There is one message totalling 58 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Call for Papers - NWAVE 25 in Las Vegas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 17:14:07 -0500 From: Cukor-Avila Patricia pcavila[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]JOVE.ACS.UNT.EDU Subject: Call for Papers - NWAVE 25 in Las Vegas NWAVE will celebrate its Silver Anniversary in the Silver State. The Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas will be the site of NWAVE 25, October 17-20, which will include its usual fare of papers, plenary sessions, and workshops. Tentative plenary speakers include Jean Aitchison, Allan Bell, and William Labov. There will be workshops on probability theory, computer mapping, fiels methods, and statistics. CALL FOR PAPERS Send a one page abstract by July 12, 1996. All abstracts will be refereed anonymously, so don't put your name on the abstract. Inlcude your name, affiliation, mailing address, email address, and title on a separate sheet of paper. You can send abstracts in any of the following ways: Mail: Dr. Jan Tillery NWAVE Coordinator UNLV College of Liberal Arts 4505 Maryland Parkway Box 455001 Las Vegas, NV 89154-5001 FAX: Dr. Jan Tillery NWAVE Coordinator (702) 895-4097 EMAIL: gbailey[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccmail.nevada.edu ACCOMMODATIONS The Sahara Hotel, one of the best-known hotel/casinos in Las Vegas, has reserved a block of rooms for NWAVE participants. All NWAVE sessions and activities will be at the Sahara. Rooms are $85 a night single/double occupancy October 18-19 and $42 October 17. The Sahara offers a wide range of dining options at very reasonable prices, has a very nice pool, and is in easy walking distance of many of the other casinos on the strip. If you want to come a few days early to vacation a bit, the Sahara has agreed to provide the $42 rate for October 13-16 as well. Reservation information can be obtained from any of the addresses listed above. The phone number for the Sahara is (702) 737-2111. Room reservations must be made by September 13, 1996 to obtain the conference rate. REGISTRATION Early registration (by September 16, 1996) is $55 for non-students, $35 for students. On-site registration is $65 for non-students, $45 for students. Workshops are $25 each. Please send checks, made out to NWAVE 25, to the address above. A subscription to Language Variation and Change is included in the registration. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 29 Jun 1996 to 2 Jul 1996 *********************************************** There is one message totalling 23 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. What's NWAVE? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 12:36:54 -0500 From: "Albert E. Krahn" krahna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MILWAUKEE.TEC.WI.US Subject: What's NWAVE? Call for Papers - NWAVE 25 in Las Vegas What is NWAVE? I don't keep an acronym dictionary in my basement. AKRA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Al Krahn English Department Milwaukee Area Technical College 700 W. State St. Milwaukee WI 53233 W414/297-6519 H /476-4025 KRAHNA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MILWAUKEE.TEC.WI.US F /297-7990 Owner,PUNCT-L: a mailing list for the practical and theoretical discussion of punctuation. Send for logon instructions. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 2 Jul 1996 to 3 Jul 1996 ********************************************** There is one message totalling 40 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. What's NWAVE? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 09:33:14 -0400 From: Mary Brown Zeigler engmez[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PANTHER.GSU.EDU Subject: Re: What's NWAVE? NWAVE is the acronym for New Ways of Analyzing Variations in English. Sometimes it is referred to as simply NWAV for new ways of analyze variation so that languages other than English may be considered. Mary B. Zeigler Georgia State University Department of English mzeigler[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gsu.edu Atlanta, GA 30303 (404) 651-2900 On Wed, 3 Jul 1996, Albert E. Krahn wrote: Call for Papers - NWAVE 25 in Las Vegas What is NWAVE? I don't keep an acronym dictionary in my basement. AKRA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Al Krahn English Department Milwaukee Area Technical College 700 W. State St. Milwaukee WI 53233 W414/297-6519 H /476-4025 KRAHNA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MILWAUKEE.TEC.WI.US F /297-7990 Owner,PUNCT-L: a mailing list for the practical and theoretical discussion of punctuation. Send for logon instructions. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 3 Jul 1996 to 5 Jul 1996 ********************************************** There are 2 messages totalling 61 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. language question (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 00:26:02 -0400 From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: language question Can anyone tell me what language the following is written in? I will be particularly grateful for a translation! so ta mon otra ta un otra teyamon u to traya satiya to ta ya to i mato ya sataun otra teyamon u to traya, satiya tom, satiya tom, satom, satom sadom, sadom, una tote sadom una pake sadom. so ta mon otra ta un otra teya u to traya satiya to ta ya to i mato ya sataun otra teya u to traya, satiya tom, satiya tom, satom, satom sadom, sadom, una tote sadom una pake sadom. This is my transcription from a tape (a song called" Emmeleia" by a group called Dead Can Dance); the words are sung/chanted. I can't tell if there is a phonemic distinction between [-ato-] and [-ado-], i.e, if [satom] and [sadom] are the same "word" or different. In either case, the stop seems to be unaspirated between the two vowels. Also, I can't tell for sure whether all of the final nasals are exactly as represented here; there may be a kind of [m]/[n] free variation in final position. The [r] of "otra" seems to be slightly trilled, making "otra" sound like Spanish. Always, [o] before nasals is lowered. I'm struck by the fact that there are no [l]'s in the song. The second stanza (which is repeated once) is identical to the first stanza except for the loss of the sequence [-mon] at the end of the first and third lines. A student who thinks I am smarter than I am gave me this problem. Will someone help me continue to fool him into thinking that I know more than I do? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Jul 1996 09:17:34 -0400 From: "ads-l Conference [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] highlands.com" XINCLXads-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]HIGHLANDS.COM Subject: Re: language question Dear Ron: Did the student give this to you on the understanding that it is a representative sampling of the sounds of the language in question. I have a couple of sources which might help if this is the case. Regards, David ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 5 Jul 1996 to 6 Jul 1996 ********************************************** There are 6 messages totalling 202 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Melungeon 2. Semi-early "uptalk" citation (2) 3. Allen Walker Read 4. Melungeons (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 13:39:03 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Melungeon I believe the term "Melungeon" (defined in the Dictionary of Americanisms as "a member of a group of people of mixed Indian, white, and Negro blood found in some parts of the mountainous portions of Tennessee and western North Carolina") was discussed in some ADS publication or forum within the past few years, but I don't remember where. Any references? Thanks! - Allan Metcalf ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 15:33:45 -0400 From: Jesse T Sheidlower jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PANIX.COM Subject: Semi-early "uptalk" citation I encountered a passage which I thought could be of interest to some ADS-L'ers. I'm not sure who's doing research on "uptalk," but if anyone knows someone, feel free to send this along. I was recently reading John A. Williams' novel _The Angry Ones,_ first published in 1960 although written in the period 1956-60. Williams is a black writer who became a professor of English at Rutgers; this is his first novel. The passage struck me because it seems rather early (although Joan Hall of DARE tells me that the uptalk phenomenon is well known as a Southernism for some time); because the speaker is a man; and because the "uptalk" is explicitly discussed in the text. This passage is chapter 15; it's found on page 118 of the 1996 Norton reprint of the book in their Old School Books line. Both speakers in this exchange are white men; the narrator is a black man. The uptalking speaker is identified as a farmer from the Mississippi Delta. ---------------- begin included text -------------- "Confidentially," he said, "it took all my savings--and you know what happened the last time I was here?" "Yes?" Rollie said. He didn't bat an eyelash. "I went to see my brother so I could go ahead plannin' things for next year if I got some money from him?" Southerners have a way of making statments sound like questions. ---------------- end included text --------------- Hope this is useful/of interest. Best, Jesse Sheidlower Random House Reference jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 15:57:26 PDT From: Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPIX.NET Subject: Re: Semi-early "uptalk" citation --- On Mon, 8 Jul 1996 15:33:45 -0400 Jesse T Sheidlower jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PANIX.COM wrote: I was recently reading John A. Williams' novel _The Angry Ones,_ first published in 1960 I can take it back a bit earlier. When I was a child, maybe 8 or 10 which would be the late 40's or early 50's, I had a playmate who used "uptalk" habitually. He was unique -- it was not a family or group pattern. He was very shy, and I took it to be a form of asking for reinforcement (validation hadn't yet been invented). There have often been terminal words that have the same effect: "right?", "ya' know?", "nu?", "Nicht war?", "N'c'est pas?" the word has dropped, but the inflection remains. Relating to the shyness of my friend, I note that there is sometimes (but not always) a power component a la Deborah Tannen. Listening to the puzzles on NPR on Sunday mornings, Inotice that while men always answer in the affirmative, women often give the correct answer in a question form: "Is it .....?" Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]epix.net In the beginning the Earth was without form and void. Why didn't they leave well enough alone? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 17:12:26 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Allen Walker Read Allen Walker Read, ultimate authority on the lexicon of American English and much else, former secretary and president of ADS, recently turned 90. Here is a recent message about him from Richard Bailey of the U of Michigan. (For a history of AWR and ADS, along with AWR's prize-winning short story, see the May 1993 newsletter of the American Dialect Society, pages 5-10.) ------------------------------------------------ Dear Allan, A note from Charlotte Read (dated June 1st) acknowledges the letter we sent from ADS/Chicago wishing them well. Would you please copy this to any people you think would be interested in it. Dick * * * * * Dear Richard, Even though it is so very late, I would like you to know how much Allen appreciated the greetings you sent from the ADS/ANS meeting on December 29 in Chicago. Allen is not writing letters these days, but his health is continuing to improve and he is getting along very well. Tomorrow he will celebrate his 90th birthday. He walks around the neighborhood every day, and enjoys reading. He thanks you for collecting and sending the list of friends at the Chicago meeting. We hope you will have a fine summer. Sincerely, MANY THANKS! Charlotte Allen P. S. We also enjoyed the list of candidates for words of the year 1995. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 20:56:28 -0400 From: Beverly Flanigan FLANIGAN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: Melungeons The only recent article on Melungeons that I'm aware of is one by Glenn Gilbert, published a few years ago in a collection of conference papers--NWAVE? ADS? I don't have my copy handy; perhaps Glenn is on line and can give us the citation. In that article, Glenn refers to the tri-racial community in Maryland as "Wesorts," one of a number of labels given to mixed White-Indian-Negro families in the eastern U.S. over the past 200 years or more: "WINs" is one such term, Melungeons, Guineas, Brass Ankles, Croatans, Moors, Red Bones, and Carmel [Caramel?] Indians are a few others. The mix of history and legend is long and complex, with early publications dating back at least to the 1920s. More recent studies were done by Brewton Berry in the '50s and '60s; see _Almost White_ (NY: Macmillan, 1963). An M.A. thesis was done in 1952, on "The Guineas of West Virginia," by John Burnell at Ohio State. Athens County and surrounding southern Ohio counties have a large population of descendants of the early "WINs" (about 2000, according to the last census counting such distinctions), but the old family names are found east to Maryland and the Carolinas and west at least as far as southern Indiana and Illinois. (Are Walt Wolfram's informants on Okracoke Island part of this same community of families?) The name "Melungeon" (to return to Allan's question!) is, like "Guinea," of uncertain origin; since one of the first mixed families was formed by an Englishman who married the daughter of a Haitian slave and a Cherokee Indian, the term may have come from the resulting "melange." The dialect used today, as Glenn Gilbert points out, is largely indistinguishable from the dominant variety of each local area; in Athens County, for example, it is the "Southeast Ohio Appalachian" variant of South Midland. Beverly Flanigan Ohio University ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 20:47:37 PDT From: Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPIX.NET Subject: Re: Melungeons --- On Mon, 8 Jul 1996 20:56:28 -0400 Beverly Flanigan FLANIGAN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU wrote: the tri-racial community in Maryland as "Wesorts," one of a number of labels given to mixed White-Indian-Negro families in the eastern U.S. over the past 200 years or more: "WINs" is one such term, Melungeons, Guineas, Brass Ankles, Croatans, Moors, Red Bones, and Carmel [Caramel?] Indians are a few others. Add to that list "Pools". Isn't this where I came in? I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but the Pools are what brought me into this list in the first place. They are an extended family which has lived mostly within a radius of five miles in Northeast Pennsylvania for two hundred years. What is most interesting is that they have their own language, and even though I went to school with Pools, it is pretty much incomprehensible to outsiders. Is this true of the other groups? Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]epix.net In the beginning the Earth was without form and void. Why didn't they leave well enough alone? ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 6 Jul 1996 to 8 Jul 1996 ********************************************** There is one message totalling 38 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Melungeons ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:07:35 -0500 From: Anita Puckett apuckett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VT.EDU Subject: Melungeons I cannot add to the ADS sources already given, but I can suggest some interesting additions to the origins of the East Tennessee/North Carolina/Southwest Virginia Melungeons whom I've encountered primarly as residents of Hancock County, Tennessee. A 10/15/95 newspaper article in the Dickenson County, Virginia paper by NPI Media Services writer Mike Still wrote: "Mustafa Siyahhan, director of the Turkish Tourism Office in Washington, D.C., came to Wise [Virginia] the weekend of Oct. 14 in what may well be the first official government recognition that the Melungeons are in fact descendants of Turkish and Moorish sailors captured, freed and unintentionally stranded in the New World by English mariner and sometimes pirate Sir Francis Drake. . . .While genetic and genealogical research by Clinch Valley College administrator Brent Kennedy and scientists in the U.S. and Turkey is confirming the Mediterranean origins of Melungeons, Turkish officials are embracing the theory and fact of that origin." The major theme of the article is that such a Turkish link will open up possible tourism/cultural exchange developments between Wise, VA, and Cesme, Turkey. . . . . However, if the genetic evidence, which I have not had time to track down, has any validity (and a colleague at U. Tennessee suggests it does), then pinning down a possible origin of Melungeon is slightly more likely. No additional suggestions as to the origin of "Melungeon" are offered in this article, and, frankly, I've forgotten the 10 or so I've encountered over the years--they all seemed to lack serious credibility. I have the article only as a photocopy; Allen, if you or anyone else wants a copy, just let me know. Anita Puckett ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 8 Jul 1996 to 9 Jul 1996 ********************************************** There are 9 messages totalling 226 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Allen Walker Read (4) 2. "Wildly" vs. "Widely" (5) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:23:58 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Allen Walker Read Allen Walker Read is an American hero, and it's really pathetic that he's not as honored and recognized, say, as an 18-year-old NBA prospect who can hardly talk. Ninety years! Hurrah!! I've updated the "O.K." story, and it will appear (with many photos of O.K. items) in the next American Political Items Collectors KEYNOTER magazine. You can contact this organization at http://www.fred.net/ari/apic.html. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 07:28:54 -0400 From: BARBARA HILL HUDSON BHHUDSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GROVE.IUP.EDU Subject: Re: Allen Walker Read What is the point of your comparing Read and an 18-year old NBA player???? Were they in some kind of competition or was this just a cheap shot? Bhhudson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]grove.iup.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 11:07:24 -0400 From: "Dennis R. Preston" preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU Subject: Re: Allen Walker Read I'm very disappointed that Allen Walker Read, whom I and I am sure many others on this list hold in the deepest respect, is mentioned in a message which contains barely disguised racist and linguistically ignorant asides. How long ago did Bill Labov write 'The Logic of Nonstandard English'? I've never heard an NBA player or prospect 'who can hardly talk.' Dennis Preston (Who had the head for it and the shot, but whose general physical attributes somehow kept him out of the NBA) Allen Walker Read is an American hero, and it's really pathetic that he's not as honored and recognized, say, as an 18-year-old NBA prospect who can hardly talk. Ninety years! Hurrah!! I've updated the "O.K." story, and it will appear (with many photos of O.K. items) in the next American Political Items Collectors KEYNOTER magazine. You can contact this organization at http://www.fred.net/ari/apic.html. 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)432-1235 Fax: (517)432-2736 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:31:31 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" ague[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]REDRCK.ENET.DEC.COM Subject: "Wildly" vs. "Widely" Today's newspaper had a caption on a photo saying that the "water pressure from fire hydrants varies wildly." Unless the editor had some sort of pun intended, I would have expected "widely" to be used. Comments? -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 11:18:10 PDT From: Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPIX.NET Subject: Re: "Wildly" vs. "Widely" --- On Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:31:31 PDT "//www.usa.net/~ague" ague[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]REDRCK.ENET.DEC.COM wrote: Today's newspaper had a caption on a photo saying that the "water pressure from fire hydrants varies wildly." Unless the editor had some sort of pun intended, I would have expected "widely" to be used. i would assume that if it varied "widely" it would move methodically from very high pressure to very low pressure. If it varied "wildly" it jumped erratically from one pressure to another. If this is the worst problem you have with your newspaper, consider yourself lucky. In my local daily yesterday they forgot the entire comics page, and according to today's header it is Saturday, July 10th. The calendar they gave out last winter had 31 days in June. Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]epix.net In the beginning the Earth was without form and void. Why didn't they leave well enough alone? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:54:13 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer owner-LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: "Wildly" vs. "Widely" Jim Ague writes: Today's newspaper had a caption on a photo saying that the "water pressure from fire hydrants varies wildly." Unless the editor had some sort of pun intended, I would have expected "widely" to be used. Comments? -- Jim To me, "varies wildly" implies that the variation isn't deliberate or under human control, and probably that it's not predictable. "Varies widely" would imply a more controlled or predictable process. If the story (or caption) is trying to draw attention to a possibly dangerous situation, "varies wildly" makes sense. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com | rosenzweig[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acm.org New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 10:55:21 -0700 From: Peter McGraw pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU Subject: Re: "Wildly" vs. "Widely" The immediate predecessor of the current executive director of the Oregon Historical Society (who had a short but destructive tenure) once reported in the society's newsletter about a discussion which had covered a wide range of topics, describing it as a "wildly raging" discussion. Peter McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, OR On Wed, 10 Jul 1996, //www.usa.net/~ague wrote: Today's newspaper had a caption on a photo saying that the "water pressure from fire hydrants varies wildly." Unless the editor had some sort of pun intended, I would have expected "widely" to be used. Comments? -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:24:03 PDT From: "//www.usa.net/~ague" ague[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]REDRCK.ENET.DEC.COM Subject: Re: "Wildly" vs. "Widely" Today's newspaper had a caption on a photo saying that the "water pressure from fire hydrants varies wildly." Unless the editor had some sort of pun intended, I would have expected "widely" to be used. Comments? -- Jim From Vicki: To me, "varies wildly" implies that the variation isn't deliberate or under human control, and probably that it's not predictable. "Varies widely" would imply a more controlled or predictable process. If the story (or caption) is trying to draw attention to a possibly dangerous situation, "varies wildly" makes sense. More detail on the story might support Vicki's choice of wildly. Currently the fire department is color coding the tops of fire hydrants based on their water pressure. Somehow this will assist them in selecting a hydrant. Apparently they can't standardize the water pressures from each, so they choose painting. So per Vicki, the colors of the fire hydrants "varies widely", whereas their water pressures "varies wildly"? -- Jim ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 22:01:08 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Allen Walker Read My previous posting has generated a response that I deeply regret and did not think that I had implied. I had two points to make, both of which are important. First, Allen Walker Read has turned ninety years old, and this is reason to celebrate. I hold him in the highest regard, and the general public should be aware of his work. Second, I've written for the next American Political Items Collectors KEYNOTER magazine an updated article on "O.K." It serves as an important supplement to the articles that Read wrote for AMERICAN SPEECH over thirty years ago. The KEYNOTER, unlike AMERICAN SPEECH, contains pictures, and the very many "O.K." political items will be shown for the first time. You'll see the Oll for Klay badges. You'll see the pOlK badges. You'll see the O.K. barrel of hard cider. You'll also see citations for previously undiscovered O.K.'s, O.W.'s (oll wright), O.F.M.'s (our first men), O.L.C.'s (our leading citizens), K.C.'s (kitchen cabinet), and more. When it comes out, I think you'll all enjoy it. APIC is on the internet at http://www.fred.net/ari/apic.html. Also, if anyone has any previously unpublished O.K. stuff, please e-mail me immediately so it can be credited and included. Again, that's all I meant to say, and I feel it's very important to the topic. I sincerely apologize for the off-topic remark that caused the previous postings. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 9 Jul 1996 to 10 Jul 1996 *********************************************** There is one message totalling 17 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Allen Walker Read: OK ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:38:15 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Allen Walker Read: OK Barry Popik mentions "the articles that Read wrote for AMERICAN SPEECH over thirty years ago." Most of you probably know these, but they are masterpieces that shouldn't be forgotten, so here are the citations (from the AmSp index, available at our Web site). - Allan Metcalf The First Stage in the History of "O.K.". 38 (1963):5-27. The Second Stage in the History of "O.K.". 38:83-102. The Folklore of "O.K.". 39 (1964):5-25. Successive Revisions in the Explanation of "O.K.". 39:243-67. Later Stages in the History of "O.K.". 39:83-101. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 10 Jul 1996 to 11 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 4 messages totalling 187 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. 3 Types of Observers--Jewish (fwd) 2. This message certainly looks genuine. FYI (3) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 09:52:29 -0500 From: Cynthia Bernstein bernscy[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.AUBURN.EDU Subject: 3 Types of Observers--Jewish (fwd) I thought that ADS-ers would appreciate these distinctions: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 11 Jul 96 15:36:29 EST5EDT From: Laurence G. Kahn kahn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]drcoffsite.com To: jhumor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]drcoffsite.com Subject: 3 Types of Observers--Jewish Original-From: ltsilver[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]borg.com (LT Silverman) Original-Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 15:21:49 -0400 Three types of individual commonly watch indoor games like chess or bridge: kibbitzers, dibbitzers and tstsibachers. A kibbitzer is a person who tells the player what to play. A dibbitzer is a rather more timid soul who stands behind the kibbitzer and tells him what to tell the players. A tstsibacher is a very rare individual who stands at the edge of a large crowd watching a game of chess or bridge and for perhaps an hour at a time says nothing. Yet he knows where every card is, where every trick is, the potential of the weakest pawn. Yet he says not a single word. However, every so often, at the play of a card or move of a piece, he sadly shakes his head and clicks his tongue "tsitsitsitsi." ___.,___ || _/\ ,-' `-,' `. |\___/| / \_ ,---.,---. :: \`'\/`' C:......:.:HAVE AN OZ-SOME DAY!:{ o o }__/______\: ,--'`--. :: :' ` O O | O O |:LT Silverman &Family:{ =o= }/// O O \() O O (): : - == == | |: e-mail address: :} U {:/| /\ () (): :( \ `'`' / \ `--' /:: ltsilver[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]borg.com ::\ `==' /()\ `--' /(): `'` '`' l/ [ ] [ ] _________________________________________________________________________ Larry Kahn __ __ __ __ Senior Software Engineer / \ / \ / \ / \ Dynamics Research Corp. ____________________/ __\/ __\/ __\/ __\_____________________________ ___________________/ /__/ /__/ /__/ /________________________________ kahn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]lgk.com / / \ / \ / \ / \ \____ kahn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]drcoffsite.com \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \ o \ \_____/-- (TALK: larry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ambra.drcoffsite.com) (FINGER: .site[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ambra.drcoffsite.com for PGP public key) _________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:29:44 -0500 From: LAWRENCE DAVIS DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU Subject: This message certainly looks genuine. FYI --------------- Forwarded Message --------------- From: Marti Garlett, INTERNET:MGarlett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSMAIL.APU.EDU To: 73024,577 X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 FYI: This is some scarey info I just received from Claremont Grad. School. If you didn't already know this, you need to. Yikes! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Begin forwarded message: Resent-Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:35:07 -0800 Resent-From: hoytg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]harper12.cgs.edu Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:35:07 -0800 From: Gwen Hoyt hoytg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]harper12.cgs.edu Subject: WARNING ABOUT INTERNET VIRUS Resent-To: erogers[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]harper10.cgs.edu To: rogerse[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cgs.edu Resent-Message-Id: 01I6XXB3SB9G8X3QXR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cgs.edu X-Vms-To: IN%"rogerse[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cgs.edu" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Begin forwarded message: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:33:49 -0800 (PST) Date-Warning: Date header was inserted by clstac.is.csupomona.edu From: dfhoyt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]csupomona.edu (Don Hoyt) Subject: WARNING ABOUT INTERNET VIRUS X-Sender: DFHOYT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pop.is.csupomona.edu To: hoytg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]harper12.cgs.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT ********************************************************************** * WARNING!!!!!!! INTERNET VIRUS ********************************************************************** * The FCC released a warning last Wednesday concerning a matter of major importance to any regular user of the Internet. Apparently a new computer virus has been engineered by a user of AMERICA ON LINE that is unparalleled in its destructive capability. Other more well-known viruses such as "Stoned", "Airwolf" and "Michaelangelo" pale in comparison to the prospects of this newest creation by a warped mentality. What makes this virus so terrifying, said the FCC, is the fact that no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected. It can be spread through the existing e-mail systems of the Internet. Once a Computer is infected, one of several things can happen. If the computer contains a hard drive, that will most likely be destroyed. If the program is not stopped, the computer's rocessor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop -which can severely damage the processor if left running that way too long. Unfortunately, most novice computer users will not realize what is happening until it is far too late. Luckily, there is one sure means of detecting what is now known as the "Good Times" virus. It always travels to new computers the same way in a text e-mail message with the subject line reading "Good Times". Avoiding infection is easy once the file has been received simply by NOT READING IT! The act of loading the file into the mail server's ASCII buffer causes the "Good Times" mainline program to initialize and execute. The program is highly intelligent- it will send copies of Itself to everyone whose e-mail address is contained in a receive-mail file or a sent-mail file, if it can find one. It will then proceed to trash the computer it is running on. The bottom line there is - if you receive a file with the subject line "Good Times", delete it immediately! Do not read it" Rest assured that whoever's name was on the "From" line was surely struck by the virus. Warn your friends and local system users of this newest threat to the Internet! It could save them a lot of time and money. Donald F. Hoyt, PhD Professor of Biological Sciences California State Polytechnic University, Pomona 3801 W. Temple Avenue Pomona, CA 91768 Office Phone: 909-869-4050 FAX: 909-869-4078 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 11:34:11 -0400 From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA Subject: Re: This message certainly looks genuine. FYI the "good times" virus is a very old story, and i think it may have been a hoax. lynne ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 10:39:05 -0500 From: LAWRENCE DAVIS DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU Subject: Re: This message certainly looks genuine. FYI If it was a hoax, sorry. LMD ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Jul 1996 to 12 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There is one message totalling 45 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. hissy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 19:41:17 -0500 From: Dan Goodman goodman[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FREENET.MSP.MN.US Subject: hissy Stumpers is a list primarily for reference librarians faced with questions they can't answer. Here is a chance to help a librarian -- and to recommend books with answers to such dialect questions. Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 13:53:08 +0200 From: Even Flood even.flood[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ntub.unit.no To: Phalbe Henriksen afn33012[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]afn.org Cc: stumpers-list[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]crf.cuis.edu Subj: !def. of ""hissy"" Phalbe! The word German word "hitzig" means short of temper, (as does the Norwegian word hissig). However it seems that babies has nothing to do with it. The prefix hitz means hot, "hitzkopf" translates directly to hothead. So the origin is probably from there. (The German word for hot is heiss.) Even At 12:36 12.07.96 -0400, you wrote: The word, "hissy," doesn't appear in the Shorter Oxford and all theat Webster's Third says is [origin unknown] - Southwest - fit of temper. We have a patron who say he believes it comes from the German, meaning a baby. I have no German. Is there a polyglot w+mb+t who'd like to take a stab at this? (The derivation of the word, not the baby!) TIA for any help you can give me. Phalbe ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 12 Jul 1996 to 13 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There is one message totalling 9 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. This message certainly looks genuine. FYI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 12:38:22 -0400 From: "David Bergdahl (614) 593-2783" BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: Re: This message certainly looks genuine. FYI This is the same hoax that periodically shows up on bulletin boards. Please do not disseminate it! ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 13 Jul 1996 to 14 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 6 messages totalling 143 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. How the cow eats cabbage? (2) 2. Tail above the dashboard (3) 3. hissy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 09:58:27 -0500 From: "Kathleen M. O'Neill" kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIC.EDU Subject: How the cow eats cabbage? I'm forwarding this from Lantra...=20 does anyone have any insight on this one? Kathleen M. O'Neill kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uic.edu Return-Path: owner-lantra-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SEARN.SUNET.SE X-Sender: jorn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ernie.rsvl.unisys.com Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 14:27:25 GMT Reply-To: "Interpreting (and) translation" LANTRA-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SEARN.SUNET.SE Sender: "Interpreting (and) translation" LANTRA-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SEARN.SUNET.SE From: Joern Loberg jorn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RSVL.UNISYS.COM Subject: Help, American - English To: Multiple recipients of list LANTRA-L= LANTRA-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SEARN.SUNET.SE After a perceived heinous court decision in favour of the Thompson brothers, the looser says: Well, justice was done. I just have one thing left to do. I'm going to send the Thompsen brothers a good long letter and tell them exactly how the cow eats cabbage. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^=20 Does anyone know what's so special about the way a cow eats cabbage? Is it another way to say "read them the riot act"? Cheers J=F8rn Loberg Danish =3D English GEP radial 091, 8.5Nm Circle Pines, Mn, USA E-mail: Jorn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]rsvl.unisys.com Or JJL2[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]rsvl.unisys.com=20 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 12:22:32 EST From: Boyd Davis FEN00BHD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNCCVM.UNCC.EDU Subject: Re: How the cow eats cabbage? A parallel citation that may help: 'Tomorrow we'll go down to city hall and tell Mayor Osbert Gribbons where the cow ate the cabbage.' Dialogue that the author wants to reflect the colloquial speech of a grand- mother (upper class) in East Texas small town. In context, the grandmother will be blunt (a parallel in NC might be 'where the bear sat down in the buckwheat') Bell, Nancy. 1996. Biggie and the poisoned politician. St Martins, p.30. (I have been noting in desultory fashion where and how authors of genre literature are using 'local colour'; this particular book includes a number of similar sayings. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 12:31:36 -0500 From: "Kathleen M. O'Neill" kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIC.EDU Subject: Tail above the dashboard I'm forwarding a message from a listmember who is experiencing some difficulty with mailing to the list. --Kate Return-Path: Joeclaro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM From: Joeclaro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 13:04:30 -0400 To: kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uic.edu Subject: tail aobove the dashboard In "All the King's Men," Robert Pehnn Warren twicehas Willy Stark say: "Keep your tail above the dashboard," a parting expression that clearly means, "Take care of yourself." The dictionaries tell me that a dashboard was originally a fixture that kept the driver of a buggy from being splashed with mud. But whose tail does this refer to? Was there a reason for keeping the horse's tail above the dashboard? If so, what was the reason? Thanks to anyone who can help. Kathleen M. O'Neill Supervisor, UIC Language Laboratory kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uic.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 16:59:13 -0400 From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Tail above the dashboard This is just a guess, but it seems to me that if the horse's tail was above the dashboard it would keep from getting muddy, but it would also give the driver a very disadvantgeous part of the horse to look at. So MAYBE this means, "Don't worry about others--take care of your own tail"! I remember my grandfather (born about 1880) singing a little song, "Horsey, keep your tail up, keep the sun out of my eyes." He explained this to me as a joke--nobody in his right mind, he said, would want the horse to keep its tail up, even to keep the sun out of his eyes, since that would mean that the horse's anus was directly at face level. Apparently, the dangers of flatulence among hitched-up horses was a topic much joked about in the days of horse'n'buggy and horse-drawn ploughs. People did not smoke while ploughing, he said, for fear of explosion. But here he may have been pulling my little-boy leg? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 19:25:45 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: hissy DARE has a nice entry on "hissy" (chiefly South, South Midland) with non-German etymological possibilities: "perhaps hypocoristic form of "hysterical," or perhaps from echoic "hiss."" The earliest citation is from the 1930s. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 20:07:13 -0500 From: Gerald Walton vcgw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SUNSET.BACKBONE.OLEMISS.EDU Subject: Re: Tail above the dashboard People did not smoke while ploughing, he said, for fear of explosion. But here he may have been pulling my little-boy leg? Yep. And most farmers could roll their own Prince Albert with one hand, keeping the other on the plow handle. GWW ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 14 Jul 1996 to 16 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 6 messages totalling 235 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. waft (3) 2. SIGNOFF ADS-L 3. Krauthammer column&response (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:48:39 -0400 From: "Dale F.Coye" CoyeCFAT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: waft I'm gathering evidence among cultivated speakers for the pronunciation of several literary words, and am finding that waft is overwhelmingly pronounced WAHFT, but in the South (speakers raised and still living there) it seems to be the vowel of RAFT. Can anyone from the South speak to this? Dale Coye The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Princeton, NJ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 15:57:40 -0400 From: "Dennis R. Preston" preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU Subject: Re: waft If us Louisvillians are southerners, then count at least one southern /ah/ (rather than low-front) pronouncer of 'waft.' ''Waft' wif a wow-fwont vowew sounds wike siwwy wabbit tawk fow 'raft' to me. Dennis in East Lansing (where the winds blow too hard and cold for this to ever be a question) I'm gathering evidence among cultivated speakers for the pronunciation of several literary words, and am finding that waft is overwhelmingly pronounced WAHFT, but in the South (speakers raised and still living there) it seems to be the vowel of RAFT. Can anyone from the South speak to this? Dale Coye The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Princeton, NJ 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)432-1235 Fax: (517)432-2736 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 16:12:11 -0700 From: ILONA_E[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TSJC.CCCOES.EDU Subject: SIGNOFF ADS-L SIGN0FF ADS-L ILONA_E[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TSJC.COLORADO.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 09:49:11 +0900 From: Daniel Long dlong[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]JOHO.OSAKA-SHOIN.AC.JP Subject: Re: waft Let the record be set straight. . . The answer to my colleague Dr. Preston's question (conditional statement?) is "no". Louisvillians are NOT southerners. They are yankees, as any true, God-fearin' Southerner could tell you. (I woulda said "damn yankees" 'cept this is the innernet and we cain't say "damn" on the innernet.) As for Dale Coye's question, "waft" most certainly does rhyme with "raft" in West Tennessee. It may be pronounced in other ways in places where English is spoken with an accent, mind you, but in West Tennessee (where English is spoken with absolutely no accent whatsoever), the word is pronounced with a low-front vowel. Look it up in the Bible. I feel sure this is the way it is pronounced there as well. Dennis R. Preston wrote: If us Louisvillians are southerners, then count at least one southern /ah/ (rather than low-front) pronouncer of 'waft.' ''Waft' wif a wow-fwont vowew sounds wike siwwy wabbit tawk fow 'raft' to me. Dennis in East Lansing (where the winds blow too hard and cold for this to ever be a question) I'm gathering evidence among cultivated speakers for the pronunciation of several literary words, and am finding that waft is overwhelmingly pronounced WAHFT, but in the South (speakers raised and still living there) it seems to be the vowel of RAFT. Can anyone from the South speak to this? Dale Coye The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Princeton, NJ 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)432-1235 Fax: (517)432-2736 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 22:45:36 -0400 From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Krauthammer column&response Charles Krauthammer's specious comparison of same-sex marriage to polygamy and incest should not hold up in court, because precisely the same arguments have been discredited in overturning state laws forbidding interracial marriage as "wrong or unnatural or perhaps harmful." If the law forbids John to marry Sal because John is already married to Jane, John has a choice: he can divorce Jane and marry Sal. But if the law forbids John to marry Sal because the couple are of different races or the same sex, John has NO choice, since John can't change his race, nor can he change his sex and still be John. Granted, if Sal is John's sister (or brother) John also has no choice. But, as Krauthammer points out, heterosexual incest can be forbidden on such grounds as genetic danger; for the law to be applied fairly to all, it would have to forbid homosexual incest as well (just as it now forbids incest of persons beyond child-bearing age). A judge would have to be only a tiny bit less dumb than Charles Krauthammer pretends to be to find a way to allow same-sex marriages on constitutional grounds while excluding polygamy and incest. Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 1:04 PM EDT From: BCS41 Subj: SPECIAL ALERT: TIME Magazine TIME Magazine Time & Life Bldg.-Rockefeller Ctr.,New York,NY,10020 Send letters to the editor to: FAX: Fax 212-522-0601 EMAIL: letters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]time.com July 22, 1996 issue ESSAY, page 102, by Charles Krauthammer WHEN JOHN AND JIM SAY "I DO" * If gay marriages are O.K., then what about polygamy? Or incest? The House of Representatives may have passed legislation last week opposing gay marriage, but the people will soon be trumped by the courts. In September the judges of the Hawaii Supreme Court are expected to legalize gay marriage. Once done there, gay marriage-like quickie Nevada divorces-will have to be recognized "under the full faith and credit clause of the Constitution" throughout the rest of the U.S. Gay marriage is coming. Should it? For the time being, marriage is defined as the union 1) of two people 2) of the opposite sex. Gay-marriage advocates claim that restriction No. 2 is discriminatory, a product of mere habit or tradition or, worse, prejudice. But what about restriction No. 1? If it is blind tradition or rank prejudice to insist that those who marry be of the opposite sex, is it not blind tradition or rank prejudice to insist that those who marry be just two? In other words, if marriage is redefined to include two men in love, on what possible principled grounds can it be denied to three men in love? This is traditionally called the polygamy challenge, but polygamy-one man marrying more than one woman-is the wrong way to pose the question. Polygamy, with its rank inequality and female subservience, is too easy a target. It invites exploitation of and degrading competition among wives, mith often baleful social and familial consequences. (For those in doubt on this question, see Genesis: 26-35 on Joseph and his multimothered brothers.) The question is better posed by imagining three people of the same sex in love with one another and wanting their love to be legally recognized and socially sanctioned by marriage. Why not? Andrew Sullivan, author of Virtually Normal: An Argument About Homosexuality, offers this riposte to what he calls the polygamy diversion (New Republic, June 7): homosexuality is a "state," while polygamy is merely "an activity." Homosexuality is "morally and psychologically" superior to polygamy. Thus it deserves the state sanction of marriage, whereas polygamy does not. But this distinction between state and activity makes no sense for same-sex love (even if you accept it for opposite-sex love). If John and Jim love each other, why is this an expression of some kind of existential state, while if John and Jim and Jack all love each other, this is a mere activity? And why is the impulse to join with two people "morally and psychologically inferior" to the impulse to join with one? Because, insists Sullivan, homosexuality "occupies a deeper level of human consciousness than a polygamous impulse." Interesting: this is exactly the kind of moral hierarchy among sexual practices that homosexual advocates decry as arbitrary and prejudiced. Finding, based on little more than "almost everyone seems to accept," the moral and psychological inferiority of polygamy, Sullivan would deny the validity of polygamist marriage. Well, it happens that most Americans, finding homosexuality morally and psychologically inferior to heterosexuality, would correspondingly deny the validity of homosexual marriage. Yet when they do, the gay-marriage advocates charge bigotry and discrimination. Or consider another restriction built into the traditional definition of marriage: that the married couple be unrelated to each other. The Kings and Queens of Europe defied this taboo, merrily marrying their cousins, with tragic genetic consequences for their offspring. For gay marriage there are no such genetic consequences. The child of a gay couple would either be adopted or the biological product of only one parent. Therefore the fundamental basis for the incest taboo disappears in gay marriage. Do gay-marriage advocates propose to permit the marriage of, say, two brothers, or of a mother and her (adult) daughter? If not, by what reason of logic or morality? The problem here is not the slippery slope. It is not that if society allows gay marriage, society will then allow polygamy or incest. It won't. The people won't allow polygamy or incest. Even the gay-marriage advocates won't allow it. The point is why they won't allow it. They won't allow it because they think polygamy and incest wrong or unnatural or perhaps harmful. At bottom, because they find these practices psychologically or morally abhorrent, certainly undeserving of society's blessing. Well, that is how most Americans feel about homosexual marriage, which constitutes the ultimate societal declaration of the moral equality of homosexuality and heterosexuality. They don't feel that way, and they don't want society to say so. They don't want their schools, for example, to teach their daughters that society is entirely indifferent whether they marry a woman or a man. Given the choice between what Sullivan calls the virtually normal (homosexuality) and the normal, they choose for themselves, and hope for their children, the normal. They do so because of various considerations: tradition, utility, religion, moral preference. Not good enough reasons, say the gay activists. No? Then show me yours for opposing polygamy and incest. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 22:00:32 PDT From: Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPIX.NET Subject: Re: Krauthammer column&response --- On Wed, 17 Jul 1996 22:45:36 -0400 Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM wrote: Charles Krauthammer's specious comparison of same-sex marriage to polygamy and incest should not hold up in court I absolutely agree. Both polygamy (and the unmentioned polyandry) and incest have precidents in present and past societies. But in the entire history of mankind there has never been official sanction of same-sex marriage. But what is this doing on the ADS-L? Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]epix.net When I die and go to Hell, at least I can get my same ISP. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 16 Jul 1996 to 17 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 3 messages totalling 151 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Krauthammer column&response (2) 2. Krauthammer column&responseead ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 12:26:29 -0400 From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Krauthammer column&response My apologies for putting the same-sex marriage stuff on the ads-l. This was a mistake--I copied the wrong address from my addressbook; this was supposed to go on an entirely different discussion line. Maybe there is some broad linguistic interest here, though, at least for those who are interested in how words change meanings and in how rhetorical processes unfold. But that wans't my intent. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 14:39:46 -0400 From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Krauthammer column&response Duane Campbell writes: in the entire history of mankind there has never been official sanction of same-sex marriage. I have long been led to believe that such assertions as Dune's are not really true, especially if you take into account the broad anthrolpological range of human cultures. It is my understanding that, for example, among certain Native American peoples there were men who "married" both males and females simultaneously (an earlier-twentieth century anthropologist would have said "kept both males and females as wives"). There have been many ways of carving up the sociosexual spectrum and organizing relationships, many of which involve "sanctioned" and reified same-sex-spousal equivalence. Of course, it would be possible to define "official" and/or "marriage" in such a way that Duane's assertion is tautological and therefore true (but trivial). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 15:07:21 -0400 From: Linguistics and Germanic Slavic Asian and African Languages linglang[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU Subject: Re: Krauthammer column&responseead Q Duane Campbell writes: in the entire history of mankind there has never been official sanction of same-sex marriage. I have long been led to believe that such assertions as Dune's are not really true, especially if you take into account the broad anthrolpological range of human cultures. It is my understanding that, for example, among certain Native American peoples there were men who "married" both males and females simultaneously (an earlier-twentieth century anthropologist would have said "kept both males and females as wives"). There have been many ways of carving up the sociosexual spectrum and organizing relationships, many of which involve "sanctioned" and reified same-sex-spousal equivalence. Of course, it would be possible to define "official" and/or "marriage" in such a way that Duane's assertion is tautological and therefore true (but trivial). -- ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 17 Jul 1996 to 18 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There is one message totalling 41 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. TRAINSPOTTING movie slang ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 21:29:21 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: TRAINSPOTTING movie slang Movie slang is important--NOT? As if! I don't know a hill of beans, but it should be a regular feature here! The movie TRAINSPOTTING was a big hit in Britain and opens on these shores today. It's set in the working-class Edinburgh suburb of Leith and is based on a book by Irvine Welsh. The title comes from the British hobby of keeping obsessive notes about trains. This glossary comes from the New York Post, 7-18-96, p. 51, by writer John O'Mahony. 'Trainspotting' as a second language barry--great beamer--embarrassed bevy--drink biscuit-ersed--self-pitying box--head, as in "ootay yir box" coffin-dodger--senior citizen collies--drugs crack--banter dosh--money draftpaks--beer cans gaff--apartment jellies--drug capsules Joe Baxi--taxicab mantovani--young women muckers--friends para--paranoid plukey-faced--acne rabbiting--talking incessantly skunky--toilet sprog--child tattie--potato voddy--vodka yonks--years ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 18 Jul 1996 to 19 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 4 messages totalling 123 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Abstract August (3) 2. Abstract August, Hot Dog!, and the Origin of Chicago--"the Windy City" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 10:50:08 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Abstract August ADS members and friends are reminded of our new AUGUST 15 deadline for proposals for our January meeting in Chicago. It's not too late! If you get brilliant new ideas in Wales at Methods IX, it won't be too late to distill them into an abstract for the January meeting. If you won't get near Wales, look for inspiration at home. Don't forget the special session on dialect boundaries! The May newsletter of the ADS has details on what to send and where to send it. If you don't have a copy at hand, ask me. - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 12:32:29 -0400 From: Donna Metcalf Ddonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Abstract August Barry Popik and I want to do a paper on language in the movies. I'm kidding but I just emailed him about the language we always notice. It's very cool to talk to someone about movies, I think. D ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 16:42:57 GMT From: "Johnnie A. Renick" tenderrite[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]USA.PIPELINE.COM Subject: Re: Abstract August I would love a copy. I am interested in attending the colnference in Chicago. Please forward all the information. Thanks -- Johnnie A. Renick ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 23:38:45 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Abstract August, Hot Dog!, and the Origin of Chicago--"the Windy City" What a posting! Better strap in! It's July, it's National Hot Dog Month, and once again, TAD Dorgan invented the phrase "hot dog" that he never invented! I saw it in Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago. Big story, too. We don't know much about the hot dog, it stated, but this much we do know--TAD DORGAN INVENTED "HOT DOG." Prof. Gerald Cohen (U. of Missouri-Rolla) said the same story was in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I got a huge mailing from the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council (Janet M. Riley, public affairs director), P.O. Box 3556 Washington, DC 20007, tel. 703-841-2400, fax 703-527-0938. "Editorial cartoonist Tad Dorgan sketched the vendors hawking their sausages and, unsure of how to spell dachsund, he simply wrote beneath it 'Hot Dog!' And so the name was born." AAAAAAAAAAAH! I'm on their mailing list because, about eight months ago, I sent them a huge mailing stating this wasn't true! I spent a day just copying the stuff! There was the late Peter Tamony's essay on the hot dog. There was David Shulman's note, tracing the term to college slang in 1896 and revising the OED entry. There were Gerald Cohen's articles in his Comments on Etymology. And there was my stuff, a HUGE amount, gathered from visiting Cal-Berkeley, U. of Michigan, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, and--our point of origin, in 1894--Yale University. I also mentioned that Leonard Zwilling, of the Dictionary of American Regional English, had written a TAD Lexicon and had checked out every single TAD column, proving beyond any doubt that the story wasn't true. I probably should have sent a bill, but I gave them all of this wonderful stuff for FREE! But it's there again! Why is it there? Why did they send me this stuff, to see a grown man cry? What more could I do? Sue them? Blow the place up? Jump off a bridge? Before I explore the first option (I'm a lawyer, you know), you might want to write to them. Unless they send a corrected mailing to all the same people, apologizing and telling the truth, they're in big trouble! I also wrote to Sports Illustrated. Now, if they had written that Babe Ruth had hit 713 home runs, that would have been corrected immediately. But this is out of their field, so the truth here meant nothing at all. Sports Illustrated is pretty big, and they'll team up with CNN on a new channel. I mentioned in passing that they should have a weekly column on the language on sports, covering sports terms, team nicknames, and player nicknames. Also, that they should have an on-line sports dictionary and listserve. I also mentioned that I had at last solved the "fan" (THE FAN movie with Robert DeNiro opens in August; I lectured on this before the Society for American Baseball Research), the origin of the nickname New York "Yankees," the "Big Apple" (a plaque is now up at Broadway & West 54th Street), the false etymology of the "jinx," and many other sports terms. Sports Illustrated never wrote back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- The origin of Chicago's nickname, the "Windy City," is solved! The Chicago conference can't go on without it! In 1994, I was in the Chicago Historical Society, catching the end of its wonderful 1893 Columbian Exposition exhibit. I had told the tour guide what I did, that I had solved "the Big Apple" and "the Great White Way," that no one in New York City was interested, that I was losing my home after the co-op sponsor of my building went bankrupt, that "the Great White Way" was influenced by Chicago's "White City," etc. "They call us the Windy City, but we're not. New York's much windier," he said. "It supposedly comes from a windy politican in the 1880s." Bill Clinton hits the Windy City next month. This is not true! And yes, Chicago is not the windiest city. Studies have Buffalo right up there. If you check the guidebooks, as I have, they're all wrong. You'll read that Charles A. Dana of the New York Sun coined it in 1889 or 1890 when New York competed with Chicago for the Fair site. Then you'll see the name Charles Gibson Dana used. Then you'll see the name Richard Henry Dana used, who's a different Dana altogether, and was dead at the time. Then you'll check some reliable dictionaries that come from Chicago, and you'll see an 1887 source! Don't these guidebooks check? And that one source, that one slim citation, will be the clue..... ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 19 Jul 1996 to 20 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 7 messages totalling 204 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. waft (4) 2. Hot Dog!, Windy City 3. waft and SAE (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 13:06:22 -0400 From: "Peter L. Patrick" PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.ACC.GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: Re: waft Dale, I'm not sure I qualify as "from the South", having been born in NYC, raised in Jamaica WI, and lived in Georgia from age 14-23! but the question is more like, what was the phonological input for a particular lexical item, namely "waft"-- and since my mother is a Georgian, it may be I acquired it from her. On the other hand it could well be a spelling pronunciation, as literary words often are, in which case regional trends might not have much to do with it... Anyway, I do rhyme "waft" with "raft", and it never even occurred to me it might be pronounced otherwise until your query! Can anyone think of common words ending in "-aft" which take the /ah/ vowel in American English? I'm stumped. Which suggests that anyone who gets their spelling pronunciation by analogy is very likely to end up with the /ae/ one, like me; cf. "craft, daft, haft, aft" etc. --peter patrick ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 13:19:26 -0400 From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA Subject: Re: waft peter patrick asks: Can anyone think of common words ending in "-aft" which take the /ah/ vowel in American English? I'm stumped. Which suggests that anyone who gets their spelling pronunciation by analogy is very likely to end up with the /ae/ one, like me; cf. "craft, daft, haft, aft" etc. everytime i think i've thought of one i realize how unamericanised i've become lately. (i keep thinking "draft!--there's one!") what about quaff? (not -aft, but i'm not sure the 't' is relevant.) do southerners have an [ae] there too? (waft and quaff'd rhyme for me.) my question is: what explains that the "ah" sound was either kept or (re-)introduced in northern u.s. english, when other "ah"s before [f]s weren't (draft, laugh)? my feeling is that the "ah" is more sound-symbolic for the meaning than the [ae] is. lynne --------------------------------------------------------------------- M. Lynne Murphy 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za Department of Linguistics phone: 27(11)716-2340 University of the Witwatersrand fax: 27(11)716-8030 Johannesburg 2050 SOUTH AFRICA ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 13:47:53 -0400 From: Benjamin Barrett Gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GNN.COM Subject: Re: waft Thanks to Peter Patrick. From the Pacific NW, I don't know if I've ever heard the word pronounced or not, though I imagine I have. Perhaps for reasons he mentions, if I were to use it, I would rhyme it with raft. Benjamin Barrett gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gnn.com gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ix.netcom.com Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 13:06:22 -0400 From: "Peter L. Patrick" PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.ACC.GEORGETOWN.EDU snip On the other hand it could well be a spelling pronunciation, as literary words often are, in which case regional trends might not have much to do with it... Anyway, I do rhyme "waft" with "raft", and it never even occurred to me it might be pronounced otherwise until your query! Benjamin Barrett gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gnn.com http://members.gnn.com/gogaku/translator.htm ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 15:43:20 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Hot Dog!, Windy City Barry is to be commended for his perseverance, and the sources he alludes to should be in everyone's library. Especially neglected is the remarkable journal "Comments on Etymology," the only place to keep up with the latest archaeology on Hot Dog, hi-de-ho, and other American slang. Its circulation has yet to reach three figures. You as an individual can subscribe by sending $13 (for a 1996-97 subscription, Oct to May; retroactive volumes may be available) to the editor, Prof Gerald Cohen Foreign Languages Section 236 H-SS University of Missouri-Rolla Rolla, MO 65401 Don't try reaching Jerry by e-mail. He still operates exclusively by s-. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 18:54:59 -0400 From: "Dale F.Coye" CoyeCFAT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: waft and SAE If I could fill out my original query a bit more. Here's how I'm thinking of this: Waft is different from craft, raft etc. because it's a book word. It wasn't used enough in daily life to keep the collective memory going that it should be wahft (as in wand, wad, swan. squash, quadrangle, etc.). Some other book words like this are quaff (quaffed gets us a rhyme here with waft) and wan. These should all historically be the same as the above list. But when I surveyed college professors of English I found a regional variation among the profs. There were only five from the South and they all said it rhymed with raft. All the others but one (about a dozen I think, I haven't got the data in front of me) said wahft. In the UK by the way they use the vowel of FOX, not the vowel of FATHER and the vowel of raft is non-RP. So my question was, is this really a regional variation among the 'cultivated speakers' who are the only ones likely to have heard it used very much? It seems to me for book words like this we should have a scale: 1) I'm sure it's x 2) I use x but I'm not sure it's right 3) I have no idea. We should also have a scale of "Correctness" for variants 1) I use x and I think it's right 2) I don't use x but it's still correct 3) I don't use x and it's incorrect Waft to rhyme with raft sounds wrong to me, as it does in wan, and I would have told any student that- unless it turns out to be a regionalism. Dale Coye Princeton ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 21:17:24 EDT From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: Re: waft Lynne Murphy writes: peter patrick asks: Can anyone think of common words ending in "-aft" which take the /ah/ vowel in American English? I'm stumped. Which suggests that anyone who gets their spelling pronunciation by analogy is very likely to end up with the /ae/ one, like me; cf. "craft, daft, haft, aft" etc. everytime i think i've thought of one i realize how unamericanised i've become lately. (i keep thinking "draft!--there's one!") what about quaff? (not -aft, but i'm not sure the 't' is relevant.) do southerners have an [ae] there too? (waft and quaff'd rhyme for me.) my question is: what explains that the "ah" sound was either kept or (re-)introduced in northern u.s. english, when other "ah"s before [f]s weren't (draft, laugh)? my feeling is that the "ah" is more sound-symbolic for the meaning than the [ae] is. My own pronunciation similarly rhymes 'waft' with 'quaffed' (not to mention 'boffed', which I won't in polite company), and I think the crucial aspect here, although I'm no phonologist, is the labial /w/, not only in these cases but also in 'wan' (mentioned by Dale Coye). /waeC-/, i.e. /w/ followed by low front vowel followed by coronal OR labiovelar consonant is out (for the relevant dialect) or contraindicated. Other consonants are just fine in this sequence: swam, wap, w(h)ac(k), wag, quack. But coronals force the vowel back not only in the above cases (waft, quaff(ed), wan) but others conforming to the pattern (quantum, wad, what, squat). I'm sure there are good phonetic reasons why a short A between W and a coronal comes out "ah", although I don't have the slightest idea what it might be. But as to why that process should generalize to labiovelars I have no idea. Yet clearly, at least for what I somewhat hesitantly call the dominant dialect, it does: [waeft] is certainly a possible pronunciation for me, but only if it represents Elmer Fudd describing a means of river transport. And [waen] is what dat cwazy wabbit did. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 23:43:03 -0400 From: Benjamin Barrett Gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GNN.COM Subject: Re: waft and SAE Don't know if this is of any use or no, but...a postscript to my previous message... Shortly after dispatching my previous message, I received a call from my mother and I asked her how she would pronounce w-a-f-t. She gave the wahft pronounciation, so mine likely comes from reading and using analogy to words like raft. I happened to use the word "immersion, and she says "immersion" with a /zh/ while I use /sh/, so there may be a generation gap. (I have often wondered whether Seattle is still going through a sorting out of pronunciations as it has a large non-native pronounciation.) Benjamin Barrett gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ix.netcom.com gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gnn.com ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 20 Jul 1996 to 21 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 5 messages totalling 117 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. TRAINSPOTTING movie slang (2) 2. waft and SAE (3) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 09:06:09 -0400 From: Jesse T Sheidlower jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PANIX.COM Subject: Re: TRAINSPOTTING movie slang The movie TRAINSPOTTING was a big hit in Britain and opens on these shores today. It's set in the working-class Edinburgh suburb of Leith and is based on a book by Irvine Welsh. The title comes from the British hobby of keeping obsessive notes about trains. American readers should be aware that the American release of the movie has several sections of dialogue re-recorded so that it would be easier to understand. Even the British release irons out a lot of the Scots that appears in the book. The book is fascinating from a language POV; any effort to read it would be well repaid. There are also a few sections in the book where characters make comments about their own language, and where speakers of standard Scots are unable to understand the basilectal speech of the main characters. Jesse Sheidlower jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]panix.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 11:05:46 -0400 From: "David Bergdahl (614) 593-2783" BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: Re: waft and SAE Isn't the relevant 'rule' governing WAFT that /a/ words after initial /w/ were not fronted to or merged with /ae/? We have WATCH, WAD, WAFFLE, WAN, WASH &c, with rounding in some words with /Vr/ WAR, WART, WARM. My W7C gives both meanings for WAFF (n.) as chiefly Scottish. Could it be that WAFT is more popular a word amongs Scots, Scots-Irish and Appalachians and only a literary word in the north of the U.S.? W7C gives waughten as the ME etymon for WAFT with the shift of gh phonetically [x] to [f] similar to LAUGH, ROUGH &c. Onions gives a pronunciation with an open o {backwards c}, which would be the natural development of the ME form with au . This corrects my initial statement above: the reason WAFT did not front to [ae] is that it had a differnt origin. ______________________________________________________ David Bergdahl BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Associate Professor of English Language and Literature Ohio University / Athens fax: (614) 593-2818 ______________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 11:17:55 -0400 From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA Subject: Re: waft and SAE Isn't the relevant 'rule' governing WAFT that /a/ words after initial /w/ were not fronted to or merged with /ae/? We have WATCH, WAD, WAFFLE, WAN, WASH &c, with rounding in some words with /Vr/ WAR, WART, WARM. you know, i learned this in ling 101, and forgot it. so i'm ashamed to have queried it in the first place. (i'm just always primed for semantic explanations.) Could it be that WAFT is more popular a word amongs Scots, Scots-Irish and Appalachians and only a literary word in the north of the U.S.? this seems wrong unless southerners pronounce all the wa- words with an [ae]. rather, it seems it's gotten spelling pronunciation in the south, and therefore it's there (in the south) that it's primarily literary, since the northern pronunciation is phonologically predictable. no? lynne ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 15:48:54 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer owner-LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: TRAINSPOTTING movie slang For what it's worth, "dosh" and "rabbiting" aren't new, and probably not limited to working-class Edinburgh. I was reading something first published in a zine in the 1950s, and ran across "dosh" in the sense of "money"; I've also seen "rabbiting" in material from the 1980s, usually with "on." Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com | rosenzweig[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acm.org New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jul 1996 23:02:12 -0400 From: "Peter L. Patrick" PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.ACC.GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: Re: waft and SAE The phonetic explanations offered so far certainly capture a generalisation, but it isn't an airtight one. A couple people note the case of "wan" /wahn/, a literary word by me*. Larry Horn says "/waen/ is what dat cwazy wabbit did". But in at least one case of dat wabbit wunning, i.e. the Tortoise and the Hare episode, /waen/ is what the Tortoise did instead. [*meaning "pale"] I'm referring to the common dialectal use of /waen/ as preterit of "win", which I've heard in Philly and elsewhere from working-class speakers, eg "He wan the contest", sometimes with reg7ularization of the perfect too. A phonetic explanation of initial w before low vowel doesn't cover this one... I still think the only reading pronunciation, ie the only one you would get by analogy as an American English speaker, of "waft" is ahem, mine, ie /waeft/. Nobody's suggested an analogical basis for the /wahft/ yet, so you'd have to get that elsewhere, eg by direct aural evidence. Thus the reading pronunciation ought not to generate a regional pattern, or ought to confuse one, unless there's something regional about the word's commonness of use, which seems doubtful to me... ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 21 Jul 1996 to 22 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 7 messages totalling 188 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. waft (2) 2. tail above the dashboard II 3. WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy (2) 4. waft and SAE (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 05:38:42 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: waft several literary words, and am finding that waft is overwhelmingly pronounced WAHFT, but in the South (speakers raised and still living there) it seems to be the vowel of RAFT. Can anyone from the South speak to this? I'm way behind in mail and probably sound like a distant echo of old topics. But in answer to your question, yes -- "waft" and "raft" rhyme. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) back in the land of grits, interstates without toll booths, and normal-sounding speech, after several weeks of wandering among strange accents, where "waft" would probably have been unrecognizable to these Southern ears if it didn't rhyme with "raft"... PS: The list archives are up to date now and back on their regular daily schedule. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 07:01:10 -0400 From: Joe Claro Joeclaro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: tail above the dashboard II I tried this question a couple of weeks ago and got only a few responses. On the chance that some people missed it, allow me to ask again: In All the King's Men, two different characters say "so long" with the expression, "Keep your tail above the dashboard." First, does anyone recognize the expression? (Given the setting, it's a good bet that it's from Louisiana and surroundings.) It seems to mean, "Take care of yourself." Second, what was its original meaning? A dashboard was the part of a buggy that kept the driver from being splashed with mud. Why would it have been important to keep a horse's tail above this fixture? (As I picture it, I can't see it doing the horse any good. Does it protect the driver?) Thanks to anyone who can help. joeclaro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 15:16:36 GMT From: "Johnnie A. Renick" tenderrite[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]USA.PIPELINE.COM Subject: Re: waft Being southern by luck and birth, I definitely think that waft and raft sound alike. Is there any other way to pronounce it? -- Johnnie A. Renick ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 12:19:04 -0400 From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy My AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY tells me that one can pronounce WAFT to rime either with FATHER (first choice) or PAT (second choice). I appreciate all the psycholinguistic speculation going on here, and I would not care to imply that there may not be some geosocial distribution behind the variablity of the A in WAFT. But I also would like to suggest that real people (as opposed to linguists) do indeed look up words in dictionaries and are influenced by what they read there--when they can remember what they read. (Also, dictionary makers look up pronunciations in people and write down what they find.) You say TOE-MAY-TOE and I say TOE-MAH-TOE, you say POE-TAY-TOE and I say EEK-O-NAH-MIKS. In other words, when a lexical item is as rare as WAFT, most people haven't made up their minds and really don't care very much one way of the other--especially when their dictionary tells them that they can go either way. ( I can't even decide whether I want to use SWUM as the past participle of SWIM, and I swim about five miles a week.) This is what Hjelmslev called the "Principle of Linguistic Entropy." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 09:38:58 -0700 From: Peter McGraw pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Ron Butters wrote: My AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY tells me that one can pronounce WAFT to rime either with FATHER (first choice) or PAT (second choice). I appreciate all the psycholinguistic speculation going on here, and I would not care to imply that there may not be some geosocial distribution behind the variablity of the A in WAFT. But I also would like to suggest that real people (as opposed to linguists) do indeed look up words in dictionaries and are influenced by what they read there--when they can remember what they read. (Also, dictionary makers look up pronunciations in people and write down what they find.) You say TOE-MAY-TOE and I say TOE-MAH-TOE, you say POE-TAY-TOE and I say EEK-O-NAH-MIKS. In other words, when a lexical item is as rare as WAFT, most people haven't made up their minds and really don't care very much one way of the other--especially when their dictionary tells them that they can go either way. ( I can't even decide whether I want to use SWUM as the past participle of SWIM, and I swim about five miles a week.) This is what Hjelmslev called the "Principle of Linguistic Entropy." Yes, but doesn't this just beg the question (in the original meaning of that phrase)? The lexicographers who put the two pronunciations in the dictionary got them from SOMEWHERE. And where they got them, ultimately, as you point out, was from informants. Even if some of these informants were influenced by a dictionary entry, at some point we still get back to such things as, yes, perhaps psycholinguistic and geosocial factors, but certainly to plain old phonology and regional variation. Peter McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, OR ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 10:04:03 -0700 From: Allen Maberry maberry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: Re: waft and SAE For me, in Seattle and in Portland, "waft" rhymes with "raft" and "immersion" is pronounced with an /sh/. Allen maberry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]u.washington.edu On Sun, 21 Jul 1996, Benjamin Barrett wrote: Don't know if this is of any use or no, but...a postscript to my previous message... Shortly after dispatching my previous message, I received a call from my mother and I asked her how she would pronounce w-a-f-t. She gave the wahft pronounciation, so mine likely comes from reading and using analogy to words like raft. I happened to use the word "immersion, and she says "immersion" with a /zh/ while I use /sh/, so there may be a generation gap. (I have often wondered whether Seattle is still going through a sorting out of pronunciations as it has a large non-native pronounciation.) Benjamin Barrett gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ix.netcom.com gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gnn.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 11:18:58 -0700 From: Peter McGraw pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU Subject: Re: waft and SAE Hmm! For this Oregonian, it's "wahft" and "immerzhun". Peter On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Allen Maberry wrote: For me, in Seattle and in Portland, "waft" rhymes with "raft" and "immersion" is pronounced with an /sh/. Allen maberry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]u.washington.edu On Sun, 21 Jul 1996, Benjamin Barrett wrote: Don't know if this is of any use or no, but...a postscript to my previous message... Shortly after dispatching my previous message, I received a call from my mother and I asked her how she would pronounce w-a-f-t. She gave the wahft pronounciation, so mine likely comes from reading and using analogy to words like raft. I happened to use the word "immersion, and she says "immersion" with a /zh/ while I use /sh/, so there may be a generation gap. (I have often wondered whether Seattle is still going through a sorting out of pronunciations as it has a large non-native pronounciation.) Benjamin Barrett gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ix.netcom.com gogaku[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gnn.com ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 22 Jul 1996 to 23 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 12 messages totalling 480 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy (7) 2. literary words (2) 3. [Ad 4. Quick Question (re "needs washed") 5. Pinning Down A Region ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 11:33:27 -0400 From: Ron Butters RonButters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU (Peter McGraw) writes: Yes, but doesn't this [i.e., the fact that dictionary makers list two pronunciations] just beg the question (in the original meaning of that phrase)? The lexicographers who put the two pronunciations in the dictionary got them from SOMEWHERE. And where they got them, ultimately, as you point out, was from informants. Even if some of these informants were influenced by a dictionary entry, at some point we still get back to such things as, yes, perhaps psycholinguistic and geosocial factors, but certainly to plain old phonology and regional variation. Well, no, it doesn't "beg the question" (which I take to mean 'take the argument for granted without proof; assert the argument as proof of the argument)'. The argument that I was trying to make is that there are pronunciational variants that (1) do not correlate with social or geographical variables and (2) do not necessarily arise for most speakers by "analogy" in any very interesting sense of the term. E.g., the two pronunciations of ECONOMICS. Given the normal operation of the English spelling system, WAFT is either going to rime with FATHER (however one says it) or RAFT (however one says it)--so much for analogy (which is not to say that Peter Patrick doesn't have a point in saying that WAFT looks more like RAFT, etc., than it does like words with the A of FATHER, only that Patrick is sort of wrong in say;ing that there is no analogical basis for /wahft/--FATHER is an analogial basis!). Given the relative rareness of the term, most people will have rarely heard it pronounced, and will not be likely to have strong opinions about it if they do--so much for important geosocial factors. Moreover, dictionaries list both pronunciations without comment or real judgment, and people (in this modern world of today) do look up pronunciations in dictionaries for unfamiliar words and try to be guided by them--so dictionaries would further diminish any analogical or geosocial factors. So, I disagree soewhat with Peter Patrick when hesays that " you'd have to get /wahft/ elsewhere, eg by direct aural evidence." You get /wahft/ from FATHER and you get /wahft/ from dictionaries. If there really IS a geographical distirbution of the two pronunciations, THAT would be interesting, since such a distribution seems contraary to what one would predict. It is also an interesting question just where the dictionary makers come up with the two pronunciations for odd words. In many cases, I'm afraid, the source is just other, older dictionaries. Look up THEW in your nearest dictionary, for example, and you will find only thyoo , never thoo even though this is a word that almost nobody uses, and even though thy- is a hghly unusual--unique?--way to begin an English word. Where could a dictionary maker possibly hear the word pronounced by a native speaker under natural circumstances, let alone a native speaker who had learned the word from speech rather than writing? As for /waeft/ versus /wahft/ in dictionaries, who knows if this isn't just mostly something that dictionaries have been carrying along for eons with the ultimate historical origin being (at least in part) the general variation in low vowels in American English rather than a true doublet --there are, after all, Amercans who pronounce RAFT in what sounds (to me) more like /rahft/ than /raeft/, but my dictionary doesn't note that because RAFT ls a comon word, not a poetical one. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 11:43:34 -0600 From: Ellen Johnson EJOHNSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy Waft rhymes with raft for me. Yes, I'm Southern, and I hope I'm mistaken about the assumption that some here seem to have made that this is the incorrect pronunciation bc it's Southern and it's an educated word and Southerners are uneducated. Or something like that. Although someone did note that it might be more common among Scots-Irish descendants and it doesn't seem like such a terribly unusual word to me. Anyway, the "broad-a" pronunciation of other words (path, dance, aunt, etc) has some local prestige but can hardly be considered standard AmEng. I guess I am just questioning the source of the original determination of "wahft" as correct. Linguistic entropy leading to change by analogy is part of what's interesting about studying "literary words". Good idea for a project. Of course, Chambers questions Labov's uniformitarian principle that lg changes today as it always has by bringing up the issue of literacy. The influence of dictionaries upon the pronunciation of infrequently spoken words is certainly a possibility. Ellen Johnson ejohnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cc.memphis.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:10:17 -0400 From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA Subject: literary words i find it strange that people keep refering to "waft" as a literary word, which people are likely to have to look up in the dictionary. is my vocabulary really weird? i'm pretty sure i use "waft" more than "raft" (dinner smells wafting, graceful people wafting). maybe that just says a lot about my lifestyle. (of course, i probably hear "raft" more--on airplanes and such. or maybe not, since there they have "flotation devices".) wafting through cyberspace, lynne ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 13:18:29 -0400 From: Linguistics and Germanic Slavic Asian and African Languages linglang[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU Subject: [Ad I would love a copy. I am interested in attending the colnference in Chicago. Please forward all the information. Thanks -- Johnnie A. Renick -- Date: Wed, July 24, 1996 To: la4[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ciesnet.cies.org from: linglang[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu Subject: IAP-66 Forms Dear Ms. Caplan: This to confirm mailing the IAP-66 Forms to you yesterday,Tue, July 23. I also received your e-mail message of July 23.Thank you very much. Best regards: Saleh Suleiman ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 14:52:54 EDT From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy Ellen Johnson writes, ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Waft rhymes with raft for me. Yes, I'm Southern, and I hope I'm mistaken about the assumption that some here seem to have made that this is the incorrect pronunciation bc it's Southern and it's an educated word and Southerners are uneducated. Or something like that. Although someone did note that it might be more common among Scots-Irish descendants and it doesn't seem like such a terribly unusual word to me. Anyway, the "broad-a" pronunciation of other words (path, dance, aunt, etc) has some local prestige but can hardly be considered standard AmEng. I guess I am just questioning the source of the original determination of "wahft" as correct. ___________________________________________________ Did I miss someone claiming that the "raft" pronunciation is 'incorrect'? Incorrect because its practitioners are Southerners and (hence?) 'uneducated'? Golly. What I remember is several correspondents (including me) claiming they pronounce 'waft' one way and others claiming they pronounce it another way. Someone indicated they found a dictionary which listed the 'wahft' version first, followed by the rhyme-with-"raft" version. Someone else (actually a few correspondents) discussed diachrony, with the suggestion that the 'wahft' version is older, and we wondered why wa- words with short /a/ (or a phonologically describably subset of such words) failed to merge with /wae-/ while /a/-- /ae/ elsewhere. Are we claiming we "wahft"ies are more virtuous for failing to front (while we're equally sinful as you elsewhere, since we all pronounce "daft", "draft", etc. to rhyme with "raft")? I don't recall the value judgments you seem to be imputing to us wahfties, and I'd be surprised to find them professed (even covertly) on ADS. Incidentally, this wahfty pronounces "aunt", "dance", and "path" with the digraph; the first is a homonym of "ant". (I realize other Yankee speakers differ from me in this.) It's a fact about wa- (remember that "quaff" was brought up as another case-- do you non-wahfties use a front vowel for that one too?) before coronals and -f-, not a general fact about rare words or high-falutin words or anything of the sort. Other dialects are described with a different generalization. What does it have to do with education levels or "correctness"? End of sermon. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 15:15:48 -0400 From: "Peter L. Patrick" PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.ACC.GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy Hmm. Ron Butters and ellen Johnson are right, of course, that some people DO get their pronunciations of rare words from dictionaries. I guess I didn't think of that, because I don't think I ever have myself-- I just make a spelling guess and go with it. (That's in real life, of course-- as a linguist I DO use dictionaries!) Perhaps I'm strange, or perhaps most people are like me-- any guesses? But my point was valid for spelling pronunciations, the context in which I made it, I think. Some people might get /wahft/ from dictionaries; and linguists might get ./wahft/ from "father". But I don't think the average guesser will get anything but /waeft/ from any of the words ending in "-aft" in American English, unless I've missed one-- and spelling pronunciations are, after all, based on the regularities in spelling, and links between spelling and pronunciation... Otherwise, as Ron noted, you have a choice of only a few low vowels (2, 3 or 4 depending on your system). But given that choice, isn't it remarkable that all the Southern pronunciations noted so far do seem to be /waeft/? Maybe there IS a regional pattern here-- based not on spelling analogy (as I wouldn't predict) but perhaps on common use, as Ellen and Lynne suggested. In that case, where "waft" is perceived as literary, I'd predict you'd be more likely to get /wahft/ guesses, just because literary = prestigious = British standard, and the only permitted pronunciation in the OED is the FATHER rime. Maybe it's those insecure non-Southerners that have introduced variation into an otherwise homogeneous AmEng word-class! --peter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 15:17:12 EDT From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy P.S. Why are we all assuming that the only possible spelling pronounciation of "waft" would be the one used for "raft"? Given the existence of those other "wa" words (and "qua" words) with "broad a", e.g. "wad", "what", "wasp", "quaff", "waffle", etc., wouldn't it be possible that someone seeing "waft" would look at the beginning as well as the end and guess that it would be pro- nounced "wahft"? Would a Southerner unfamiliar with waffles (but familiar with raffles) come up with "waeffle" as opposed to "wahffle" as the spelling pro- nunciation? I'm not sure how explanatory this particular line of explanation really is. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 15:51:56 -0400 From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy P.S. Why are we all assuming that the only possible spelling pronounciation of "waft" would be the one used for "raft"? Given the existence of those other "wa" words (and "qua" words) with "broad a", e.g. "wad", "what", "wasp", "quaff", "waffle", etc., wouldn't it be possible that someone seeing "waft" would look at the beginning as well as the end and guess that it would be pro- nounced "wahft"? Would a Southerner unfamiliar with waffles (but familiar with raffles) come up with "waeffle" as opposed to "wahffle" as the spelling pro- nunciation? I'm not sure how explanatory this particular line of explanation really is. i'm with larry on this one. but this whole string has me worried about my ability to follow arguments or our ability to communicate with each other. peter's suggestion that it should be "wahft" where it's perceived as a literary item seems to go against the facts (of our own speech/attitudes) that ellen and i presented: - ellen pronounces it "waeft" and suggested in her post that it's an "educated" word. -i pronounce it "wahft" and alleged that it's a common word. (or at least not rare and certainly not "literary"--though i'm really starting to wonder what other people mean by this. i think waft is not a word that i read more often than i hear.) -peter suggests In that case, where "waft" is perceived as literary, I'd predict you'd be more likely to get /wahft/ guesses, just because literary = prestigious = British standard, and the only permitted pronunciation in the OED is the FATHER rime. Maybe it's those insecure non-Southerners that have introduced variation into an otherwise homogeneous AmEng word-class! i didn't see any evidence that _waft_ is more literary in the north than in the south here. if anything, there is evidence to the contrary, though certainly not enough to base any conclusions on. one problem in the discussion seems to be that there are two kinds of thinking on what the issue is. peter, and some others i think, is talking about how you'd guess it's pronounced. whereas i'm thinking about how people learn to pronounce it (from hearing it in their environment). since all the southerners have reported "waeft" pronunciations and the northerners who aren't guessing (who presumably learned it from other northerners) report using "wahft", i don't think we have a pattern of guessing. i think we have a real regional distinction. now, i did ask before how it might have come to be that those who say "waeft" do so, since "wahft" seems to be the older form (and without, i presume, coming to say "swaen" [swan] and "waeffle"), which might've brought up the guessing thing. i have a hard time believing that "somebody along the way guessed 'waft'" as an explanation for a form that is so widespread and (as larry noted) contrary to the usual pronunciation of wa-. lynne ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 15:42:57 -0500 From: Katherine Catmull kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BGA.COM Subject: Re: WAFT and the Principle of Linguistic Entropy Just to throw my confusion into the mix: both "waeft" & "wahft" sound perfectly correct to me, and after some agonizing about it I still can't decide which I use. I suspect that I mix them -- say "waeft" for example, but "wahfting." So sue me. I say "quaeff" & "quahff" too. Perhaps you would call me a southerner, since (except for my undergrad years) I have lived in Georgia, Florida and Texas since I was 5. But my parents are northerners and if you had to hazard a guess at my accent you would probably say "Minnesota," which is where my mother is from -- unless, that is, I gave myself away with a "y'all" or "fixin' to," as I very well might. Do you find it is increasingly difficult to pin down a speaker's "region", even if they give you their life histories? Just curious. Kate Catmull kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bga.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 20:59:26 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: literary words i find it strange that people keep refering to "waft" as a literary word, which people are likely to have to look up in the dictionary. Me too. I find "waft" (pronounced like "raft") an ordinary conversational word, one I'm much more likely to hear spoken than to read somewhere. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 21:06:14 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Quick Question (re "needs washed") How large is the "needs washed" dialect area -- as in "the car needs washed"? Somebody on Words-L just asked. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 22:42:32 +0000 From: Grant Barrett gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]JERRYNET.COM Subject: Pinning Down A Region Just spent six months in the Virgin Islands managing a small retail store. One of my favorite pastimes was to try to figure out where people off the cruise ships were from without telling me. There was an enormous amount of traffic so I had plenty of practice. What I learned: -- There seems to be a Great Lakes whine. Syracuse, Lansing, Madison, Chicago and plenty of towns in between have it. They dont admit it, and there're plenty of differences, but still. -- Canadians DO say eh. The next best clue of their origin is that they complain about the look and feel of American paper money. Also, try to get them to say "holiday" or "bottle". -- East Texas and non-Cajun Lousiana sound a lot a like. Almost made a lifetime enemy by calling a La. woman a Texan. -- The Boston accent, like all accents, is strong in the older generations. I don't know if the kids will pick them up later, but they sure don't have the accents now. -- Hawaiians have an accent. I can't quantify it, but I'm working on it. May have to do field research. Still wondering why a Hawaiian would take a Caribbean cruise. -- Southern Missouri and Arkansas share a lot in common, speech-wise, but it wasn't until I was away for a while that I was able to tell the difference. More Texas influence in Ark., flatter in Missouri. -- The Bowery boys accent may be near-dead in New York, but there's a new replacement: umpteenth generation Puerto Rican English. Vey different from the English as a second language accent, and a good distance from Spanglish. -------------------------------------- Do you find it is increasingly difficult to pin down a speaker's "region", even if they give you their life histories? Just curious. Kate Catmull kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bga.com ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 23 Jul 1996 to 24 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 13 messages totalling 298 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Pinning Down A Region (2) 2. literary words (2) 3. Quick Question (re "needs washed") (5) 4. Quick Question (re "needs washed") -Reply 5. cupola 6. Who owns literary words? was waft (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 05:32:38 -0400 From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA Subject: Re: Pinning Down A Region -- Canadians DO say eh. and so do at least some parts of u.s. near canada. i never realized i said it til i moved to massachusetts and they made fun of me. one nice thing about living in south africa is that here they have the same thing, but it's pronounced 'hey', so there's one thing that south africans don't make fun of me for. a lot of people here insist that i don't speak like an american, but like a canadian. i don't think that this is because they hear my 'eh's, but because non-americans seem to think that all americans talk like texans or georgians or something (not to say these are the same, but that they sound "american" to foreigners, while other regional accents don't). considering how much american tv they get here (CNN, dan rather, seinfeld, roseanne, star trek), i can't understand why the understanding of "american" accents isn't broader. (of course, there are plenty of people who immediately know i'm american. it's just that so many others are surprised that interests me. of course, non-native speakers of english have totally different ideas about english varieties. afrikaners often think i'm german, though i'm told i pronounce afrikaans with a dutch accent--i speak neither.) either i've got to get a life, or life is ads-l. lynne --------------------------------------------------------------------- M. Lynne Murphy 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za Department of Linguistics phone: 27(11)716-2340 University of the Witwatersrand fax: 27(11)716-8030 Johannesburg 2050 SOUTH AFRICA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 06:56:49 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Pinning Down A Region a lot of people here insist that i don't speak like an american, but like a canadian. i don't think that this is because they hear my 'eh's, but because non-americans seem to think that all americans talk like texans or georgians or something (not to say these are the same, but that they sound "american" to foreigners, while other regional accents don't). considering how much american tv they get I haven't found this to be true. As a Mississippian, I'd put my speech in the broad category with (east) Texans and Georgians, but people outside the US often think I'm not American. So do some people in the US. Several times people in Illinois have insisted that I'm from England -- not believing me when I've vowed that I'm not English. In Toronto a couple of weeks ago a food vendor at the Farmer's Market asked me if I was visiting from England. (His English indicated that he was not a native speaker.) I've always had the feeling that people in other countries think of Midwest accents as typical US accents. In France, I'm almost always assumed to be German. The second guess if I say I'm not German is English, and the third is usually Canadian, sometimes USAan. But that's getting away from the topic at hand and into accents of American speakers of bad French. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 10:46:46 EDT From: Bruce Southard ENSOUTHA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU Subject: Re: literary words The recent discussion of "waft" and the effect of spelling pronunciations leads me to introduce the word "cupola." For some bizarre reason, our campus is being graced by a double-scale copy of a "cupola" that once adorned a building that was torn down a number of years ago. Campus publications have featured numerous photographs of the "cupola" currently under construction and I have heard all sorts of pronunciations when people talk about the new structure. Before reading further, you might think about how you pronounce the word. Thus far I have heard "cup-uh-luh," "kyou-puh-luh," "koup-uh-luh," "kou-pyou-luh," "cup-you-luh" and "cuh-poh-luh" (As you can tell, I'm having difficulty in indicating whether "p" is a coda or an onset.) After using the first of these pronunciations and finding myself in the minority, I checked the American Heritage Dictionary, which lists only the second pronunciation.I find the palatalization of the /k/ interesting, for the AHD lists both the palatalized and non-palatalized pronunciation for such words as "cumin" and "culinary" (the palatalized pronunciation is listed after the non-palatalized for "cumin," but the order is reversed for "culinary"). Do your pronunciations of "cupola" provide any significant data for "spelling pronunciations" compared to "dictionary pronunciations"? Regards, Bruce Southard ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 14:22:12 -0600 From: Ellen Johnson EJOHNSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU Subject: Re: literary words Okay, I guess one sermon deserves another. Didn't mean to come out with such regionalistic fervor. True, "historical" doesn't have to mean "correct" nor does "spelling pronunciation" always mean "incorrect". And it obviously wasn't a Yankee plot, since the latter was offered by home-boy Peter Patrick. So on to kyupola and other literary words. I was dismayed to hear all the kids at library storytime the other night (ages 4-7) offer the (literary to me) word "firefly" in response to a question about said bug. Then my son's voice rang out: "OR you could call it a Lightning Bug". Didn't realize I'd trained him so well. Ellen Johnson ejohnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cc.memphis.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:41:06 -0400 From: BARBARA HILL HUDSON BHHUDSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GROVE.IUP.EDU Subject: Re: Quick Question (re "needs washed") I live in Western PA (Indiana, PA--near Pittsburgh) and the usage is very common here. Barbara Hill Hudson bhhudson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]grove.iup.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 16:18:16 -0500 From: Molly Connors dickmeye[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]JBLSMTP.PHL.LRPUB.COM Subject: Re: Quick Question (re "needs washed") -Reply South Central and Eastern PA too, except it sounds more like "needs warshed" or, a variant, "needs washing". BARBARA HILL HUDSON BHHUDSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GROVE.IUP.EDU 07/25/96 02:41pm I live in Western PA (Indiana, PA--near Pittsburgh) and the usage is very common here. Barbara Hill Hudson bhhudson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]grove.iup.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 16:18:05 -0400 From: Gregory Roberts robertsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUSUN.GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: Re: Quick Question (re "needs washed") Hi all, "Needs washed" as opposed to what? I suppose that since I am asking opposed to what that it is a part of my dialect area. I am from Peoria, Illinois. Greg Roberts How large is the "needs washed" dialect area -- as in "the car needs washed"? Somebody on Words-L just asked. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 16:41:59 -0400 From: "Dale F.Coye" CoyeCFAT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: cupola Back on the farm it was always the AHD pronunciation. KYOO puh luh. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 16:42:10 -0400 From: "Dale F.Coye" CoyeCFAT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: Who owns literary words? was waft The waft discussion raises a number of questions for me. First I'm surprised that some people think it's not a literary word, but let that go. If we all agree that there are standards of pronunciation (and do we?) how do we determine them if they're literary or specialized words that are rarely used? I would say, you go to the people who still do use them. If you want to know how to pronounce boatswain, topsail, forecastle, ask a sailor. If you want to know how to pronounce marmoset, ask a zoologist. And if you want to know how to pronounce waft, wan, thew, bade, slough (as in bog), saith, contumely, quietus, then ask the professors of English or others people who still trade in these words and ask them for their recommendations. Presumably they will have had the pronunciations handed down to them by their professors. And if the lexicographers have done their jobs, these pronunciations, and no others, will appear in dictionaries. Someone suggested it doesn't really matter how they're pronounced, but surely that is heresy! It matters very much in poetry readings, Shakespeare plays, etc. We can't just say anything goes. The study I referred to when I kicked off the waft discussion was a study of professors of Shakespeare who, presumably, will have heard waft used more than the average person. If anyone owns the word, that is, knows for sure how its pronounced, they do. And as I suggested earlier, if a person haven't heard the word spoken, they should defer to those who "own" it. If my history teacher told me Anne Boleyn was pronounced BULL in, I'd believe her. Dale Coye The Carnegie Foundation (Our late president said car NEG ee) Princeton ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 15:51:48 -0600 From: Ellen Johnson EJOHNSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU Subject: Re: Who owns literary words? was waft I rest my case. Ellen From: IN%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" "American Dialect Society" 25-JUL-1996 15:42:54.41 Subj: RE: Who owns literary words? was waft The waft discussion raises a number of questions for me. First I'm surprised that some people think it's not a literary word, but let that go. If we all agree that there are standards of pronunciation (and do we?) how do we determine them if they're literary or specialized words that are rarely used? I would say, you go to the people who still do use them. If you want to know how to pronounce boatswain, topsail, forecastle, ask a sailor. If you want to know how to pronounce marmoset, ask a zoologist. And if you want to know how to pronounce waft, wan, thew, bade, slough (as in bog), saith, contumely, quietus, then ask the professors of English or others people who still trade in these words and ask them for their recommendations. Presumably they will have had the pronunciations handed down to them by their professors. And if the lexicographers have done their jobs, these pronunciations, and no others, will appear in dictionaries. Someone suggested it doesn't really matter how they're pronounced, but surely that is heresy! It matters very much in poetry readings, Shakespeare plays, etc. We can't just say anything goes. The study I referred to when I kicked off the waft discussion was a study of professors of Shakespeare who, presumably, will have heard waft used more than the average person. If anyone owns the word, that is, knows for sure how its pronounced, they do. And as I suggested earlier, if a person haven't heard the word spoken, they should defer to those who "own" it. If my history teacher told me Anne Boleyn was pronounced BULL in, I'd believe her. Dale Coye The Carnegie Foundation (Our late president said car NEG ee) Princeton ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:04:37 EDT From: Terry Lynn Irons t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Subject: Re: Quick Question (re "needs washed") "Needs washed" as contrasted with "needs to be washed" (to answer a question asked) extends across Kentucky. If I remember a post Don Lance made a year or so ago, the usage extends into Missouri: I vaguely remember an example of "These cars need sold." I would argue that the "I want off"/"I want to get off" alternation is an example of the same phenomenon. The distribution for "I want off," which I suggest parallels "needs washed," is represented in Figure 159 of Kurath's Word Geography (1949) -- Virtually, Terry (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:05:46 PDT From: Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EPIX.NET Subject: Re: Quick Question (re "needs washed") I had a friend from the upper mid-West who used "needs washed" as opposed to the real way of saying it, "needs washing". She also would "wash my hairs". I wonder if these two expressions are gene linked. ------------------------------------- Duane Campbell dcamp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]epix.net When I die and go to Hell, at least I can get my same ISP. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:21:00 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Quick Question (re "needs washed") After sending my quick question last night, I went to the ADS-L archives (today) and found some good discussion of "needs washed" in the April '95 file of list mail. Tim Frazer reported data indicating that it's pretty much the Northern Midland area. George Halliday said that it's normal in Scots. Dennis Preston gave a good summary of Scots - Western PA - elsewhere in the Northern Midland area. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 24 Jul 1996 to 25 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 6 messages totalling 125 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. literary words/cupola 2. literary words- I rest my case?! (2) 3. Quick Question (re "needs washed") (2) 4. literary words ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 23:43:21 -0700 From: Kim & Rima McKinzey rkm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SLIP.NET Subject: Re: literary words/cupola I'll stick my 2 cents in here - as the pronunciation editor of AHD II and III. Yes, we ask and call those using any given word for their opinion/wisdom (sailing terms to sailors, chemical terms to chemists, medical terms to doctors/pharmacists/etc.). We try to go to the horse, as it were. We also use as many other sources as seems necessary or reasonable. (And then, of course, there's our own personal opinions - so there.) As a dictionary is a 2 dimensional medium - even if variant pronunciations have relatively equal distribution, we have to put one of them first. Sometimes this is established by the stylistic rules of the dictionary, sometimes it is established by tradition, and sometimes it is somewhat arbitrary. Very often, with relatively "rare" or "literary" entries, the more traditional, conservative approach is taken. (And then, of course, there's our own personal opinions - so there.) Rima ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 09:17:30 -0400 From: "Dale F.Coye" CoyeCFAT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: literary words- I rest my case?! Wait a second. Ellen Johnson writes: I rest my case: and then cites my thoughts on how the pronunciation of literary words are determined. Does "I rest my case" imply that I'm arguing Southerners are uneducated?!! As per her earlier post: I hope I'm mistaken about the assumption that some here seem to have made that this is the incorrect pronunciation bc it's Southern and it's an educated word and Southerners are uneducated. Or something like that. Are you saying I'm assuming a pronunciation is incorrect because its Southern? Far from it... and I never came close to saying that. I'm assuming its incorrect because the people who are confident about its pronunciation, wherever they may be found, say it a certain way and no other. Nearly every dictionary lists heinous as HAY nus but there are educated speakers on both sides of the Atlantic who say HEE nus. Are we going to tell students, or anyone who asks, that HEE nus is an acceptable pronunciation? It depends on how general the innovation has become. Every spelling pronunciation is not incorrect as you say, but some are perceived as incorrect. What to recommend must be based on the rejection factor among educated speakers. And if all educated speakers from a region line up one way, then what I am saying is that has to be accepted as a standard pronunciation. It looks like waft does have two acceptable pronunciations in the US, and it does look like one is favored in the South to the exclusion of the other. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 08:26:08 -0600 From: Kat Rose Kat.Rose[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SPOT.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Re: Quick Question (re "needs washed") Midwest/Mississippi Valley, Quad Cities (IL/IA), middle class: *needs to be washed*, occasionally *needs washing* [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] -- --- Kat Rose Kat.Rose[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]spot.Colorado.edu My words, my rights, my responsibility ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 17:38:05 GMT From: "Johnnie A. Renick" tenderrite[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]USA.PIPELINE.COM Subject: Re: literary words- I rest my case?! I surely hope not. My parents spent way too much money to educate this southern for me to be considered uneducated. LOL Maybe I still lack the ambition to pronounce each word distinctly or as properly as a northerner but I know how. I try to enjoy my life and therefore have a lot to say so I speak quickly and loose about half of each word in the process. LOL -- Johnnie A. Renick ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 16:37:28 -0500 From: "Timothy C. Frazer" mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Quick Question (re "needs washed") On Wed, 24 Jul 1996, Natalie Maynor wrote: How large is the "needs washed" dialect area -- as in "the car needs washed"? Somebody on Words-L just asked. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) See the article by Tom Murray, Beth Simon and me forthcoming in AS. We have a map. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 23:57:35 -0400 From: BARBARA HILL HUDSON BHHUDSON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GROVE.IUP.EDU Subject: Re: literary words This is not exactly on the subject, but I need help, so I thought I'd piggy back on this discussion. In research that I'm doing on various females speaking styles, I've put the following types of sentences together: You NEEDn't shout Don't you DARE touch that! DO try to come MUST you be so difficult? Something tells me that the the capitalized words fit into single category which I once knew (or maybe not), but if they do fit together, I need a label. Barbara Hill Hudson bhhudson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]grove.iup.edu ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 25 Jul 1996 to 26 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 4 messages totalling 182 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. new words??? 2. forwarded -- Holy Toledo 3. literary words 4. tail above the dashboard II ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 00:56:27 -0700 From: Kim & Rima McKinzey rkm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SLIP.NET Subject: new words??? This was forwarded to me (including the pronunciations) and thought you'd all like it. Rima ============================================= ACCORDIONATED (ah kor' de on ay tid) adj. Being able to drive and refold a road map at the same time. AQUADEXTROUS (ak wa deks' trus) adj. Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes. AQUALIBRIUM (ak wa lib' re um) n. The point where the stream of drinking fountain water is at its perfect height, thus relieving the drinker from (a) having to suck the nozzle, or (b) squirting himself in the eye. BURGACIDE (burg' uh side) n. When a hamburger can't take any more torture and hurls itself through the grill into the coals. BUZZACKS (buz' aks) n. People in phone marts who walk around picking up display phones and listening for dial tones even when they know the phones are not connected. CARPERPETUATION (kar' pur pet u a shun) n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. DIMP (dimp) n. A person who insults you in a cheap department store by asking, "Do you work here?" DISCONFECT (dis kon fekt') v. To sterilize the piece of candy you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, somehow assuming this will `remove' all the germs. ECNALUBMA (ek na lub' ma) n. A rescue vehicle which can only be seen in the rearview mirror. EIFFELITES (eye' ful eyetz) n. Gangly people sitting in front of you at the movies who, no matter what direction you lean in, follow suit. ELBONICS (el bon' iks) n. The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a movie theater. ELECELLERATION (el a cel er ay' shun) n. The mistaken notion that the more you press an elevator button the faster it will arrive. FRUST (frust) n. The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dust pan and keeps backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug. LACTOMANGULATION (lak' to man gyu lay' shun) n. Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk container so badly that one has to resort to the `illegal' side. NEONPHANCY (ne on' fan see) n. A fluorescent light bulb struggling to come to life. PEPPIER (pehp ee ay') n. The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole purpose seems to be walking around asking diners if they want ground pepper. PETONIC (peh ton' ik) adj. One who is embarrassed to undress in front of a household pet. PHONESIA (fo nee' zhuh) n. The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting whom you were calling just as they answer. PUPKUS (pup' kus) n. The moist residue left on a window after a dog presses its nose to it. TELECRASTINATION (tel e kras tin ay' shun) n. The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 12:59:46 -0500 From: Dan Goodman dsgood[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIXER.VISI.COM Subject: forwarded -- Holy Toledo Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 16:08:27 -0700 From: serra[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]electriciti.com (Serra Research Center) To: stumpers-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]crf.cuis.edu Subj: ? Origin/history of exclamation ""Holy Toledo!"" Well, sorry about this but I need to say I've tried *everything*. A search of over 30 dictionaries of slang and euphemisms (plus OED, one of my favorites for this type of thing) has found only a single mention of the phrase "Holy Toledo!"; two others mention Toledo as reference to the blade. The exclamation entry only says"an oath and an exclamation [from Toledo, Spain, 1900s or before] {Spears/Slang and euphemism, p.193}. I think we could have figured the first part of that out by ourselves.. And I think the current familiarity of the phrase probably results from so many years of watching Jamie Farr on "Mash" and "Mash"reruns. I am prepared to give the patron some material on euphemisms in exclamatory phrases, showing how frequently words have been combined with "holy" to create a euphemistic combination in order to avoid a more offensive exclamatory phrase. Any ideas, comments or explanations would be welcome but don't waste your time searching unless you have a brilliant idea where to look - I'm sure I've covered them all! TIA Dan Goodman MPLS, MN, USA "The only peace is that interior in us." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 15:29:59 -0500 From: Barbara Need nee1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Subject: Re: literary words You NEEDn't shout Don't you DARE touch that! DO try to come MUST you be so difficult? The first, third and last verb are auxiliary verbs. The first and last are (as used here) modals. DARE can also be a modal, but then it patterns with the modals in not taking do-support. NEED can, like DARE, be used with do-support--but then it is not considered to be a modal verb. Barbara Need University of Chicago--Linguistics ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 18:19:10 -0400 From: Heilan Yvette Grimes HEP2[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: tail above the dashboard II Joe Claro wrote: I tried this question a couple of weeks ago and got only a few responses. On the chance that some people missed it, allow me to ask again: In All the King's Men, two different characters say "so long" with the expression, "Keep your tail above the dashboard." First, does anyone recognize the expression? (Given the setting, it's a good bet that it's from Louisiana and surroundings.) It seems to mean, "Take care of yourself." Second, what was its original meaning? A dashboard was the part of a buggy that kept the driver from being splashed with mud. Why would it have been important to keep a horse's tail above this fixture? (As I picture it, I can't see it doing the horse any good. Does it protect the driver?) Thanks to anyone who can help. joeclaro[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com I remember this expression from when I was a teenager. It has nothing to do with buggy dashboards. It has to do with automobile dashboards (the part of the automobile holding the steering wheel, glove compartment, etc.). It had to do with having sex in cars. Keep your tail above the dashboard meant don't have sex, ergo don't get into trouble. Not a very realistic idea of what happens in cars, but the meaning was clear. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 26 Jul 1996 to 27 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 10 messages totalling 420 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. recordings of American English (4) 2. Bounced Mail 3. tail above the dashboard II 4. cupola 5. new words??? 6. Great Lakes Whine (was Pinning Down A Region) 7. RE Re: Great Lakes Whine (was Pinning Down A Region) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:13:49 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: recordings of American English The following request has me stumped. I know many researchers have made recordings of American regional English, and phonograph records have been made in the past, and projects are under way now - but does anyone make available the kind of thing he wants? My one suggestion was to check with DARE for their recordings, made in the 1960s. If you know a source, I think it would be useful to post it to ADS-L as well as to Mr. Barry. - Allan Metcalf +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I'm a Producer with Sofkey International(see below), which is located in Cambridge, MA. I am currently working on a CD-ROM product which will be a "talking dictionary" and also the CD will have a component entitled "English Language". The CD-ROM is aimed for the home and education markets. My goal is to create a section that demonstrates American regional accents. I am trying to locate a source for either high quality recordings(audio/video) of examples of American regional accents. Does your society or could you refer me to a source that may be interested in participating in this type of project? Thank You for any assistance you can provide. Kevin Barry KBARRY[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SOFTKEY.COM 617.374.6266 SoftKey International Inc. develops, publishes and markets more than 500 consumer software titles in the education, productivity, reference and lifestyle categories, targeted at home and school users. According to the 1995 PC Data Annual Report, SoftKey is the number one publisher of consumer CD-ROM software by unit sales. SoftKey's products are sold in more than 22,000 stores across 40 countries through multiple distribution channels including retail, direct mail, OEM, school sales and more. The company's product offerings include The Learning System from The Learning Company (including the popular Reader Rabbit family of products) and Learn To Speak series, and such top-selling titles as Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, The Oregon Trail, the Calendar Creator family, BodyWorks 5.0, American Heritage Dictionary series, KeyCad Complete, Mosby's Medical Encyclopedia and the Platinum and KeyKids jewel case lines. SoftKey is headquartered at One Athenaeum Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02142; telephone (617) 494-1200; fax (617) 494-1219; technical support (800) 852-8161. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:52:47 EDT From: Bruce Southard ENSOUTHA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU Subject: Re: recordings of American English I have recently read a listing of resources for the study of regional language variation, but have been unable to locate the document. I think it might have been prepared by Michael Linn. In any event, it included the tape depository that was put together by Joseph Mele (I think). I can't remember Mele's school (University of Southern Alabama?) and have no idea as to whether the tape depsoitory is still in existence, but maybe this posting will jog the memory of somebody else. Regards, Bruce Southard ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:41:44 -0400 From: Margaret Ronkin ronkinm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUSUN.GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: Re: recordings of American English For recordings of regional American English you may wish to try the Center for Applied Linguistics at (202) 429-9292. The June 12, 1996 "Horizon" Section of _The Washington Post_ (pp. H1 and H4-5) has a good article by Sarah Mark on this topic, along with a number to call ((202) 334-9000) to hear Soundbite recordings supplied by the Center for Applied Lingistics, Walt Wolfram, Guy Bailey, Stefan Martin, and Sarah Mark. Maggie Ronkin =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:53:33 -0500 From: "Timothy C. Frazer" mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: recordings of American English In 1958 Raven McDAvid and someone else--sorry I can't remember--produced a 33 1/3 RPM record entitled "Americans Speaking", available from the National Council of Teachers of English. It's not comprehensive-- all the speakers are white, there's no evidenc of Northern cities shift--but there are good examples of cultivated white speech from Alabama (the r-less part), e. Kentucky, Philadelphia, N YOrk City, Boston, and a couple of others. There is one of Madiosn Wisconsin too but it doesn't sound right to me. Tim Frazer On Mon, 29 Jul 1996, Allan Metcalf wrote: The following request has me stumped. I know many researchers have made recordings of American regional English, and phonograph records have been made in the past, and projects are under way now - but does anyone make available the kind of thing he wants? My one suggestion was to check with DARE for their recordings, made in the 1960s. If you know a source, I think it would be useful to post it to ADS-L as well as to Mr. Barry. - Allan Metcalf +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I'm a Producer with Sofkey International(see below), which is located in Cambridge, MA. I am currently working on a CD-ROM product which will be a "talking dictionary" and also the CD will have a component entitled "English Language". The CD-ROM is aimed for the home and education markets. My goal is to create a section that demonstrates American regional accents. I am trying to locate a source for either high quality recordings(audio/video) of examples of American regional accents. Does your society or could you refer me to a source that may be interested in participating in this type of project? Thank You for any assistance you can provide. Kevin Barry KBARRY[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SOFTKEY.COM 617.374.6266 SoftKey International Inc. develops, publishes and markets more than 500 consumer software titles in the education, productivity, reference and lifestyle categories, targeted at home and school users. According to the 1995 PC Data Annual Report, SoftKey is the number one publisher of consumer CD-ROM software by unit sales. SoftKey's products are sold in more than 22,000 stores across 40 countries through multiple distribution channels including retail, direct mail, OEM, school sales and more. The company's product offerings include The Learning System from The Learning Company (including the popular Reader Rabbit family of products) and Learn To Speak series, and such top-selling titles as Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, The Oregon Trail, the Calendar Creator family, BodyWorks 5.0, American Heritage Dictionary series, KeyCad Complete, Mosby's Medical Encyclopedia and the Platinum and KeyKids jewel case lines. SoftKey is headquartered at One Athenaeum Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02142; telephone (617) 494-1200; fax (617) 494-1219; technical support (800) 852-8161. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:58:31 -0500 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Bounced Mail **************************************************************** REMINDER: WHEN INCLUDING A PREVIOUS LIST POSTING IN SOMETHING YOU'RE SENDING TO THE LIST, BE SURE TO EDIT OUT ALL REFERENCES TO ADS-L IN THE HEADERS. **************************************************************** Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 11:00:09 -0400 From: "L-Soft list server at UGA (1.8b)" LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu Subject: ADS-L: error report from LSI.SEL.SONY.COM The enclosed message, found in the ADS-L mailbox and shown under the spool ID 6844 in the system log, has been identified as a possible delivery error notice for the following reason: "Sender:", "From:" or "Reply-To:" field pointing to the list has been found in mail body. -------------------- Message in error (90 lines) -------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 07:54:33 -0700 From: lexo[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]lsi.sel.sony.com (Lex Olorenshaw) Message-Id: 199607291454.HAA02327[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]daisy.lsi Subject: Re: recordings of American English Cc: kbarry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]softkey.com You may want to look into the TIMIT recordings, which were done mainly for the purposes of speech recognition research & development. See http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~ldc/readme_files/timit.readme.html where it notes that the recordings contain "dialect sentences." "The dialect sentences...were meant to expose the dialectal variants of the speakers and were read by all 630 speakers." Another related web site is that of the Linguistic Data Consortium: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~ldc/home.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lex Olorenshaw E-mail: lexo[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]lsi.sel.sony.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:13:49 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: recordings of American English The following request has me stumped. I know many researchers have made recordings of American regional English, and phonograph records have been made in the past, and projects are under way now - but does anyone make available the kind of thing he wants? My one suggestion was to check with DARE for their recordings, made in the 1960s. If you know a source, I think it would be useful to post it to ADS-L as well as to Mr. Barry. - Allan Metcalf +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I'm a Producer with Sofkey International(see below), which is located in Cambridge, MA. I am currently working on a CD-ROM product which will be a "talking dictionary" and also the CD will have a component entitled "English Language". The CD-ROM is aimed for the home and education markets. My goal is to create a section that demonstrates American regional accents. I am trying to locate a source for either high quality recordings(audio/video) of examples of American regional accents. Does your society or could you refer me to a source that may be interested in participating in this type of project? Thank You for any assistance you can provide. Kevin Barry KBARRY[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SOFTKEY.COM 617.374.6266 SoftKey International Inc. develops, publishes and markets more than 500 consumer software titles in the education, productivity, reference and lifestyle categories, targeted at home and school users. According to the 1995 PC Data Annual Report, SoftKey is the number one publisher of consumer CD-ROM software by unit sales. SoftKey's products are sold in more than 22,000 stores across 40 countries through multiple distribution channels including retail, direct mail, OEM, school sales and more. The company's product offerings include The Learning System from The Learning Company (including the popular Reader Rabbit family of products) and Learn To Speak series, and such top-selling titles as Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, The Oregon Trail, the Calendar Creator family, BodyWorks 5.0, American Heritage Dictionary series, KeyCad Complete, Mosby's Medical Encyclopedia and the Platinum and KeyKids jewel case lines. SoftKey is headquartered at One Athenaeum Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02142; telephone (617) 494-1200; fax (617) 494-1219; technical support (800) 852-8161. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 13:47:07 -0600 From: Joan Houston Hall jdhall[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Subject: Re: tail above the dashboard II A quick look in the DARE files shows these quotations: 1912 _Dialect Notes_ 3.578 wIN, Head up and tail over the dashboard...In a lively, spirited manner. "Ever since election day he has been going around with his head up and tail over the dashboard." 1927 _American Speech_ 2.356 wcWV, Have the tail over the dashboard (verb phrase), to be in fine physical condition. "The horses have been standing in the barn for a week. They will have their tails over the dashboard as soon as we hitch them to the buggy." 1958 McCulloch _Woods Words_ 190 Pacific NW, Tail over the dashboard--A logger on his way to town for the week end. 1968 Adams _Western Words_ 316, Tail over the dashboard--A cowboy's description of someone in high spirits. We also have the following quote with quite a different interpretation: c1970 _Halpert Collection_ wKY, nwTN, Tail over the dashboard=describing someone who is miffed. "Oh, she's got her tail over the dashboard about something." The reference is to a horse and buggy, when the horse wants his own way about things. In response to DARE's question A21, "When someone is in too much of a hurry you might say, Now just slow down! Don't ___________.'" we have the response "Don't get your tail over the dashboard" from Informants LA14 and TX5. In this context, the notion seems to be connected to the semantics of the phrase "hightail it." Joan Hall, DARE ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 16:35:30 -0600 From: Joan Houston Hall jdhall[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU Subject: Re: cupola For an amazing assortment of pronunciations of _cupola_, see the entry in DARE Vol. I. Joan Hall ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 17:13:18 EDT From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer owner-LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: new words??? At least some of those "new words" are from a humor book called "Sniglets," which was published sometime in the 1980s. (I know "carperpetuation" and "lactomangulation" are from there.) I don't think any of them have caught on in the sense of being used in actual writing or conversation that is not about them. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com | rosenzweig[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acm.org New York, NY ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 16:46:19 -0700 From: Peter McGraw pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU Subject: Re: Great Lakes Whine (was Pinning Down A Region) This is a rather late reply to the message below, but I'm still intrigued. Grant, could you tell us more about what you mean by the "Great Lakes whine"? Peter McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, OR On Wed, 24 Jul 1996, Grant Barrett wrote: Just spent six months in the Virgin Islands managing a small retail store. One of my favorite pastimes was to try to figure out where people off the cruise ships were from without telling me. There was an enormous amount of traffic so I had plenty of practice. What I learned: -- There seems to be a Great Lakes whine. Syracuse, Lansing, Madison, Chicago and plenty of towns in between have it. They dont admit it, and there're plenty of differences, but still. -- Canadians DO say eh. The next best clue of their origin is that they complain about the look and feel of American paper money. Also, try to get them to say "holiday" or "bottle". -- East Texas and non-Cajun Lousiana sound a lot a like. Almost made a lifetime enemy by calling a La. woman a Texan. -- The Boston accent, like all accents, is strong in the older generations. I don't know if the kids will pick them up later, but they sure don't have the accents now. -- Hawaiians have an accent. I can't quantify it, but I'm working on it. May have to do field research. Still wondering why a Hawaiian would take a Caribbean cruise. -- Southern Missouri and Arkansas share a lot in common, speech-wise, but it wasn't until I was away for a while that I was able to tell the difference. More Texas influence in Ark., flatter in Missouri. -- The Bowery boys accent may be near-dead in New York, but there's a new replacement: umpteenth generation Puerto Rican English. Vey different from the English as a second language accent, and a good distance from Spanglish. -------------------------------------- Do you find it is increasingly difficult to pin down a speaker's "region", even if they give you their life histories? Just curious. Kate Catmull kate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bga.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 21:22:45 +0000 From: Grant Barrett gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]JERRYNET.COM Subject: RE Re: Great Lakes Whine (was Pinning Down A Region) I'm an amateur, so if you don't mind me stumbling around here a little... And no punching me in the throat. There are obvious differences between, say, folks from Wisconsin and folks from Pennsylvania and folks from New York. But there are common features that seem to bind this group in the same way folks from Virginia to Texas share the Southern drawl. The reason I classify it as a Great Lakes whine is cause I can't find it in anyone who isn't from, say, a two-hour drive from the Lakes. The Great Lakes whine is first, nasal, though not quite as bad as that accent made classic in the movie "Fargo" [If you haven't seen it, do. Love those accents.] Second, the vowels are stretched like a paycheck at Christmas. Have someone from the region say "okay", "Mom" and "here". Third, I have a hard time finding simple /ah/ or /aw/ sounds in words that would have it in Missouri, where I come from. Try "talk" or "boss". Then there's this thing that I probably shouldn't mention but will because I can't help myself. I have family from the region, and I first noticed it from them when I was a kid. They have a modulation of tone and meter that reminds me of nothing so much as a little girl singing to herself as she plays with her dolls. This is the only way I can describe it. What is it? Where do they get it? Do I have hearing problems? I don't know, I don't know and I don't think so. Grant Barrett -------------------------------------- Date: 7/29/96 8:36 PM To: Grant Barrett From: Peter McGraw This is a rather late reply to the message below, but I'm still intrigued. Grant, could you tell us more about what you mean by the "Great Lakes whine"? Peter McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, OR On Wed, 24 Jul 1996, Grant Barrett wrote: Just spent six months in the Virgin Islands managing a small retail store. One of my favorite pastimes was to try to figure out where people off the cruise ships were from without telling me. There was an enormous amount of traffic so I had plenty of practice. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 27 Jul 1996 to 29 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 4 messages totalling 101 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. recordings of American English (2) 2. New words from Sniglets, yes 3. NCTE Recording of dialects ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 13:41:45 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: recordings of American English Yes, I should have mentioned the booklet: Michael D. Linn and Maarit-Hannele Zuber. 1984. The Sound of English: A Bibliography of Language Recordings. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English. 84 pages. The problem is knowing what's available now, a dozen years since publication and since the change from phonograph records to CD's. Maybe it's time for a new edition! - Allan Metcalf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 14:49:38 EDT From: Bruce Southard ENSOUTHA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU Subject: Re: recordings of American English I think that there has been an additional publication by Michael Linn since the 1984 bibliography. Was something included in Dennis Preston's _American Dialect Research_? I know that I have seen the listing fairly recently, but I just can't remember where. Also, NADS 21.1 (January 1989) contains a brief notice concerning a "computer corpus of spoken American English" which was to be compiled by Charles F. Meyer. Did anything come of this project? Regards, Bruce Southard ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 21:47:18 -0500 From: "Albert E. Krahn" krahna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MILWAUKEE.TEC.WI.US Subject: New words from Sniglets, yes Vicki Rosenzweig said: At least some of those "new words" are from a humor book called "Sniglets," which was published sometime in the 1980s. (I know "carperpetuation" and "lactomangulation" are from there.) I don't think any of them have caught on in the sense of being used in actual writing or conversation that is not about them. -------------- Vicki is correct. Also, "disconfect" was from that source. One more that the forwarder left out was "expresshole," the name for people who try to sneak through the express lane in supermarkets with more than 3,6,8,10 items -- whatever. akra Al Krahn Milwaukee Area Technical College 700 W. State St. Milwaukee WI 53233 414 /W297-6519/F297-7990/H476-4025 Owner PUNCT-L : a mailing list for discussing punctuation. Send for subscription instructions. krahna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]milwaukee.tec.wi.us !()":;'?.,!-!()-'";:?.,!-)("':;?.,!-)('";:?.,!-_)("':;?.,!_-)("':;?.,!-) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 21:54:44 -0500 From: "Albert E. Krahn" krahna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MILWAUKEE.TEC.WI.US Subject: NCTE Recording of dialects Timothy C. Frazer said: Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 10:53:33 -0500 Subject: Re: recordings of American English In 1958 Raven McDAvid and someone else--sorry I can't remember--produced a 33 1/3 RPM record entitled "Americans Speaking", available from the National Council of Teachers of English. It's not comprehensive-- all the speakers are white, there's no evidenc of Northern cities shift--but there are good examples of cultivated white speech from Alabama (the r-less part), e. Kentucky, Philadelphia, N YOrk City, Boston, and a couple of others. There is one of Madiosn Wisconsin too but it doesn't sound right to me. ---------------------- I think I have a copy of it down at the office. I may have played it once. I believe there is a script with it. Idunno how dose Madisonians speak (I onney lived dere for about 18 munts), but we Mwaukeeans tawk funny a lot, aina? akra Al Krahn Milwaukee Area Technical College 700 W. State St. Milwaukee WI 53233 414 /W297-6519/F297-7990/H476-4025 Owner PUNCT-L : a mailing list for discussing punctuation. Send for subscription instructions. krahna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]milwaukee.tec.wi.us !()":;'?.,!-!()-'";:?.,!-)("':;?.,!-)('";:?.,!-_)("':;?.,!_-)("':;?.,!-) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 29 Jul 1996 to 30 Jul 1996 ************************************************ There are 3 messages totalling 82 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. NAZI--An 1880s dude from Vienna?? 2. recordings of American English (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 01:12:43 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: NAZI--An 1880s dude from Vienna?? What does "Nazi" mean and where does it come from? OED is not much help. Barnhart's Dictionary of Etymology has 1930 and states that it's an altered form of Nationalsozialist, based on the pattern of earlier German Sozi, short for Sozialist, socialist. Consider this beaten by about 50 years! I have a huge file on "dude," part of which was published In Comments on Etymology in October 1993. (American Speech's recent "You've come a long way, dude" never quoted it.) A most interesting article which was not published then is "Dudes of all Nations" from the New York Evening Telegram, February 28, 1885, p. 5. There are wonderful drawings of the American "dude," the English "masher," "Il Dudo," the "coon," "ein feiner Hund," "El Petimetre," "Le Pschutteaux," and one more that puzzles me: "DER NAZI" Vienna is the home of this picturesque creature, and he may be seen, in all his glory, at the concerts. Money is scarce and clothing dear at the Austrian capital, so "der Nazi" embellishes himself, as much as possible, with his hair--the air of Vienna appears to be conducive to hirsute exuberance. Like all other dudes, he has a frantic passion for check clothing; why dudes adore checks is one of those things that no ordinary intellect can discover; it is a good topic for the profound German mind to take up when it has nothing else on hand. Der Nazi in Vienna in 1885? This puzzles me. Can anyone tell me--is this the origin of "Nazi"? (P.S. I'm doing political party stuff. Anyone with pre-1884 GOPs or GOMs, please send them along, with or without NAZIs.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 10:15:01 -0400 From: Allan Metcalf AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: recordings of American English I should also have mentioned: Donna Christian American English Speech Recordings: A Guide to Collections. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, May 1986. 121 pages. This is an guide to archives and researchers' collections, not to published recordings. And of course it too is now a decade in arrears. - Allan Metcalf ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 15:11:34 -0400 From: "Peter L. Patrick" PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.ACC.GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: Re: recordings of American English Bruce Southard was probably referring to the article by Michael Linn in the ADS centennial volume, "American Dialect Research Research", ed. our own Dennis Preston. Linn's article, "Resources for Research", lists 36 collections of various types: folklore archives, dialect atlas archives, sociolinguistic surveys, etc. #36 is joseph Mele's at U. So. Alabama. As Maggie also noted, CAL's collection samples and has info on ca. 200 extant archives. Linn also, w/M-H. Zuber, published a 1984 survey of speech recordings available from commercial sources (NCTE published this, "The sound of English", at Urbana IL). Someone else noted the Linguistic Data Consortium records, online at U. Penn. I haven't used LDC, but note that it is not free-- while scholars do get a break compared to commercial users, and the annual fee is a bargain considering the massive work involved, it's still far beyond the reach of most individual scholars, I believe. Also it's a different sort of data with a diff. purpose. Forgive me for posting this if most of you know it! since it's in the ADS volume. But probably some folks are unfamiliar with that extremely useful book, so... --peter patrick georgetown u. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 30 Jul 1996 to 31 Jul 1996 ************************************************ .