM). Houghton Mifflin. (1992) Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd. ed. (CD-ROM). Oxford University Press. (1994) Webster's New World Dictionary, 3rd college ed. (CD-ROM). Simon and Schuster. -- Daniel Long, Associate Professor tel +81-6-723-8297 Japanese Language Research Center fax +81-6-723-8302 Osaka Shoin Women's College dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp 4-2-26 Hishiyanishi http://www.age.ne.jp/x/oswcjlrc/ Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577-8550 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 23:41:34 -0500 From: Bob Haas Subject: Re: Slimed Cool. On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Jesse T Sheidlower wrote: > While I have little doubt that the political sense of _slime,_ > and the verb's general currency, was popularized by the movie > _Ghostbusters,_ I feel obligated to point out that OED2 does > record _slime_ as a transitive verb meaning 'to smear or cover > with slime', with citations to 1628, including two from Tennyson. > > Jesse Sheidlower > > Bob Haas UNCG Department of English rahaas[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hamlet.uncg.edu "No matter where you go, there you are." ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 23 Feb 1998 to 24 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/24/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 22 Feb 1998 to 23 Feb 1998 98-02-24 00:00:44 There are 7 messages totalling 252 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Canoodlin' 2. hurache (2) 3. Usage Newsletter 4. "poor" for "pore" etc. 5. L. A., the Digital Coast? 6. Windy City; Magic City ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 07:46:33 EST From: Laura Johnson Subject: Canoodlin' The only place I've seen "canoodle" used was in an Ann Landers column. I thought it was a word of Germanic/Yiddish origin. Am I wrong? I was thinking of words ending in -oodle in English, and -udel in German. Laura _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 09:54:00 +0000 From: Jim Rader Subject: Re: hurache > I have been told that the English word hurache, which came into US > English through Mexican Spanish, originates in the Japanese word > *waraji* 'straw sandals', but I have no substantiating evidence. OED > indicate the word was in use in Mexican Spanish in 1887, and this is not > long after the first Japanese immigrants went to Mexico. That doesn't > leave much time for a borrowing to catch on and spread, but it may not > be impossible. I do not have easy access to a Mexican Spanish > etymological dictionary. Does anyone have any ideas on the origin of > this word. > > The OED's listing for hurache begins thus: > > huarache. Also guaracha, guarache, guarachi, huaracho. [Mex.-Sp.] > A leather-thonged sandal, orig. worn by Mexican Indians. > 1887 F. C. Gooch Face to Face with Mexicans xii. 433 Leathern aprons and > sandals of the same, called guarachi. > 1892 Dialect Notes I. 190 Huaracho, -s, a kind of sandals worn by > Indians and the lower classes generally. Used generally in the plural > only. > > -- > Daniel Long, Associate Professor tel +81-6-723-8297 > Japanese Language Research Center fax +81-6-723-8302 > Osaka Shoin Women's College dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp > 4-2-26 Hishiyanishi http://www.age.ne.jp/x/oswcjlrc/ > Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577-8550 > Mexican Spanish _huarache_ or _gaurache_ is borrowed from Tarascan _kwar.a'c^i_ (initial labiovelar, retroflex r, stress on second syllable, c^ is dental affricate); the retroflex flap does not occur in loanwords from Spanish, so the word is almost certainly native, not borrowed (per William Bright). The Tarascans (native name is _pure'pecha_, I think) are an important Indian people of Michoacan--though I don't offhand know of any other generally used word in Mexican Spanish that was borrowed from Tarascan. Seems this etymology has been known for a long time; it's given by Santamaria (_Diccionario de mejicanismos-, 1959) who cites as a source Eustaquio Buelna, a 19th century scholar. Sandals made out of one material or other were worn by Mexican Indians before Cortes; a Japanese origin for such a word is wildly improbable. Jim Rader ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 09:18:25 -0600 From: Alan R Slotkin Subject: Usage Newsletter I want again to encourage everyone on the list to submit notes, reviews, book notices, etc., to the Usage Newsletter. At the moment, I do not have enough material on hand for another issue. If the membership wishes the newsletter to continue, then submissions are a must. Thanks. Alan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan R. Slotkin Professor of English/English Major Adviser Box 5053, TTU Cookeville, TN 38506 931-372-3262 aslotkin[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tntech.edu http://gemini.tntech.edu/~aslotkin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 15:13:01 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: Re: "poor" for "pore" etc. Peter McGraw wrote: >>> My aunt once told me about a woman of her acquaintance who would "poor" water out of a pitcher. My aunt said she asked her once what she called people who didn't have any money, and she said, "Oh, you mean pore people?" I have no information as to where this was. <<< I wonder to what degree this swap was in the ears of the beholder. It is, or was, quite common to represent "Brooklynese" in print by swapping "oi" and "er": "I hoid ya needed some T'ree-In-One Erl." Rather than being swapped, it may be the case that the speaker merges the two sounds to something that is phonetically between the hearer's expectations, and the hearer's reaction and analysis, if conscious and put into words, would go something like this, using the linear scale of integers to represent a range of n-dimensional acoustic space: "I use /1/ in this word, and it sounds like [1] when I say it, but this person is saying the word with [3]. That's not a sound I would use at all, but it's off in the direction of /5/. I guess this person uses /5/ where I use /1/." The same process -- I hesitate to call it "logic" -- would map "oi" into "er" and "er" into "oi", or "or" into "Ur" and "Ur" into "or". (Try saying dat t'ree times fast!) Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 16:54:52 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: L. A., the Digital Coast? This is from the New York Times, 23 February 1998, pg. D4, cols. 3-6: In the Shadow of Silicon Valley, "Digital Coast" Emerges (highlighted box) Los Angeles has been a city in search of a cybermoniker By Amy Harmon LOS ANGELES--No true booster of Silicon Valley or its New York wannabe, Silicon Alley, would dispute the benefits of a catchy moniker for raising a region's high-technology profile and attracting coveted talent and venture capital. But Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan's announcement last week that this city would henceforth be known as "Digital Coast" elicited little more than snickers and derision from its geographic rivals. "Already people are talking about 'Digital Toast,'" sniffed Mark Stahlman (His nose sniffs in perfect English?--ed.), a co-founder of the New York New Media Association and the man who coined the derivative Silicon Alley label to describe the cluster of Internet companies in lower Manhattan. A spokesman for Joint Venture Silicon Valley, an economic development group in San Jose, Calif., was more magnanimous, noting, "At least they stayed away from 'silicon,' since there is only one Silicon Valley, and everyone has already tried to do a takeoff." (...) If this self-baptism seems a bit forced, it is far from the first time a locale has draped itself in techn-chic associations. One Web site (http://www.tbtf.com/siliconia.html) lists 45 instances of "siliconia" associated with 55 locations, including North Carolina's Silicon Triangle, the Silicon Fen in Cambridge, England, and even the Silicon Swamp of Perry, Fla., on the Gulf of Mexico. (...) So far, the original Valley has far outstripped its rivals. But Los Angeles reasons that as bandwidth expands and on-line entertainment becomes more feasible, it will come into its own--though only time will tell whether its bid to become "the new-media capital of the world" is simply California dreaming. "Multimedia is our ticket for success into the next century," Mayor Riordan said at the ceremony last Wednesday as slides of the Southern California coast at sunset, night and midday flashed on a screen behind him. "The future is in our hands, and we're going to win." This is a very familiar naming scenario. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I object to the name "digital," though. Digital is a company's name. (Have they merged with Compaq computers?) Also, it sounds like "Gidget-al Coast." And, in the movie BOOGIE NIGHTS, one reviewer mentioned the main character's "digit." On the obvious level, though, doesn't "Digital Coast" mean that the place is filled with "ones" and "zeros"? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:32:23 +0900 From: Daniel Long Subject: Re: hurache Thanks to Don Lance and Jim Rader for the info about huarache (which I spelled rong in the subject line). I had thought this was a pretty unlikely etymology, but it is written in THE dictionary. I won't say which one, but its initials are _American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language_, 3rd edition on CD-ROM, 1992 Houghton Mifflin. They say, "probably from Japanese *warachi* straw sandal". Their Japanese sourceword is incorrect as well. The word is *waraji*. There are various historical and geographical variants; none of which are *warachi*. To Merriam-Webster's credit, Jim Rader's etymology (though not in such detail) was in their 10th Collegiate which I had on CD-ROM. . . I called myself checking that dictionary before I posted this query, but I had missed it somehow. Guess I have to more careful next time. Incidentally, I have found that Takeaki Enomoto led the first Japanese immigrants to Mexico in 1897. Ten years after the OED English source (and this isn't even considering how far the word went back in Mexican Spanish). Had I known this earlier, this info itself would have pretty much ruled out the Jap. etymology. > Sandals made out of one material or other were worn by Mexican Indians > before Cortes; a Japanese origin for such a word is wildly > improbable. Again, I appreciate the detailed etymological information that was sent. Now I'll have actual evidence to use again this claim. I think that coming up with a more plausible alternative etymology is the best way to discredit wobbly explanations like this. However, just because a thing (a word for it) already existed in a culture is no indication that those people will not adopt a foreign word. This kind of "wildly improbable" thing happens in language all the time. Japanese had milk and strawberries for centuries (along with perfectly good names for them), but that hasn't stopped them from borrowing "miruku" and "sutooberii". And then there are all those words that the Anglo-Saxons borrowed from the Normans for things that they had already had, just cause those Norman words sounded so chic. They already had *swine*, but I'd say they did a pretty wildly improbable thing by adopting *pork*. Danny Long -- Daniel Long, Associate Professor tel +81-6-723-8297 Japanese Language Research Center fax +81-6-723-8302 Osaka Shoin Women's College dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp 4-2-26 Hishiyanishi http://www.age.ne.jp/x/oswcjlrc/ Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577-8550 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 20:49:18 -0800 From: Chuck Borsos Subject: Re: Windy City; Magic City Barry Popik writes: > The long article puts "Magic City" in the context of the city's growth >like magic, or "upbuilding." (Upbuilding?)...Anyone have an earlier >"culchah"? Barberton, Ohio is also called the "Magic City", its local high school teams referred to as "the Magics", supposedly because it arose from nothing into a thriving industrial city in very little time. Sorry,I don't have any references at this time. Chuck Borsos ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 22 Feb 1998 to 23 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/23/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 21 Feb 1998 to 22 Feb 1998 98-02-23 00:00:25 There are 5 messages totalling 357 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. "cookies" 2. hurache 3. Ice cream cone; Pop (soda) 4. Sky line; Ragged edge; Muckers; Psycho; Yellow dog 5. Windy City; Magic City ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 23:09:36 -0800 From: Gabor Fencsik Subject: Re: "cookies" Greg Downing forwards a question from the Linguist List: > can anyone tell me anything about the etymology resp. the sense > development of the computer term "cookie"? One definition I found in > "Among The New Words" in American Speech says: > "Cookies are bits of computer code that allow a Web page's operators > to collect information about each user for later reference." , > but I still can't understand the motivation for calling this a > cookie. It must be a metaphorical meaning, but what kind of meaning > elements are being transferred here? The word "cookie" in computer jargon is shorthand for "magic cookie". The UNIX manual pages, published initially in the seventies, and gradually swelling to massive volumes through the eighties and nineties, were liberally sprinkled with "magic cookies" and "magic numbers". I guess the terminology is rooted in the various computerized versions of dungeons-and- dragons type games, played by bleary-eyed programmers to fill up the time while their programs were being compiled, or to relieve the stress after a night of strenuous hacking. Technically speaking, the "magic cookies" and "magic numbers" were bit patterns found in a certain place within a file. They were used to identify the type of the file in question. The "magic cookie" was checked by computer programs to make sure the file was of the kind the program was allowed to operate on. Thus, a tape archiver program was only allowed to touch archive files, a loader was only allowed to load executable files, and so forth. The bit patterns constituting the "magic cookie" were chosen arbitrarily, but when they were absent, nothing worked. That's why they were "magic". Thus, the original meaning of "magic cookie" involved information passing from a file to a program reading the file. Later, the concept was extended to information being passed from a program to another program running on a different machine. Programs send each other "magic cookies" primarily for purposes of authentication. When you are browsing the New York Times web page, for example, the web server at the NY Times sends a cookie to you browser to identify you as a properly logged-on customer. Without the cookie, they would have to have you log in every time you click on a link on their webpage, an annoyance up with which we would not put. I don't know when "magic cookie" began to be shortened to "cookie" tout simple, but I believe this is a relatively recent development. The question could be settled by searching the archives of the many UNIX-related discussion groups on Usenet. ----- Gabor Fencsik ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 16:46:57 +0900 From: Daniel Long Subject: hurache I have been told that the English word hurache, which came into US English through Mexican Spanish, originates in the Japanese word *waraji* 'straw sandals', but I have no substantiating evidence. OED indicate the word was in use in Mexican Spanish in 1887, and this is not long after the first Japanese immigrants went to Mexico. That doesn't leave much time for a borrowing to catch on and spread, but it may not be impossible. I do not have easy access to a Mexican Spanish etymological dictionary. Does anyone have any ideas on the origin of this word. The OED's listing for hurache begins thus: huarache. Also guaracha, guarache, guarachi, huaracho. [Mex.-Sp.] A leather-thonged sandal, orig. worn by Mexican Indians. 1887 F. C. Gooch Face to Face with Mexicans xii. 433 Leathern aprons and sandals of the same, called guarachi. 1892 Dialect Notes I. 190 Huaracho, -s, a kind of sandals worn by Indians and the lower classes generally. Used generally in the plural only. -- Daniel Long, Associate Professor tel +81-6-723-8297 Japanese Language Research Center fax +81-6-723-8302 Osaka Shoin Women's College dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp 4-2-26 Hishiyanishi http://www.age.ne.jp/x/oswcjlrc/ Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577-8550 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 14:41:15 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: Ice cream cone; Pop (soda) ICE CREAM CONE As most of you know, I've extensively studied American food words, from the "hoagie" to the "hot dog" to "pizza." I've also posted on "milk shake," "sundae," ice cream sandwich," and "ice cream cone." A new wrinkle on that last term--which many had thought was invented at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair--was in the New York Post, 10 February 1998, pg. 57, cols. 1-2 (in a Clive Barnes theater review, of all places!): Evening melts fast at old ice cream company MY memory, or lack of it, could well prove the death of me. The other night, all innocent abroad, I walked into the oddly named Paradise Theater to see Tom Noonan's oddly named play "Wang Dang." The name of the theater does suggest a strip club, doesn't it? But in these post-Giuliani Disneyland days it has apparently been named after the Paradise Ice Cream Co., once housed in the basement, where, it is claimed, the ice-cream cone was invented in 1897. The building a few years later became "a hotbed of union organizing" (doubtless melting the ice cream) and is, I understand, considered the official birthplace of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. (...) The premise is pretentious, the ideas jejune, and the evening wasted. Paradise lost. Bring back the ice-cream cones. I walked to the Paradise Theater at 64 East Fourth Street (NYU's Bobst Library is also on Fourth Street). The person there didn't know anything and said that that information came from the building's owner. I checked telephone directories and could find NO Paradise Ice Cream Company listed 1897-1899. Next, I'll have to go to the New York Historical Society and check the Trow's directories and whatever reverse directories (based on location) they have. I have to miss a day of work, and I haven't had the time. In the meantime, however, whenever you eat an ice cream cone, think of the Paradise Ice Cream Company at 64 East 4th Street--and look for the union label! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- POP (soda) "Pop" (soda) has been mentioned here. The following is from the Pittsburgh Telegraph, 17 November 1882, pg. 2, col. 1: THE Bottlers object to being called makers of "Pop," not that this title savors of pauperism, but of vulgarism. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 14:41:51 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: Sky line; Ragged edge; Muckers; Psycho; Yellow dog SKY LINE Barnhart's Dictionary of Etymology has "skyline (1824, line where earth and sky meet, horizon; 1896, outline of buildings against the sky, in writings of George Bernard Shaw)." We can beat the latter by over two decades. In fact, "sky line" appears before the first "sky scraper" building. This is from the New York Commercial Advertiser, 27 February 1875, pg. 1, col. 2: New York's Sky Line. In an interesting letter to the Boston _Advertiser_, from an occasional correspondent in this City, we find the following: "Absolute flatness could never be predicated of Manhattan Island. The City Hall Park is not less than thirty feet above tide water; and Broadway, as every omnibus horse knows to his cost, is an undulatory and even sharply hilly thoroughfare. One ascends gradually from the Battery, abruptly (going in the opposite direction) from Canal street; and the ferries on both rivers land their passengers at the foot of a considerable incline. The plateau thus bounded has till of late years had a uniform outline, much as described by Baron Hubner. Formerly, in order to obtain a characteristic view of the City, it was deemed necessary to approach it from the lower bay--or "end on," as we might express it. In the geographies in vogue a quarter of a century ago (in Woodbridge's, for example, as I remember it), we were shown the round fort on Governor's Island, the Battery, and Trinity Church; that was New York looking north. Now an artist or a photographer would plant himself rather on the Jersey or the Long Island shore, preferring the panoramic to the perspective view. In place of a line rising from the water's edge to Trinity Church, and thence substantially horizontal till the clock-tower of the City Hall was reached, one now sees (say from Hoboken) first the square mass of Babbitt's soap factory; next Trinity; then the Equitable and Mutual Life Buildings; then the roof of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company's Office; then the Western Union Telegraph Company's mammoth edifice; then in the huddle, the _Evening Post_, Park Bank and _Herald_ Buildings, pierced by the spire of St. Paul's, then the Post Office, the tower and high roof of the _Tribune_ Building, the twin piers of the Brooklyn Bridge, and finally City Hall. From this point Northward the line becomes tolerably even again, but is broken at short intervals by spires, pavilions and domes, more numerous than striking, till the City vista is cut off by the factory-like Manhattan Market, and the eye rests delightedly on the natural shapes of the unharvested cliffs of the Hudson. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- RAGGED EDGE I previously said that the Beecher-Tilton affair was called "the ragged edge trial." "Ragged edge" was also in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 20 March 1875, pg. 7, col. 6, "INSURANCE/ ANOTHER COMPANY ON THE RAGGED EDGE!" In the same publication, 17 March 1875, pg. 4, col. 1, "The 'ragged-edge' men in Cincinnati just now are the members of the Johnston Democracy." The New-York Commercial Advertiser, 27 April 1875, pg. 2, col. 3, has "matters are still on the 'r-gg-d edge.'" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- MUCKERS This possible antedate (see the RHHDAS) is from the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 22 January 1875, pg. 4, col. 1: What is BISMARCK about? Does he think that the German fatherland extends across the Atlantic, and is he about to interpose diplomatic remonstrances, or adopt even sterner policy against Puritanic "muckers?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- PSYCHO Barnhart's Dictionary of Etymology has 1927 for "psycho." But perhaps the first "psycho" was not a person at all! This is from the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 12 February 1875, pg. 4, col. 5: The Automaton Card Player. >From the London Times. The new automaton invented by Mr. John Neuil Maskelyne and Mr. John Algernon Clarke, which appears twice daily in Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke's entertainment at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, is not a deception like Baron Kempler's renowned chess player. (...) The marvel of the new invention of Mr. Maskelyne and Mr. Clarke consists in three distinctive features--the figure has no living being within it; it is perfectly isolated from any connection--mechanical, electrical, magnetical, or otherwise conceivable--with any operator at a distance; and yet, nevertheless, it plays a game of whist with no little skill, performs arithmetical calculations, obeys by its movements the directions of any person in the audience, and accomplishes a number of very surprising feats with cards chosen and names written by the audience. "Psycho," as the automaton has been named,... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- YELLOW DOG Sure, I'd trust a yellow dog. This is from the New York Tribune, 9 February 1875, pg. 6, col. 6: A "yaller" dog has covered himself with glory as a traveler or pilgrim or quadrupedestrian. He was taken last Fall from Indiana to Kansas. But he didn't like Kansas, and was homesick through and through. He found meat scarce and was averse to a diet of grasshoppers. So he tramped it over miles and miles of desolate prairies; he swam the Kansas and Missouri Rivers; and one day, footsore, weary, and lean, he barked at the old door. He was six weeks upon the journey; and the first thing he did upon getting home was to eat his dinner calmly, the next to drive the pigs out of the yard according to his ancient custom. He had learned something, but had forgotten nothing. If ever dog deserved a silver collar and unlimited bones for life, he is the animal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- PERSONAL At a chapter of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) on Saturday, February 28th, 3:25-3:40 p.m., at the Brooklyn Heights Library, I'll lecture on the origin of "New York Yankees," "Bronx Bombers," and "Subway Series." Most everything has already been posted here. I did the origin of the "fan" at the SABR meeting in 1996. About 130 people show up. I'll also write it in article form for Yankees Magazine. From March 5-20th I'll be in Guatemala (no internet!), touring the Mayan sites and investigating the origin of "chocolate." There is a safety risk, and it was a tough choice between being robbed in Guatemala or dying from anthrax poisoning on the New York City subways. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 14:42:11 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: Windy City; Magic City There wasn't an earlier "Windy City" that I could find than the April 21, 1886 SPORTING LIFE. The March 17, 1886, pg. 4, col. 5 SPORTING LIFE has "FROM CHICAGO./ Approaching Spring and Base Ball Games in the Lake City." I extensively checked Pittsburgh a few weekends ago (I'd checked Chicago, NY, St. Louis, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit), and "Windy City" wasn't there in May 1886 for the Haymarket crisis reports. So I rechecked the LOUISVILLE COURIER-JOURNAL. (Boy, did I screw this one up. Perhaps a few "Lake City" citations there in late April and early May threw me off.) I checked March-April 1886 and found this, 17 April 1886, pg. 2, col. 5: CHICAGO NOTES. A Louisville Man's Views As to the Causes Producing the Windy City's Prosperity. (Correspondence of the Courier-Journal.) CHICAGO, April 12.--(article is long, but of limited interest--ed.) T. M. G. There was a wind storm throughout the midwest at that time (1886). An article on April 7, pg. 6, col. 1 is "WIND AND WATER." About "sowing the wind, reaping the whirlwind" that I had found in connection to Chicago's Haymarket crisis in May, an article from El Paso, Texas, April 10, pg. 5, col. 2, is "REAPING THE WHIRLWIND/ Disorderly Strikers to Jail for Their Bad Conduct." I'll probably have to go a little further back in the Louisville Courier- Journal, and also recheck the humor publication TEXAS SIFTINGS. And THEN I'll be done on "Windy City." A different Chicago nickname was found in the Providence Evening Press, 5 April 1875, pg. 1, col. 8: "LETTER FROM CHICAGO./ GROWTH AND PROSPERITY OF THE GOLDEN CITY." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- MAGIC CITY A check of the web shows that Miami, Florida; Birmingham, Alabama; and Minot, North Dakota all currently bill themselves as a "Magic City." One web site shows a Miami "Magic City" post card from the 1920s. I was checking "Windy City" when I found this in the Louisville Courier- Journal, 11 March 1886, pg. 5, col. 4: THE MAGIC CITY. A Very Eulogistic Sketch of Thrifty Little Birmingham. The Alabama City That Will Be a Great Iron Center. BIRMINGHAM, ALA., March 5.--To a stranger the "crackers," or people living in the backwoods settlements of this section, may appear to be a little uncouth, and lacking in some of the vim and push of the real life Yankee, but none the less are they possessed of many traits that are recognized as peculiarly American. A genuine outcropping of this becomes apparent when you hear one of them calling this place "Burningham," and the citizens, in consequence, sometimes gaining from the same lips the very suggestive title of "Burninghammers." This may arise from a quaint sort of helplessness in pronunciation, or from the indifference to such matters generally displayed by backwoodsmen, but more likely it is a case where they dart at once to the designation of all others the most genuinely descriptive and appropriate, though riding rough-shod over all the rules of grammar and "culchah." The truth of its application will be evident when you have a chance to observe the persistent energy with which the "Burninghammers" have been striking the iron while it was hot, and kept constantly so by the enthusiasm of success and prosperity in the upbuilding of their little city... The long article puts "Magic City" in the context of the city's growth like magic, or "upbuilding." (Upbuilding?)...Anyone have an earlier "culchah"? ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 21 Feb 1998 to 22 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/22/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 20 Feb 1998 to 21 Feb 1998 98-02-22 00:00:31 There are 5 messages totalling 185 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. John Dickson Carr and canoodle (2) 2. "poor" for "pore" etc. (2) 3. Computer terms: "cookies" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 02:54:16 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: John Dickson Carr and canoodle Laura Johnson wrote: > I notice someone referred to John Dickson Carr in a paragraph about > British authors. This author was not British at all. He was from > Uniontown, Pennsylvania . . . Yes, of course! My point was that his Great Detective, the one who used the word "canoodle", was supposed to be British -- and his speech peculiarities were supposed to be indicative of Britishisms. At least that's the partial memory I'm trying to recover. -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 10:25:43 -0500 From: Robert Kelly Subject: Re: John Dickson Carr and canoodle Carr, though indeed born in America, spent many years ---thirty at least-- in Britain, writing the greatest of his work there, and his texts are interesting studies of 'mid-Atlantic' dialect--- his lovers canoodle, yes, but his heroes are often young Americans, so Carr can weave his natural language through the stiffer acquired dialect. Interesting that what many regard as the greatest of all his books (The Burning Court) is in fact set in Pennsylvania... ================================================== Robert Kelly Division of Literature and Languages, Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson NY 12504 Voice Mail: 914-758-7600 Box 7205 kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bard.edu On Sat, 21 Feb 1998, Mike Salovesh wrote: > Laura Johnson wrote: > > > I notice someone referred to John Dickson Carr in a paragraph about > > British authors. This author was not British at all. He was from > > Uniontown, Pennsylvania . . . > > Yes, of course! My point was that his Great Detective, the one who used > the word "canoodle", was supposed to be British -- and his speech > peculiarities were supposed to be indicative of Britishisms. > > At least that's the partial memory I'm trying to recover. > > -- mike salovesh > anthropology department > northern illinois university PEACE !!! > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 10:51:11 -0500 From: Gerald Cohen Subject: "poor" for "pore" etc. On Feb. 17 Peter McGraw presented the following interesting information: My aunt once told me about a woman of her acquaintance who would "poor" water out of a pitcher. My aunt said she asked her once what she called people who didn't have any money, and she said, "Oh, you mean pore people?" I have no information as to where this was. I've noticed at least two other instances of similar sound switches. A professor of mine years back told me that a woman he once spoke to made the following derogatory remark about someone lacking upbringing/good manners: "He was barn in a born." Also, there's the well known switch of "oi" for "ir" in some immigrant speech in NYC, e.g. "She's a poil of a goil." But the reverse change occurs in some speakers--those who say "erl" for "oil" (the fuel) and "berl" for "boil." I specifically remember hearing someone say "I berled an egg." I think I also heard this sort of pronunciation from the TV character Archie Bunker. At one point I had been under the impression that sound changes go in only one direction at a time.. A double switch of the type "poor" to "pore" and "pore" to "poor" (in different words) seems to present some sort of an anomaly in this picture. --Gerald Cohen gcohen[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]umr.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 15:20:32 -0500 From: Gregory {Greg} Downing Subject: Computer terms: "cookies" I thought I'd forward this from the Linguist list, since I know there are folks on ADS-L who know about cyberlanguage, and may have comments. Reply to the person in the "From" line below. Greg D./NYU ****************************************************** Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 13:45:49 +0000 From: monika.bruendl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]stud.uni-muenchen.de Subject: Computer terms: "cookies" Dear fellow-linguists, can anyone tell me anything about the etymology resp. the sense development of the computer term "cookie"? One definition I found in "Among The New Words" in American Speech says: "Cookies are bits of computer code that allow a Web page's operators to collect information about each user for later reference." , but I still can't understand the motivation for calling this a cookie. It must be a metaphorical meaning, but what kind of meaning elements are being transferred here? Thank you for your help! Monika Bruendl. Monika Bruendl, M.A. monika.bruendl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]stud.uni-muenchen.de Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 21:45:19 -0600 From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: "poor" for "pore" etc. > On Feb. 17 Peter McGraw presented the following interesting information: > >My aunt once told me about a woman of her acquaintance who would "poor" >water out of a pitcher. My aunt said she asked her once what she >called people who didn't have any money, and she said, "Oh, you mean >pore people?" I have no information as to where this was. -Gerald Cohen wrote on Feb 21: ............. ............. > > At one point I had been under the impression that sound changes go in >only one direction at a time.. A double switch of the type "poor" to >"pore" and "pore" to "poor" (in different words) seems to present some sort >of an anomaly in this picture. pore 'to study carefully' <<== Middle English pouren pore 'opening in tissue' <<== ME pore <<== OF <<== L porus <<== G poros pour 'to make x flow' <<== ME pouren <<==? Old North French purer <<== L purare poor 'with little money' <<== ME poure <<== OF povre <<== L pauper With etymologies such as these, it shouldn't be surprising that considerable variation can be found in pronunciations from early Modern English through contemporary British and American English. The vowels in all of these words were potential candidates for "Great Vowel Shifting" upward or alternatively for "shortening" in lects in which the -r led to checked (closed) syllables. Rather than 'poor' shifting downward, as Jerry suggests, in some lects it never raised from the French [o], whereas the vowel in 'pour' was a high vowel that shiftend down in some lects, whether by some analogical or phonological means. I'm offering hypothetical historical scenarios here, not something based on empirical research. DMLance ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 20 Feb 1998 to 21 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/21/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 19 Feb 1998 to 20 Feb 1998 98-02-21 00:00:40 There are 9 messages totalling 372 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. =?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCJV8layVtJSRLXUx1GyhK?= (2) 2. New ADS Homepage URL (2) 3. Slimed 4. canoodle [long] (3) 5. Definition of "ebonic"? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 10:46:14 +0000 From: Liudmila Kostiukevich Subject: Re: =?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCJV8layVtJSRLXUx1GyhK?= There should be a kind of text here, I guess. L.Kostiukevich On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, ICHIRO OTA wrote: > $BB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ED!w > $B$4$V$5$?$7$F$^$9!# (J > 1 $B7n (J31 $BF|$N%M%*2J8&Js9p2q$G$O$*2q$$$G$-$k$+$H;W$C$F$^$7$?$,!"$$$i$C$7$c $i$J$/ (J > $B$F;DG0$G$7$?!# (J > > $B$5$F!"$4Js9p$,CY$/$J$j$^$7$?$,!" (JObserving and Analysing Natural Language $B!!$N (J > $BK]Lu8"$, $B$H$$$&$3$H$G!"K\5$$G:n6H$r?J$a$J$1$l$P$J$i$J$/$J$j$^$7$?!#!J>P!K (J > > $B>>ED$5$s$K$bF~$C$F$b$i$C$?$3$H$G$9$7!"$^$?>>ED$5$s$+$i$NMWK>$b$"$C$F!" (J > $B0lEYA40w$=$m$C$F2q9g$r3+$3$&$+$H;W$C$F$$$^$9!# (J > $BFbMF$OLu8l!"BN:[Ey$NE}0l$9$k$H$$$&$3$H$,Cf?4$K$J$k$+$H;W$$$^$9!# (J > $B$=$NB>$K$b$$$m$$$m$HOC$79g$C$F$*$/$Y$-$3$H$,$"$k$+$b$7$l$^$;$s!# (J > $B$*5$$E$-$KE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$O$*CN$i$;$/$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$5$$!# (J > > $BF|Dx$G$9$,!"#37n2<=\$K$H9M$($F$$$^$9!# (J > $B?XFb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]h[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]8$,$?$7$+ (J24.25 $BF|$,$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$a$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$H$*$C$7$c$C$F$$$^$7$?$,!"$=$N$"$H$K$I $&$+$H (J > $B9M$($F$$$^$9!# (J > $B%m%s%0$5$s$N$4ET9g$r$*J9$+$;$/$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$5$$$^$;$s$+!# (J > > $B$=$l$+$i!"2q9g$G$"$l$P!"$I$3$+>l=j$,I,MW$K$J$j$^$9!# (J > $B;d0J30$NJ}!9$O4X[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]>$K$*=;$^$$$G$9$N$G!"$I$3$+$*It20$r$4Ds6!4j$($l$P$H;W$C$F$ $ (J > $B$^$9!# (J > $BBg:e>[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]0~$G$N2DG=[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]-$O$I$&$G$7$g$&$+!) (J > $B$3$NE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$b$h$m$7$1$l$P$*D4$Y$$$?$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$1$l$P9,$$$G$9!# (J > > $B$G$O!"$h$m$7$/$*4j$$$$$?$7$^$9!# (J > ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 18:02:29 +0900 From: ICHIRO OTA Subject: Re: =?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCJV8layVtJSRLXUx1GyhK?= > There should be a kind of text here, I guess. > > L.Kostiukevich > > On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, ICHIRO OTA wrote: > > $BB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ED!w Subject: New ADS Homepage URL The ADS homepage has moved to http://www.jerrynet.com/ads/index.htm. Please change your bookmarks. I'd like to thank the new webmaster, Grant Barrett for the work he's already done in getting the new site ready. All correspondence regarding the web page should be sent to Grant at gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]jerrynet.com. Diane Lillie Outgoing Webmaster ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 14:31:13 -0500 From: Fred Shapiro Subject: Slimed Karen Lubell asked about the political usage of _slimed_. The earliest occurrence yielded by a Westlaw search is an op-ed piece by David Nyhan in the Boston Globe, Dec. 3, 1987. Nyhan wrote, "Ted Kennedy ... knows something about running for president, and even more about getting slimed by the press." The second earliest occurrence I can find is in U.S. News & World Report, June 20, 1988: "If [House Speaker Jim] Wright were a ghostbuster, he'd say he's been slimed. But as the new sleaze pinup for the GOP, he can't say much of anything." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Coeditor (with Jane Garry) Associate Librarian for Public Services TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD and Lecturer in Legal Research ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES Yale Law School Oxford University Press, 1998 e-mail: fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu ISBN 0-19-509547-2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 15:13:34 EST From: Allan Metcalf Subject: Re: New ADS Homepage URL Thanks to Diane for keeping us on our Web feet for the past year! And thanks to Grant for taking it on. With his expertise, I hope we'll have the January ADS newsletter on our website shortly. It's in the first-class s-mail, by the way, to all ADS members today. If you're missing out because you're not a member, drop me a note. . . . - Allan Metcalf Executive Secretary American Dialect Society ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 15:30:04 +0000 From: Jim Rader Subject: Re: canoodle [long] Ms. Lubell-- Seeing that you sent a query about the etymology of _canoodle_ both to this office (left on an editor's voicemail) and the list, I will reply to both at the same time. Sorry if this is too late for your deadlines. An article by B.J. Whiting that appeared in _American Speech_ in 1945 seems to have been overlooked in the recent discussion of this word. Whiting pointed out that the acceptance of _canoodle_ as an Americanism in the standard dictionaries was questionable. The English journalist George Augustus Sala, in the first cite for the word (spelled _conoodle_) in 1859, ascribed it "to our American cousins," though Sala had never visited the U.S. at that time and had no direct acquaintance with American English. None of the early evidence for the word or its derivatives in the OED is demonstrably American. Bret Harte used the word in an 1897 story, though Harte had not resided in the U.S. since 1878. Merriam files have only scattered evidence for the word before the 1970's, and nothing to suggest it is an Americanism. A cite from the 1909 supplement to the _Century Dictionary_ looks British. The word was used in the October, 1925 issue of _The American Mercury_, but apparently in the sense "sing off-key" ("...and the sweet songs of John McClure and Sara Teasdale, and the harsh canoodling of the Greenwich Villagers"); this usage is a hapax as far as I can tell. _Notes & Queries_ for Sept. 3, 1927, recorded it as "Nottingham dialect" for "to cuddle." The word was current in Australia in 1928, to judge from a cite from the _New South Wales Bulletin_ for Sept. 26 ("This fuss over the possibility of the Alsatian dog canoodling with lady dingoes annoys me. There is no wolf strain in the breed, as is commonly supposed.") The next cite is from the Aug. 11, 1945 issue of the AMA _Journal_ ("A canoe is not built for canoodling and should only be taken when you want to get somewhere"); then from _The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith_ (1945) by the British novelist Bruce Marshall (1899-1987) ("...the best way of dealing with lovers when found canoodling in church doors"); then from the Apr. 30, 1949 _Saturday Review_ ("Plenty of local color, ample action, drinking, and canoodling"); then from the novel _Beat the Devil_ (1953) by the British writer Claud Cockburn (1904-81), using the pseudonym James Helvick ("...she...stretched out her hand to touch Dannreuther's arm. ('There was more bloody canoodling,' reported the major.)". Finally, there are "two lovebirds canoodling in a cage" in _Animal Psychology_ (1961) by the British veterinarian R.H. Smythe. A note in our etymology file by Harold Bender, etymologist for W34, comes to the conclusion that the word is not an Americanism, from the occurrence of a derivative in the novel _A Tale of Two Villages_: "I have found in Ethel Sidgwick's "A Tale of Two Villages," N.Y. and London, 1931, p. 214: 'She was not a bad sort, old Clo...better than Cutler's one, the canoodly sister.' I should say, from the story, that the word means here 'flirtatious, sentimental, soft.' The story is written by an Englishwoman and laid in rural England, with careful local color and vocabulary." B.J. Whiting considered the word "at least obsolescent" in 1945, though in a 1947 note in _American Speech_ he pointed out a couple recent American uses of the word, one in a variant form _kidoodling_. The word reappears strongly in the 1970's, about evenly divided between British and American publications in our cites, and has been fairly current ever since. It attracted the attention of Thomas Middleton, who wrote about words in those years for _Saturday Review_. Our files only contain extracts of what Middleton said about _canoodle_ (I have not yet looked up the actual articles). He quotes extensively from a letter from W.E. Umbach, the etymologist for Webster's New World: -After having identified the word as definitely an Americanism, dated -in one of Mencken's works in the early 1850s and located by him as an -expression common in the Missouri-Mississippi basin, I began to -consider the likelihood of Mencken's explanation--that it is an -American extravagant invention created on the frontier. It occurred -to me that I might consider the possibility of borrowing from one of -the languages which have contributed to the American vocabulary...But -I referred to the old _Muret-Sanders Encyclopedic Dictionary_ and -found, to my delight, _knudeln_, defined as 'to cuddle.'....It is -almost impossible to escape the conclusion that it was one of the -German words brought by German immigrants who came to the -Missouri-Mississippi basin in the years following the Revolution of -1848.... Unfortunately, Umbach does not say where Mencken wrote this. It's not in _The American Language_, where Mencken says nothing about the date or locale of the word. In the light of the citational evidence set out above, I am very dubious about _canoodle_ as an Americanism. If it is not an Americanism, the _knudeln_ etymology is extremely weak, despite the surface correspondence in sound and sense. W3 based its etymology on the entry in Wright's _English Dialect Dictionary_, which has the following under _canoodle_: -CANOODLE, sb. Som[erset]. A donkey; also applied to persons. w.Som. -N & Q. (1879) 5th S. xi. 197. e.Som. Used also fig. of one who makes -love foolishly or 'spooneys' [sic--JLR] (G.S. [George Sweetman, -Wright's east Somerset correspondent--JLR]) [Not known to our -correspondents in w.Som.] Interestingly, the _Survey of English Dialects: the Dictionary and Grammar_, based on Orton's survey, has an entry _canuter_ for "donkey" from Devonshire. This is surely in the same family as _canoodle_ from Somersetshire, though the SED dictionary editors append the peculiar note: "SBM headword queried as _cornutor_, but more probably formed on Canute, English king with reputation for obstinacy." Basing the form of a lemma on off-the-cuff etymologizing doesn't seem like a good idea.... The association of donkeys with foolishness and lovesickness must be the basis for connecting the two senses, though it seems rather tenuous. A similar relation may hold between _spoon_ "simpleton", _spoony_ "sentimentally foolish" and _spoon_ "to caress, pet"--maybe. All in all, though, the OED and RHHDAS are probably wise to stick with "origin unknown" for _canoodle_. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 16:07:20 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: Re: canoodle [long] Jim Rader wrote: > Ms. Lubell-- > > Seeing that you sent a query about the etymology of _canoodle_ both > to this office (left on an editor's voicemail) and the list, I will > reply to both at the same time. Sorry if this is too late for your > deadlines. > > An article by B.J. Whiting that appeared in _American Speech_ in 1945 > seems to have been overlooked in the recent discussion of this word. > Whiting pointed out that the acceptance of _canoodle_ as an > Americanism in the standard dictionaries was questionable. When the thread on "canoodle" began, I had a vague memory of running across that word in a different context: classic mystery novels by British authors. The recollection is getting stronger, but I haven't identified the source . . . the word was put in the mouth of a "great detective" character with lots of persona-setting individual speech mannerisms (and, as I recall, a large middle reminiscent of Nero Wolfe). I'm pretty sure that the author was John Dickson Carr/ Carter Dickson. (Same author, two noms de plume.) Following up on this lead, I just talked to a colleague who collects mystery novels. She couldn't help with a Carr/Dickson cite (partly because she doesn't like locked-room mysteries in the first place), but she suggests that her only familiarity with the word canoodle comes out of the British side of the Atlantic. She has the impression that the word does turn up in mysteries by several British authors writing in the 1920s/1930s. Nope, no citations came to mind. I'll keep following this lead until my curiosity bone stops itching. Just thought I'd pass it on FWIW. Anyhow, I really DO like the Dickson/Carr oeuvre. It will be fun to go back to it. -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 21:40:49 EST From: Laura Johnson Subject: Re: canoodle [long] Total newbie here who has somehow gotten on this list by accident in trying to subscribe to another list on a completely unrelated topic. I notice someone referred to John Dickson Carr in a paragraph about British authors. This author was not British at all. He was from Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and when he and my mother were kids, she knew him by name and by sight. Uniontown is a smallish town in the southwest of the state, not too far from Pittsburgh, and since I seem to have accidentally dropped into a list on dialect, you might be aware that there were some regional words there. The side of the road was the berm, not the shoulder, and we'd toodle, or maybe tootle on over instead of come on over. We kids would rootsch around, whereas other kids would fidget. We'd momix things up, while other people would mess and mix things up. I heard my mother use these words, but I never heard them from anyone else until I met someone from Uniontown who spoke of the words peculiar to that area. This is all I can think of on the spur of the moment. And now I will go and try to find out what happened to the list I was trying to subscribe to. But if you don't mind, I'd like to stick around here on your list for a while, because language and dialects are of great interest to me. Laura _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 23:02:33 -0500 From: "Bethany K. Dumas" Subject: Definition of "ebonic"? I just received a post from someone on another list with the ff. text embedded in it; please note the use of "ebonic vocabulary and structure." (I don't think that Robert Hall is resposible for this!) > I took a linguistics course or two at Cornellin the early 70's when I > was studying French and comparative literature -- Robert Hall was still > around then. In a French philology course he gave us one factoid that > has truly stuck with me, that there are at least 4 usage levels in any > literate culture: formal standard (educated people writing), informal > standard (educated people talking), informal substandard (what my > criminal and neglect clients use, with "ebonic" vocabulary and ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > structure*), and best of all, formal substandard, found in every police ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > report I've ever read. Bethany ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 19 Feb 1998 to 20 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/19/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 17 Feb 1998 to 18 Feb 1998 98-02-19 00:01:17 There are 10 messages totalling 193 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. "gool" for "goal" (2) 2. bean bag (2) 3. "doubled perfect" (4) 4. dish (n.) = gossip 5. [ha:di] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 08:58:10 -0600 From: Thomas Creswell Subject: Re: "gool" for "goal" In my southside Chicago 1920's childhood, when playing hide and seek, the child who was "it" would hide his eyes and count up to 100 by fives then cry out, "Here I come, ready or not. All around gool's it." "Gool" referred to the tree truink or whatever the it child leaned against to hide his eyes while counting. "It", of course meant "the child who must count and then seek for others who were hiding. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 11:23:01 -0500 From: Karen Lubell Subject: Re: bean bag Since beanbag seemed to be a political term, I checked Safire's Political Dictionary, and came up with what might be the origin of the term. The following is on page 46-47: "His early experience,' wrote Finley Peter Dunne of his creation, saloon-keeping philosopher Mr. Dooley, "gave him wisdom in discussing public affairs. 'Politics,' he says, 'ain't beanbag. 'Tis a man's game; an' women, childher, an' pro-hybitionists'd do well to keep out iv it." The above quotation is taken from the preface to "Mr. Dooley in Peace and War," published in 1898; it had been used earlier by Dunne, on October 5, 1895, in an essay in the Chicago Evening Post. A beanbag is a cloth bag partly filled with beans (or, more recently, plastic beads), easily catchable, used in a children's game of the same name. In Mr. Dooley's use, the child's play made a dramatic comparison with a man's game, and has been used for that purpose ever since (though the "man's game" has recently been replaced by HARDBALL). "Carter's flaw as a political leader," wrote Jack Germond and Jules Witcover in a column that appeared in the Washington Starr on September 14, 1977, "has always been his massive self-assurance, his total confidence that no one would believe him capable of political knavery or personal weakness. But in the Bert Lance case, what was in question was his sophistication. And, as Mr. Dooley told us long ago, politics ain't beanbag." At 04:18 PM 2/17/98 -0500, you wrote: > Wonderful cites, Mr. Kane! It may be, in fact, that I misheard > "beanbag" as "beanbaggin'"--the gerund form wouldn't be used, right? > I assume the original ref. is to a simple kids' game, kind of like > hacky-sack (ever heard of that one?). > > (Hmmm, I read _The Nation_; wonder how I missed "beanbag"?!) > > Karen Lubell Researcher William Safire's "On Language" The New York Times ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 12:10:24 -0500 From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: bean bag At 11:23 AM -0500 2/18/98, Karen Lubell wrote: >... > "Carter's flaw as a political leader," wrote Jack Germond and Jules >Witcover in a column that appeared in the Washington Starr on September 14, >1977, "has always been his massive self-assurance,... > "the Washington Starr" indeed. Hmph. Let's watch that retroactive investigative imperialism, shall we? Talk about overreach... Larry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 12:59:41 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: "gool" for "goal" If by 'pour' you mean [pur], we didn't say that in Minnesota for either 'pour water' or 'poor people' (though the likelihood of [pur] would be greater with 'poor'). I think I switched to [pur] for 'poor' as I got (hyper?)educated; in southern Ohio I use either form and no longer worry about it. (A reverse corollary is that I no longer strain to say [ruf] for 'roof'; Northern [rUf] is OK again, after all those years of switching.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:08:44 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: "doubled perfect" We've had some discussion recently of words like "drownded". What would you call them? Here's a data point that just came up on another list I subscribe to: I stay side tracted in my cleaning . Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:32:43 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: "doubled perfect" 'Side trac(k)ted' _may_ arise from a confusion of 'track' and 'tract'; thus the latter becomes regular past/p.p. 'tracted.' Admittedly, I haven't heard 'tract' used as a verb, but we had a former colleague (no names) who said and wrote 'tract' for our dual-track linguistics program: thus, we have a theoretical tract and an applied tract. Anyone else ever encounter this?! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:56:45 -0500 From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: "doubled perfect" At 2:32 PM -0500 2/18/98, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > 'Side trac(k)ted' _may_ arise from a confusion of 'track' and 'tract'; > thus the latter becomes regular past/p.p. 'tracted.' Admittedly, I > haven't heard 'tract' used as a verb, but we had a former colleague (no > names) who said and wrote 'tract' for our dual-track linguistics > program: thus, we have a theoretical tract and an applied tract. > Anyone else ever encounter this?! I've heard/seen both tenure tract and digestive track. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 15:58:07 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: dish (n.) = gossip Re. 'dish': _Newsweek_ this week noted that Monica L. and her mother love to dish and shop (or was it dishing and shopping?). Interesting collocation.... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 13:57:20 -0800 From: Peter Richardson Subject: Re: "doubled perfect" ...and let's not forget that which binds modern civilization together: duct tape. In my local farm supply store there's a stack of the stuff with a wooden cutout of a duck on top. Peter Richardson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 17:59:12 +0100 From: naida gonzalez Subject: Re: [ha:di] How do i drop from this mailing list? Please help! ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 17 Feb 1998 to 18 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/18/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 16 Feb 1998 to 17 Feb 1998 98-02-18 00:00:19 There are 12 messages totalling 341 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. [ha:di] 2. =?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCJV8layVtJSRLXUx1GyhK?= (2) 3. Magic City (Miami? Orlando? Fort Worth?) 4. flattening (2) 5. "gool" for "goal" (3) 6. bean bag (2) 7. US/NIS Curriculum Development Exchange Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 00:13:49 EST From: David Carlson Subject: Re: [ha:di] Thanks, Don. That was what I wanted. Flattening certainly rolls off the tongue more smoothly than monophthongization. I'll introduce it my students with the caveat that it is not official or proper or technical vocabulary. Re the flattening of the au diphthong: this is (was) common to me in my youth when many of my Roman Catholic friends referred to the Lord's Prayer as the [a:] Father. The professor of linguistics I had in grad school at UMass thought that Archbishop Cushing ruined JFK's funeral when he intoned [a:] Father. David R. Carlson 34 Spaulding St. Amherst MA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 14:18:46 +0900 From: ICHIRO OTA Subject: =?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCJV8layVtJSRLXUx1GyhK?= $BB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ED!wP!K (J $B>>ED$5$s$K$bF~$C$F$b$i$C$?$3$H$G$9$7!"$^$?>>ED$5$s$+$i$NMWK>$b$"$C$F!" (J $B0lEYA40w$=$m$C$F2q9g$r3+$3$&$+$H;W$C$F$$$^$9!# (J $BFbMF$OLu8l!"BN:[Ey$NE}0l$9$k$H$$$&$3$H$,Cf?4$K$J$k$+$H;W$$$^$9!# (J $B$=$NB>$K$b$$$m$$$m$HOC$79g$C$F$*$/$Y$-$3$H$,$"$k$+$b$7$l$^$;$s!# (J $B$*5$$E$-$KE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$O$*CN$i$;$/$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$5$$!# (J $BF|Dx$G$9$,!"#37n2<=\$K$H9M$($F$$$^$9!# (J $B?XFb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]h[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]8$,$?$7$+ (J24.25 $BF|$,$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$a$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$H$*$C$7$c$C$F$$$^$7$?$,!"$=$N$"$H$K$I$& $+$H (J $B9M$($F$$$^$9!# (J $B%m%s%0$5$s$N$4ET9g$r$*J9$+$;$/$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$5$$$^$;$s$+!# (J $B$=$l$+$i!"2q9g$G$"$l$P!"$I$3$+>l=j$,I,MW$K$J$j$^$9!# (J $B;d0J30$NJ}!9$O4X[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]>$K$*=;$^$$$G$9$N$G!"$I$3$+$*It20$r$4Ds6!4j$($l$P$H;W$C$F$$ (J $B$^$9!# (J $BBg:e>[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]0~$G$N2DG=[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]-$O$I$&$G$7$g$&$+!) (J $B$3$NE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$b$h$m$7$1$l$P$*D4$Y$$$?$[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]$1$l$P9,$$$G$9!# (J $B$G$O!"$h$m$7$/$*4j$$$$$?$7$^$9!# (J ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 14:23:26 +0900 From: ICHIRO OTA Subject: Re: =?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCJV8layVtJSRLXUx1GyhK?= I am very sorry to send a private letter to ADS. ======================= Ichiro Ota Department of Humanites Kagoshima University JAPAN ======================= ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 00:07:40 -0600 From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Magic City (Miami? Orlando? Fort Worth?) > (Brownsville, Texas)--Metropolis of the "Magic Valley." All 25+ cities in the Magic Valley of Texas use this term. Brownsville is the largest city in the Valley (which is a delta rather than a valley). I think other areas, perhaps in California and other states, also have used the term "Magic Valley." Local Hispanics pun and call it "el valle tra'gico." DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:47:12 +0000 From: David Bergdahl Subject: flattening Pittsburgh is famous for its monophthongal versions of {AU} esp. on the [sa:t saId]; the shibboleth {downtown} is used to discriminate true south-siders from pretenders. -- _____________________________________________________________________ david.bergdahl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ohiou.edu Ohio University / Athens http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl Ellis Hall 114c tel: (740) 593-2783 Office hours: fax: (740) 593-2818 MTThF 10:10-11 a.m. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:47:43 -0500 From: Robert Kelly Subject: Re: flattening a query on Pittsburgh: a dear friend of mine from the outskirts (SW) of that city always realizes gold as Gould, and goal (as in hockey) is homophonous with ghoul. Is that idiolect, or common, or basic to the city or its purlieus? Since fifth is fift in her speech (as in my university professor friends from eastern Ohio), matching the sa:t for South of the posting, I'm led to ask. Thanks. RK ================================================== Robert Kelly Division of Literature and Languages, Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson NY 12504 Voice Mail: 914-758-7600 Box 7205 kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bard.edu On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, David Bergdahl wrote: > Pittsburgh is famous for its monophthongal versions of {AU} esp. on > the [sa:t saId]; the shibboleth {downtown} is used to discriminate > true south-siders from pretenders. > -- > _____________________________________________________________________ > david.bergdahl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ohiou.edu Ohio University / Athens > http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl Ellis Hall 114c > tel: (740) 593-2783 Office hours: > fax: (740) 593-2818 MTThF 10:10-11 a.m. > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 13:34:12 -0600 From: Joan Houston Hall Subject: Re: "gool" for "goal" DARE shows the pronunciation "gool" to be chiefly North. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:09:27 -0500 From: "Bernard W. Kane" Subject: bean bag At 03:22 PM 2/16/98 -0500, Beverley Flanigan wrote: > On "Face the Nation" yesterday, somebody described the grilling > procedure (pun intended) of grand juries as "It ain't beanbagging." > Source and connotation, anyone? I have related usage: "Character may be fate but, as Al Lowenstein tried to teach him [Bob Kerrey] at the beginning, politics ain't beanbag." THE NEW REPUBLIC January 20, 1992 "Robert S. Strauss, the American Ambassador to Russia...told Congress that the absence of any serious debate on the question of aid to Russia was 'just shocking.' 'This ain't beanbag we're playing,' he said. "These are big-time issues." THE NEW YORK TIMES March 15, 1992 "Admittedly, and in the irritating phrase of the moment, $75,000 'ain't beanbag.' But nor is it very much money in return for committing the Democratic Party to a harder line on Cuba." THE NATION. June 8, 1992 "Proposition 174 is shaping up as the focus of a multimillion dollar battle...Howard Ahmanson, who calls himself a 'fundamentalist Episcopalian' and has been a deep pocket for the Christian right, gave $75,000. They are not just playing beanbag." THE NATION. October 4, 1993 (subhead in big boldface type:)"but it's not beanbag" "One source close to [investigator] Fiske says, 'It [the Steiner diary]'s not the Nixon tapes, but it ain't beanbag.'" TIME April 4, 1994 "And what of those 'powerful forces' who resent his winning the presidency? Is politics a contact sport, or bean bag? Of course 'forces' prowl and scheme along Pennsylvania Avenue." TIME May 23, 1994 In sum: DEF = something nugatory, insignificant BUT most often in negative: not bean bag = NOT to be disregarded not play bean bag = to be extremely serious; playing for money; playing for all the marbles NOTE frequently in political context ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:18:52 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: bean bag Wonderful cites, Mr. Kane! It may be, in fact, that I misheard "beanbag" as "beanbaggin'"--the gerund form wouldn't be used, right? I assume the original ref. is to a simple kids' game, kind of like hacky-sack (ever heard of that one?). (Hmmm, I read _The Nation_; wonder how I missed "beanbag"?!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 18:01:42 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: "gool" for "goal" I never thought I'd hear the pronunciation of 'goal' as 'gool' (=ghoul) again--we said it in Minnesota, but I haven't heard it for 30 years or more. I associate it with my parents' generation, dying out in my own, and dead now. I've asked my students from up North (Minnesota and Cleveland) as well as from Pittsburgh and central PA, and no one has heard 'gool." I wonder if the Pittsburgh speaker was a Northerner by birth, and perhaps older? A possible variant is [gUl], with a lax vowel (maybe even a schwa), which I understand is Scots-Irish (so says a colleague from London); but where did [gul] come from? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 18:16:49 -0500 From: Kate Polzin Subject: US/NIS Curriculum Development Exchange Program US/NIS CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM The International Research & Exchanges Board is currently accepting applications for the United States Information Agency Curriculum Development Exchange Program (CDEP). CDEP is a two-way exchange designed to foster democratization and educational reform in the New Independent States (NIS) through the provision of four-month consultations and curricula development programs to educators and advanced graduate students in the humanities and social sciences from the United States or Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. CDEP participants are affiliated with host universities in the United States or the NIS, and participate in graduate seminars concerning methodology and content of their specific fields of study, consult with department faculty on course design and teaching materials, and lead part of graduate or undergraduate courses to advance their own teaching skills. ***************************************************** Opportunities for US Educators and Advanced Graduate Students: ***************************************************** Eligible candidates are US citizens affiliated with a college or university as a faculty member or doctoral candidate; able to function successfully in Russian or other NIS language; experienced in designing and revising curricula in their academic discipline; and able to participate during fall 1998. Grant provisions include round-trip travel to NIS host institution, supplemental medical insurance, pre-arranged housing, living stipend and limited allowance for teaching materials. A limited number of grants are available for short-term consulting trips (please inquire regarding eligibility). **************************************************** Opportunities for US Host Institutions ***************************************************** NIS educators and advanced graduate students have already been selected through an open competition for the Curriculum Development Exchange Program. Accredited colleges and universities are invited to apply to host these participants for one semester during fall 1998. NIS participants' travel and living expenses are paid; participants also receive medical insurance and allowances for professional development activities and teaching materials. Host institutions are required to allow participants to observe graduate level pedagogy or field specific courses, appoint an appropriate faculty member as a mentor, and provide training in and access to email and the Internet. The deadline for US participant and host applications is February 27, 1998. Application materials, guidelines, and award criteria are available via the IREX website at http://www.irex.org/grants/cdep/. For further information regarding the Curriculum Development Exchange Program, please contact IREX at (202) 628-8188 or irex[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]irex.org. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:58:07 +0000 From: Peter McGraw Subject: Re: "gool" for "goal" Do speakers who have this feature have a similar one before r? My aunt once told me about a woman of her acquaintance who would "poor" water out of a pitcher. My aunt said she asked her once what she called people who didn't have any money, and she said, "Oh, you mean pore people?" I have no information as to where this was. ---------------------- Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]linfield.edu ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 16 Feb 1998 to 17 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/17/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 15 Feb 1998 to 16 Feb 1998 98-02-17 00:01:47 There are 8 messages totalling 252 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. John's = John's family=John's folks 2. Online Dictionary of Street Drug Slang 3. civil disobedience (2) 4. new phrases? 5. internet language 6. E-0ops: ADS newsletter on the web 7. Magic City (Miami? Orlando? Fort Worth?) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 09:32:52 +0000 From: Peter McGraw Subject: Re: John's = John's family=John's folks The usage was alive in rural Iowa at least as late as my grandparents' generation. On a visit there in the late 60s I noticed my great aunt (wife of a hog farmer by then retired to Knoxville) referring to her sons and their families as "Verlin's" and "Dale's." My father (who grew up in Des Moines) confirms that the usage was not idiosyncratic, but fairly widespread, though mostly rural. I happened to mention this to a colleague in Dayton, Ohio, one time, and she said, "Yes--I hate that!" I didn't follow up and ask where she had heard it, but since she had no connection with Iowa, I assume it is, or was, more generally Midwestern. Peter On Sun, 15 Feb 1998 14:56:57 EST "(Dale F. Coye)" wrote: > My Pennsylvania Dutch inlaws refer to their respective families by the > genitive alone: "When John's come to visit..." meaning John, his wife > and children. I don't know how widespread this is and don't even know > how to look it up in DARE. Is it there? Where I come from (Central > New York) the old- timers would say "John's folks" which is listed in > DARE, but there is a nuance to it I noted recently: it can also refer > to just the husband and wife: "We went over to John's folks" -- but > John and his wife live alone. > > Dale Coye > The College of NJ ---------------------- Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]linfield.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 13:58:40 -0500 From: Grant Barrett Subject: Online Dictionary of Street Drug Slang I don't think this link has passed our way before, Online dictionary of street drug slang: http://www.drugs.indiana.edu/slang/home.html Grant Barrett gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]jerrynet.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 14:23:15 -0500 From: Larry Rosenwald Subject: civil disobedience Hi - in the Princeton edition of Thoreau's Reform Papers, Wendell Glick, the editor, claims that the phrase "civil disobedience" is used for the first time as the later title of Thoreau's famous essay. (Glick makes this claim in passing - what he's interested in figuring out is whether the title is likely to have been Thoreau's own, given that the essay wasn't published under this title till after Thoreau's death.) Is this true? The essay was published under this title in 1866. The reason I'm interested, by the way, is this - I'm writing an essay about Thoreau's essay, and if the title "civil disobedience" was a new coinage, that fact would be important to me in thinking about how the title was understood by its contemporary readers. If there's a reference book that answers this question, please forgive my ignorance and just send me there. Best, Larry Rosenwald, Wellesley College ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 15:22:51 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: new phrases? Another "not too bright" phrase, just encountered in a _New Yorker_ review of a new play called "Griller," about a barbeque fiend: The protagonist has a mother-in-law who's "a few sandwiches short of a picnic." On "Face the Nation" yesterday, somebody described the grilling procedure (pun intended) of grand juries as "It ain't beanbagging." Source and connotation, anyone? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 16:01:46 EST From: Boyd Subject: Re: internet language To add to Jeutonne's comments: you might want to look at notions of contact and change in the virtual world as they undergird some of the issues about telling newbies from habitues. Lexical items are very easy to pick up and sprinkle about, even when not always used with precision. J & I find that people writing to each other in the virtual universe adapt a number of their face-to-face strategies to the medium, but within the preferences they have as individuals. They interact in a variety of interesting ways, from the lexi- con up through the macroproposition. This is part of the reason that J & I think e-discourse, at least in asynchronous conferencing (and other asynch. interactions), is register-ial. You might want to check writings on this topic by Kathleen Ferrara or Harriet Wilkins. Hope this helps -- Boyd Davis ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 17:02:52 -0500 From: Gregory {Greg} Downing Subject: Re: civil disobedience At 02:23 PM 2/16/98 -0500, you wrote: > Hi - in the Princeton edition of Thoreau's Reform Papers, Wendell >Glick, the editor, claims that the phrase "civil disobedience" is used for >the first time as the later title of Thoreau's famous essay. (Glick makes >this claim in passing - what he's interested in figuring out is whether the >title is likely to have been Thoreau's own, given that the essay wasn't >published under this title till after Thoreau's death.) Is this true? The >essay was published under this title in 1866.... > > Best, Larry Rosenwald, Wellesley College > FWIW, OED2 attests nothing earlier, and comments thus (at civil a.): 3c. civil disobedience: the refusal to obey the laws, tax demands, etc., of a government as part of a political campaign. Thoreau's essay (see quot. 1866) was entitled `Resistance to Civil Government' when first published in =C6sthetic Papers, ed. E. Peabody= (1849). 1866 Thoreau Yankee in Canada 123 (title) Civil disobedience **** That is the earliest of the ten cites in OED2 of "c.d." Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 17:07:21 EST From: Allan Metcalf Subject: E-0ops: ADS newsletter on the web Sorry to have stuffed everyone's mailboxes with a mailing that I intended just for the ADS webmaster. But now you all know that the latest ADS newsletter is done. It's at the printer; should be in the first-class mail to all ADS members by the end of the week. So you'll have it shortly the old-fashioned way. PageMaker 6.5 is able to convert a publication to HTML. That's what I did, and then sent the HTML version as an attachment - intended specifically for Diane Lillie, but inadvertently sent to the whole ADS-L. I suppose if you have web- page-creating software, you could use it to make something coherent of the download. Or maybe not. I'm just beginning to get my web feet wet. - Allan Metcalf ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 17:08:07 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: Magic City (Miami? Orlando? Fort Worth?) "They call it (Miami) the Magic City." --60 MINUTES (CBS tv show), 15 February 1998. Miami is the Magic City? Why? Isn't Orlando the Magic City? After all, doesn't it have a basketball team called the Orlando Magic? And Disneyworld? A search of the usual suspects (OED, DARE, RHHDAS, DA, Mencken) fails to give any help at all on "Magic City." However, research shows that "Magic City" is actually the most popular of American city nicknames, followed by "Wonder City" and "Gate City." The earliest citation I have is this, from the Baltimore Sun, 22 September 1884, pg. 1, col. 4: THE MAGIC CITY OF TEXAS.--Fort Worth is styled the "Magic City" of Texas, and with good reason. In 1880 its population was 6,600, whilst a recently completed census shows that it has now 22,189, an increase since 1876 of 21,000. In 1880 the assessed valuation of property was $1,509,043, whilst now it is $5,341,090, being an increase for the past year of $1,489,317. Thus, a city is not "magic" because it can pull a rabbit out of a hat or name your card. It's "magic" because it grows like magic out of next to nothing. Here are some others: 1890 (Cheyenne, Wyoming)--A newspaper was THE MAGIC CITY RECORD. 1893 (Pawnee, Oklahoma)--A newspaper in this town was also called MAGIC CITY RECORD. 1894 (Chicago, Illinois)--More than one book called the city that hosted the Columbian Exposition THE MAGIC CITY. There was also a Chicago newspaper by this title. 1898 (South Omaha, Nebraska)--The local newspaper was the MAGIC CITY HOOF AND HORN. 1902 (Dubuque, Iowa)--The local newspaper was THE MAGIC CITY. 1908 (Minot, North Dakota)--The local newspaper was the MAGIC CITY DEMOCRAT. 1933 (Chicago, Illinois)--A book was titled THE MAGIC CITY: JOHN & JANE AT THE WORLD'S FAIR (Century of Progress International Exposition, 1933-1934). 1940 (San Francisco, California)--A book was called TREASURE ISLAND, "THE MAGIC CITY," 1939-1940; THE STORY OF THE GOLDEN GATE INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION. 1942--Using the American Thesaurus of Slang, we see: (Miami, Florida)--City of Opportunities, Magic City, Wonder City of the World. (Birmingham, Alabama)--Magic City, Magic City of the South. (Anniston, Alabama)--City of Churches, Magic City. (Moberly, Missouri)--Magic City. (Billings, Montana)--Magic City. (Brownsville, Texas)--Metropolis of the "Magic Valley." 1960 (Miami, Florida)--The Dade County Planning Department published MAGIC CITY CENTER PLAN FOR ACTION; A GENERAL FRAMEWORK FOR REVITALIZING THE CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT, MIAMI, FLORIDA. 1963 (Marceline, Missouri)--The NYPL has a pamphlet titled THE MAGIC CITY, MARCELINE, MISSOURI, DIAMOND JUBILEE CELEBRATION, JUNE 29 to JULY 4, 1963. 1967 (Cheyenne, Wyoming)--A book by the Centennial Historical Committee was CHEYENNE, THE MAGIC CITY OF THE PLAINS. 1972 (Moberly, Missouri)--The local newspaper was the MAGIC CITY FREE PRESS. 1973 (Los Angeles, California)--Sun Ra's song THE MAGIC CITY refers to L.A. 1976 (Minot, North Dakota)--A local newspaper was called THE MAGIC CITY SUN. 1977 (Millinochee, Maine)--A book called MAGIC CITY DOCTOR was about this town. 1981 (Miami, Florida)--A book was published by Arva Moore Parks called THE MAGIC CITY--MIAMI. 1982 (San Diego, California)--A book was called BALBOA PARK EXPOSITIONS, 1915-1936; THE MAGIC CITY, A BOOK OF DAYS. That's a lot of magic, but those little elves can get around. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 15 Feb 1998 to 16 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/16/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 14 Feb 1998 to 15 Feb 1998 98-02-16 00:00:06 This message contains more text than QuickMail can display. The entire message has been enclosed as a file. There are 19 messages totalling 2012 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. [ha:di] 2. Yellow dog Democrats (3) 3. ADS newsletter on the web? 4. Cost of living 5. Treasure State (Montana); Sooner State (Oklahoma) 6. V.P.; H.Q.; O.I.C.; Weazel; Foozle; Vast right-wing conspiracy 7. Hello (again) 8. Newspaper terms (possible "bulldog" edition) 9. John's = John's family=John's folks 10. Bootleg; Canoodle 11. "nudeln", "knudeln", & "canoodle" 12. internet language (4) 13. Clarus est! "Knudeln" IS the source of "Canoodle" 14. "Blue Dog" Democrat ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 23:07:44 -0600 From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: [ha:di] David R. Carlson wrote: >... But then, I'm unfamiliar with the term used to describe the >process.... > >Nevertheless, the vowel in question here is, as has already been pointed out, >the small printed "a", a vowel completely familiar to me as a native of >Eastern New England. (Norwood MA to be specific, some 14 miles south and a >little west of Fenway Park.) I have it in , , , as well as >in , , and the like. The vertical centered dot to the right of it >indicates a compensatory lengthening for the lack of postvocalic /r/. It >is included in all of the vowel charts I have handy from PEAS, the New >England and LAMSAS Handbooks and LAUM, and I would describe it as a lower low >front unrounded vowel. There is not much discussion of it in any of these >sources: Harold Allen says that it is found in and in eastern >New England. Incidentally, I also have the [a] vowel in , but not in > and . > >When I was at McDavid's NEH seminar in 1977 Mike Dressman told me that [au] >diphthongs were monophthongized as well as the [ai] diphthong, resulting in >[a:]. I'm still not comfortable with flattening. > >In the early 1970s my brother and his wife moved from Norwood MA to Kingsport >TN. >They were suprised to heard the local cheerleaders and the crowd encouraging >the local football team to [fa:t], [fa:t], [fa:t]. > >I've been waiting for Don Lance to straighten us all out on this. Thanks for the vote of confidence, David, but this one's pretty big -- a melange of several things. I can make only a few comments, not "straighten it all out" by any means. Flattening is a non-technical term that Southerners use for their monophthingized [ai] --> [a]. As you point out, the single dot indicates "half-lengthening," whatever the context or dialect. In New England, "broad a" is the popular term used for your vowels in , , etc. The feature [+flat] has been used by some phonologists, but at the moment I can't remember what the articulatory of distributional characteristics of [+flat] are. But [+flat] and "flattening" are certainly not the same thing. I don't have an explanation for how "flat" and "broad" were chosen for these allophones/diaphones. The people who monophthongize (or flatten, if you prefer) [au] to [a] are not the same ones who [fa:t] hard on the football field. I hear /au/ "flattening" in Midwestern dialects when the /au/ diphthong precedes an unstressed syllable, as in "cloddy" for "cloudy" and "consul" for "council." I was gonna continue just lurking on this one, till David Hwaet prodded me. Is this what you wanted? DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 23:27:39 -0600 From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Yellow dog Democrats Recently I heard a Southern politician (can't remember who) say that someone "would vote for a yellow dog before he'd vote for a Republican." The comment implies that even if the yellow dog were a Libertarian he would vote for him rather than a Republican. I'd heard the term used this way before and hoped to remember particulars of what I heard recently in case this term came up again on ads-l, but alas --- . It was briefly discussed a year or so ago. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 09:40:32 -0500 From: Elizabeth Gibbens Subject: Re: Yellow dog Democrats Dear All-- There's a wonderful line in the movie _Crimes of the Heart_: "He ain't a liberal, he's a Democratic." Elizabeth Gibbens ---------- > From: Donald M. Lance > To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Yellow dog Democrats > Date: Sunday, February 15, 1998 12:27 AM > > Recently I heard a Southern politician (can't remember who) say that > someone "would vote for a yellow dog before he'd vote for a Republican." > The comment implies that even if the yellow dog were a Libertarian he would > vote for him rather than a Republican. I'd heard the term used this way > before and hoped to remember particulars of what I heard recently in case > this term came up again on ads-l, but alas --- > . It was briefly discussed a year or so ago. > > DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 13:28:01 +0000 From: Buchmann Subject: Re: Yellow dog Democrats The meaning here MIGHT have been that he would vote for ANY Democrat rather than for a Republican. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 13:47:38 EST From: Allan Metcalf Subject: ADS newsletter on the web? This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_887568458_boundary Content-ID: <0_887568458[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]inet_out.mail.aol.com.1> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Dear Diane, I've been very negligent about sending you things for the ADS website. Now I'm hoping to turn over a new leaf. I've just finished the January 1998 ADS newsletter, and I've used PageMaker 6.5 to convert it to HTML. I will try to attach the HTML file to this message. Its name is NADSJan1998.html. Please let me know if you get it and if it works. And if it does, we can then proudly announce it on ADS-L. If it doesn't, I'll try alternatives. Thanks very much! Best wishes - Allan --part0_887568458_boundary Content-ID: <0_887568458[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]inet_out.mail.aol.com.2> Content-type: text/html; name="NADSJan1998.html" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Content-disposition: inline =0D=0D=0D=0D=0DNewsletter of the ADS 30.1 January 1998=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D<= IMG SRC=3D"./HtmlExp.gif" WIDTH=3D119 HEIGHT=3D1>=0D=0D= =0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

=0D

NEWSLETTER OF THE=0D

AMERICAN DIALE= CT SOCIETY=0D

=0D

NADS=0D

30.1=0D


=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

Fr= om: AMERICAN DIALECT SOCIETY=0D

Allan = Metcalf, Executive Secretary=0D

English Departme= nt=0D

MacMurray College =0D

= Jacksonville, Illinois 62650-2590=0D

Address = Service Requested=0D

=0D

FIRST = CLASS=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

Vol.30,No.1 = January 1998=0D


=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

2 ·Regional Calls for Papers:=0D

Rocky Mountain, Midwest,=0D

= South Central=0D

3 ·'99 Annua= l Meeting Call=0D

3 ·MLA Call; Pres= idential Honors=0D

4 ·Words of the Year= 1997=0D

5 ·South Atlantic Regional Cal= l=0D

5 ·NWAV(E), NCTE Too=0D

5 ·Wolfram at Tamony, April 24=0D

6 ·ADS at ILA, April 18=0D

8 = ·Our Constitution and Bylaws=0D

10 = ·Our New Books=0D

11 ·DARE = Queries No. 41=0D

12 ·DARE Asks = Other Help Too=0D

=0D


=0D
=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D<= TD COLSPAN=3D1 HEIGHT=3D144 WIDTH=3D208 VALIGN=3D"TOP">=0D

NADS is sent in January, May and =0DSeptember to all ADS = members. Send ADS dues ($35 per year), queries and news to editor =0Dand = executive secretary Allan Metcalf, English Department, MacMurray College,= =0DJacksonville, Illinois 62650, phone (217) 479-7117 =0Dor (217) 243-34= 03, e-mail AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com.=0D

ADS Web site: =0Dhttp://www2.et.byu.edu/~lilliek/ads/index.htm=0D

= ADS-L discussion list: To join, send =0Dto Listserv[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.eduthe= message: =0D

Sub ADS-L Your Name=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D


=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D= =0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D= =0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

CALLS FOR PAPERS=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

REGIONAL MEETINGS,= FALL 1998=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

=0DRocky Mountain R= egion=0D

=0D

In association with RMMLA, Oct. = =0D8­10; Salt Lake City, Doubletree Hotel.=0D

February 27 is the deadline for =0D300-word abstracts to Sess= ion Chair Simonie =0DHodges (Georgetown Univ.), 2525 Farmcrest Dr.= #328, =0DHerndon VA 20171, e-mail simonie[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] mitchell.hitc.com.=0D

This session showcases papers on =0Dvarious aspects of Ameri= can dialects. Examples of previous paper topics include: dialects =0Dof U= tah, the use of formal and informal pronouns "you" in Spanish-s= peaking cities, =0DJamaican English in historical plays, and sweet-carbon= ated-beverage isoglosses in the U.S. =0D

Proposals mu= st be sent on paper and =0Don 3.5" disk (preferably IBM-compatible = =0Dformat). If you would like the disk returned to =0Dyou, please enclose= a stamped, self-addressed envelope. You will be notified of the chair's = =0Ddecision by March 15. Complete versions of accepted papers are due to = the chair by =0DAugust 15 (paper and disk copy). =0D

= Presenters must be RMMLA members =0Dand may not read papers in more than = one session.=0D

ADS Regional Secretary 1998­99: = =0DMary E. Morzinski, Univ. of Wisconsin-La Crosse.=0D

Membership in RMMLA is $25 regular, =0D$15 student. Write= RMMLA, Washington State =0DUniversity, P.O. Box 642610, Pullman, WA 9916= 4-2610; =0Dphone (509) 335-4198, fax (509) 335-6635 ext. 54198; =0Drmmla[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]= rmmla.wsu.edu; =0Dhttp://rmmla.wsu.edu/rmmla/guest/aboutrmmla.asp.=0D

Future meetings: 1999 Oct. 14­16 =0DSanta Fe= ; 2000 Oct. 12­14 Vancouver.=0D=0D=0D

55455-01= 34; =0Dfelle001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu. The session theme is open.=0D

ADS Regional Secretary 1997­98: =0DBeth Lee Simon, CM 109, Dept. of English =0Dand Linguistics, IPFW, Fort Wayne, IN 4680= 5; phone (219) 424-8834; =0De-mail simon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cvax.ipfw.indiana.edu.=0D

Membership in MMLA is $25 full and =0Dassociate prof= essors, $20 other faculty, $15 students. Write MMLA, 302 =0DEnglish-Philo= sophy Bldg., Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City IA =0D52242-1408; phone (319) 335-0= 331; fax (319) 335-3123; e-mail mmla[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiowa.edu.=0D

Future meetings: 1999 Nov. 4­6 =0DMinneapolis, Marriott City Ce= nter; 2000 Nov. 2­4 =0DKansas City, Missouri, Hyatt Regency Crown Ce= nter; 2001 Nov. 1­3 Cleveland, =0DSheraton City Centre Hotel.=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

=0DSouth Central Region= =0D

=0D

In association with SCMLA, Nov. =0D12= 3;14; New Orleans, Radisson.=0D

March 15 is the deadline for abstracts =0Dto the meeting chair, Patricia Cuko= r-Avila, Dept. of English, Univ. of North =0DTexas, Denton TX 76203; = phone (940) 565-4577; fax (940) 565-4355; e-mail pcavila[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]unt.edu.=0D

ADS Regional Secretary 1998­99: =0DCharles B. Mar= tin, Dept. of English, Univ. of =0DNorth Texas, P.O. Box 13827, Dento= n TX 76203-3827; phone (817) 565-2149, =0De-mail cmartin[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]facstaff.CAS.unt= .edu.=0D

Membership in SCMLA is $20 full =0Dpr= ofessors, $15 associate and assistant =0Dprofessors, $10 instructors and = students. Write Jo Hebert, SCMLA, Dept. of English, =0DTexas A&M Univ= ., College Station TX =0D77843-4227; phone (409) 845-7041; fax (409) 862-= 2292; =0D

e-mail scmla[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acs.tamu.edu; =0D

http://www-english.tamu.edu/scmla.=0D

Futu= re meetings: 1999 Oct. 28­30 =0DMemphis, Crown Plaza Hotel.=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

=0DMidwest Region=0D

=0D

In association with MMLA, Nov. 5­7; =0DSt. Louis, Re= gal Riverfront Hotel.=0D

March 8 is the= deadline for 150-word =0Dabstracts to the meeting chair, Anna Fellegy, D= ept. of English, 207 Lind Hall, Univ. of =0DMinnesota, 207 Church St. SE,= Minneapolis MN=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D


=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

(Please t= urn to Page 5 for the South =0DAtlantic and other calls for papers.)= =0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D


=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

/ NADS 30.1January 1998=0D= =0D=0D=0D=0D


=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D=0D

ADS ANNUAL MEETING=0D=0D=0D= =0D=0D

=0DAnnual Meeting 1999 · Los Angeles, J= an. =0D7­9=0D

=0D

ADS will meet with the= Linguistic Society of America in =0D Subject: Re: canoodle and chum The Ca- (Ka-) 'augmentative' prefix (which may or may not be there in 'canoodle') is the subject of a paper by Fred Cassidy in AmerSpch, as I recall (but my recaller is not in as good shape as it used to be). dInIs s>Hi! > >With "chum," I know that I cannot help; but with "canoodle," maybe. > >I suspect that "canoodle" may be derived from a GERMAN dialectical usage of >the verb >"nudeln," which means "to cuddle." "Nudeln" can also mean, in dialect, >"umarmen," >or "to embrace" or "to hug." > >As for the "ca" in "canoodle," I've not a clue, although it may just be a >jumping-off, bounce, or >pick-up syllable to add additional weight or emphasis to the "noo" syllable. >But NOT as in "NU? I can help you?", since THAT "Nu" is Russian, >although this Slavic "Nu" is prominent in Yiddish, as well. >How did I get from Minsk to Pinsk with a "nu?" > >Shmuel > > > >>I'm looking into two etymologies: the slang "canoodle" (to kiss, hug, >>fondle) as well as the fishing term "chum" (cut-up fish that is used as a >>lure). Sources so far have said origin "unknown" or "obscure." Anyone have >>any ideas? >>Karen Lubell >>Researcher >>William Safire's "On Language" >>The New York Times > > >_______________________________ >DR. SAMUEL M. JONES >Professor Emertitus >Music & Latin American Studies >University of Wisconsin-Madison >"Pen-y-Bryn" - 122 Shepard Terrace >Madison, WI 53705-3614 USA >_______________________________ >EMAIL: smjones1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]facstaff.wisc.edu >_______________________________ >TELEPHONE: 608 + 233-2150 >_______________________________ Dennis R. Preston Department of Linguistics and Languages Michigan State University East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu Office: (517)353-0740 Fax: (517)432-2736 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 18:07:46 -0600 From: Samuel Jones Subject: Re: "nudeln", "knudeln", & "canoodle" To Dennis Preston & Karen Lubell - Hi, again! Further digging, in what remains of my gray matter, has revealed--but NOT to be found in any standard German dictionary!--that in slang, and in everday usage and parlance, there exists a spoken-if-not-written verb "knudeln" which means "to hug (closely/tightly), to cuddle, to get very close to." It is used frequently within familes, and often by older folks & relatives, with younger children or with special family members/loved ones. Example: "Kind, komm her. Lass Dich knudeln." ("Child, come here. Let [me] cuddle you [close]" or "Child, come here. Let yourself be cuddled." There is also in German --to be found in most standard German dictionaries, along with "nudeln," --the verb "schmusen." This verb, as well, is often translated as "to cuddle;" however "schmusen" is not getting quite so close to someone as is"knudeln," which often causes the child to wiggle, squirm, and attempt to twist itself free from the grasp of the apparently offensive adult. "Schmusen" will be found in most standard German dictionaries with the English translation "to canoodle." (see Collins GermanDictionary, 1980, p. 579, column 1). Sorry it took me so long to determine and to realize that "ca-" is the German "k" with which so many German words begin - Knabe (the English word "knave"), Knecht (English "knight"), Knockwurst (always delicious with Wisconsin beer!), Knie (English "knee") - und so weiter. Ergo, the "ca-" is, I guess, NOT an augmentative prefix, but simply the initial German "k" given a life of its own by the addition in English of a full vowel sound before the following syllable. Nu, Mensch! Even a blind hand finds an occasional acorn beneath an oak tree! Thanks for the refernce to Fred's paper. I will see what I can find there. But I am quite positive that what I have given here is authentic and can be relied upon to be accurate. (If it isn't Welsh, it's ALWAYS bound to be simpler!) Sam Ioanedd (aka Jones) ______________________________________________________ >The Ca- (Ka-) 'augmentative' prefix (which may or may not be there in >'canoodle') is the subject of a paper by Fred Cassidy in AmerSpch, as I >recall (but my recaller is not in as good shape as it used to be). > >dInIs > > > >s>Hi! >> >>With "chum," I know that I cannot help; but with "canoodle," maybe. >> >>I suspect that "canoodle" may be derived from a GERMAN dialectical usage of >>the verb >>"nudeln," which means "to cuddle." "Nudeln" can also mean, in dialect, >>"umarmen," >>or "to embrace" or "to hug." >> >>As for the "ca" in "canoodle," I've not a clue, although it may just be a >>jumping-off, bounce, or >>pick-up syllable to add additional weight or emphasis to the "noo" syllable. >>But NOT as in "NU? I can help you?", since THAT "Nu" is Russian, >>although this Slavic "Nu" is prominent in Yiddish, as well. >>How did I get from Minsk to Pinsk with a "nu?" >> >>Shmuel >> >> >> >>>I'm looking into two etymologies: the slang "canoodle" (to kiss, hug, >>>fondle) as well as the fishing term "chum" (cut-up fish that is used as a >>>lure). Sources so far have said origin "unknown" or "obscure." Anyone have >>>any ideas? >>>Karen Lubell >>>Researcher >>>William Safire's "On Language" >>>The New York Times >> >> >>_______________________________ >>DR. SAMUEL M. JONES >>Professor Emertitus >>Music & Latin American Studies >>University of Wisconsin-Madison >>"Pen-y-Bryn" - 122 Shepard Terrace >>Madison, WI 53705-3614 USA >>_______________________________ >>EMAIL: smjones1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]facstaff.wisc.edu >>_______________________________ >>TELEPHONE: 608 + 233-2150 >>_______________________________ > >Dennis R. Preston >Department of Linguistics and Languages >Michigan State University >East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA >preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu >Office: (517)353-0740 >Fax: (517)432-2736 _______________________________ DR. SAMUEL M. JONES Professor Emertitus Music & Latin American Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison "Pen-y-Bryn" - 122 Shepard Terrace Madison, WI 53705-3614 USA _______________________________ EMAIL: smjones1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]facstaff.wisc.edu _______________________________ TELEPHONE: 608 + 233-2150 _______________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 16:24:04 -0800 From: Keith Chambless Subject: Re: "nudeln", "knudeln", & "canoodle" Hello! Decided to post my first message on this list. Sounds like there's a connection with the term "noodling", as in hugging a squirming child, which my cousins in Oklahoma use to describe fishing by hand. The fisherman wades along a river bank and reaches into holes in the rock or clay. Supposedly, a trout nesting in one of those holes will bite at the hand or fingers. The fisherman thens closes his hand around whatever he can grasp and pull the fish to shore. Keith keith[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]blueneptune.com - home keith[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]opentv.com - work ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 19:27:19 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: Re: "nudeln", "knudeln", & "canoodle" The RHHDAS has a first citation of 1859 ("conoodle") and has "origin unknown." RHHDAS also quotes the 1889 Barrere & Leland. As stated before, Charles Leland wrote the "Hans Breitmann" tales that created German dialect comedy in America. If "canoodle" is a German dialect word, then "Breitmann" used it. That's the place to look--simple as that. In fact, he has a glossary! Let's check the apartment--do I have "Breitmann" underneath this sofa? ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 13 Feb 1998 to 14 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/14/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 12 Feb 1998 to 13 Feb 1998 98-02-14 00:00:09 This message contains more text than QuickMail can display. The entire message has been enclosed as a file. There are 17 messages totalling 629 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Monkey is dead? (2) 2. OIC; lead pipe cinch; frou-frou; shyster 3. All-American; America; Nagano 4. Hopefully 5. cut (2) 6. Palatal 7. Yellow dog Democrats (5) 8. Help with data 9. Nagano 10. ADS-L Archive Search Overhaul 11. canoodle and chum ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 21:08:21 -0800 From: Devon Coles Subject: Re: Monkey is dead? Poor monkey! It rings a bell, but in a different form: An old joke (circa the 1970s) in which the husband sends a note to the wife (via their child) inviting her back to bed. In it he pens a bit of doggerel on a circus theme. Her response is something along the lines of, "take down your tent, put out the light, the monkey had a haemmorhage, there'll be no show tonight!" The deep structure of Knowledge is pure consciousness. I have a ways to go yet. Devon -----Original Message----- From: Evan Morris To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Date: Thursday, February 12, 1998 2:20 PM Subject: Monkey is dead? >words1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]word-detective.com >http://www.word-detective.com > ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 05:32:33 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: OIC; lead pipe cinch; frou-frou; shyster A few etymologies before I call it a night and get two hours' sleep. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- OIC Oh, I see. OIC. This is used on the internet all the time, but it is not new. The Pittsburgh Evening Telegraph, 22 March 1875, pg. 2, col. 2: His motto is "O I C." Not only does he see it, but everybody else does.--_Home Journal_. John Stockwell or 95 Ann Street, New York City, took out daily ads in the New York newspapers in the 1870s for old newspapers, old pamphlets, and old blank books and ledgers. (NY Evening Telegram, 18 June 1874, pg. 3, col. 2 is one such ad.) The ads had "O (eye) C." Perhaps it started there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- LEAD PIPE CINCH The latest RHHDAS doesn't have this. It's from THE SPORTING NEWS, 27 September 1890, pg. 4, col. 5: A "lead pipe cinch" had its origin on an East river boat. A fat man jumped overboard. A companion stood by and offered $1,000 to $10 that the fat man would not bob up again to the surface. He was immediately taken up by several sports present and then the boat hove to, but no sign of the fat man appeared on the surface. He had gone hopelessly to the bottom. The stranger, after pocketing the stakes, said that the fat man a few minutes before had informed him he was going to commit suicide and showed him 100 pounds of lead pipe coiled about his stomach. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- FROU-FROU OED has 4 June 1870. This is from the Pittsburgh Evening Chronicle, 3 February 1870, pg. 4, col. 3: "FROU-FROU." The French frequently increase their vocabulary, and the last new word has, it seems, been adopted as the title of a play just now meeting great attention. The correspondent of an English journal tells how the term originated: "Paris is just now running after _frou-frou_. You may thumb the dictionary in vain for the meaning of this word. Look at this picture by Maismonier: a man at arms rests his musket at a prison door. Far in the back ground a muffled woman furtively watches and stealthily but rapidly advances. The soldier's quick ear has been caught by a sound. It is not that noiseless foot-fall, but the rustle--the _frou-frou_--of her silken dress. By a fanciful association the word has come to be applied to fast young ladies who flash and rustle through their spring-time, and where passage, like that of a meteor, is apt to be marked by a train of sparks." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- SHYSTER I haven't checked the CHICAGO DEMOCRAT, but Library of Congress records show it was published 1833-1846 by J. Calhoun, and 1846-1857 by John Wentworth. As per the previous posting, the 1846-1857 CHICAGO DEMOCRAT by John Wentworth must be checked, and this is too late for the origin of "shyster"--which we have from 1843. Nevertheless, if we have a "shyster" in the 1840s, and we have a "shyster" case of slander from the 1870s, both must be investigated. You never know. For now, though, Gerald Cohen's dinner is safe. But hold that pasta! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 05:33:05 EST From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: All-American; America; Nagano ALL-AMERICAN Yes, as previously noted, it's in the DA: "1888 _Outing_ Nov. 166/2 The All-American team...is composed of men picked from the ranks of the representative ball teams of America." This is a classic example of quoting too little. Yes, the College Football Hall of Fame was correct that the first college football All- Americans were chosen in 1889. You'd never know it from the quote, but it's about a BASEBALL All-American team! And of course, we can antedate the earliest citation. This is from SPORTING LIFE, 24 October 1888, pg. 5, col. 2: THE GREAT TRIP. ("SPALDING'S AUSTRALIAN BASE BALL TOUR"--ed.) (...) CHICAGO, Oct. 17.--Editor SPORTING LIFE:--Ere these lines meet the eyes of THE SPORTING LIFE'S readers the members of the Chicago and All-American teams will have departed upon their great trip to Australia and the greatest base ball invasion upon record thus inaugurated. (...) Van Haliren will play short for the All-Americas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- AMERICA The "Columbus Day" posting that was recently reposted was part of a larger series of postings I made last year about the naming of America and Americans--on the 500th anniversary of John Cabot's voyage to North America. The February 1964 AMERICAN SPEECH article "On the Naming of America" is incredibly awful and reaches the wrong conclusion. Cecil Adams's THE STRAIGHT DOPE for September 28-October 4, 1994 (check archives on his web site) states the general problem that we really should be living in "Vespucciland." He states: There are a couple of theories on the name's origin. One is that it's a variant of Enrico, the Italian form of Henry, and derives from the Old German Haimrich (in later German Emmerich, in English Americus), from _haimi_ (home) plus _ric_ (power, ruler). Alternatively, it may come from the Old German Amalricus, from _amal_ (work) plus _ric_. This theory--not considered in the AMERICAN SPEECH article--was extensively discussed in the very first article in NAMES (a journal of the American Name Society). I believe it has a lot going for it. What made the New York Post's Columbus Day article so putrid is that it stated that the people involved were FRENCH. They were German. Big difference! Not only were their names German--as any idiot could see--but the point is that it possibly affected their work, which is the naming of "America." Charles Godfrey Leland ("Hans Breitmann") wrote this in HANS BREITMANN'S BALLADS (1869), pg. 96: So also de name America, If ve a liddle look, Vas coom from de oldt King Emerich In de Deutsche _Heldenbuch_. Was "America"--in addition to honoring Vespucci--a German joke? Now I got these maps here, and these biographies here, and they're all over this tiny apartment, and it's gonna take some explainin'... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- NAGANO I saw a story today on CNN Headline News. The Japanese Embassy is being flooded with calls about how to pronounce "Nagano." It makes me real angry. When I proposed AMERICAN POPULAR SPEECH ONLINE, I suggested that it be a joint effort with the American Name Society. One of the ideas I had is a pronunciation guide to names in the news. A few years ago, everyone was asking about "Herzegovina." Last year, someone in New York sports television asked about a new New York Yankees player from Japan, "Hideki Ir-AH-bu, IR-ah-bu, which is it?" This is not the stuff of AMERICAN SPEECH or NAMES, but it is stuff that people need to know, and need to know immediately. An online magazine of the ADS and ANS would be the authority to turn to first. We'd be quoted on this, and we'd attract new members, perhaps. Oh well! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 07:42:42 -0500 From: Fred Shapiro Subject: Hopefully I am writing an article on the emergence of _hopefully_ as a sentence adverb. If anyone knows of any pre-1963 citations for this usage, I would be most grateful to hear of them. (I already have the citations from the OED, Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, and the Barnhart files.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Coeditor (with Jane Garry) Associate Librarian for Public Services TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD and Lecturer in Legal Research ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES Yale Law School Oxford University Press, 1998 e-mail: fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu ISBN 0-19-509547-2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 08:27:35 -0500 From: frank abate Subject: cut Alan RE cut: I'd call this "phys ed slang". This may explain its absence from dicts, even big ones. Don't know its age, but probably fairly new. Not at all restricted, that is, not AAVE of anything of the sort. It is a term used= in weight rooms and such. Also re application: It refers to well-defined, highly toned muscles in a= ny part of the body. The ref is to the "seams" between different bands of muscle when well-defined, as in "washboard abs". But it can be used of l= eg muscles, back, etc. This is off-the-top-of-the-head, but my info is via my wife, who has done= some power lifting. Frank ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 09:49:47 -0500 From: Alan Baragona Subject: Palatal x-posted to HEL-L and ADS-L Another question for you real phoneticians out there. Is there any character in the IPA that would represent what Pyles and Algeo call the Indo-European *palatal k? I don't want to use /k/, because it might confuse my students. The IPA chart on the end papers of Pyles/Algeo has /c/ as a palatal plosive--is that the same as the IE sound? Close enough? Would /c/ represent the sound of the first in , or is it something different altogether? Alan Baragona baragonasa[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vax.vmi.edu You know, years ago, my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be . . ."--she always called me 'Elwood'--"In this world, Elwood, you must be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me. Elwood P. Dowd ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 10:00:31 -0500 From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: cut At 8:27 AM -0500 2/13/98, frank abate wrote: >RE cut: > >I'd call this "phys ed slang". This may explain its absence from dicts, >even big ones. Don't know its age, but probably fairly new. Not at all >restricted, that is, not AAVE of anything of the sort. It is a term used >in weight rooms and such. > >Also re application: It refers to well-defined, highly toned muscles in any >part of the body. >... Note the potentially pernicious ambiguity (or at least confusion) if the term is used in the personals, where (UN)CUT is a technical designation for '(un)circumcised'. Presumably the context will disambiguate, as usual. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 12:07:12 -0500 From: jerry miller Subject: Yellow dog Democrats This may have been discussed previously here, but either I missed it or wasn't on the list yet. Can anyone tell me (& a colleague in the political science dept.) the origin and meaning of the term "yellow dog Democrat"? I know a little about "yellow dog contracts" -- as basically being anti-union documents, but I'm not clear on how that got connected to Democrats (who, generally, have been pro-union). Jerry Miller ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 12:43:18 -0500 From: Gregory {Greg} Downing Subject: Re: Yellow dog Democrats At 12:07 PM 2/13/98 -0500, you wrote: >This may have been discussed previously here, but either I missed it or >wasn't on the list yet. Can anyone tell me (& a colleague in the political >science dept.) the origin and meaning of the term "yellow dog Democrat"? > I know a little about "yellow dog contracts" -- as basically being >anti-union documents, but I'm not clear on how that got connected to >Democrats (who, generally, have been pro-union). > >Jerry Miller > OED2 "yellow dog" attests (meaning 2a) "person or thing of no account or of a low type," first cite 1881. The union sense of anti-union and therefore no-good is similar to the use of a lot of more general negative terms by pro-union folks in more narrow application to non- or anti-union people or things, cf. scab. On the union sense of yellow dog = anti-union, see meaning 2b, first cite 1894. "Yellow dog democrat" I have no cites handy on, but some time in the 80s I read something that asserted it came from the idea of someone (especially in the South, when the South was pretty overwhelmingly Democrat, i.e., 1860s to 1940s) who was so strictly a Democrat voter that s/he'd vote Democrat if the party ran a yellow dog for office. I.e., a very loyal and/or very partisan Democrat, esp. in the South. So, yellow dog = anti-union, and yellow dog Democrat = extremely loyal Democrat both grow out of "yellow dog" = something no good. They are collateral descendants of the same phrase, not parent-and-child to each other, which is what you are wondering about above. I'm sure someone out there has early cites for yellow-dog Democrat. I'd imagine they would be from the late 19th cent or first half of 20th cent. Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nyu.edu or downingg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]is2.nyu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 13:03:43 -0500 From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: Yellow dog Democrats At 12:43 PM -0500 2/13/98, Gregory {Greg} Downing wrote: > >"Yellow dog democrat" I have no cites handy on, but some time in the 80s I >read something that asserted it came from the idea of someone (especially in >the South, when the South was pretty overwhelmingly Democrat, i.e., 1860s to >1940s) who was so strictly a Democrat voter that s/he'd vote Democrat if the >party ran a yellow dog for office. I.e., a very loyal and/or very partisan >Democrat, esp. in the South. > That's the sense I'm familiar with--someone who would vote for EVEN a yellow dog that ran on the Democratic ticket. Them was the days. Then there are the boll-weevils. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 18:30:07 +0100 From: Jan Strunk Subject: Re: Monkey is dead? >From the New York Times, article on the going out of business of Power > Computing Co: "Kahn (the chairman) could not be reached. A security guard > said, "The show is over. The monkey is dead, and they've folded the tent." I > love this phrase. If the show is merely over, they could have another show > tomorrow. But if the monkey is dead, it's really over. Question: Did this > security guard coin this phrase, or is this an old one I just never > happened to > hear before? In German, they say "Klappe zu, Affe tot" (flap/trap closed, monkey dead), if something is finally over. I don't know where this saying might come from, though. Jan Strunk strunk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]t-online.de ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 15:05:39 EST From: Allan Metcalf Subject: Re: Yellow dog Democrats We all know about the constant value of DARE (for example, in regard to our recent discussion, see "hissy"), but here's an opportunity to mention another resource by a fellow ADS member, namely Safire's New Political Dictionary (Random House, 1993) by William Safire. It does not obviate the need for OED, DA, DAE, DARE, etc, but see yellow dog Democrat: an unswerving party loyalist; used only as a compliment. (Safire then goes on to explain how the negative term "yellow dog" became positive in terms of the 1928 Presidential election.) - Allan Metcalf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 15:18:16 +0000 From: Buchmann Subject: Re: Yellow dog Democrats There are [as usual] many stories about the origin of this phrase, but the meaning is clear - a Democrat who would not vote other than Democratic; ie., a 'straight ticket' or 'party line' voter. The reference is to the most common variety of mixed-breed dog in the Deep South - a sandy colored mutt. The usage inplies the the YDD would vote for a yellow dog as long as it ran on the Democratic ticket. Far from a term of derision it was/is mostly used as a term of proud self identification. "I'm a yellow dog Democrat." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 20:30:52 +0000 From: Aaron Drews Subject: Help with data Hello, I recently received this from a friend of mine in Germany. I was wondering if any of you knew of any research on the topic, or of any other possible existing data. And to anticipate any potential complaints, she has gone through the resources available to her in Germany and hasn't had the best of luck. You can reply to Ms. Boes personally at or to me, here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Aaron Drews >>>>>>>>>>begin forwarded message>>>>>>>>> I want to write about service encounters, especially about salestalks and service encounters in restaurants. As far as I know, there has not been established an appropriate corpus yet. My questions are: Do you know of any data collections which are not yet known to me? And - do you (as a research profi) see any possibilities of collecting some data myself, i.e. do some recordings in shops etc. My advisor told me that it would be rather difficult, for salespersons normally don't want to have any "witnesses". One of my collegues suggested to go through some (BBC?-) documentaries to see if there are any buying-selling scenes etc. I still think about that possibilities, especially because video-data would, of course, be an excellent base for my analysis. Do you have an ultimate idea? <<<<<<<<< Subject: Re: Nagano Dear Kusujiro Miyoshi Thank you very much for your reply to the Nagano question. It seems to m= e that your answer clarifies the matter very well. I now conjecture that the written pronunciation of the name "Nagano" was Anglicized (according to normal English stress-pattern rules) in older English dictionaries, with stress on the 2nd syllable, and that ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/13/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 11 Feb 1998 to 12 Feb 1998 98-02-13 00:00:14 There are 13 messages totalling 339 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Japan(ese) (2) 2. [ha:di] 3. HELP! Truncation continuing! 4. canoodle and chum 5. Call for papers 6. cut (2) 7. "hissy fit" 8. Monkey is dead? 9. Call for papers, ANS-MLA 10. Nagano 11. cut verb & modifier ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 23:25:09 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: Re: Japan(ese) Larry Horn wrote: > Maybe someone figured > if it's OK to have "Colorado Rockies", it's OK to have "Japan Alps". But > at least the former has an esthetically pleasing trochaic rhythm, while the > latter just sounds (if you'll excuse the technical vocabulary) silly. > > Larry Silly or no, those mountains were called "the Japan Alps" in English-language publications in 1952/53 when I was there. They are so cited in an edition of __Japan: The Official Guide__ of that era. I still have it around the house somewhere. (I was there courtesy of Uncle Sam and the Korean War.) -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 00:50:25 EST From: David Carlson Subject: Re: [ha:di] I was a little surprised when I read Ellen Johnson's note about the symbol AE for the monophthong of [ai], and I was even more suprised when Danny Long used it. But then, I'm unfamiliar with the term used to describe the process. I must be out of touch. Nevertheless, the vowel in question here is, as has already been pointed out, the small printed "a", a vowel completely familiar to me as a native of Eastern New England. (Norwood MA to be specific, some 14 miles south and a little west of Fenway Park.) I have it in , , , as well as in , , and the like. The vertical centered dot to the right of it indicates a compensatory lengthening for the lack of postvocalic /r/. It is included in all of the vowel charts I have handy from PEAS, the New England and LAMSAS Handbooks and LAUM, and I would describe it as a lower low front unrounded vowel. There is not much discussion of it in any of these sources: Harold Allen says that it is found in and in eastern New England. Incidentally, I also have the [a] vowel in , but not in and . When I was at McDavid's NEH seminar in 1977 Mike Dressman told me that [au] diphthongs were monophthongized as well as the [ai] diphthong, resulting in [a:]. I'm still not comfortable with flattening. In the early 1970s my brother and his wife moved from Norwood MA to Kingsport TN. They were suprised to heard the local cheerleaders and the crowd encouraging the local football team to [fa:t], [fa:t], [fa:t]. I've been waiting for Don Lance to straighten us all out on this. David R. Carlson 34 Spaulding St. Amhert MA 01002 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 10:18:48 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: HELP! Truncation continuing! The truncation problem I wrote about yesterday is back with a vengeance. Today's Digest ends for me within message 1. I strongly suspect the LeBrechts ;-)\ . Both truncations occurred at the same point in Mike Salovesh's message, and I'm sure there's something in it that is triggering a cutoff somewhere, possibly in my company's firewall. A similar problem with the LINGUIST List a year or so ago turned out to be located there. Would someone please send me the Digests for Feb. 9-10 and Feb. 10-11 AT THE FOLLOWING EDRESS: mam[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]world.std.com That personal account is outside the firewall, and hopefully I will be able to see the cause of the problem and take it to the appropriate intranetmeister. Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 12:34:23 -0500 From: Karen Lubell Subject: canoodle and chum I'm looking into two etymologies: the slang "canoodle" (to kiss, hug, fondle) as well as the fishing term "chum" (cut-up fish that is used as a lure). Sources so far have said origin "unknown" or "obscure." Anyone have any ideas? Karen Lubell Researcher William Safire's "On Language" The New York Times ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 12:01:19 -0600 From: Anna M Fellegy Subject: Call for papers CALL FOR PAPERS Midwest Regional Meeting of the American Dialect Society in association with MMLA November 5 - 7, 1998 Regal Riverfront Hotel St. Louis, Missouri Colleagues are invited to submit abstracts for the annual Midwest Regional Meeting of the American Dialect Society, to be held this year in St. Louis, Missouri, November 5 - 7. The session theme is open, and abstracts from faculty and students are welcome. (Topics with a regional flavor include, among many others, perspectives on German-American speech communities, AAVE, and the life of language along the Mississippi.) The Society's meeting is held in association with the annual meeting of Midwest Modern Language Association (MMLA), which offers a full slate of sessions on topics in literature and, on a more limited basis, topics in linguistics. The conference will be held at the Regal Riverfront Hotel, a setting that offers participants, at day's end, the opportunity to enjoy the laziness of an autumn Mississippi--riverboats, restaurants, park benches, and fall colors. Submit a 150-word abstract by March 8, 1998, to: Anna Fellegy Department of English 207 Lind Hall 207 Church Street SE University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455-0134 E-mail submissions to: felle001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu Notice of acceptance will be mailed by March 20, 1998 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 15:15:02 -0500 From: Alan Baragona Subject: cut Two of my colleagues just asked me about the slang adjective "cut" meaning "having sharply defined chest muscles" or washboard abdominals. Apparently very common among weight lifters and physical culture types, not particularly African-American, though that's how it came up originally. This meaning does not make it into RHHDAS, which was surprising. Neither is it in DARE. Just for the hell of it I tried OED2 and, not surprisingly came up blank. Anybody know anything about the history of this term? Thanks. Alan B. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 16:38:20 EST From: simon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU Subject: Re: cut It's common as a noun. Any defined muscle area. beth simon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 15:47:59 -0600 From: Christopher Church Subject: "hissy fit" Does anyone out there know the derivation of the familiar Southernism "hissy fit"? Could it have derived from "hussy"? Many of our faculty are familiar with "hissy fits," but no one here knows the origin of the term. ******************************************************************************** ****************** The opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation Christopher Church, Asst. Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Baptist Memorial College of Health Sciences OfficePhone: (901)227-4473 FaxNumber: E-MailAddress: christopher.church[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bmhcc.org ******************************************************************************** ****************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 17:08:58 -0500 From: Evan Morris Subject: Monkey is dead? >From a reader of my newspaper column: >From the New York Times, article on the going out of business of Power Computing Co: "Kahn (the chairman) could not be reached. A security guard said, "The show is over. The monkey is dead, and they've folded the tent." I love this phrase. If the show is merely over, they could have another show tomorrow. But if the monkey is dead, it's really over. Question: Did this security guard coin this phrase, or is this an old one I just never happened to hear before? ---------------------------- Does this ring a bell for anyone? All I've been able to find is that the phrase occurs in a Marilyn Manson (yuck) lyric. -- Evan Morris words1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]word-detective.com http://www.word-detective.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 16:39:48 -0800 From: Grant Smith Subject: Call for papers, ANS-MLA ADS members considering the MLA panel might like to consider presenting at ANS as well. Grant Smith, Vice President, ANS Call for papers 1998 Annual Meeting AMERICAN NAME SOCIETY conjointly with the MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION San Francisco, Dec. 27-30, 1998 Two MLA sessions, plus 10 to 12 concurrent sessions. Themes will focus on names in literature, literary theory, philosophy, linguistics, geography, social or historical usage. Literary panels may focus on single authors. Short abstracts (150 word max.) to Grant W. Smith, gsmith[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ewu.edu. Deadline for MLA sessions is March 2. Deadline for concurrent ANS sessions is Sept. 1, 1998. Abstracts of all papers presented will be printed in "Proceedings." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 20:35:46 -0500 From: Kusujiro Miyoshi Subject: Re: Japan(ese) It seems queer that no Japanese comments on this problem. As a native Japanese speaker, I think "Japan Alps" is a literal translation of "Nihon Alps "(or, we also say "Nippon Alps"). This is, needless to say, a proper noun, and fixed accordingly. For the adjective of "Nihon" or "Nippon," we usually say "Nihon-teki" or "Nippon-teki." The original Japanese word discussed now is a proper noun and not "Nihon-teki (or, Nippon-teki) Alps." So, it seems natural for me to call it "Japan Alps." Of course, in the case of "Nihon cha," which is Japanese tea, and the like, it is translated in that way; because it is not a proper noun. Kusujiro Miyoshi Soka Women's College, Tokyo, Japan. kw900325[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]s.soka.ac.jp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 20:46:05 -0500 From: Kusujiro Miyoshi Subject: Re: Nagano I'm a Japanese, and have lived in Okayama for eighteen years, ten years in Osaka, and eight years in Tokyo. Additionally, I have visited Northern part of Japan several times. I, however, have never heard the stress of the word put on the second syllable: it is always put on the first. When speaking English, it is usually my custom to put the stress on the second syllable, because it seems to be easy for the English speaking people to hear the word. I hope this information might be of some help for the list. Kusujiro Miyoshi, Soka Women's College, Tokyo, Japan. kw900325[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]s.soka.ac.jp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 20:54:41 EST From: simon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU Subject: cut verb & modifier In email exchange about professional aerobic/strength trainers, those such as Cathe' Friedrichs and Karen Voight, who make videos, the following occurred: The way they cut themselves up before a vid is that they reduce their water/fluid/salt intake, and use supplements to get that ripped/cut look. Cathe's got real definition, great cuts. beth simon assistant professor, linguistics and english indiana university purdue university simon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cvax.ipfw.indiana.edu ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Feb 1998 to 12 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/12/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 10 Feb 1998 to 11 Feb 1998 98-02-12 00:00:42 There are 14 messages totalling 369 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Resend Re: Origins of "shyster" 2. Sorry ! 3. Japan(ese) (4) 4. Nagano 5. truncated Digest 6. Clipping Services 7. "Nagano" 8. theme for ADSn 1999 9. Nagano: its pron 10. Norman French influence 11. word choice ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 03:07:31 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: Resend Re: Origins of "shyster" Ooops! Sorry, folks. I sent this message from an unfamiliar computer on campus. Line spacing and paragraphing got messed up because I didn't understand its Internet editor. Here's a clearer version of the same text: Orin Hargraves wrote: > A small footnote to Barry Popik's fascinating discovery on the origins of > shyster: he queries the probability of there being a German policeman in > Chicago. At the turn of the century (and for some time before) Germans made > up more than 25% of Chicago's population; they were more numerous than the > next 3 identifiable immigrant groups combined. A lot of advertising from > the time was printed in both English and German. See "Chicago: Growth of a > Metropolis" (Mayer, U of Chicago Press) for a lot fuller background. And as a footnote to Orin's footnote, both bilingual German/English classes and classes (even whole schools) taught exclusively in German were common in Chicago public schools a century ago. Non-English classes covered the entire curriculum, not just language instruction. Some Chicago schools offered bilingual and/or monolingual education in other languages (notably Polish and Yiddish), too. So much for the "innovation" of Ebonics in Oakland classrooms! Bilingual public school classes ended as a side effect of World War I, when it was regarded as patriotic to "de-Germanize" American English. "Hamburgers" became "victory burgers" during the war, while wieners metamorphosed into the classic Chicago hot dog forever. Names also were changed to cut alleged ties to the Kaiser, as Schmidts became Smiths in droves. Some of my wife's relatives with the suspiciously Germanic name of Lebrecht frenchified the spelling to LeBrecht in order to go with the patriotic flow. . Given the large population of German descent in Chicago, it probably would have been impossible to single out German bilingual ed for termination, but the anti-German trend was irresistable. The Chicago political solution was to close bilingual classes in K-12 across the board. (Ouch. What a waste!) Chicago's community colleges (then called "Junior Colleges") were under the same Board of Education as the K-12 schools. They continued to offer non-language courses in languages other than English for years after bilingual ed was removed at K-12 levels. Sorry I can't back this up with documentary citation: it comes out of family lore. Some of my uncles and aunts, as well as some of my wife's relatives, actually went to Chicago public schools where the languages of instruction were, variously, German, Yiddish, and Polish. (My functional mother-in-law was born in Chicago; she spoke only Polish at home and in school until she reached high school. I don't know whether she was in public school or parochial school.) My youngest uncle attended a Chicago community college just before World War II, and he told me about non-language courses taught there in languages other than English. (That was part of his favoring me with an oral history of Wilbur Wright Community College, which he attended, when I got my first full-time college teaching job. The job was at Wright.) -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 03:35:00 -0600 From: Mike Salovesh Subject: Sorry ! Some days you just can't win. Forget the message and forgive my goofs, please! -- mike salovesh anthropology department northern illinois university PEACE !!! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:23:02 -0600 From: Joan Houston Hall Subject: Re: Japan(ese) There's an interesting article on the use of place names in the form attributive noun + noun (Japan alps) rather than derivative adj + noun (Japanese Alps) in the 1986 issue of _Dictionaries_. It's by James E. Iannucci, and is titled "Ghost Adjectives in Dictionaries." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:36:41 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: Nagano But Japanese has a pitch accent (very variable between dialects), which Eng.-speakers might hear as stress accent. How would that figure in? Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:40:46 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: truncated Digest Today's Digest, "ADS-L Digest - 9 Feb 1998 to 10 Feb 1998", arrived shorn of its tail, ending as follows: ===== Chicago hot dog forever. Names also were changed to cut alleged ties to the Kaiser, as Schmidts became Smiths in droves. Some of my wife's relatives with the suspiciously Germanic name of Lebrecht frenchified the spelling to LeBrecht in order to go with the patriotic flow. ===== Normally there's a trailer, like this one from yesterday's Digest: ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Feb 1998 to 9 Feb 1998 ********************************************** Did I miss anything of substance? Did anyone else observe such a truncation? Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:07:33 -0500 From: Grant Barrett Subject: Clipping Services A clipping service that I have taken to using is Inquisit. It searches about 600 publications and newswires and emails you the clippings it finds, all for a flat feet. There is a two-week trial period, and after that it's 12.95 a month, a very reasonable cost, considering that most of the clipping services I looked into charge a per-article fee. I prefer to have the articles arrive in my email box, because then I can apply a sort/file maneuver to them and they are easily forwarded to other interested parties. Newstracker requires just a little more effort than I have time for. Grant Barrett gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]jerrynet.com -------------------------------------- Date: 2/10/98 6:15 PM To: Grant Barrett From: Dennis Baron The Hindu runs these columns regularly. I download them with my newstracker web browser, which is set to track all news items involving language, English, and related keywords. I recommend the service to all ADSers... it's free. The website for newstracker is: http://nt.excite.com/ it gives you the latest news and a service for setting up a tracker for any topic you want. it was great during the ebonics controversy last year...I got all the stuff from the california papers, etc. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:56:23 -0500 From: "Jeutonne P. Brewer" Subject: Re: Japan(ese) > Does this mean that are places in the US that say Japanese with an "s" > rather than a "z"? > > Danny Long > > Jeutonne P. Brewer wrote: > > Japanese is one of those words in which you can the the "greasy"/"greazy" > > distinction. Using Japan as the adjectival form would be a way of > > avoiding the dialectal distinction. Just a thought. Sorry my message wasn't clear; I shouldn't write late in the evening. Yes, I'm (trying to) state that "Japanese" and "Japaneze" pronciations occur. It reminds me of the same kind of thing that happened with the word Vietnamese in the 60s and 70s. Jeutonne Brewer ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:09:55 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: "Nagano" My co-worker who is a native Japanese speaker pronounces it with higher pitch on the first syllable than on the other two, which sounds in English like stress on the first. Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/ Personal home page: http://world.std.com/~mam/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:39:21 -0600 From: "Salikoko S. Mufwene" Subject: Re: theme for ADSn 1999 Ron: I like the proposed theme for some of the ADS sessions in Los Angeles: "Dialect in Literature". It will also be nice to have other sessions on "dialect performance/mimicry". Sali. ******************************************************* Salikoko S. Mufwene s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu University of Chicago 773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924 Department of Linguistics 1010 East 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html ******************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 13:04:37 -0500 From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: Japan(ese) At 7:04 PM -0600 2/10/98, Matthew Gordon wrote: >Watching the coverage of the Olympics I have been struck by an >adjectival use of "Japan" where "Japanese" seemed more natural to me; >e.g. "The Japan Alps" "these Japan Olympics" etc. I noticed this usage >by several of the CBS folks and I heard an NPR reporter use it as well >(specifically "The Japan Alps"). Any thoughts about what, if anything, >is going on? Could they be avoiding "Japanese" for some reason? Has >that term acquired some connotations they wish to avoid? I think there's a semantic difference between the two cases. "These Japanese Olympics" might be avoided because that phrase might suggest possession or ownership; the Olympics AREN'T Japanese, they are just held there. The nominal compound is thus motivated. On the other hand, "the Japan Alps" does strike me as odd (although it's evidently part of a language change in progress, which I take it is what that "Dictionaries" article details); the mountains in question really are Japanese in the sense that the Swiss (*Switzerland) Alps are Swiss. Maybe someone figured if it's OK to have "Colorado Rockies", it's OK to have "Japan Alps". But at least the former has an esthetically pleasing trochaic rhythm, while the latter just sounds (if you'll excuse the technical vocabulary) silly. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 15:54:34 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: Nagano: its pron Thanks for the info on pitch, Danny; this seems to corroborate Mark Mandel's first syllable/higher pitch citation too. My NS colleague started to explain pitch to me but couldn't speak technically about it, or the dialect variation upon it, in English. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 15:43:57 -0500 From: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: Japan(ese) On Jeutonne's comment: I wouldn't think "Japanes/ze" and "Vietnames/ze" variation would lead to stigmatizing of one or the other, in the way that [grizi] is marked in the North. Cf. "Syracus/ze," neither form of which has negative connotations, to my knowledge--right, New Yorkers? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 16:17:18 EST From: Allan Metcalf Subject: Norman French influence Just got this inquiry. If you are able to reply, please be sure to send a message directly to her, since she's not on ADS-L. -------------------------------------- I am a student at Tennessee Technological University and I need to find sources pertaining to the Norman French Influence on English Grammar. If you could give me any information it would be greatly appreciated! Thank You for your time, Stephanie Long long[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tnaccess.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 22:45:55 -0500 From: "W. Randolph Beckford" Subject: word choice If anyone would like to answer the following question for me, I would appreciate it. If not, please ignore or direct me to the proper forum. I am a student tutoring ESL to a visiting Russian professor at my college. Frequently confusing the senses of "say," "tell," and "speak" (because she says that Russian has one word for all three), I tried to explain the difference myself. However, although I could show her example sentences, even my own logic told me that, like Russian, these verbs ought to be synonyms in English, theoretically. For example, "The teacher says to read chapter 6;" but NOT "The teacher speaks (tells) to read chapter 6." I realize that this probably has to do with a transitive/intransitive difference, but could someone explain it clearly in this instance? Although I may just be experiencing a "mind fart," thank you very much! Randy Beckford Writing Center Consultant Dickinson College Carlisle, PA ***************** Si futurum est, fiet. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 10 Feb 1998 to 11 Feb 1998 ************************************************ ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/10/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 7 Feb 1998 to 9 Feb 1998 98-02-10 00:01:43 There are 8 messages totalling 286 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Fred Cassidy 2. seeking info on AAVE 3. Automatic translation (3) 4. "the skinny" 5. Automatic Dialect translation 6. borras for "tidal wave" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 10:14:36 -0600 From: Joan Houston Hall Subject: Fred Cassidy I'm delighted to be able to say that Fred is now out of the hospital and back at the retirement center. His address, at least until the end of February, is Scottsdale Royale #52 3620 N. Miller Road Scottsdale, AZ 85251 He is walking well, can swallow, and sounds ALMOST like the Fred we know and love! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 11:55:45 -0500 From: Mark Mandel Subject: seeking info on AAVE The following appeared in LINGUIST List #9.183 Please do NOT reply to me. (I have already referred the inquirer to Harold Schiffman's on-Web bibliography of the issue.) -------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 07 Feb 1998 03:07:41 -0500 From: michael s hughes Subject: Ebonics I am a student at Howard University pursuring a degree in Educational Psychology. Presently I am doing research on African American Vernacular English "Ebonics" (a term that I really like by the way). I am becoming more and more intriqued by it as I explore it. If there is any information that you feel may be helpful to my pursuits and if you have the time please contact me. Thank you for your consideration of this matter. Sincerely, Michael S. Hughes MichaelaKing[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Earthlink.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:08:46 EST From: Allan Metcalf Subject: Automatic translation This was posted recently on the discussion list for administrators of ACLS societies. (Yes, there's a list for everything!) It's news to me . . . and maybe news to some others on ADS-L. - Allan Metcalf >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I have recently learned of an interesting website developed by Digital that offers instant translations between English and German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. By putting a link on your homepage to that site, users can have your pages and all hyperlinks in your site translated into one of these languages. Go to http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate? and type in the URL for you homepage and select a language into which you would like it translated. Follow the hyperlinks in your pages to see them translated as well. Graphics are unchanged but all text is translated. The site works the other way as well. Should you know of a website in one of these languages you would like translated, simply insert the URL and ask that it be in English. Obviously, there will be the inaccuracies (and perhaps humorous consequences) that are present in computer translations, but until StarTrek's universal translator badge comes to market, this is the next best thing. It offers great promise for international communication through the internet. I'm sure many of you will want to bookmark the altavista site, if not link your pages to it as well. Ron Pipkin Law and Society Association <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:36:39 -0500 From: Larry Horn Subject: Re: Automatic translation At 1:08 PM -0500 2/9/98, Allan Metcalf wrote: >This was posted recently on the discussion list for administrators of ACLS >societies. (Yes, there's a list for everything!) It's news to me . . . and >maybe news to some others on ADS-L. - Allan Metcalf > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >I have recently >learned of an interesting website developed by Digital that offers instant >translations between English and German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and >Spanish. By putting a link on your homepage to that site, users can have >your pages and all hyperlinks in your site translated into one of these >languages. > >Go to http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate? and type in >the URL for you homepage and select a language into which you would like it >translated. Follow the hyperlinks in your pages to see them translated as >well. Graphics are unchanged but all text is translated. > It's pretty cute, but remarkably quirky. I just tried the English to French conversion (one of the few whose accuracy I can evaluate) on my own homepage and found particularly surprising the rendering of my "Fall" and "Spring" term courses as those for the "Chute" and "Spring" semesters respectively. The former is a typical decontextualized take-the-first-entry error (la "chute" does indeed describe what the leaves do in the relevant season), but the latter is an odd surrender, since Spring--> "printemps" or even erroneously --> "source" isn't THAT hard to come up with. And for some reason every instance of "negation" in one of my course descriptions is turned into "inversion"--'la double inversion' sounds vaguely sexy, but is ultimately incoherent. I don't think the universal translator is at hand yet, but this babelfish is fun to play around with. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 13:44:00 +0000 From: Duane Campbell Subject: Re: Automatic translation At 01:36 PM 2/9/98 -0500, you wrote: > >It's pretty cute, but remarkably quirky. I just tried the English to French >conversion (one of the few whose accuracy I can evaluate) on my own >homepage and found particularly surprising the rendering of my "Fall" and >"Spring" term courses as those for the "Chute" and "Spring" I did the same with German and my home page. Lots of glitches, but generally comprehensible. The name Bill was translated to Einladen. The same thing can happen in low-tech circumstances. A German artist friend wanted us to see the "blanket" he had designed for the new conservatory. I was baffled until he showed us the Decke, the ceiling. Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]epix.net http://www.epix.net/~dcamp/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 19:59:03 -0500 From: Gerald Cohen Subject: Re: "the skinny" Jim Rader's very helpful 2/6/98 posting on "the skinny" caught my attention particularly for its connecting " skinny" to Naval Academy slang, where it could mean "physics and chemistry." What, I wondered, is the connection of "skinny" with "physics and chemistry," when I remembered that I once reprinted a 1904 article on Naval Academy slang ("A New Vocabulary of Slang Created by the Naval Cadets at Annapolis," _The World --NYC newspaper--, Sunday, May 1, 1904, The World Magazine section, p.6/2-5---Reprinted in my _Studies in Slang, V, Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1997, pp.57-60). The 1904 article says: "'Physics and Chemistry" are condensed and compressed into one term, which has come to be applied to one of the Academy buildings, Skinny." Maybe "condensed and compressed" in the quote just above provides unexpectedly the clue to "the skinny." "Skinny" implies the essentials of a matter--no frills, no fluff, nothing extraneous--the condensed/compressed truth. To hard-nosed scientific types, the various humanistic disciplines and the fine arts would count as frills, whereas physics and chemistry are the core of understanding the universe. (How often in the 1970s did I hear my own discipline, Foreign Languages, referred to on my engineering campus--now a much more enlightened place--as "a frill!") So, "the skinny" was originally the bare-bones facts, unaccompanied by any additional blubber. This also seems to fit the 1938 quote cited by Jim Rader (from Richard Hallet's _The Rolling World_, p.287): "...Had she really given me the skinny of an actual legend from the archives of her race, or was she wafting me the native poetry of her soul?" --Gerald Cohen gcohen[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]umr.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 11:03:16 +0900 From: Daniel Long Subject: Automatic Dialect translation Speaking of automatic translation pages. There is one in Osaka that will translate the contents of a webpage (in Standard Japanese) into the Osaka dialect. Yes, it really works, and no, the Osaka and Tokyo (standard) dialects are not far enough apart that this kind of thing is really necessary. Probably not of much use to many ADS members either, but the fact that this kind of thing exists says a lot about the dialect consciousness here in Osaka. ADS-Lers who wish to Osakanize webpages may access the page below. http://onishi2.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~staka/osaka/osakanize.html Danny Long -- Daniel Long, Associate Professor NEW tel +81-6-723-8297 Japanese Language Research Center NEW fax +81-6-723-8302 Osaka Shoin Women's College dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp 4-2-26 Hishiyanishi http://www.age.or.jp/x/oswcjlrc/ Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 12:55:52 +0900 From: Daniel Long Subject: borras for "tidal wave" I have a late nineteenth century source about a colony on the Bonin Islands in the Pacific which uses the word "borras" for a wave caused by an earthquake. I must give a brief account of the tidal wave, or "borras" as the Bonin settlers term it. A friend has suggested the word may have come from Spanish/Portuguese borrasca 'tempest, storm, hurricane'. This sounds likely from the ethnic makeup of the settlers which included English, US, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Hawaiian, Chamorro and various Pacific Islanders, Filipino Chinese, Japanese, etc. A particularly prominent Portuguese settler was from Cape Verde. My questions are whether (1) this word is unique to the English (pidgin?) of this island, or is found in other varieties of English, or English-related contact languages. I would especially like to know if it turns up in Maritime pidgins. (2) Also, the form I have is "borras", different from the Portuguese/Spanish in both form and (slightly) in meaning. Are there any Portuguese/Spanish dialects/pidgins, etc. in which the word exists in this form and in this meaning, or did the word get shortened by the Bonin islanders? (3) It isn't clear from the context (and considering that the writer was not a native of the island) whether this is a single morpheme or the final -s is a plural. Any ideas? Danny Long -- Daniel Long, Associate Professor NEW tel +81-6-723-8297 Japanese Language Research Center NEW fax +81-6-723-8302 Osaka Shoin Women's College dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]joho.osaka-shoin.ac.jp 4-2-26 Hishiyanishi http://www.age.or.jp/x/oswcjlrc/ Higashi-Osaka-shi, Osaka Japan 577 ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Feb 1998 to 9 Feb 1998 ********************************************** ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/8/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 6 Feb 1998 to 7 Feb 1998 98-02-08 00:01:07 There is one message totalling 84 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Fred Cassidy - REPLY!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 07:56:29 -0000 From: Victor Alberto Silva Subject: Re: Fred Cassidy - REPLY!! I hope our collegue recovers soon. Victor Silva, Portugal ---------- > De: Samuel Jones > Para: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU > Assunto: Re: Fred Cassidy - REPLY!! > Data: Sexta-feira, 6 de Fevereiro de 1998 4:39 > > Joan! > > Thank you so much for informing me about Fred! I am much distressed by this > turn of events, but hope that Fred's usual G G & P (= Guts, Gaul & > Presumption! That's what we country types from Oklahoma call "chutzpah.") > will see him thru to a solid recovery, so that he can get at his memoirs. > I shall, of course, write to him, and send him some of the silly pieces of > Okie-&-Otherwise humor stored on my hard drive. > > It was thoughtful of you to let the ADS know about this. How are YOU doing? > > I know Fred greatly enjoys classical music. I assume he would enjoy a tape > or two? > > Let me know if there is anything I can do to help out! > > ______________________________________________________________________ > > I'm sorry to have to give you the news that Fred Cassidy had a stroke on > >Tuesday morning. He is in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he had planned to > >spend January and February writing the memoirs of his childhood in Jamaica. > >It sounds as if the stroke was relatively minor, but at this point he is > >still unable to swallow or to talk. He has regained some of the use of his > >right hand, and can walk with no trouble. (In fact, he took off so fast in > >the walker that the physical therapists had to chase after him and slow him > >down!) He will probably be in the hospital for at least another week. If > >you would like to let him know you are thinking of him, you can send cards > >to this address: > > > >Frederic G. Cassidy > >Scottsdale Memorial Osborn Hospital > >Room 328 > >7200 E. Osborn Rd. > >Scottsdale, AZ 85251 > > > >I'll let you know when he is moved to another kind of care facility, and > >provide that address. > > > >Joan Hall > > > _______________________________ > DR. SAMUEL M. JONES > Professor Emertitus > Music & Latin American Studies > University of Wisconsin-Madison > "Pen-y-Bryn" - 122 Shepard Terrace > Madison, WI 53705-3614 USA > _______________________________ > EMAIL: smjones1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]facstaff.wisc.edu > _______________________________ > TELEPHONE: 608 + 233-2150 > _______________________________ ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 6 Feb 1998 to 7 Feb 1998 ********************************************** ====================================================================== From: Automatic digest processor (2/7/98) To: Recipients of ADS-L digests ADS-L Digest - 5 Feb 1998 to 6 Feb 1998 98-02-07 00:00:29 There are 9 messages totalling 284 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. dish (n.) = gossip 2. Ain't TAN 3. Saliency vocabulary 4. More on "the skinny" 5. DARE Fund-raising position 6. dish; and outing 7. Penn Linguistics Colloquium 8. Africanist/medievalist 9. LSA Institute, Summer 99 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 00:14:21 -0600 From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: dish (n.) = gossip Surely related to the relevant verb in this saying, which has to have been around a long time: S/He can dish it out, but can s/he take it? DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 01:24:58 -0500 From: Robert Swets Subject: Re: Ain't TAN > > Subject: ain't for "did not" Ain't is common in Lancaster County, PA--Pennsylvania "Dutch" for "is it not?" or "am I not?" ******************************************************************************* __ __ COLOR ME ORANGE | | | | Voice: 954-782-4582 + Fax: 954-782-4535 R. D. Swets | | | | Dir. of Music Ministries, Boca West Com- 170 N.E. 18th Street ______| | | |______ munity UMC + http:/www.awebs.com/ Pompano Beach, FL 33060 (________) (________) bocawest/ Sun-Sentinel: bobbo[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bc.seflin.org 954-356-4635; Fax: 954-356-4676 ******************************************************************************* ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 06:53:51 -0500 From: Fred Shapiro Subject: Re: Saliency vocabulary On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Allan Metcalf wrote: > There are also what I call "stealth" words that enter the general vocabulary > unnoticed by neologists till years later, because they seem so natural. I had > an example or two, but can't remember any! Another example is _prophesize_. This has been around for decades -- remember Bob Dylan's "Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pens." But I don't believe it has been picked up by any dictionaries. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Coeditor (with Jane Garry) Associate Librarian for Public Services TRIAL AND ERROR: AN OXFORD and Lecturer in Legal Research ANTHOLOGY OF LEGAL STORIES Yale Law School Oxford University Press, 1998 e-mail: fred.shapiro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]yale.edu ISBN 0-19-509547-2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:03:27 +0000 From: Jim Rader Subject: More on "the skinny" _Skinny_ in the sense "the inside dope" has appeared in several issued of _American Speech_, including: v. 34 (1959) "Gator (University of Florida) Slang" by Lalia Phipps Boone: _What's the skinny_ means 'What's up?' (p. 153). [This is the first cite in OED2.] v. 40 (1965) "Notes on Campus Vocabulary, 1964" by Lawrence Poston, III, and Francis J. Stillman: SKINNY, n. Attested in the ATS (904.2) and the DAS, this word has in the past (especially in Naval Academy slang) meant a course or class in physics and chemistry. It may also be synonymous with _poop_: "What's the skinny on that French class?" (p. 195) [Merriam cite files have an Oct. 22, 1937 letter to the New York Times from a Naval Academy midshipman confirming the use of _skinny_ to refer to chemistry and physics.] v. 55 (1980) " 'The Skinny Was Always...' " by Brian Dibble (p. 155-57). The author discusses the use of the word by R.V. Cassill in a short story ("Happy Marriage") first published in 1956 in the _Kansas Magazine_. The opening sentence of the story is "The skinny was always: You married specifically against death." Dibble asked Cassill where he had heard the word, to which he replied: "...I first heard it persistently and widely used by nearly everyone in the Army and Navy during WWII...I can't begin to guess when or how it might have come into usage." Dibble also queried J.B. Hall, the editor of a short fiction collection in which Cassill's story appeared; Hall replied: "It is American slang, not now used very much, I think....It is exactly equivalent to some old RAF-ese I used to hear: to get the 'gen'; now we get--more universally--the 'dope' on something, the 'word' or the 'info'." Note that OED2 did not pick up the antedating. _Skinny_ in the sense "inside information" was not entered in Merriam dictionaries until the 6th Addenda section to W3 and C10 came out in 1993. Our post-C9 citation files have no examples of _the skinny_ (other than references to the _American Speech_ articles) before 1975. However, Fred Shapiro alerted me to the fact that _skinny_ as noun in C10 is dated "1938," and sure enough, attached to the dating file slip is a copy of a 1938 citation. I waded through the several inches of cites for _skinny_ in our old (pre-C10) citation files and could find not a single example of the relevant sense, with the exception of the 1938 slip, the text of which follows: -But the elfin corners of Lehua's mouth suggest her gift of -improvisation. Had she really given me the skinny of an actual -legend from the archives of her race, or was she wafting me the -native poetry of her soul? Richard Hallet, _The Rolling World_, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1938, p. 287. _Skinny_ in this passage looks more like "the gist" than "the inside information," but it's hard not to see it as the same word. The writer, in mixing registers, may have given it his own twist. I did a bit of investigation into the man who was using _the skinny_ in 1938. Richard Matthews Hallet, according to _Who Was Who in America_, was born in Bath, Maine, in 1887 and died in 1967. After taking A.B. and LL.B. degrees at Harvard, he shipped on a British bark bound for Australia in 1912 and worked at a number of jobs--stone breaker, sheepshearer, boundary rider (presumably in Australia), fireman on a British mail packet to London, timber cruiser in Canada, copper miner in Arizona, watch officer on a U.S. Army transport carrying horses during World War I--before settling down to writing as a career. Hallet later worked for Gannett and was a war correspondent in the Pacific theater during World War II. Books by him in NYPL research collection are _ The Lady Aft_ (Boston, c1915), _Trial by Fire: A Tale of the Great Lakes (Boston, c1916), _The Canyon of the Fools_ (New York, c1922), _Michael Beam_ (Boston, c1939), _Foothold of Earth_ (New York, 1944), in addition to _The Rolling World_; the latter is subject-coded as travel literature, and so is presumably non-fiction. Hallet's books, given his varied background, seem like they might have been a good source for cites; he was quoted five times in W3, but I haven't checked to see if other books of his were read by Merriam editors. I have doubts about the hypothesis that _skinny_ in the sense "inside dope" had anything to do with thin paper used for briefings; whatever the origin, the sense could not have arisen during World War II. If this usage was so common then, why is there so little citational evidence for it? I look forward to seeing what Jon Lighter's slang dictionary produces on the word. Jim Rader s ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 11:31:16 -0600 From: Joan Houston Hall Subject: Re: DARE Fund-raising position The Dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has generously provided DARE with the position of a fund-raiser for three years. Because this could be a make-or-break situaion, we are searching widely to find just the right person for the job. I post the ad here in case you know someone who might fit the bill. Development: The Dictionary of American Regional English (see website at http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html) seeks a Development Specialist to initiate and execute a major fund- raising campaign to carry this renowned project to its conclusion in 12-15 years. Meeting the goal requires the acquisition of substantial new gifts, and the Development Specialist must exhibit the ability to interact at sophisticated levels with major gift candidates. The work of this position will be coordinated with that of the University of Wisconsin Foundation. Support for the position is guaranteed for three years; continuation will be contingent on success. Duties include performing prospect research and networking to identify and contact prospective donors; writing proposals; establishing a "Friends" organization; maintaining contact with donors. Applicants must demonstrate excellent speaking and writing skills; have successful history of funds development; exhibit creativity and enthusiasm for the project; work well independently and as part of a team. Minimum salary $38,000. (Unless confidentiality is requested in writing, information regarding applicants must be released upon request. Finalists cannot be guaranteed confidentiality.) Send cover letter, r!sum!, and reference list (by March 13) to Joan Houston Hall, 6125 Helen White Hall, 600 N. Park St., Madison, WI 53706. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 12:33:49 -0800 From: Peter Richardson Subject: Re: dish; and outing Re outing: I'll check on the dates of German _sich outen_ 'come out' or, literally, 'out oneself'. German has done the same thing here that it frequently does with English--breathe strange new life into a foreign body. Example: the adjective _ausgepowert_ 'exhausted', lit. 'powered out', with no credible analog that I'm aware of in English. PR ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 16:48:51 EST From: Allan Metcalf Subject: Penn Linguistics Colloquium Is any ADS member going to attend the annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium, to be held in Philadelphia Feb. 28-Mar. 1? Their organizers write: > We would like to know if the American Dialect Society would be interested in displaying information and/or publications at this event.< That's a good idea which I think would be facilitated by a representative on the spot. Please e-mail me directly if you're interested. - Allan Metcalf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 18:00:37 -0600 From: "Timothy C. Frazer" Subject: Africanist/medievalist I wonder if anyone can forward this to the appropriate list(s). I have a friend from Nigeria who's in this country on a temporary appointment which expires this year. He would like to remain in the states in a teaching position, given the deteriorating state of affairs in Nigeria. He's a Ph.D. in medieval English, but after teaching for a number of years in Nigeria has done some work in linguistics (e.g., vowel harmony in Ibo) and is now working on stylistic studies of Anglophone Afican novelists. Does anyone know of an open position that needs this combination of interests? Thanks for your help. Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 20:22:37 -0600 From: Dennis Baron Subject: Re: LSA Institute, Summer 99 The LSA is holding its annual institute for the summer of 1999 at the U of Illinois in Urbana. The last time it was here, in 1977, I chaired the ADS summer session, and I think about 5 people showed up, though I maybe overestimating. The institute lineup looks pretty attractive. Labov, Wang, Wolfram(I think), lots of others. Publicity hasn't gone out yet, because things are still in the planning stages. I'll be here, doing a course (probably some version of literacy and technology). If enough people are interested, maybe we should try for another session, something to beat our 1977 record. As the LSA says, it will be the last time this century to try. Of course, for those of us waiting for 2001 . . . . Anyway, Allan and others, think about the possibilities and let me know if you need a local liaison. Dennis _____ Dennis Baron, Acting Head debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu Department of English phone: 217-333-2390 University of Illinois fax: 217-333-4321 608 South Wright Street Urbana, Illinois 61801 http://www.english.uiuc.edu/baron ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 5 Feb 1998 to 6 Feb 1998 ********************************************** ======================================================================