There are 6 messages totalling 96 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Texas town names (2) 2. Prescriptivist horror stories 3. Unpredictable British local pronunciations 4. there's (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 22:02:46 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Texas town names Alas, the Cat House, alias The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, is no more. Rudy Troike Thanks for the pome. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Feb 1994 22:16:49 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Prescriptivist horror stories I don't, but I recall my great aunt's "receipts". Rudy Troike rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 11:27:06 +0100 From: Peter Trudgill PeterJohn.Trudgill[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ANGL.UNIL.CH Subject: Re: Unpredictable British local pronunciations What Dahood says it quite correct! Peter Trudgill P.J. Trudgill Professor of English Language and Linguistics Section d'anglais BFSH 2 University of Lausanne CH-1015 Lausanne Switzerland Phone: +41-21-692 4593 Fax: +41-21-692 4637/4510 Home Phone and Fax (CH): +41-21-728 1916 Home Phone and Fax (GB): +44-603-618036 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 12:42:37 +0100 From: j.b.johannessen[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ILF.UIO.NO Subject: Re: there's Hello. Thank you very much for forwarding me those messages. They are very interesting. Janne B.J. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Janne Bondi Johannessen Tel: + 47-22 85 68 14 The Text Laboratory E-mail: jannebj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hedda.uio.no Department of linguistics University of Oslo P.O.box 1102 Blindern N-0317 Oslo, Norway ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 10:41:27 EST From: TERRY IRONS t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Subject: Re: there's Dear Theresa, In 1991 Deborah Schriffin presented a keynote address at the Mid-America Linguistics Meeting in Stillwater, OK entitled "Approaches to Topic in Discourse: They have and There Is." In her talk she reported quantitative information concerning discourse history information status and syntactic type of NPs in There is constructions. I don't know if this work has been published anywhere, but you might be able to contact Debbie and see if she has any quantitative info on agreement that may help you out. Terry Irons ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 12:48:31 -0800 From: Paul Pease pease[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CRL.COM Subject: Re: Texas town names I'm late into this thread, but has anyone mentioned Picketwire, TX? It was named by the first French settlers, Purgatoire, but that didn't sound right in the nose of cowboys, and it degraded into something that made some sort of sense. And there's a town of Smackover, GA, that was originally named Chemin Couvre. Sigh. Paul Pease ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 28 Feb 1994 to 1 Mar 1994 *********************************************** There are 7 messages totalling 179 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Local pronunciation of toponyms 2. One Horror Story 3. POSTERS (3) 4. Expert Witnesses (Florida); "Family" 5. attitude & prescription ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 09:17:06 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Local pronunciation of toponyms Did I forget to send everybody the following: La Harpe, Ill.: LAY harp Terre Haute, Ill. (a few miles from LAYharp): terry hut Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 08:38:36 -0600 From: Joan Livingston-Webber webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU Subject: One Horror Story In 11th grade (1963-64), in Johnstown, PA., my English class was required in unison oral drill, to practice the correct forms of two shibboleths: the first was "which" and "witch" (which I think no one ever figured out) and "mirror" (with two exaggerated syllabes with instructions to make our jaws jut out twice). This was honors English and that was why we were introduced to these niceties of pronunciation. Oh yeah--we were also forbidden to say "I don't think." We had to say "I think no one ..." as I did above. We also were to use "so" for negative comparisons as in "He is not so big as his brother." (As ... as was marked incorrect or corrected orally in class.) I find I still make some of the distinctions I was taught in that class in formal writing and speaking--except when I'm in the mood for active rebellion. Funny how that can still feel like defiance. When my sister left home, my father told her he didn't care how she talked as long as she didn't say "stil" mill. He assumed none of us would take "younz guys" out of town. Outside of those experiences, I didn't know I had a dialect till I went to school in Ohio and found out just how badly stigmatized my accent was. It took me a long time to hear it and then I went to work on myself with a vengeance. My Intro to Linguistics course (in 1978) was truly one of the most liberating educational experiences of my life--no kidding. Occasionally I get one of me in class and I know just how to teach her. I had one last semester who'd been educated in Texas. The neon "AHA's!" began flashing in her eyes almost from the beginning. When she made an appointment and "confessed" to me her self-prescriptive attitudes and her desire to change, it was like encountering my younger self. Without this prescriptivism, there would not be liberatory linguistics. "Sin greatly that grace may abound" (or something like that) said M. Luther. -- Joan Livingston-Webber webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]unomaha.edu "What gets better is the precision with which we vex each other." -Clifford Geertz ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 09:22:14 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: POSTERS We jsut moved into a new office and I need some stuff for the walls (June has Tennyson and Queen Victoia, but I need to establish my identity too!). Anyoby know where I might still get some of those LANE maps? Or some FAmous Linguist posters (I know LSA gives you one if you have five new members, but I can't do that here). Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 09:31:00 CST From: Tom Murray TEM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]KSUVM.BITNET Subject: Re: Expert Witnesses (Florida); "Family" I have two things to share with everyone: First, I've received a letter from a Mr. Joel Charles, who does a lot of work with audio and video recordings for c ourt trials. At one point in the letter, he wonders, "Is there any person in A DS in these local areas, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, or Miami, who has th e capability of testifying in court without falling all over his tongue and who can influence a jury to believe him? If you know such a person or persons, I' d like to have their names so that I can specifically name someone instead of j ust saying, 'You need a linguist from a local college.' Any takers can reach M r. Charles at 9951 N.W. 5th Place, Plantation, FL 33324 (305-370-7499). Second , a colleague has asked whether I know anything about the origins of the word F AMILY in the gay sense. I can't find it in any of my slang dictionaries, or in any of the Among the New Words essays in AS, and I'm wondering if anyone has a ny ideas I can pass along. My instincts tell me that this is a very recent coi nage, maybe as late as 1990, and that it may be linked to Quayle's diatribe on "family values"--but that's just a hunch. Can anybody help? Thanks in advanc e. Tom Murray P.S.: To those people who have bitmailed me questions for the new PADS on sur reptitious recording, thanks. The rest of you have till July 1! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 12:08:31 -0500 From: "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr." billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: POSTERS On Wed, 2 Mar 1994 mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU wrote: We jsut moved into a new office and I need some stuff for the walls (June has Tennyson and Queen Victoia, but I need to establish my identity too!). Anyoby know where I might still get some of those LANE maps? Or some FAmous Linguist posters (I know LSA gives you one if you have five new members, but I can't do that here). Tim Frazer We don't know no famous linguists round heah (I don't think), but we got plenty of the LANE maps. Same rates as advertised in NADS; send me a private message if you don't remember, since Internet is supposed to be non-commercial. We have multiples of some maps, chiefly from Vol. 3, but none of some others, chiefly from Vol. 1. Let me know what you want and we can look. ****************************************************************************** Bill Kretzschmar Phone: 706-542-2246 Dept. of English FAX: 706-542-2181 University of Georgia Internet: billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hyde.park.uga.edu Athens, GA 30602-6205 Bitnet: wakjengl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 12:49:39 EST From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU Subject: Re: attitude & prescription Re Tim Frazer's query about singers and the national anthem. Do we have American stage speech? Is it just a matter of drama coaches telling actors to enunciate /t/ etc., or is there a lectal dimension that has some systematic features? These may be rhetorical questions. DMLance Anecdotal Observation from Wayne Glowka: I have been in a number of plays--all with the same director. My problems with pronunciation came not from the director, but from the music director. Again, I always had to deal with the same one, but she had a thing about reduced vowels. My /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]/ (schwa) had to be replaced with her /E/ (open e). I kept my mouth shut about variation. Music directors don't negotiate. I was once a phonetics consultant for _My Fair Lady_. I brought in a Trudgill tape and handouts for RP and Cockney. One gentleman in the cast--with a very loud voice--refused to follow the pronunciations for Cockney. He purposely followed the pronunciation that he heard on his record of the show and told me that he was doing so because people wouldn't understand that he was speaking Cockney if he followed the suggestions of linguists. Thus, there may be set dialect standards that people teach. People around here have a hard time watching the CBS _In the Heat of the Night_. The accents are horrible. The accents in _Gone with the Wind_--a movie that all real people here forgive--make the hair on my back stand up. Honest local accents are heard on locally made advertisements: [bU gzIn+yo+hA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]s#w[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]i+gIt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]m+A[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]t+[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]t+bU g+hA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]s] (where [U ] is a fronted horse-U)--"Bugs in your house? We get them out at Bug House." But then these accents embarrass the locals. Don't even ask me about Leckie's Income Tax or Tommy's Retreads. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 18:49:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Re: POSTERS Tim (and anybody else), Write to Bill Kretzschmar to get beautiful LANE maps. I have 'privy' ('outhouse' to you) at home and 'all het up' at the office. Amaze your friends! Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 1 Mar 1994 to 2 Mar 1994 ********************************************** There are 17 messages totalling 441 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. attitude & prescription 2. POSTERS (2) 3. Local pron. of toponyms (2) 4. local locality pronunciations (2) 5. Something old, something new 6. attitude & prescription:CORRECTION--Sorry 7. bad hair day (2) 8. Family in the gay sense (2) 9. No subject given 10. Bounced Mail 11. A Noun Is a Word After a Determiner 12. Local pronunciations of toponyms ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 22:38:18 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: attitude & prescription I threw it out recently because the tapes to go with it were missing, but there are a number of books put out by people in Speech on "dialect pronunciation" as guides for actors and stage directors to train people. Some of the material in C.M. Wise's long-used work was for this purpose. Rudy Troike ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 01:38:24 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: POSTERS Yes, get the posters. The conditions under which they are available are positive. I got several, including 'theater'. I felt that the right place for it was hanging somewhere in the Theatre Dept, so I framed it and gave it to them, with a description of what it is. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 15:57:03 +0700 From: Gwyn Williams gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH Subject: Re: Local pron. of toponyms On Thu, 24 Feb 1994, Peter Trudgill wrote: There's no point you guys on that side of the Atlantic trying to compete with the REAL thing. You all know about Leicester and Worcester. But I bet you don't know - just to pick 2 examples at random just down the road from me in Norwich: Wymondham /wind[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]m/ Happisburgh /heizbr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]/ Can any generalizations be made about these types of pronunciations? eg., vowel merger, deletions, etc? Gwyn Williams Linguistics Thammasat University Bangkok gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ipied.tu.ac.th ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 15:59:03 +0700 From: Gwyn Williams gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH Subject: Re: local locality pronunciations On Thu, 24 Feb 1994, Rudy Troike wrote: Some speakers even have problems with /gw/, presumably reflecting labial-velar similarities. One speaker I know pronounces bueno as /byuweynow/. Really? No-one has had trouble pronouncing my name "Gwyn" [gwIn] though I often have to repeat it. Any other words with [gw]? "Guam" "guava" .... Gwyn Williams Bangkok gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ipied.tu.ac.th ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 19:00:08 +0700 From: Gwyn Williams gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH Subject: Re: Something old, something new On Sat, 26 Feb 1994, Donald M. Lance wrote: In the 1875 edition of Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, the word is italicized, indicating that it is a "foreign word" The following pronunciation: 'koo pong (with macron over oo and breve over o, and no the -ng is not one of my ubiquitous typos): presumably ['ku p[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ng] fascinating! The Thai word is [khuu pong]. I've always wondered where the final velar came from. I thought it was French, as Thais often seem to perceive final nasal vowels in French as [ng]. Comments? Gwyn Williams Bangkok gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ipied.tu.ac.th ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 07:42:03 EST From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU Subject: Re: attitude & prescription:CORRECTION--Sorry PLEASE NOTE TRANSCRIPTION CORRECTION BELOW. Re Tim Frazer's query about singers and the national anthem. Do we have American stage speech? Is it just a matter of drama coaches telling actors to enunciate /t/ etc., or is there a lectal dimension that has some systematic features? These may be rhetorical questions. DMLance Anecdotal Observation from Wayne Glowka: I have been in a number of plays--all with the same director. My problems with pronunciation came not from the director, but from the music director. Again, I always had to deal with the same one, but she had a thing about reduced vowels. My /[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]/ (schwa) had to be replaced with her /E/ (open e). I kept my mouth shut about variation. Music directors don't negotiate. I was once a phonetics consultant for _My Fair Lady_. I brought in a Trudgill tape and handouts for RP and Cockney. One gentleman in the cast--with a very loud voice--refused to follow the pronunciations for Cockney. He purposely followed the pronunciation that he heard on his record of the show and told me that he was doing so because people wouldn't understand that he was speaking Cockney if he followed the suggestions of linguists. Thus, there may be set dialect standards that people teach. People around here have a hard time watching the CBS _In the Heat of the Night_. The accents are horrible. The accents in _Gone with the Wind_--a movie that all real people here forgive--make the hair on my back stand up. Honest local accents are heard on locally made advertisements: CORRECTED VERSION [bU gzIn+yo+h[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]xs#w[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]i+gItxm+[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]xt+xt+bU g+h[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]xs] (where [U ] is a fronted horse-U)--"Bugs in your house? We get them out at Bug House." But then these accents embarrass the locals. Don't even ask me about Leckie's Income Tax or Tommy's Retreads. Sorry about the sloppy [kl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tiz]. I hope I have it right now--[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]=ash, x=schwa. Another doublet of doublets: Geoffrey of Monmouth's _Vita Merlini_ I noticed offers a twelfth-century sexist double doublet: "patriam . . . paternam"--opposed I suppose to "patriam maternam." Wayne Glowka Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 08:47:53 -0500 From: Silke Van Ness SV478[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ALBNYVMS.BITNET Subject: bad hair day Does anyone know the origin of the expression 'bad hair day?' A friend overseas (teaching ESL) would like to give her students an informed answer. Thanks. Silke Van Ness. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 09:41:06 CDT From: Randy Roberts robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EXT.MISSOURI.EDU Subject: Family in the gay sense Text item: Text_1 A quick look in the Peter Tamony Collection has produced three cites for "homosexual family." San Francisco Examiner, 15 April 1980, p. 1 continued on page 10. "A Hard Look/Hot controversy for conference: What is a family?" This story revolves around Carter's White House Conference on Families. "[Alec] Velasquez said he asked those appointing delegates to consider the diversity of Califronia in making their selections 'representative of the socioeconomic and the ethnic population of the state and the broad and distinct types of families, the single-parent families, the unwed families, gay families, intact families, blended families.'" California Living Magazine, part of the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle, 15 June 1980, p. 20ff. "A Day With Bruno Bettelheim" An essay by Jim Jacobs about Bettelheim's talk at the University of California Extension Center auditorium entitled "Reflections of the Family." "He [Bettleheim] bellows a response to the very first question, put forth by a woman in a quiet, timid voice: 'Would you comment on the homosexual family and . . .' 'A homosexual family is not viable,' he shouts." San Francisco Examiner, 6 December 1982, p. B2. An article entitled "Supervisor's idea of a 'family.'" An article about Supervisor Quentin Kopp's resolution celebrating the role of the family in American life. "There are a number of interpersonal relationships in San Francisco that pass for 'families'. Indeed, the Board of Supervisors, to the embarrassment of The City, has passed an ordinance offered by gay Supervisor Harry Britt endorsing that concept. It would provide, in The City's administrative code, that unwed 'domestic partners,' both heterosexual and homosexual, could enjoy the same legal benefits as city employees who are pledged to the traditional marriage." Randy Roberts Western Historical Manuscript Collection University of Missouri-Columbia robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ext.missouri.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 07:58:32 -0800 From: David Prager Branner charmii[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: Re: Local pron. of toponyms In Chinese dialects you often find placenames whose MEANING and not only phonology are totally different in dialect from those of the characters used to write them in the "standard" (?) language. This is more complicated than "Avenue of the Americas" in Manhattan being called "Sixth Avenue". For instance, the city of Longyan ("dragon-rock") is actually called "dragon-forest" in older Longyan dialect, as well as in Amoy. [liong2-na~2], instead of *[liong2-ngam2]. The nearby town of Longmen ("dragon-gate") is called by this learned name, [liong2-mui~2], everywhere but in the town itself, where it is known as [lium2-mui~2] "the Lium2 (Mandarin Lin2) family gate". There must be hundreds of examples like this in every prefecture, though Chinese have not studied them very much. Does anybody know of comparable examples in English? Thanks, dpb ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 11:04:20 CST From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: No subject given I am posting this message to 2 overlapping groups. NCTE received a query they passed on to me, and I'm asking for ideas on how to respond. A parent of an Ohio 5th grader called NCTE to ask how best to deal with his son's English teacher. The teacher had students play a grammar game in which they were asked to sort cards with nouns on them into baskets labeled person, place, and thing. The child in question, who had been educated in India before coming to Ohio, had been taught that nouns named persons, places, things, and animals. He had further been taught that all life on earth was continuous, that there was no distinction to be made between humans and animals in a spiritual sense. Thus, confronted with the card "horse," the child thought, it's not a place and not a thing, so it has to be a person. Blaaap! Wrong! goes the teacher, gives the grade conscious kid a "C," and inflames the parent enough to call NCTE to complain. I've got a few ideas about what to say (including, "Give it up." But I'd like to open the question up before responding. Reply to the list or personally. Dennis -- debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ ____________ Department of English / '| ()___________) University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ 608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\ (__) ()___________) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 10:51:44 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Bounced Mail If including a previous posting in something you send to the list, be sure to edit out all references to ADS-L in the headers. From: BITNET list server at UGA (1.7f) LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu Subject: ADS-L: error report from ACDCA.ITT.COM The enclosed mail file, found in the ADS-L reader and shown under the spoolid 0955 in the console 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 (34 lines) ------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Mar 94 08:36:15 PST From: benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acdca.itt.com (Peter Benson) Subject: Re: Local pron. of toponyms Is this equivalent to folk etymologies - such as sparrow grass for asparagus ? So if there were a Native American name for a place that had parts that looked vaguely English and was re-interpreted in an English way, would this be an example ? ----- Begin Included Message ----- Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 07:58:32 -0800 From: David Prager Branner charmii[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: Re: Local pron. of toponyms In Chinese dialects you often find placenames whose MEANING and not only phonology are totally different in dialect from those of the characters used to write them in the "standard" (?) language. This is more complicated than "Avenue of the Americas" in Manhattan being called "Sixth Avenue". ----- End Included Message ----- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 09:01:55 -0800 From: Arnold Zwicky zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Subject: Re: Family in the gay sense there are two entirely different questions here, both of some interest. one is the question randy roberts just gave citations on from the tamony materials: how, and when, has the sense of the word "family" shifted so as to include persons not related to one another by blood or marriage? one of these shifts involves treating same-sex domestic partnerships as the functional equivalent of legal or religious marriages, so lgb people are relevant here. [as i recall, the entry for "family" shifted notably between the 2nd and 3rd editions of the AHD, and geoff nunberg wrote an excellent usage note on just this point.] but the original question was about the use, primarily among lgb people, of predicative "family" to refer to sexual orientation, as in "I took two courses from you before I finally figured out that you were family" [my recollection of something said to me by a graduate student, a gay man, some years ago]. this is clearly a metaphorical extension of the meaning of "family"; the sense of group identity, or community, among lgb people is analogous to the sense of belonging in a group with one's parents, siblings, partner, and/or children. this latter use is *not* extremely recent (just how old it is i cannot say; i'm pretty sure it was already current in the early 70s, though i haven't searched through the texts), but it has developed a special piquancy in recent years by opposition to the explicitly anti-homosexual stance of the "family values" movement in the u.s. arnold zwicky, who has families in several senses (zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ling.ohio-state.edu or zwicky[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]csli.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 12:58:40 EST From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU Subject: Re: A Noun Is a Word After a Determiner Some thoughts on Dennis Baron's grammar teacher ethics problem (note the prenominal nominal modifiers): 1. What a great final examination question for my English grammar class! 2. The teacher forgot *idea* in her box arrangement. 3. Wait until the teacher tries to sort out *action word* from *thing* with another set of boxes. 4. Is the child a vegetarian? Where do vegetables fit in? 5. Someone probably also needs to tell the teacher that *present tense* does not necessarily mean 'present time.' 6. Why does grammatical instruction always seem to be the province of simple-minded, dogmatic fools? 7. The teacher needs to take a modern grammar course, plain and simple. New requirements for teacher education in Georgia now require students to study dialects, registers, morphology, etc.--modern scholarship on English. We have too often sent out teachers armed with nothing but 18th- and 19th-century methods and ideas. I would hate to get psychotherapy from someone who knew nothing past Freud or have a bridge built by someone who stopped studying structural mechanics 100 years ago. But my purely literary colleagues think that 18th- and 19th-century grammatical terms and methods are sufficient for teachers--but I notice that all of their doctors are trained in modern medicine. However, the state ed dept. has had enough sense to sense that something new was in the air. But alas! this teacher was probably not a product of a secondary ed program anyway. Wayne Glowka Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 11:11:22 PST From: Peter Benson benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ACDCA.ITT.COM Subject: Local pronunciations of toponyms David Prager Brannerwrites: Re: Local pron. of toponyms In Chinese dialects you often find placenames whose MEANING and not only phonology are totally different in dialect from those of the characters used to write them in the "standard" (?) language. This is more complicated than "Avenue of the Americas" in Manhattan being called "Sixth Avenue". Is this equivalent to folk etymologies - such as sparrow grass for asparagus ? So if there were a Native American name for a place that had parts that looked vaguely English and was re-interpreted in an English way, would this be an example ? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 19:44:26 EST From: Allan Metcalf aallan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re: POSTERS To fill the blank space beside the LANE map in a Wal-Mart poster frame, I made a generic caption explaining LANE and put it in caption-sized type. Will be glad to send an s-mail copy ready for framing to an yone who wants it. Or I suppose I could give the text here: "LINGUISTIC ATLAS OF NEW ENGLAND "Originated sixty years ago by Hans Kurath (1891-1992) as part of a planned Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada (a project still in progress), the Linguistic Atlas of New England was published in three large volumes between 1939 and 1943. It consists of maps such as this one, based on phonetic transcriptions made by trained field workers who interviewed 416 residents of 213 communities betwe en 1931 and 1933, with a questionnaire covering 814 items of vocabulary and pronunciation. "The project is described in Hans Kurath, Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1939)." - Allan Metcalf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 19:08:07 -0400 From: "Becky Howard, Department of Interdisciplinary Writing, Colgate University" BHOWARD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU Subject: Re: bad hair day First time I heard it was by the media covering Clinton's presidential campaign, though I'm sure that's not the first use of it. Becky Howard ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 21:31:09 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: local locality pronunciations Gwyn: You've never had /gyuwIn/? Come to Texas sometime. I'll show you /lIngyuwIstIks/. Rudy Troike rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 2 Mar 1994 to 3 Mar 1994 ********************************************** There are 5 messages totalling 93 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Something old, something new (2) 2. local locality pronunciations 3. local locality pronunciation 4. bad hair day ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 01:05:18 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Something old, something new Since posting the [ku p[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ng] info I've off and on wondered how that nasal got there. I wonder what old British dictionaries have. I don't have time (or inclination) at the moment to dig further. Maybe someone else will have a response to Gwyn's question. In Tom Murray's study of St. Louis speech he reports the following interesting data: informal midformal formal % n % n % n [u] in due, upper class 77 236 55 161 42 138 news, etc. middle " 97 294 90 269 81 242 lower " 100 314 100 351 100 301 [u] in coupon upper class 65 198 49 152 34 101 middle " 74 228 62 169 56 160 lower " 81 238 74 227 71 212 These data suggest that these items are not in the same set. I recall as a teenager having conversations about whether 'coupon' should be said with [u] or [yu]. The question also came up within the family regarding the term 'coupe' for a type of car body, the latter having two questions, the [u] / [yu] and the final -e. But I don't recall any debate in our family over the vowel in 'due' etc. I had some high school teachers from North Midland areas (Dayton, Wash DC) and thought their [u] pronunciation might be better, so I consciously worked on changing several of the words in that set*and managed to get the whole set changed. For some reason in the past few years (after age 55) I've played with recovering the earlier pronunciations. These are things in my awareness; I can't swear to which pronunciations I used 100% of the time between age 16 and 55. *("That set" was 'due' 'new' etc, but not necessarily 'coupon' and 'coupe'; I don't recall what whether I included the latter in "that set") DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 18:31:53 +0700 From: Gwyn Williams gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH Subject: Re: local locality pronunciations On Thu, 3 Mar 1994, Rudy Troike wrote: You've never had /gyuwIn/? Come to Texas sometime. I'll show you /lIngyuwIstIks/. Never had that one. Usually get "Quin" which makes phonetic sense I gyess. Gwyn ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 07:11:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Re: local locality pronunciation Rudy's /lingyuIstIks/ is a dandy pronunciation (and, doubtless, has something to do with the marginal status of /gw/ clusters in English), but my favorite in /lingoIstIks/ with its obvious half-folk etymological (?) connection to 'lingo.' While we are on pronunciations of our discipline, do others of you note a preference for the lax vowel in the first syllable (/lI-/). I think this is related to pronunciations which have a following alveolar (lIn-/) rather than velar (/ling-) nasal (as we might expect). Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 09:07:07 -0500 From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU Subject: Re: Something old, something new Not just Thais... Wyndham Lewis parodies the uneducated British aspirants to culture in the 1920s as wanting to be dong le movemong, i.e., dans le mouvement. After all, the velar is as close as shy English speakers get to nasal... rk ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 00:00:05 -0500 From: "Gregory J. Pulliam" HUMPULLIAM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MINNA.ACC.IIT.EDU Subject: Re: bad hair day The first use of this I heard was in a movie from about ten years ago, but I can't remember which one--it was some adolescent coming of age film like Ferris Beuller's Day Off, or that Tom Cruise thing where he dances in his skivvies to Seger's Old Time R&R, or something like that. Maybe this will refresh some memories out there. GPulliam ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 3 Mar 1994 to 4 Mar 1994 ********************************************** There are 25 messages totalling 430 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. local locality pronunciation (6) 2. /lIngwIstIks/ (8) 3. Epiphany on the Tennis Court (5) 4. y'all singular attested in Louisiana (2) 5. COOL /u/ or /y/ (2) 6. I and E 7. Sluff/Slough ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 23:11:20 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: local locality pronunciation Re Dennis Preston's query about the vowel in the first syllable in 'linguistics'. My students are divided in their use of [I] and [i] in transcriptions of their own speech, and the transcription matches the way I hear their vowels. I haven't managed to make myself make time to see how these vowels correlate with presence or absence of [g] in this word, but no motivation for such a count has popped off the homework pages as I've checked their transcriptions. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 23:15:16 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: local locality pronunciation Re the first vowel in linguistics : since there is no phonemic contrast in this position, one expects the exact position/tenseness (whatever you hear) in the vowel to vary, much as with /or/ for varieties that lack a hoarse: horse distinction. This is what phonemic theory (the old, maligned, taxo- nomic kind) predicts. Rudy Troike rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 07:45:53 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: /lIngwIstIks/ I say /lI/ before the velar nasal. Years ago I used to fight with students who transcribed /i/ instead of /i/ in -ing constructions. They insisted they said /i/. Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 08:26:24 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: /lIngwIstIks/ I say /lI/ before the velar nasal. Years ago I used to fight with students who transcribed /i/ instead of /i/ in -ing constructions. They insisted they said /i/. Ah memories. Way back when I was first introduced to transcription, my transcription of "linguistics" on a test was marked wrong (the transcription was of our own speech, btw, not of somebody else's). Not usually one to protest a teacher's judgment, I did go up after class to inquire about that one since I thought surely it was just a careless mistake on his part -- that nobody could really have [I] instead of [i] in that first syllable. I still can't manage to make my vocal apparatus come out with an [I] there. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 10:07:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Re: local locality pronunciation Rudy, You are right, of course, about the [i] -[I] variation which falls out of the neutralization before [ng] (when the pronunciation is [linggwIstIks], using -ng- for angma, the velar nasal). But I note that when the pronunciation is [lIngwIstIks] (with an alveolar nasal preceding [g]), the vowel is invariably [I]. Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 11:18:42 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Epiphany on the Tennis Court Being far from serious about the game of tennis, I often entertain myself on the tennis court with thinking about all kinds of other things. This morning I was thinking about our discussion of the vowels in "linguistics" and started mumbling the word over and over. (My tennis friends didn't think anything about my mumbling since they know that I often use tennis games for practicing French or German -- fortunately, they're not serious tennis players either.) Suddenly I realized that what I'm confident used to be [i] in my pronunciation has moved closer to [I]. This is kind of scary. Next thing you know I'll be saying [tEn] instead of [tIn] for "ten." Must be yankee infiltration. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 12:24:57 CST From: Michael Picone MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET Subject: y'all singular attested in Louisiana My interest in Louisiana has much more to do with French than English, however, last week when I stopped in Covington for lunch on the way to doing some recording in Cajun country, I finally stumbled over what would seem to be a singular y'all user: I stopped at the Pasta Kitchen for some raviolis (good, too). I was alone. My "waitress" (that's what she calls herself, though her training manual lists her position as "server"), a young woman (late teens or early twenties) came over to my table when it appeared I had finished and said, verbatim, "Y'all done now?" At first it wasn't clear if this was a contraction of `Are you _all done_ now' or a singular y'all. So I inquired to get a fix on her metalinguistic sense of this. I will share with you the information that she divulged. She grew up and lived in New Orleans until about 5 yrs. ago, and still maintains contact with her friends there. It was 5 yrs. ago that she moved to "this side of the Lake" (Ponchartrain). She uses singular y'all frequently. Her friends point this out to her and tell her not to, "but they do it, too." She thinks it's more prevelant "on the other side of the Lake." It has nothing to do with being polite. She remembers once getting into an argument with a friend: "I started saying y'all to her and another friend sitting there said, `What're you yellin' at me for, I didn't do anything!'" She is metalinguistically sensitive indicated by the fact that she has consciously tried to eliminate her New Orleans accent (with only partial success). If anyone is seriously pursuing the question of y'all singular, this might be an indication of a good location for some field work. Mike Picone University of Alabama ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 15:09:27 -0500 From: ALICE FABER FABER%LENNY[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VENUS.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: COOL /u/ or /y/ Perhaps related to the loss of a vocalic distinction between DUE and DO, we have the increased fronting of /u/ characteristic of Labov's Southern Shift, and perhaps in other regions also. (For those who are unfamiliar with it, this fronting can be extreme enough, with enough unrounding, that /u/ is perceived as /i/.) Stereotypically fronted words are DUDE and COOL, in "California-speak". I just heard a radio commercial for Drakes* Wingdings. A son was commenting on how cool (/kyl/) Wingdings are. The father, attempting to relate to his son, agrees that Wingdings are cool (/kul/). The son corrects the father, asserting that weather is /kul/ but Drakes is /kyl/. (Drakes was /driks/, a la Northern Cities Shift, leading me at first to perceive it as DRINKS.) My question is this: is this split just advertising-ese? Or is there a real trend out there (somewhere) for both a lexical split of COOL into its literal and metaphorical meanings and a phonological split of fronted and un-fronted /u/ into /u/ and /y/? Alice Faber Faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Yalehask *In case Drakes is a local NY area brand, it's a brand of snack foods like Little Debbie and Hostess. I really DON'T want to start a thread on brand names... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 13:36:06 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: /lIngwIstIks/ Tim-- As I suggested in my note last night, the students would of course have trouble hearing a difference between [iy] and [I] before the velar, since there would be no phonemic difference. With my own /)/:/a/ phonemic contrast (here /)/ = "open o"), I am always perceptually bothered by the phonetic wanderings of those who don't. I often find similar reactions to your students in the transcription of words like ear and here , where there is similarly no contrast, and the phonetic realization of the archi- phoneme is free to wander around. Rudy Troike rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 13:50:39 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: /lIngwIstIks/ Natalie-- I'm unfortunately not as much of a Southerner as you. I remember a good friend, Neil Craig, a Central Texan by birth, who had a really very high tense [i] in king , remarkably so to my ears, though he consistently identified it with the /I/ of kin , not the /iy/ of keen . For me, the vowels of king , kin , ken are all perceptually the same, /I/. I don't doubt that a sound spectograph would show some detailed differences between the first two, and I can hear them if I draw the vowel out, so it becomes [I:y], the [y]-glide of course coming as the tongue moves through the position on the way to the velar closure. Rudy Troike [rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 14:00:39 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: local locality pronunciation Dennis, Right -- presumably one would be surprised by an [iy] before [n], since in that context [iy] would be unequivocally /iy/, given the contrast of /iy/:/I/ before /n/. The phonetic contrast would be perceptually salient in that context, though not before /ng/. Rudy Troike [rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 14:09:07 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Epiphany on the Tennis Court Natalie-- Happens to me every time I teach phonemic transcription, and play-act at producing [tEn] for the benefit of my class. It is an insidious thing. Perceptually, though, I often have to do a double-take on certain person's pronunciation of [tEn] as /taen/, since my phonemic filter captures the [En] as necessarily /aen/. Sometimes after a bout of phonemic transcription, I even start restoring the long-lost /h/ before /w/! --Rudy Troike [rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:08:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: COOL /u/ or /y/ My local students (East Lansing, MI, many Detroiters) note that [kul] is a word for weather and the like but that [kyl] (a significantly fronted vowel) or [kUl] a significantly laxed and lowered vowel is appropriate for the 'cool' cool. Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:12:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Re: local locality pronunciation Rudy, You will lose Valley Boy status if you continue to claim that the vowels of king, kin, and ken are all the same for you. You mean to say there is no hint of lowering and diphthongization in your 'king.' (Perhaps there is some lexical specification to this. I note that the process is much stronger in 'bring' and nearly categorical in 'thing' in my (Louisville, KY) speech.) Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 15:24:40 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: /lIngwIstIks/ identified it with the /I/ of kin , not the /iy/ of keen . For me, the vowels of king , kin , ken are all perceptually the same, /I/. I don't My dog just walked over and started pawing at me with a concerned look in his eyes as I sat here muttering "king," "kin," "ken" over and over. My vowel in "king" is definitely different from the vowel in the other two. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:20:06 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Epiphany on the Tennis Court For some time now, I have been consciously stressing the /n/ on the end of my first name when introducing myself to someone new, since I was so often being misunderstood as "Ellie". Just a few weeks ago, I realized that no matter how long the /n/, people with /En/ will still have trouble perceiving /ElIn/ as the proper pronunciation of my name. E.Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:28:24 -0500 From: Martha Howard UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU Subject: I and E When I first came to West Virginia, I was curious about the students' references to " Ink pInz" (writing instrument until I realized that in their vocabulary "pin" and "pen" were both pronounced "pIn; therefore, one must distinguish which kind of pIn was being referred to. My first reaction had been to wonder what other kind of pen does one write with? Also, more frequent 30 years ago than now was the usually lower class or lower middle class pronunciation of fish and dish with the vowel sound of eat. And bush and push with the vowel sound of boot. The nurse in the delivery room kept telling me to poosh--much more annoying than the labor itself! I refused and pUsht! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 15:29:07 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Epiphany on the Tennis Court Happens to me every time I teach phonemic transcription, and play-act at producing [tEn] for the benefit of my class. It is an insidious thing. I have a very hard time coming out with that [E] when trying to explain to my students that some people make a distinction between "ten" and "tin." Usually I can find a yankee in the class to demonstrate it for them. as necessarily /aen/. Sometimes after a bout of phonemic transcription, I even start restoring the long-lost /h/ before /w/! Interesting. I've never lost that [h]. It took me forever to catch on to a sign in a shop window one time that I knew must be some kind of a pun that I wasn't catching. I can't remember now what it said except that the first "word" in it was the letter Y. I stared and stared and finally realized that it was supposed to stand for "why." The pun didn't work for me. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 14:37:31 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: local locality pronunciation Dennis, You'll remember McDavid said I had a creolized variety of English (pr or maybe the perfect Midland), including most of the mergers in both South Midland and North Midland (though patriotically, I cling to the southern side). My problem in teaching at the University of Texas was that most of my students did not identify me as a Texan. Your remark about bring and thing makes me wonder whether the traditional South Midland lowering of the vowel in these words to /E/ or /ae/ could have been a result of an uncoscious reaction to the raising effect of the following velar, to prevent an interpretation as /iy/? Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 14:52:09 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Epiphany on the Tennis Court I don't know how widespread it is, but there is a cd-records store chain out west here called Wherehouse. Not too long ago I found a sign in our supermarket from one stock clerk to another saying that some more vegetables could be found in the wherehouse. Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:08:22 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: y'all singular attested in Louisiana Thanks, Mike Picone. Good evidence for singular 'y'all'. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:13:56 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: /lIngwIstIks/ I've had a couple of students, both from cental Missouri, who do not have a final velar nasal. [kin] = 'king' or 'keen' and [kIn] = 'kin' These were graduate students who understood and liked phonetics, and I observed their speech closely. One was an advisee whom I saw often, and I noted the [-in] pronunciation of '-ing' in conversation. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 22:13:00 EST From: "James_C.Stalker" STALKER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.EDU Subject: Re: Sluff/Slough I have just been catching up on my ADS list, and a the risk of revisiting a stale and out-of-date subject, I might mention that the gh ~ f variation is an interesting one in AM Eng. I know many of the respondents on the ADS list, and I know that they have been (and may still be) intimately acquainted with a particular kind of beer--namely draft beer, which in its more upscale (and in its past) incarnations was draught beer. That spelling is long gone in the US. However, laugh is still laf and cough is still cof . The gh as a spelling for f is quite common in the US. I checked my venerable Webster's 10th to see what they had to say, and they list draught as "chiefly Brit var of DRAFT." Now the interesting part is that the slough of despond around these parts is the slow of despond , not the sluff of despond . As my students say, "go figure!" ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 22:36:22 +0500 From: Robert Howren howren[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU Subject: Re: /lIngwIstIks/ On Sat, 5 Mar 1994 mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU wrote: I say /lI/ before the velar nasal. Years ago I used to fight with students who transcribed /i/ instead of /i/ in -ing constructions. They insisted they said /i/. Tim Frazer _________________ And probably did. Mine do. --Bob =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Robert Howren Dept. of Linguistics howren[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gibbs.oit.unc.edu University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3155 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 21:27:12 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: /lIngwIstIks/ It looks as though Don Lance's examples have extended the neutralization of -/n/:-/ng/ in participles and gerunds to all cases of -/ng/. I have encountered this happening in thing and its compounds, in Texas, including in a well-educated speaker, but have never seen a complete merger before. A great example of the genesis of language change (if others should copy them). --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 4 Mar 1994 to 5 Mar 1994 ********************************************** There are 3 messages totalling 51 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. COOL /u/ or /y/ 2. local locality pronunciation 3. y'all singular attested in Louisiana ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 08:27:00 EST From: BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: Re: COOL /u/ or /y/ From: NAME: David Bergdahl FUNC: English TEL: (614) 593-2783 BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX To: NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX In this part of SE Ohio fronted variants of [u] and [U] are common, e.g. 'cool' and 'good' esp. among the Appalachian population. Appalachian is a good test case: Pennsylvannian-derived settlers say it with [ae] while Kentucky-derived ones favor [e]. Other interesting (pronounced inner resting) features here are the tensing of [I], [E] & [U] before sh in fish, special (=spatial) and push. The [E] to [e] shift is heard far outside this region and seems to have no social value, and the shift occurs before {zh} too, e.g. measure. The [I] to [i] shift has some appalachian associations but seems to be losing its social value in words like decision and transmission: polysyllables. David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 08:27:11 EST From: BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: Re: local locality pronunciation From: NAME: David Bergdahl FUNC: English TEL: (614) 593-2783 BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX To: NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX In Athens OH as well {thing} has [ae] with an upgliding diphthong if stressed fully enough. Reminds me of my favorite country song, "If you work your [faenggerz] to the bone, whaddya get? bony fingers" David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 09:04:27 -0500 From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU Subject: Re: y'all singular attested in Louisiana what's startling up here in the no'th is ravioliS, the redundant plural marker. Never hoid dat before in Bwooklyn. rk ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 5 Mar 1994 to 6 Mar 1994 ********************************************** There is one message totalling 23 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. journalist seeks help ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Mar 1994 12:38:03 EST From: City Paper 71011.3715[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COMPUSERVE.COM Subject: journalist seeks help I'm writing an essay for the Washington City Paper -- D.C.'s weekly -- and am looking for experts in: --Appalachian dialects; --the dialects common to Washington, D.C.; --and how people consciously change their accents. If you can recommend such an expert (or if you *are* one), please send e-mail with your telephone number to my CompuServe address: 73352,535[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]compuserve.com. Lisa Gray Associate editor Washington City Paper ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 6 Mar 1994 to 7 Mar 1994 ********************************************** There are 7 messages totalling 138 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Adam's off ox (7) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 10:37:35 EST From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: Adam's off ox Is anyone familiar with the original and regional distribution of the above? This came up on another list, and I submitted my own speculation, which is that the phrase occurs only in the expression "X doesn't know Y from Adam's off ox", the suggestion being that Y is even more unfamiliar to X than Adam himself would be ("I don't know him from Adam"). The off ox, I assume (without evidence), is the farther of the two in the yoke, although again I have no idea why that should be relevant here. Maybe I've got it all wrong, in fact. Can anyone help? --Larry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 10:39:34 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Adam's off ox On Tue, 8 Mar 1994, Larry Horn wrote: Is anyone familiar with the original and regional distribution of the above? This came up on another list, and I submitted my own speculation, which is that the phrase occurs only in the expression "X doesn't know Y from Adam's off ox", the suggestion being that Y is even more unfamiliar to X than Adam himself would be ("I don't know him from Adam"). The off ox, I assume (without evidence), is the farther of the two in the yoke, although again I have no idea why that should be relevant here. Maybe I've got it all wrong, in fact. Can anyone help? --Larry I think I remember this as an item we asked for during the field interviews for DARE. So it should be in DARE; I'd look it up in vol. I but I'm at the office and my books are at home. Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 08:22:32 PST From: Peter Benson benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ACDCA.ITT.COM Subject: Re: Adam's off ox I believe the off ox is the one you DON'T walk next to. I heard this from a linguist friend from Salt Lake City. Peter Benson, Ph.D. | ITT Aerospace/Communications Division phone: (619)578-3080 | 10060 Carroll Canyon Road fax: (619)578-5371 | San Diego, CA 92131 email: benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acdca.itt.com or Peter_Benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUSM.edu or benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]escondido.csusm.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 12:20:30 -0500 From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU Subject: Re: Adam's off ox I know the phrase only from bluegrass Kentucky friends, who use it (as Larry Horn describes) the way New Yorkers (at least the ones I grew up with) would say Adam's house-cat. The house-cat form seems "normal" to me, the off-ox a dialect improvement---we can't forget that people take pleasure in speech and coining phrases, though linguists used to take nonce-inventions with solemn unsuspiciousness, I think. Still, I think both house-cat and off-ox are really "improvements" on plain "...from Adam." I don't think they express even greater unfamiliarity. RK ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 12:45:57 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Adam's off ox Larry Horn -- Your explanation of 'Adam's off ox' jibes (not jives) with the usage common in the maternal side of my immediate ancestors. They lived in southwestern Arkansas from the 1870s till the 1940s, when the South Midland diaspora expanded greatly in its geographical distribution. I don't know the distribution of the term. It should be in DARE I, but I'n not dere where DARE is. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 14:06:40 EST From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: Re: Adam's off ox Sorry; I should have checked DARE first. For some reason, I thought the entry would be coming out under O, instead of being already out under A. And sure enough, a typically great entry, complete with variants, many of them wonderfully folk-etymological: Adam's old ox, old fox, all fox [!]; Madam's off-ox [as in Madam, I'm Adam?]; Bettashazur's/Gabe's/devil's off-ox; Adam's off-bull/brother/hat(band)/pet monkey/house cat. The earliest citation is 1894: He didn't know me from Adam's off ox. The others are in the same vein (I wouldn't know him from Adam's all fox, etc.). The principal expression is "chiefly west of the Appalachians", the house cat variant largely found in the South Atlantic and Gulf states, where off oxen are presumably rare. (Neither is attested in the Northeast.) Then there are the symptoms of decreasing transparency: slow/poor/stubborn as Adam's off ox. Best citation, from Yankee magazine a few years back: "One of my mother's favorite expressions was, 'He doesn't know any more than Adam's off-ox.' Never could figure out what it was all about." What I still don't know is whether my speculation is right: if I don't know him from Adam's off ox, he's even farther from my ability to identify/recognize him than if I (just) don't know him from Adam. And I'm still not sure why it's the off, or farther, ox--if that's the one that's harder to make out or recognize by virtue of being farther away, you'd think it was the closer one (the on ox?) that would figure in the collocation. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 20:07:24 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Adam's off ox For Larry Horn (& whoever else reads it) -- I came along a generation too late to have worked with oxen. Did plow with a mule, though. 'Adam's off ox' isn't just a matter of familiarity. The expression carries a mild put-down, hazarded because the unknown ox isn't present. The lead ox is an important critter, and Adam would know for sure which one it is. But Adam may have six or so oxen in his stable, one of which is a good lead ox, the others being good enough to serve as off oxen because they'll follow the lead ox. So, if I don't know you from Adam's off ox, it's not just that I don't know you. I may not know either Adam or his lead ox, but I really don't know you. The expression is hyperbole, however, rather than a real put-down of the poor ox that may come along and gore my milk cow. DMLance ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Mar 1994 to 8 Mar 1994 ********************************************** There is one message totalling 20 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Adam's off ox/house cat ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 07:42:02 EST From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU Subject: Re: Adam's off ox/house cat One of my colleagues from southern North Carolina often complains that our students don't know anymore than "Adam's house cat." Thanks to this thread I will have some obnoxious thing to say about variants of Adam's off ox next time she makes such a pronouncement. By the way, the chairman and I had great laughs about chairheads and huperdaughters, etc., but our sense of humor was not shared by the three persons who snapped at me about obscuring the real issue with such trivialities. I guess I need to study more womyn's herstory to fully appreciate etymology. I'll start with Isidore of Seville who tells me that beavers are called *castra* because they castrate themselves to get away from hunters who want their testacles for perfume. Thus should a man do to avoid temptation. I'm getting old and grumpy. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 8 Mar 1994 to 9 Mar 1994 ********************************************** There is one message totalling 18 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. phonetic fonts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 19:55:24 -0500 From: George Dorrill FENG1218[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VEGA.SELU.EDU Subject: phonetic fonts Two requests: 1) Can anyone give me any information about phonetic alphabet fonts compatible with WordPerfect on DOS? 2) Can anyone give me information about programs facilitating drawing tree diagrams on WordPerfect on DOS? Thanks a lot, George Dorrill Dorrill[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]selu.edu ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 9 Mar 1994 to 10 Mar 1994 *********************************************** There are 6 messages totalling 92 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Adam's off ox (3) 2. journalist seeks help (2) 3. phonetic fonts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 9 Mar 1994 06:41:30 -0400 From: "Becky Howard, Department of Interdisciplinary Writing, Colgate University" BHOWARD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU Subject: Re: Adam's off ox I have a vague memory of my father (a farmer) talking about the "near" ox and the "off" ox. Next time I talk to him, I'll ask him. Becky Howard ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 07:54:04 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Adam's off ox I have a vague memory of my father (a farmer) talking about the "near" ox and the "off" ox. Next time I talk to him, I'll ask him. The "off" ox is the one on the right. The one on the left is supposedly more important since it leads. Or so I've read/heard. I have no first- hand experience with either on or off oxen. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 02:28:47 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: journalist seeks help I don't believe that a change in accents is ever entirely conscious, nor do I believe that any merely cnscious effort to change accent will ever succeed--maybe on rare occasionsions only. Tim F ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 09:13:25 CST From: salikoko mufwene mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Subject: Re: phonetic fonts 1) Can anyone give me any information about phonetic alphabet fonts compatible with WordPerfect on DOS? WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS has a phonetic font (among the WP Characters options). It works very well, despite some minor problems with digraphic representations. The overstrike option allows you to place diacritics even on these phonetic symbols. I haven't tried to draw diagrams yet with the processor, although it comes with a Graphics component. You need a mouse to operate some of the functions in this version of WP. Best wishes, George. Sali. Salikoko S. Mufwene Linguistics, U. of Chicago s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu 312-702-8531 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 12:40:53 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: journalist seeks help Tim Frazer commented on conscious attempts to change accent. I agree that accent itself can't be changed by conscious effort -- not in a massive global sense. But one might change a relatively small pattern, such as [u] / [ju] after coronal obstruents, as I did in my teenage years. My language behavior lately, however, has made wonder how global and permanent the change was. I doubt that I could have been as successful with /I/ and /E/ before nasal consonants. I can make the I/E distinction in Spanish or German, but can't do it convincingly in English. When I read Old English words aloud, I access my "second language" phonological system and make the distinction, but in no way can I claim any degree of fluency in OE. I developed my Spanish phonology working in tomato and cotton fields with pre-bracero-era illegal workers from Mexico in my early teens. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 14:25:39 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Adam's off ox My memory of discussing near (regionally, = lead) ox with relatives (now gone) is that the lead ox / horse / mule is the one that takes the initiative when orders are given. It may be on the right or left, depending on the preferences of the animal (discovered by trial and lesson) and the driver of the team. I think I've read or heard that the lead animal is usually on the left. These comments are to be taken as being as authoritative as individual (as opposed to collective) memory can be. DMLance ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 10 Mar 1994 to 11 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 9 messages totalling 217 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. journalist seeks help 2. Conscious Learning of Accent (3) 3. Actors & Accent (4) 4. Bounced Mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 00:29:40 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: journalist seeks help Re Tim Frazer's comment on changing accents, note Kevin Costner's unnotable effort to play Robin Hood. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 08:53:34 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Conscious Learning of Accent Tim Frazer posted an implicit question yesterday or the day before, and I responded with something that was unclear and in fact nonsense. So, a clarification. I do not make the I/E distinction before nasals in English in running speech and can't do it convincingly in conscious speech, at least not convincing to me. But when I speak Spanish, I automatically produce combinations that are very similar to English [En] and not at all like English [In] or [en]. Of course Spanish does not have i/I or e/E, so I can't be making an I/E distinction in Spanish. The point I should have made is that in my early teens I "trained my articulators" to produce in Spanish a sound combination that is similar to one I cannot do in English. When I speak Spanish, I switch to an alternate phonology, one that I had to learn with some degree of consciousness because I did so after age 8, primarily after age 10 when I was working with Mexican nationals who came across to work on our farm. I vaguely remember consciously working on my phonology as Herman or one of our regulars corrected me. So I developed an alternate phonology through conscious effort, but with natural input in natural conversations (not classroom exercises) on natural topics. How is this related to Tim Frazer's comment about consciously changing one's accent? Here at the University of Missouri most of the undergraduates are from the metropolitan areas, but a substantial number frome from rural areas. At some point I ask if any change accents when they come to the university. The rural Missourians all say a resounding "Yes" and the St. Louisans are dumbfounded by the question. And the Ozarkians DO change their accents; I can hear it. Not all of them are successful in getting the I/E distinction before nasals but they get the other features very well, particularly the collapse of ah/aw into a sound that is more like my ah than my aw. But this one is rampant throughout the U.S. in younger generations. These are individual phonemic matters; accent is more subtle, having to do with timing; degree and nature of breaking; vowel raising/lowering/retracting/ fronting. The Ozarkers do make these subtle changes. I don't have much contact with students in Agriculture, Business. or Engineering, but I suspect that they make less effort to change than the Arts & Sciences students do. My students also tell of changing accent when they go home (like the Yali from Sparta in the video "American Tongues"). This, I'd say, is "consciously changing accent" to some degree. Biloquiality, with conscious effort at some age. Maybe others will want to expand on this complex topic. Natural-sounding biloquiality may be hard to accomplish. Tim seems to be suggesting that it's impossible. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 09:43:07 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Actors & Accent Rudy reminded listers and lurkers of Kevin Kostner's lack of success in adapting his speech. Remember John Wayne and his linguistic versatility? And now Nick Nolte, whose attempt at an Italian accent in "Lorenzo's Oil" was laughable and embarrassing. Could you imagine Olivier or Gilgud doing any other accent? But they'd never have been cast in a role that demanded a change in accent. Rod Steiger. Meryl Streep. Young people may not react to Costner's Robin Hood accent the way those of us over 50 do. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 10:38:39 PST From: Ed Finegan finegan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BCF.USC.EDU Subject: Re: Actors & Accent I wonder whether attempts at foreign and regional and historical accents wouldn't be better viewed as a kind of "ear dialect" comparable to "eye dialect," where accuracy is not the object so much as suggestivity. Of course, there are cases where especially historical accuracy may be prized, and there are certainly some accentually impressive actors, but, as witeye dialect, the suggeson of a different world may be suffifor some p purposes. ALAS. Ed Finegan ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 12:09:40 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Actors & Accent Re Don Lance's comment on younger listeners not noticing the variability in Costner's "British accent" in his Robin Hood, I suspect the familiar factor of noticing that which is different and overlooking that which is the same (the JFK "Cubar"/"vigah" syndrome) may be at work for people focusing on the message content rather than the form (as linguists are congenitally doomed to do). --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 12:23:37 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent Re Don Lance's I/E + Nasal system-switching from English to Spanish, I did not have the advantage of learning Spanish the "natural" way, and though we had native-speaker teachers, I don't recall any attention to pronunciation. When I lived in Mexico I consciously worked on introducing the distinction in my Spanish (without leaking through to my English), but there remain earlier- learned lexical items (such as enchilada ) which I unconsciously still pronounce with [I]. I still don't really HEAR the difference in Spanish if I am focusing on the content rather than form (it is hard to do both), and as in English, I use spelling as the cue. (I don't know what the theoretical import is of adding a Spell-Check to Chomsky's Phonetic Form [PF] component.) Come to think of it, one reason for the problem with enchilada is that it is also part of my English lexicon. What brought it to mind was hearing an English speaker on campus the other day saying /iynchIlada/, with exaggerated stress on the first syllable. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 12:28:11 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent Another comment on the hazards of attempting biloquiality: we are all familiar with Labov's "lames" -- you may literally never be able to go home again linguistically if the neurological system has been modified. On the other hand, if the neurological storage is somehow kept separate, it may still be possible to access it. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 20:18:12 CST From: Mike Picone MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET Subject: Re: Actors & Accent The subject of actors & accents has become more intriguing to me since transplanting to the South. While it is true that when Meryl Streep tries to imitate a Polish accent, for example, there are relatively few people, other than linguists, who are listening while undertaking meta-accentual monitoring, this is not true when it comes to the portrayal of Southern speech habits. Untold numbers of Southerners are, despite themselves, very much aware of the artificiallity that, for them, is injected into a film when non-Southerners attempt to mimic their speech. Hollywood, and America in general, often give the impression that the South is a forgotten audience. So accents will conform to Northern stereotypes of what constitutes Southern speech, especially when, as is so often the case, the white "Southerner" is to be the clown, villain, village idiot, rabid Bible thumper or whatever. I remember thinking to myself during the last presidential election, that NPR's occasional derisive use of the term "bubba vote" made it clear that condescension towards the (white) South was not considered a PC faux pas. True, "bubba" does not have quite the same negative force as do "redneck" and various racial slurs, but it was clearly less than respectful. NPR commentators were not sensitive to this and seemingly shared the perenniel blind-spot that prevails in American media when it comes to the South. Going back to the question of stereotyped accents, am I right in assuming that American Revolution films have it all backwards? Instead of giving British RP accents to the Colonial Americans, it's some of the British who should be speaking with what would be perceived today to be an American accent. Mike Picone University of Alabama ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 21:12:16 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Bounced Mail If including a previous list posting in your message, be sure to edit out any headers that name the list. Otherwise, the message will bounce. (It's a loop-prevention measure.) From [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU:LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Sat Mar 12 19:14:59 1994 From: BITNET list server at UGA (1.7f) LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu Subject: ADS-L: error report from VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU To: Natalie Maynor MAYNOR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU The enclosed mail file, found in the ADS-L reader and shown under the spoolid 7924 in the console 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 (50 lines) ------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 17:14:20 -0800 From: ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: Actors & Accent I wonder whether attempts at foreign and regional and historical accents wouldn't be better viewed as a kind of "ear dialect" comparable to "eye dialect," where accuracy is not the object so much as suggestivity. Of course, there are cases where especially historical accuracy may be prized, and there are certainly some accentually impressive actors, but, as witeye dialect, the suggeson of a different world may be suffifor some p purposes. ALAS. Ed Finegan There's definitely an affinity between 'ear dialect' and 'eye dialect' in that both rely heavily on salient features that listeners/readers can be expected to recognize as belonging to the dialect/accent in question. I have been working with the literary representation of rural nonstandard Brazilian Portuguese and nonstandard Southern Spanish and it is quite clear that the successful authors are those who can modify spelling so as to capture those features. MMAzevedo ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Mar 1994 to 12 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 9 messages totalling 436 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Assisting Schools via E-mail 2. Adam's off ox 3. HEL-L (2) 4. Actors & Accent (4) 5. you all singular--north Texas ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 12 Mar 1994 22:52:23 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Assisting Schools via E-mail To all interested linguists: My colleague Carl Berkhout just copied the following to me, which looks like an interesting opportunity to put some of our expertise to use working with the schools in kind of an e-NDEA way. It essentially asks if you would be willing to do some electronic volunteer work in behalf of unhigher U.S. public education. The idea is that you would be an on-line subject specialist who would work with teachers and their students. The scheme might be of interest to those of us who would like to see our rarefied areas of interest represented a little better in high schools and grade schools. Anyway, you might pass this on to anyone you think might be interested. ***---------------------- Original Mail From ----------------------*** Judi Harris jbharris[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tenet.edu ***------------------------------------------------------------------*** WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO SHARE WHAT YOU KNOW WITH PRE-COLLEGE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS BY ELECTRONIC MAIL? Recent estimates indicate that there are now more than 300,000 classroom teachers from primary, middle, and secondary schools who hold accounts on the Internet. This makes a very special kind of learning available to them: one which directly involves subject matter experts communicating with students and teachers about their specialties, via electronic mail. With support from the Texas Center for Educational Technology, we (at the University of Texas at Austin) have piloted and are now expanding an Internet-based service (the "Electronic Emissary") that brings together pre-college students, their teachers, and subject matter experts (SMEs) electronically, helping them to create telecomputing exchanges centered around the students' learning in the SMEs' disciplines. For example, * A class studying South America could learn about recent global environmental research results from a scientist who studies rainforest deforestation in Brazil. * A class studying geometry might "talk" electronically with Euclid, who is actually a mathematics professor. * A class studying the future of education might converse with an emerging technologies specialist from California's Silicon Valley. * A class studying American History might electronically interview Harry Truman, who is really a curator with the National Archives. * A class exploring the rapidly-changing governmental structures that are emerging in what was once the Soviet Union might correspond with a group of graduate political science students at a university in the CIS. * Or, a class reading _Huckleberry Finn_ might correspond with an African-American studies scholar about the repercussions resulting from the enacting of the Emancipation Proclamation. In successive phases of the project, increasing numbers of SMEs or SME groups are needed to correspond regularly (approximately 4 times per week) with primary, middle school, or secondary students and their teachers (1 SME or expert group per class, study group, or "special student"). Each electronic exchange will begin with approximately 2 weeks of project planning via electronic mail between the SMEs and the teachers. Communications with students will begin on mutually convenient dates, and will continue for previously-arranged periods of time, usually between 2 and 10 weeks. Subject matter expert volunteers are sought in all academic disciplines and areas of practical expertise. Communications with classes will occur during the rest of the spring 1994 semester, then again in the fall 1994 and spring 1995 semesters, and beyond. == If you would like to find out more about == participating in this project, please read on. * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * Hello! Thank you for the interest that you expressed in the "Electronic Emissary" project. I am Judi Harris, a faculty member in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. What follows is more detailed information about the Electronic Emissary project. Purpose We are now expanding the Emissary project, which was successfully piloted during the spring 1993 semester. Through our work, we hope to: 1. refine and implement a workable, useful service for educators and their students, 2. study the ways in which adults and children converse via electronic mail, 3. and plan for further expansion of the Emissary. Participation If you want to be a subject matter expert (SME) for the project, we will ask you to agree to: 1. Send and receive/read electronic mail to and from the class (teacher and students) with whom we ask you to correspond AT LEAST THREE TIMES EACH WEEK, for as long as you and the classroom teacher agree to conduct the exchange. There will be two electronic conversations taking place: one between you and the students about the topic(s) of your expertise, and another between you and the teacher with whom you will collaboratively coordinate the activity. Please note that we would like you to engage in *inquiry-based* exchange with the students, during which they will have many opportunities to ask you questions, rather than you delivering an "electronic lecture." 2. Allow automatically-generated copies of your messages to the teachers and students to be read and retained by those of us coordinating the Emissary project, for use in our research in adult-child conversation via telecomputing networks. Your names or identities will not be revealed in any way in any report (oral or written) that we present on the results of the research. We will also supply you with electronic copies of all manuscripts that we create that summarize our research results. 3. Complete a short electronic project evaluation questionnaire at the end of the exchange period. 4. Respond to weekly+ questions and suggestions from an "exchange facilitator," concerning your perceptions of the communication and ways that it could be improved upon, both during and immediately following communication with the students and their teachers. 5. Help the teacher to compose a one-page summary of your project (to post on the Internet for other educators to use) in the two weeks immediately following the exchange period, using the category template that we supply electronically. Scheduling Each SME-classroom team in this phase of the Emissary project will arrange its own communication schedule according to your availability and curricular considerations, such as when the unit(s) that concern your area(s) of expertise will be explored in the classroom. Each exchange will begin with approximately two weeks of SME - teacher (only) communication, so that the details of the exchange can be collaboratively planned before the students begin communicating with you. Average exchange periods will probably range in duration from 2 - 10 weeks. The Application Process To volunteer to serve as a subject matter expert for the Electronic Emissary project, we request that you Telnet to the Texas Center for Educational Technology's server, and fill out an application online. To do that, please follow these steps: 1. Get to the "system prompt" in your Internet account. (If you don't know how to do this, please ask the folks in your Computer Center to help you.) 2. Type this at the system prompt: telnet tcet.unt.edu ...and then press the Enter key. 3. You will then be connected to the TCET server. When you see the login: prompt, type: sme ...and then press the Enter key. 4. You will then see a menu of options. Select the one that is labeled "Subject Matter Expert." 5. Follow the instructions on the screen, providing all of the information that is requested. 6. Since we are still beta-testing this interactive software, if you encounter problems, please contact the Emissary's programmer, Greg Jones, at: gjones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tenet.edu == PLEASE RESPOND ASAP; the next set of teacher-SME == pairs will be formed beginning on 3/28/94. After you have completed the application online, it will be stored in the Emissary database. As support for more matches becomes available to the project, teachers wanting their students to correspond with a subject matter expert will be permitted to Telnet to the database and search it for a subject matter expert who can address their students' content information needs. They will be able to read all of the information that you supply about yourself *except* for your email address, street address, or telephone number(s), so that you will not be inundated with requests from classrooms. When a teacher requests that a match be made with you, an Emissary staff person (an "electronic facilitator") will contact you by email. S/he will ask you whether you are available and interested in communicating about the topic at the time that the teacher has specified. If so, a special account on the TCET server will be set up as the Internet address to which everyone on your team (you, the teacher, the students, and the facilitator) will mail your messages. Emailing to this address will cause a program that we have created to execute that will automatically generate copies of all of the messages exchanged among the members of your team. The log of these messages will be kept for us to study as part of our research about adults and children using electronic mail to teach and learn asynchronously. The program will then automatically forward the students' and teacher's messages to you, and your messages to the teacher and students. The Future We hope to continue to expand the numbers of classrooms and subject matter experts that are "matched" with the Emissary's services as the semesters pass. Each semester, we will seek support for this purpose, making groups of 10 - 40 "matches" available as each proposal is funded. We will also continue to add to our database of subject matter expert volunteers. The availability of these opportunities will be made known to both SMEs and classroom teachers via periodic newsgroup and LISTSERV postings. Participating classrooms will be selected on a "first come, first served" basis. SME volunteer applications will be welcome at any time. Since we are presently staffed rather meagerly, we will only be able to "match" a relatively small number of SME/classroom teams at this time. We hope, therefore, that we can retain your application for use as the project grows during the next few years (keeping fingers crossed, of course, that we are able to obtain funding). If you are *not* willing for your application to be made available in later years, please make sure that you include a statement of that preference in the text of your application. Future Communications **Due to the unusually (wonderfully!) large volume of potential SMEs for this project, please do not be disappointed if we cannot "match" you with a classroom right away.** Also, please forgive us in advance for not writing to acknowledge receipt of your completed application. We would love to be able to respond to each of your applications individually, but time does not permit what hospitality and gratitude would recommend. Please know how *very* much we appreciate your willingness to help with this volunteer effort! You are making a direct and meaningful contribution to the education of young people by offering to share your time and expertise. Please accept our heartfelt thanks for this gesture. - - - - - - Judi Harris Electronic Emissary Project Director University of Texas at Austin & Texas Center for Educational Technology jbharris[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tenet.edu ***--------------------- End of Original Mail ---------------------*** ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 06:43:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Adam's off ox My earliest attestation of not knowing something from an off-ox is, in fact, n ot to Adam's.It is from George W. Harris' Sut Lovingood; Yarns Spun by a Nat'ral Born Durn'd Fool, etc..., New York, 1867, cited in American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases 1820-1880, A. Taylor and B.J. Whiting, Belknap Press, Harvard, 1958, p. 273 'I didn;t know hit from Beltashazur's off ox.' Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 08:50:43 EST From: David Bergdahl bergdahl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: HEL-L Ohio University Electronic Communication Date: 13-Mar-1994 08:47am EST To: Remote Addressee ( _MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU ) From: David Bergdahl Dept: English BERGDAHL Tel No: (614) 593-2783 Subject: HEL-L Recently here or on LINGUIST I saw a notice about a history of the English language list, HEL-L, but I must have copied the address wrong because the listserv doesn't seem to exist. I had copied listproc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ebbs.english.vt.edu but the ebbs is wrong. Anybody remember seeing that notice and can help me out? Thanks. David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Received: 13-Mar-1994 08:50am ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 14:43:08 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Actors & Accent I think there is certaily an "ear dialect" that appears in films and may have its origins in live stage performances or in fiction and other textual sources. I can't prove it yet. Has anyone noticed that some African American authors use eye-dialect and other distancing features wen depicting black characters? See Richard Wright in "Almos' a Man." Here *damn* is spelled "dam'". I think Langston Hughes does it sometimes. Question: in *The Color Purple,* Alice Walker's narrator, Cielie, uses "us" in subject position. It is no accident or unconscious thing, for antother character tries to get Celie to change to "we." It bothers me, probably because I have never encountered it except in "Pogo Possum," but I don't trust my instincts much wen it comes to VBE or plantations southern or Gullah, having had very little contact with any of them and not being familiar with all the scholarship. Have any of you who are speakers or students of VBE or similar southern lects ever seen or heard an actual attestation of nominal "us"? I f you have, are the only exampes you know from Gullah speakers (or Carribean creoles), or is it more widespread? In the U.S.? Second question, to people with same expertise: if you have seen the film by the same title, what is your reaction to the varieties of English produced in that film? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 14:46:37 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Actors & Accent Someone mentioned the way l"earl dialect" focuses on salient features that people are familiar with. See the c. 1940 film "Sargeant York" with Gary Cooper. Everyone in York's upland Tennessee hometown uses categorical a-prefixing; i don't believeyou everhear a progressive without the prefix. If that was ever categorical in Appalachian speech I'll eat my hat. Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 17:03:57 CST From: salikoko mufwene mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Subject: Re: Actors & Accent In Message Sun, 13 Mar 1994 14:43:08 -0600, mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uxa.ecn.bgu.edu writes: Have any of you who are speakers or students of VBE or similar southern lects ever seen or heard an actual attestation of nominal "us"? I f you have, are the only exampes you know from Gullah speakers (or Carribean creoles), or is it more widespread? In the U.S.? In 1989 I was presenting a paper on personal pronouns in creoles and claimed that Gullah does not use "us" in the subject/nominative function. Two people in the audience, one of whom was William Stewart, the other was Anette Kashif (then at Howard), claimed they have heard or read it. I haven't come across it yet. Personal pronouns are even more invariant in Caribbean English creoles. I don't think "us" alternates with "we" in them, but I am ready for more surprises, for which I'll be grateful. Sali. Salikoko S. Mufwene Linguistics, U. of Chicago s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu 312-702-8531 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 19:39:00 CDT From: Beth Lee Simon BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU Subject: you all singular--north Texas I just got back from the Concordia Writers Conference. Two of the writers, from U North TX, have "you all" as singular. "So Scott," I said, "tell me what's plural." "All you all." Then checked with another north Texan (Denton). You all singular; all you all, plural. Beth Simon blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 20:34:39 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: HEL-L listproc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ebbs.english.vt.edu but the ebbs is wrong. Anybody remember seeing that notice and can help me out? That's the right address. What happened when you tried it? --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 13 Mar 1994 20:41:36 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Actors & Accent not being familiar with all the scholarship. Have any of you who are speakers or students of VBE or similar southern lects ever seen or heard an actual attestation of nominal "us"? I f you have, are the only exampes you know from Gullah speakers (or Carribean creoles), or is it more widespread? In the U.S.? Yes, I've heard it a few times in taped interviews with non-Gullah speakers. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 12 Mar 1994 to 13 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 8 messages totalling 165 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Adam's Off Ox 2. Nominative Us 3. Conscious Learning of Accent (5) 4. Actors & Accent ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 08:05:33 -0600 From: Larry Davis DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU Subject: Adam's Off Ox Mathews's DICTIONARY OF AMERICANISMS (p. 1148) does list ADAM'S OFF OX as the following: "a stubborn, clumsy, unmanageable person, _colloq_." The quotations are as follows: "1848 Lowell BIGELOW P. I Ser. 90 Ezto the answerin' o' questions, I'm an off ox at bein' druv. 1903 D.N. II 352 off ox, n. One who is usually on the opposite side of a popular movement." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 08:50:06 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Nominative Us Having said last night that I had run across a few samples of nominative us in taped speech, I started looking for the sources this morning and am beginning to think I dreamed them. I have it stuck in my not-always- reliable brain that I noticed nominative us while working on something unrelated to pronouns. The reason I remember it is that I was surprised. Surely I made a note of it somewhere other than in my brain, but I can't find any such note. And I really don't want to devote all of Spring Break to chasing what may turn out to be a non-existent form. Surely I wasn't thinking last night of objective we -- which I don't think would have surprised me since that's an often-cited feature of Gullah. I guess the point of this posting is to say that until I find some kind of confirmation for what I said last night about nominative us, ignore it. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 09:15:32 EST From: Bruce Southard ENSOUTHA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECUVM1.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent Many years ago as a Peace Corps English teacher in the Philippines, I suddenly became conscious that I was surrounded by a great number of teenage Filipinos who sounded as if they came from the Texas Panhandle. In learning English, they had copied my West Texas sounds. Not wanting to burden them with the complications that a Texas accent would pose for a Filipino, I consciously tried to change my vowel patterns in particular. As a result, I think that I've ended up with an accent modeled after some subconscious "standard" that probably exists nowhere except in the mind of a once-young displaced Texan. I don't know whether this constitutes "conscious learning of accent" in the sense of Tim Fraser's original inquiry, but I certainly made the choice to change my speech in a particular direction. BRUCE SOUTHARD ENGLISH DEPARTMENT EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY ENSOUTHA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECUVM1 ENSOUTHA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU 919-757-6041 919-757-4889 (FAX) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 10:24:58 EST From: Sonja Lanehart R2SLL1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AKRONVM.BITNET Subject: Re: Actors & Accent I have members of my family that use "us" instead of "we". My family is from Louisiana and it is not uncommon for me to hear it used. I don't recall right now if I hear or have heard whites use it. So, when Celie used "us" in "The Color Purple", I just thought of it as natural because it is a part of the speech of some in my family. By the way, also in that scene about language, Celie makes an interesting comment in response: "Look like to me only a fool would want you to talk in a way that feel peculiar to your mind." Sonja Lanehart, University of Michigan, English r2sll1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]akronvm[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vm1.cc.uakron.edu OR Sonja.Lanehart[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]um.cc.umich.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 10:02:35 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent While working in upstate NY one summer when I was in college, I changed my pronunciation of the name Karen from [ke...] to [kE...] because I was getting tired of the laughter from the teenagers in the water-skiing class every time I spoke to Karen. Interestingly, that change has stuck with me for Karen, Mary, dairy, etc. except that I found myself saying [ker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]n] again not long ago when talking to my mother about a former neighbor of that name -- somebody I had always called [ker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]n] since I had known her before my shift to [kEr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]n]. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 11:39:01 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent I consider myself to be bidialectal to a certain degree, using a number of nonstandard features when talking to certain family members and friends that I wouldn't use when talking to other friends and colleagues. This came in quite handy when doing fieldwork and it's interesting to hear myself on the tapes. I sometimes get them confused, however. I especially notice it when I come out with a double negative, ain't, etc. in talking to co-workers in the LAMSAS office. Despite our stated belief in linguistic pluralism, it's sort of embarrassing. Less frequently, I notice that I've used a very academic-sounding construction at home. I don't know if it occurs less, or if I just notice it less. BTW, my mother calls my best friend /ker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]n/, but I never have. She was born in rural west Georgia, I was born in Atlanta, and I always use her as an example of the 3-way split for Mary, merry, and marry. My english pronunciation of enchilada is with /ae/. Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu writing today from GURT in DC ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 10:58:34 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent Ellen Johnson's pronunciation of enchilada with /ae/ is interesting to me, since when I am subliminally aware of /EN/-speakers' vowel, I often first translate it mentally into /ae/, and then do a processing correction on the morpheme identification, e.g. /pEn/ -- {PAN} -- {PEN}. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Mar 1994 19:08:13 EST From: BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent From: NAME: David Bergdahl FUNC: English TEL: (614) 593-2783 BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX To: NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX This is only tangential to the question of whether dialect features may be unlearned or replaced, but I was on a Fulbright to Goettingen in the mid-70's and a colleague and a friend, Armin Paul Frank, had a slight stutter in German which was missing in English. I was reminded of this by Don Lance's comment that he was able to do [E]_____{nasal} in Spanish with more regularity than in English. But the dark side of my anecdote is that when I last saw Armin 15 years ago he had begun to stutter in English too. Now my analysis of this is that like Don he had learned a completely new set of habits when he learned English, but as they became automatic [?and transferred to a different brain area?] the stutter returned. The occasion was my wife's funeral, so that the emotional content may have contributed--he'd just driven from State College PA to attend--but I suspect that automaticity had a lot to do with it. The lesson is, keep learning a new language? :-) David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 13 Mar 1994 to 14 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 10 messages totalling 251 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Conscious Learning of Accent (6) 2. Nominative Us 3. French propose law to ban English 4. French Linguistic Legislation & Claude Hagege (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 00:11:33 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent When I say 'enchilada' with [i] in the second syllable and voiced fricative for the last consonant, [E] is the "natural" initial vowel, but if I anglicize the rest of the word the initial vowel has to be [I]. So, Rudy, if you'll focus on the last three syllables the first one might come out with the Spanish vowel. You might see what you say when ordering food in a Mexican restaurante. I'm always a bit amused when people employ their "French" pronunciation rules for the first syllable of 'enchilada'. I suspect that they are among those who seem to think that Mexican food has to give one indigestion. Mexican food cooked slowly and carefully by abuelitas sits well in my innards, but the food in gringo places like Taco Bell always gives me indigestion. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 00:28:31 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent David Bergdahl's comment about German -------------------- When I was in Germany in 1978-79 and trying to develop some fluency in that language I would often get interference from vague memories of Old English forms, never from my "other" language. But when I tried to speak Spanish in Germany I'd have awkward interference from my weak German. It felt as if I didn't have full control over what part of the brain I needed to access. I spent a couple of weeks in Spain, where my Spanish fluency returned. In Barcelona I had occasion to use German as well as Spanish and and English. That brief experience separated the langauges for me and I had much less trouble thereafter, though it was much harder to speak Spanish in Germany than in Spain. Several times Spaniards asked me "Es usted Americano?" My response was, "Si, soy tejano; hablo mejicano." That satisfied them. I was never really sure whether they heard some gringuismo in my phonology or whether they primarily noticed that it wasn't castellano. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 09:06:52 MET-1 From: "E.W. Schneider" EWSCHNEI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ALF4.NGATE.UNI-REGENSBURG.DE Subject: Nominative Us There is quite strong evidence for nominative *us* in Rawick`s ex-slave narratives (see my *American Earlier Black English*, Alabama UP 1989, pp. 171, 176-8, 242-5), which in my sample comes up more frequently than standard *we* and is regionally concentrated in the relatively southern range of states (SC-NC-GA-AL-MS-TX) but does not occur in NC-TN-AK-MO. The form is remarkable because it is attested but clearly rare and marginal. It looks like an obvious creolism, and probably it is, but then Gullah has invariant *we* instead, and so do practically all of the Caribbean creoles which are possibly related to AAVE (see the evidence on p. 94 of my article in *English World-Wide* 11 (1990). If anybody has a convincing explanation of the genesis of this usage, I`d be very intereted in seeing it. Best, Edgar Edgar W. Schneider ewschnei[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]alf4.ngate.uni-regensburg.de University of Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany phone (int. line)-49-941-9433470 fax (int. line)-49-941-9434992 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 02:11:38 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent Don, I think you're right about getting the first vowel right in enchilada if I focus on producing an eth in the last syllable; it is hard to switch codes within the word! There seems to be an integrity about the encoding of the word which resists such changes. Rudy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 07:28:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent Don Lance's Spanish-German adventures are interesting. When I first began learning Polish in the early 70's (in Poland), I took a trip to Germany (with fair German and so-so Spanish already implanted). While in Germany, I met a Spanish professor and tried to haul out the tongue only to find it full of Polish. Not a trace of Polish in my German however. Does anyone out there have any references to any studies on the influence of 2nd, 3rd, 4th langauges on 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc... languages? Hasta widzenia, Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 12:23:19 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent My French was (and is) much better than my German, but when I went to Switzerland after a week in Bamberg, Germany and tried to speak French I could do so only with the utmost difficulty. It just seemed too much for my brain to handle. Upon reflecting on my "bidialectalism", if it can be called that, it is interesting that both dialects were acquired. I was conscious of my changing speech, but I didn't consciously try to change particular pronunciations. I grew up in a middle class, suburban family, though neither of my parents has a college degree. The upper-middle-class/ academic dialect I acquired in school, while the more working class type of speech was acquired throough interaction over the past 15 years with neighbors, ex-in-laws, and speakers of BVE and rural white southern dialects. My native dialect then has split off in two directions, neither of which is identical to the speech of people who speak that dialect natively. My most cultivated speech, for example, is different from that of people who were born into what remains of the old plantation aristocracy, and in my most vernacular style I never use a-prefixing or invariant be, among other features. Enough armchair theorizing and self-disclosure. The topic of bidialectalism and code-switching between dialects is an interesting one and I would welcome more discussion on it. Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 15:22:50 CST From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: French propose law to ban English On p. 1 of today's NYTimes (midwest edition) there's a story about a proposed law banning all foreign words for which there is no local French equivalent. The law is more sweeping than its predecessors, and the government, according to the article, means business this time. They've even got Claude Hagege behind it, which frankly surprises me a bit, since I thought he was big on language variation. A "Delegation for the French Language," appointed by the culture ministry, is supposed to publish a dictionary of equivalent terms this week. I've written to the French consul in Chicago to try to obtain a copy of the dictionary. If anyone has info about this publication, or sees it somewhere, let me know. Dennis -- debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ ____________ Department of English / '| ()___________) University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ 608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\ (__) ()___________) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 15:40:33 CST From: Mike Picone MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET Subject: French Linguistic Legislation & Claude Hagege Concerning Dennis Baron's remarks: Claude Hagege, like many other French linguists, sees a place for linguistic legislation when it comes to protecting French. In his case at least this does not necessarily constitute chauvinism since he is consistent when it comes to having recourse to the law to protect any other endangered language. This does not mean that he is a purist, for the two attitudes can be disassociated. Americans are incredulous at the thought that French could be considered an endangered language, but the French don't see it that way. Of course, it is not endangered in the current sense of that term, whereby imminent extinction of a species is suggested, but it is clearly on the retreat, and has been for some time, in its competition with English. This is even true in former strongholds, like Africa. Furthermore, regarding the penetration of French itself, one must not underestimate the lingering force of Rene Etiemble's warning alarm to France to the effect that French ways of thinking are at stake in the loss of ground to anglicized vocabulary and morphosyntax. So to them it's more than just a war of words. Of course, the issues are more complex than that and lots, lots more can be said on this subject (and will be in my forthcoming book, if I can stay away from e-mail long enough to finish it). Don't forget that France has a history of "dirigisme linguistique" that is practically as old as is modern French itself. The Academie francaise was established in 1635. The Revolution liberated everything but the language: "roi" became an outlaw word. Anyway, updated lists of official replacement words are printed in the Journal Officiel as a matter of public record when they become law and are periodically compiled into a dictionary published by the same concern. For example, publication no. 1468 (may 1989) _Dictionnaire des neologismes officiels_. Mike Picone University of Alabama mpicone[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ua1vm.ua.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 16:26:52 -0800 From: ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU Subject: Re: French Linguistic Legislation & Claude Hagege Enfin, on realise qu'il faut bien stopper cette invasion de mots etrangers, n'est-ce pas? MMAzevedo ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 21:45:39 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent In response to Dennis Preston's query re interaction of L2 and L3 etc, I have never seen anything formal published on it, though it is a fascinating issue in regard to the question of neural storage and access. The first and only formal comment on it I heard was by the British linguist W. Stannard Allen who gave a lecture in Istanbul in 1960 (reported to me), in which he speculated that some people had two language "channels", one for L1 and the other for L2...Ln. I've used this for years in lectures on bilingualism, with anecdotes from my own and others' experiences. Allen qualified his comment by indicating that the "Channel 2" applied to languages that the speaker did not know well. I thought I had commented on the phenomenon on ADS-L sometime back when discussing code-switching, but maybe I had just done it in e-mailing Don Lance. I seem to have 3 channels, one for English, one for Spanish, and one for Lx, where the latter involves any language I don't know well. When I lived in Turkey and traveled to Germany for summer vacation, I used to spend the time going through Yugoslavia suppressing my Turkish and reviving my German (both equally poor), and the reverse on the way back. Once, having arrived in Austria, I encountered a man who saw my Turkish license plates and asked in Turkish how long it had taken to get there; though I understood his question perfectly, I could only answer in German. Years later, when I started to study Chinese [I always recommend that anyone involved with L2 teaching should go through the process of learning another language every 5 years or so, to remember what it is like to be a student again], I was the only person in the class who produced sentences in SOV order (Turkish is SOV, but Chinese, like English, is predominantly SVO, so there should have been no interference). When I took Korean lessons 5 years ago (it's time to start another one -- the next will be ASL), I mainly had lexical interference from Chinese, but that was because of the large number of Chinese loans, most of which are pronounced markedly differently in Korean. I can't claim to have achieved any real fluency in Korean, unfortunately. Anybody have any more anecdotes? --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 14 Mar 1994 to 15 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 21 messages totalling 499 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Obliberate 2. French linguistic legislation (7) 3. A New Genitive Relative Pronoun? (5) 4. Conscious Learning of Accent (3) 5. Sports vocabulary and the French lexicon 6. French linguistic legislation chauvinism 7. French Linguistic Legislation & Claude Hagege 8. French Linguistic Legislation 9. la belle France ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 22:01:56 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Obliberate All you fellow Southern regional language specialists out there: Have any of you heard the pronunciation "obliberate" for obliterate ? I know of 2 East Texans who quite independently have used this form, suggest- ing that there is some common undercurrent from which it must have been derived. It must be more than accident. The word is a rare one in ordinary conversation, so it is not too likely to be encountered very often in whatever pronunciation. Thanks, --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 00:42:01 -0500 From: "Gregory J. Pulliam" HUMPULLIAM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MINNA.ACC.IIT.EDU Subject: French linguistic legislation Regarding Mike Picone's point about the French perception that their ways of thinking may be losing ground to anglo-style ways, well all I can say is good riddance! ;- Their condescending attitude toward tourists who try to use French but screw it up seems to be unique in the world, and probably accounts in large part for the ascendancy of English and Spanish, whose speakers seem to think in ways that are much are accepting and encouraging. One of the in-jokes on the new Star Trek series is that French is a dead language in the 24th century. In all seriousness, it does seem to me that if the French academy continues to prescribe usage, the official and vernacular versions of the language are bound to diverge ever more greatly, which could make official French a modern-day Latin. GPulliam humpulliam[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]minna.acc.iit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 08:23:34 EST From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU Subject: A New Genitive Relative Pronoun? I'm signed off the list at the moment because I'll be on spring break after I read this last paper, but I just ran across a genitive of *that* in the paper of a fairly literate student. I read the sentence, paused, and then understood the process at work: Gaelic, o[r] Goidelic, is a Celtic language *thats* branches include Welsh, Irish, Cornish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic, and Breton. I'm out of here, off to see blue bonnets and smell the limestone in Lone Star beer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --Wayne Glowka Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:08:40 EST From: BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: Re: A New Genitive Relative Pronoun? From: NAME: David Bergdahl FUNC: English TEL: (614) 593-2783 BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX To: NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX As an additional relative pronoun: like Wayne I was grading papers--and in a middle-aged straight A student in a interpretation of fiction (sophomore) I found 3-4 instances of "in which" as an all purpose rel pro. David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:15:51 EST From: BERGDAHL%A1.OUVAX.mrgate[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent From: NAME: David Bergdahl FUNC: English TEL: (614) 593-2783 BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX To: NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu" MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX Rudy's anecdotes strike a familar cord, although I'm not as fluent in any language: when I was on a Fulbright in Germany in '75/6 I relied heavily on my German-speaking wife, but when I tried to access my year of college German I kept coming up with Latin, from a semester of college study. Definitely there must be a brain area for little-used languages! :-) In '88 when I was on an exchange with the University of Toulouse I kept remembering German, although I had studied French from grades 7-10 and for 2 yrs in college! The year of living in Germany--and using it (or at least hearing it) with my wife's family--must have switched it to L2 status! Incidentally, my daughter Erika, who was placed in a 2nd grade classroom in Goettingen, achieved native speaker competence (in Kinderdeutsch at least!) by the time we'd left. Interestingly, her accent has degraded over the years and now she speaks German with a decidedly American accent. She's gone on to study French and Italian in h.s. and college and learned Spanish and Portuguese on her own: she's convinved that the FL-exposure is what's made it easy for her to learn languages. David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:24:38 -0500 From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU Subject: Re: French linguistic legislation A word in defense of French attitudes, and against the old canard (surely we don't have to say "duck") about the impoliteness of the French to those who try to speak their language. I have travelled in France now and then over thirty years, and never found anything but courtesy, at least as far as language goes. And this is true of Paris and the countryside both. People have helped me, tried to understand, smiled at my more risible mistakes (as we do at learning-English, ask any teacher), and offered correct or at least usable forms. Maybe what some of the disgruntled comments of tourists really mean is that English is far less current and useful in France than it is in Holland, Germany or Scandinavia --- I know in Holland you have to beg people to speak Dutch to you. And the French do speak French persistently --- is it that we find it so hard to forgive, their uncomfortable (to us) resistance to Imperial Amerenglish? They also speak French in Haiti (and thus vividly and persistently in New York, where there are radio stations that keep the language current and vivid) and in Africa and in islands here and there. And there is a great French speaking nation a morning's drive north of me, whose literature is elaborate. I wouldn't drag out the funeral wreaths just yet. Robert Kelly / kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]levy.bard.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 08:47:00 CDT From: Beth Lee Simon BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU Subject: Sports vocabulary and the French lexicon From: IN%"CREWRT-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.missouri.edu" "Creative Writing in Education for Teachers and Students" To: Multiple recipients of list CREWRT-L CREWRT-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.missouri.edu Subject: Re: You want an example of power? ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: Creative Writing in Education for Teachers and Students CREWRT-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Poster: John Oughton john.oughton[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SHERIDANC.ON.CA Subject: Re: You want an example of power? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Somebody in France (a committee of the Academie Francaise?) used to publish an anual list of foreign words that were to be, or especially were not to be, allowed into French. My favourite was one that tried to address the mounting interest in baseball in France. Instead of "le catcher," for example, loyal French people were enjoined to say "L'attrapeur des balles..." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:25:38 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: French linguistic legislation I have never encountered anything but kindness and encouragement when speaking my very bad French in France. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 10:42:23 -0500 From: "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr." billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: French linguistic legislation chauvinism My spouse and I love Paris, and are looking forward to going once more next month for the ACH/ALLC conference, but she has had terrible trouble there when she tries to speak French. The most vivid recent example was the ticket lady in the Orangerie; Claudia got a terrible scowl for asking about museum tickets. I've never had a problem, or even a scowl. The only thing close was when I went to ask about Customs in the basement of the Gallerie Lafayette: the first person I talked to didn't know the answer to my question (about duties on artworks) and called over her colleague, who spoke some English, on grounds that I must not be asking the question right---the colleague, who had overheard the entire exchange, said that my French was fine and that she didn't know the answer to my question either! The answer, by the way, is that there is no US duty on original artworks. ****************************************************************************** Bill Kretzschmar Phone: 706-542-2246 Dept. of English FAX: 706-542-2181 University of Georgia Internet: billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hyde.park.uga.edu Athens, GA 30602-6205 Bitnet: wakjengl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:52:25 CST From: salikoko mufwene mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Subject: Re: French Linguistic Legislation & Claude Hagege In Message Tue, 15 Mar 1994 16:26:52 -0800, ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu writes: Enfin, on realise qu'il faut bien stopper cette invasion de mots etrangers, n'est-ce pas? Il ferait bien plaisir a l'Academie Francaise d'eliminer le verbe "stopper" sans doute, et peut-etre aussi cet usage anglophone(?) de "realiser"! Sali. Salikoko S. Mufwene Linguistics, U. of Chicago s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu 312-702-8531 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 11:09:00 EST From: "Mary.Ojibway" 20676MKB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: French linguistic legislation I hate to add fuel to the fire but my limited experience in France was negative as well. When I attempted to speak French, I was ridiculed. When I did not attempt to speak French, I was ridiculed for not giving it a try. When I broke down and attempted to ask directions in German (when neither French, English, nor Spanish was responded to) I was spat upon! I did, however, find the immigrant population of Africans and Turks to be quite sympathetic and helpful. Not to say that lots of French folks aren't wonderful. I simply had a bad experience in 1978 and have never been back. Kate Ojibway ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:36:03 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent David Bergdahl's comment about his daughter reminds me of the interesting statistic published by MLA a few years ago that showed a strong correlation between years of FL study and SAT grades. Thanks for the Lx-channel anecdote, David. Anybody have any more? --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 11:45:02 -0600 From: Larry Davis DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU Subject: Re: French linguistic legislation Like a number of people on this list, my experiences in France, in Paris and in other places as well, have been very positive. Certainly more so than in New York during the ADS festivities. I recall that the French consulate in Chicago once sent one of its employees out into the Loop asking, in French, for help to the nearest hospital. She was ignored (and occasionally abused) for well over an hour before someone thought to point her out to a police officer who at least recognized the language she was speaking and called her superiors who in turn called the consulate. Can some of the Francophobes beat that one? I am not in favor of lingustic legislation, although it never works anyway, but do indeed feel sympathy for folks who would like to stop American cultural imperialism. They can't of course, but I feel for them. Larry Davis ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 09:58:40 PST From: Ed Finegan finegan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BCF.USC.EDU Subject: Re: French linguistic legislation The story provided by Larry Davis is wonderful, and I have none to beat it. I did want to say, though, that I had one bad experience in Paris in 1971 and resolved not to go back. But I did of course, in 1986, and I had a far more positive experience, without I must confess a concomitant increase in my French skills. At first I wondered what had changed in France? What an improvement in the French! Then I wondered what had changed in me. Ed Finegan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 12:54:25 -0600 From: Charles F Juengling-2 juen0001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU Subject: Re: French linguistic legislation On Wed, 16 Mar 1994, Gregory J. Pulliam wrote: Regarding Mike Picone's point about the French perception that their ways of thinking may be losing ground to anglo-style ways, well all I can say is good riddance! ;- Their condescending attitude toward tourists who try to use French but screw it up seems to be unique in the world, and probably accounts in large part for the ascendancy of English and Spanish, whose speakers seem to think in ways that are much are accepting and encouraging. One of the in-jokes on the new Star Trek series is that French is a dead language in the 24th century. The real joke is when DATA informs the crew, much to Picard's ire, that French was a relatively minor/ unimportant language! In all seriousness, it does seem to me that if the French academy continues to prescribe usage, the official and vernacular versions of the language are bound to diverge ever more greatly, which could make official French a modern-day Latin. GPulliam humpulliam[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]minna.acc.iit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 12:16:28 CST From: Mike Picone MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET Subject: French Linguistic Legislation Some more thoughts in reaction to previous comments on this subject: Contrary to popular belief, linguistic legislation in not always an exercise in futility. This is one of the things that Claude Hagege argues forcefully. The present English-only controversy in America certainly has serious implications for administration and education in various parts of the country, and the policies set will have real consequences. This is the first time modern America is having to face this kind of situation. In most parts of the world, however, the presence of competing languages is a longstanding reality that, like everything else that is social, inevitably enters into the political arena and becomes the target of legislation. As in many other things linguistic, American myopia leads many of us to dismiss linguistic legislation, but the truth is it has been around for a very long time and has changed the course of many a language. Now, as to the efficacy of attempting to inforce specific vocabulary replacements in a modern, international environment where it is hard to keep English out, success will be, at best, mitigated. Even here, however, there are more successful cases than some would make us believe. It depends, too, on the register one is operating in. Computer specialists in France continue to use a lot of English vocabulary, but replacement terms like _informatique_ `computer science', _logiciel_ `software', _materiel_ `hardware', _lecteur_ `drive', etc. have been quite successful in popular usage. The French can be very rude to Americans who don't speak French well. True enough. They can also be equally rude to fellow Frenchmen who speak French most eloquantly. The point is that rudeness can be misinterpreted to be a means of singling out Americans for abuse when this may not be the case at all. My situation in France was not typical of the tourist because I speak French well and resided there for almost nine years. It should be noted, however, that during that entire period of time, I can count on one hand the number of times that I was given any kind of abuse for being an American. Still, it cannot be denied that the French feel (and have been taught to feel) that there language has special merit. It is more than just a utlilitarian means of communicating. For a period of about ten years, the most widely watched TV show in France was "Apostrophe," a sort of forum for authors of books to get together and talk and debate (it finally went off the air, still at the pinacle of the ratings). People didn't watch it just because they were interested in books, but because they took such pleasure in witnessing the skillful manipulation of the language and the artful exchange of conversation that was almost always a hallmark of that show. Mike Picone University of Alabama ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 14:54:13 CST From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: la belle France Funny how my request for information triggered an outpouring of good/ bad French stories, all of which point to the cultural power France still holds in our own, poor, colonial estimation. My own experience in France was mixed. I was last there on a Fulbright in 78-79, in Poitiers. Michelin gives Poitiers 2 hours. I was there for 10 months. Get it? I've always read French well, never spoke it too well, and that was never much of a problem. But I clearly resented French when I first got there. In a fog of jet lag and culture shock for a month, aided by the doldrums of a university strike that delayed the start of the school year for a few weeks, I finally had a nightmare in which I was speaking perfect French -- and couldn't understand a thing I was saying. I had a little trouble with weights and measures. Intent on fixing spinach salad for the three of us, my first experience at the open air marche was a disaster. After a struggle to get a clerk's attention I hastily ordered a kilo of spinach and got enough greens to stuff a good-sized pillow. Not wanting to give up the clerk's attention while I recalibrated, I downsized my mushroom order and asked for `un quart de champignons,' unaware that while spinach went by the kilo, mushrooms were sold by the pound. My three ounces of mushrooms were a sorry sight next to all that spinach. That night we ate out. I never did understand the meteo, the weather report. I had converted fahrenheit to centigrade often enough in physics class in high school, but I spent the year never knowing the ambient temperature, and dressing my daughter for school by sticking my head out the window. Speaking of school, my daughter attended sixth grade in Poitiers (there are no English schools there). There she got in trouble when she told the teacher there were 7 continents (the French count only 5). She took English as her foreign language, and got into trouble there because her teacher, who had little English herself, insisted that the English for numero de telephone was number phone. When Cordelia told her the proper phrase was phone number, the teacher got mad. She told my daughter that it might be phone number in the US, but in her class they spoke British English, and in British English the expression was certainly number phone. Some things are not worth fighting your child's teacher for. Bonne chance, mecs. denis -- debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ ____________ Department of English / '| ()___________) University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ 608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\ (__) ()___________) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Mar 1994 22:49:28 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent On Tue, 15 Mar 1994, Donald M. Lance wrote: in Germany I'd have awkward interference from my weak German. It felt as if I didn't have full control over what part of the brain I needed to access. I'm trying to learn Spanish right now and keep getting interference from French, even though I have hardly used it since minoring in it 30 yrs ago. Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 16:18:44 EST From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: Re: A New Genitive Relative Pronoun? Actually, there was quite a flurry of discussion on the emergence of 'thats' as a dialectally attested form, and to what extent this demonstrates the pronominal, as opposed to complementizer, nature of 'that'. (This exchange was on Linguist List, not here on ADS.) The respondents, as I recall (this was back in Sept. 1991), claimed to have come across 'thats' in the UK (North London, Scotland, and points in between) and in the U.S., although I'm not sure what the geographic distribution is on this side of the pond. (It wasn't heard around New York, and I'd never come across it since myself, but maybe it is, as Wayne's posting suggests, an innovative feature.) Posters agreed that it doesn't occur as a relative on plural nominals (*the books thats covers are torn) or after a preposition in a pied piping environment, although the latter might simply indicate a conflict in register. --Larry ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 18:35:00 -0400 From: tthonus tthonus[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]INDIANA.EDU Subject: Re: A New Genitive Relative Pronoun? Dave Bergdahl comments on "in which" as an "all-purpose relative pronoun." I recently wrote a paper for a syntax class on the phenomenon based on an analysis of 30 written sentences. The majority of them contained relativization of what Prideaux and Baker (1986) term the "OO type (e.g. "The dog chased the man [that the cat bit]). I concluded this way: "The writers of *in which can have it all: an air of formality, an overt WH-relative surface form generalizable to all non-dative contexts, a stranded rather than piped preposition, and the simplicity of _that_ syntactic patterning." Interested ADS-L readers may also be interested in Riley and Parker (1986) and Montgomery and Bailey (1991), both published in _American Speech_. I think we're witnessing language change in progress. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Mar 1994 20:50:53 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: A New Genitive Relative Pronoun? Pardon my obtuseness, but being too lazy (Spring fever) to check on the references in Am.Speech, I'm not quite clear: Do you mean you find people writing/saying "The dog chased the man in which the cat bit"? That would certainly have to have an asterisk in front of it for me. I don't even think I could make sense of it. It is, of course, an interesting question whether that is strictly a COMP, as Chomskyan analysis demonstrates quite nicely, or whether we are to believe the wrong-headed intuition of most traditional and structuralist grammarians who interpret it as a relative pronoun. We know, of course, that that is how language changes: people come to reinterpret things in particular contexts in different ways, and they thereby become different things. Thus thinking makes it so. A form like "thats" looks like pretty good evidence. [NB: that doesn't make me happy with Quirk et al.'s interpreting gerunds as participles, however]. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 15 Mar 1994 to 16 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 3 messages totalling 66 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. French linguistic legislation 2. A New Genitive Relative Pronoun? 3. New Genitive Pronoun? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 00:14:50 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: French linguistic legislation On several short trips to France in 1978/79 I had only one sorta negative experience. I'd come in from London and had no idea where the station for trains to Germany was. The lady in the info booth was rather short with me when I failed to understand that it was really only a short distance away. It was raining hard outside, in late December, with a bad cold front on the way, so grumpiness was not unexpected. Absolutely no other bad experiences. A couple of times French people recognized my American shoes and initiated a conversation in English. My mind goes blank when I try to remember all that French I recognize in print, so I used only English. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 17:28:19 +0700 From: Gwyn Williams gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH Subject: Re: A New Genitive Relative Pronoun? On Wed, 16 Mar 1994, Wayne Glowka wrote: I'm signed off the list at the moment because I'll be on spring break after I read this last paper, but I just ran across a genitive of *that* in the paper of a fairly literate student. I read the sentence, paused, and then understood the process at work: Gaelic, o[r] Goidelic, is a Celtic language *thats* branches include Welsh, Irish, Cornish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic, and Breton. Wasn't something like this discussed on Linguist List last year? Gwyn Bangkok ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 18:37:45 EST From: Michael Montgomery N270053[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDU Subject: New Genitive Pronoun? I would like to raise a query and propose a dissent to Larry Horn's characterization of the genitive relative pronoun _thats_ being a new or emerging form. The form as cited by Wayne Glowka is striking to many of us because it appears in writing, and it may be a form that isn't noticed by many until it does appear there. I have heard the form infrequently, but once a year or so, over at least the past decade, and my suspicion is that either it has been in vernacular English for quite sometime or that it crops up sporadically by analogy to _whose_. I don't think it is by any means new, and the discussion a couple of years ago on the Linguist List, when people in disparate locations attested it, is consis- tent with this contention. From time to time I notice a form or usage that seems entirely novel to me, only to discover that it is common in the speech around me (and sometimes that I use it myself!). We must be very careful in assuming something is new by virtue of our paying notice to it for the first time. There is such a thing as an "observer's illusion" as well as the better-known "observer's paradox." Are there other examples of this phenomenon that come to mind of ADSers? Wonder if DARE has any citations? Peace, Michael Montgomery ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 16 Mar 1994 to 17 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 3 messages totalling 63 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. poof! 2. The French Connection 3. New Genitive Pronoun? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 23:48:51 -0500 From: "Gregory J. Pulliam" HUMPULLIAM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MINNA.ACC.IIT.EDU Subject: poof! I've encountered a new command meaning _get lost_ from my pre-adolescent stepson who's enrolled in public schools in Oak Park, adjacent to the far west side of Chicago. What the boys say is "Poof!" sometimes followed by "Get the steppin'" but always (apparently, or so he says) accompanied by a hand gesture which consists of a fist-to-fully-extended-fingers motion concurrent with the word "Poof!" I suspect it's been handed down from the older boys, perhaps gang-types. The again perhaps not. Any thots or citations? Also, francophiles, please forgive my little tease the other day about the French linguistic legislation. I'm not a francophobe. I was jesting, albeit poorly perhaps, in the Twain tradition of baiting the French. BTW, if you've seen the latest on heart disease rates in France, perhaps due to their intake of red wine along with all those high-fat meals, you do have to wonder if maybe the French will be the first nation ever to outlive its language and culture....don't you? ;-) GPulliam humpulliam[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]minna.acc.iit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 00:13:07 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: The French Connection This may close out the discussion of experiences with French linguistic attitudes, but it may be that reactions to them are as much a reflection on American culture as anything. I shared Dennis Baron's e-note with a Chinese former student who spent a couple of years working in Nice for IBM, and who knew no French on arrival. She said it was interesting to discover how much information can be exchanged without reliance on verbalization, and though she had some problems and experienced some frustration, she was amazed by the negativism expressed by her American colleeagues, which seemed to her very much out of proportion to their actual experiences. I had heard very negative experiences from friends about their communication encounters in France, and so avoided going there for years, but on the several occasions that I have been in France, I have had only pleasant experiences. But even if I had had "negative" experiences, I wonder it my own reaction to them would not have been a reflection of my own culture? --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 15:57:12 -0500 From: Cathy Ball CBALL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET Subject: Re: New Genitive Pronoun? Michael Montgomery writes: 'We must be very careful in assuming something is new by virtue of our paying notice to it for the first time.' Well said, Michael! I recall the discussion on LINGUIST of nominative pronouns in accusative conjunctions occasioned by Bill Clinton's speech (Give AL Gore and I a chance, or something like that), where a number of people thought they had only just started hearing this and it has in fact been around for at least 300 years, if not longer ... -- Cathy Ball (cball[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.georgetown.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 17 Mar 1994 to 18 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 11 messages totalling 241 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. New Genitive Pronoun? 2. COOL /u/ or /y/ (2) 3. journalist seeks help (2) 4. Conscious Learning of Accent 5. Southern Palatal Glide in /aesh/ (4) 6. Re-sending Bounced Message on /aey/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 00:48:09 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: New Genitive Pronoun? Re Michael Montgomery's comment on "new" items. Remember that Walter Avis reported upland South Carolinians claiming tht 'tow sack' was a new term that was competing with 'croker sack'. Yes, we must be watchful that we don't confuse "first time I heered it" with "it's brand-spankin new." I've gotten genitive 'thats' on student essays at least once, maybe twice in a third of a century. I've heard it too, rarely. But more and more I hear structures like "He was telling his parents about the party, which he likes to tease them that way. They're suspicious that he boozes." I can't recall the sentence with the all-purpose 'which' conjunction I heard just yesterday, a beaut, which I wouldn't know what to call it, but I recognize it when I hear it but don't think I'd ever write it. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 07:27:59 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: COOL /u/ or /y/ On David Bergdahl's note about raising /E/ to /e/ before esh, so "Special" = "spatial." Note Dan Rather's pron. of "national." Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 07:36:59 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: journalist seeks help On Fri, 11 Mar 1994, Donald M. Lance wrote: Tim Frazer commented on conscious attempts to change accent. I agree that accent itself can't be changed by conscious effort -- not in a massive global sense. But one might change a relatively small pattern, such as [u] / [ju] after coronal obstruents, as I did in my teenage years. My I'm a week behind, Don. But I wanted to note I was especially thinking of folks like that lady in Chatanooga who gives speech lessons to southerners who want to talk like Yankees cause they want to get ahead. I can't believe she has any success withjust those office visits and tongue strengtheners. Ifhere clients moved to Cleveland and hung out with Yankee yuppies, of course, that's different, but notconscious either. Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 07:45:52 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Conscious Learning of Accent On Sat, 12 Mar 1994, Donald M. Lance wrote: fronting. The Ozarkers do make these subtle changes. I don't have much contact with students in Agriculture, Business. or Engineering, but I suspect that they make less effort to change than the Arts & Sciences students do. My students also tell of changing accent when they go home (like the Yali from Sparta in the video "American Tongues"). This, I'd say, is "consciously changing accent" to some degree. Biloquiality, with conscious effort at some age. Maybe others will want to expand on this complex topic. Natural-sounding biloquiality may be hard to accomplish. Tim seems to be suggesting that it's impossible. DMLance Don, I'm stil catching up so I haven't seen the responses. Meanwhile, on your guess about engineering students: Remember all those non-Inland Northern speaking engineers we use to hear from NASA on space shot telecasts? Tim ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 09:57:28 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: COOL /u/ or /y/ On Sat, 19 Mar 1994, Timothy C. Frazer wrote: I have to send this again because it bounced. What gives? On David Bergdahl's note about raising /E/ to /e/ before esh, so "Special" = "spatial." Note Dan Rather's pron. of "national." Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 12:39:36 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Southern Palatal Glide in /aesh/ Re Tim Frazer's note of Dan Rather's pronunciation of national , I hadn't noticed it because it is normal Southern/South Midland to have a /y/-glide after lax front vowels before palatals, e.g. /sh/. Perceptually to non- natives, this may sometimes appear to raise the vowel into the next higher position, or create homonymy, whereas for natives it is a low-level phonetic rule which, while exerting a raising effect on the vowel, generally does not change its phonemic status. Occasionally words do slip over the line, however, as in catch becoming /kEch/. The same glide rule operates before Nasal + Vl. Stop clusters for /ae/, parallel to the backing to /a/ in British English, and again occasionally changes the phonemic status of the vowel, as in can't shifting from /kaeynt/ to /keynt/. But native speakers are normally not aware of the phenomenon, and keep the vowels separate phonemically. I imagine this is the same thing going on in David Bergdahl's hearing of the pronunciation of special . Natives would have to be consulted to see if they had really restructured the lexical entry to homonymize with spatial . --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 13:47:29 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: journalist seeks help Re Tim Frazer's response to my seeming not to notice that he wondered over ads-l whether "speech correctionists" can really get rid of anyone's regional dialect. As I was responding, it occurred to me that Tim had that one scenario in mind, but I was off and running on a tangent that has yielded some interesting discussion. On Tim's point. Those of you who're fortunate enough to have access to the wonderful video "American Tongues" might recall the Brooklyn native who represented a drug company and had trouble getting clients in the Midwest to focus on WHAT she said. Evidence in the video indicated that she'd had dialect training, but nary a whit of the training came through in her speech on the video. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 13:58:40 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Southern Palatal Glide in /aesh/ Re Rudy Troike's /aey/ -- /ey/ discussion, in response to David Bergdahl's comment on special/spatial. Evidence from one family, reported by one member of that family, is not huge amount of data, but I wouldn't include /kaent/ [kaeInt] -- /keynt/ for 'can't' in that list. The Lance family, for the generations whose speech I know of, say /keynt/ all the time in conversation. I learned not to tense the vowel in formal style, but am not always successful in keeping the monitor active while I'm, e.g., giving a lecture on dialect -- that is, I slip into my /keynt/ phonology. My father tensed and raised the vowel in our last name -- sometimes -- and his mother did all the time. My father's mother was a Watkins, not a Lance, but that was her pronunciation. Some descendents of 1750s immigrants in our line have kept the spelling 'Lentz'. The Lance tribe does not have /E/ raising before alveopalatals, except for ketch (which I suspect is a lexical matter rather than phonological, along with git -- at least in 20th century form). We don't systematically have [eI] in measure and special. My judgment of family language is no doubt colored by my Valley Talk to some extent. I agree fully with Rudy's comment on Dan Rather's vowel in national. Dan is from way up the coast by Houston, from Wharton. And Lee Pederson (in vol 7 of LAGS) has a dialect boundary just south of the Bay City, El Campo, Wharton area. Rudy and I are from one side of that line and Dan is from the other. So Rudy and I, from a closely-related, neighboring dialect will hear things in Dan Rather's speech that people in Illinois don't (cf. Dennis Preston's data on Indianans' and Michiganders' placement of 9 speakers of regional dialect along a line from Saginaw MI to Dothan AL -- reported in his articles in HEARTLAND ENGLISH and AMERICAN DIALECT RESEARCH (U of Ala P and J Benjamins presses, both 1993). So what's my main point? That one shouldn't include /ae/ raising before [nasal + vl stop] in the same general raising rule that accounts for Bergdahl's [EI]. (N.B. The "raised" pronunciation of 'Lance' has an excrescent [t].) Regional evidence, as well as historical evidence as well as we can reconstruct it, probably supports my hypothesis better than Rudy's. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 14:08:40 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Southern Palatal Glide in /aesh/ In response to Don Lance's very informative and insightful note, I just want to clarify that I was not intending to combine the rules; just commenting on some parallel effects. The /ae/ -- /aey/ Southern rule operates before Nasal + Vl Stop and before Vl Fricatives -- a curious combination -- which is the same context as affects the British/Boston /ae/ -- /a/, and is clearly different from the simple assimilative development of a [y]-glide preceding palatals. On the excresent [t] in Lance , I have it all the time anyway. I cannot without the greatest concentration make a distinction between prince and prints , as a British friend was fond of pointing out. Lexicalization of these things, and different strata of learning, can produce contrasts even within individual speech, as one East Texas speaker I know who distinguishes /paeynts/ "article of clothing" and /paents/ "what a dog does", since they were learned at different times under different circumstances. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 14:32:41 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU Subject: Re-sending Bounced Message on /aey/ For some reason, for the second time today I've had a message bounced on the claim that it had already been sent. So if this arrives twice, my apologies. From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE%ARIZVMS.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu Subject: Re: Southern Palatal Glide in /aesh/ To: Multiple recipients of list ADS-L ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu In response to Don Lance's very informative and insightful note, I just want to clarify that I was not intending to combine the rules; just commenting on some parallel effects. The /ae/ -- /aey/ Southern rule operates before Nasal + Vl Stop and before Vl Fricatives -- a curious combination -- which is the same context as affects the British/Boston /ae/ -- /a/, and is clearly different from the simple assimilative development of a [y]-glide preceding palatals. On the excresent [t] in Lance , I have it all the time anyway. I cannot without the greatest concentration make a distinction between prince and prints , as a British friend was fond of pointing out. Lexicalization of these things, and different strata of learning, can produce contrasts even within individual speech, as one East Texas speaker I know who distinguishes /paeynts/ "article of clothing" and /paents/ "what a dog does", since they were learned at different times under different circumstances. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 Mar 1994 21:58:11 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Southern Palatal Glide in /aesh/ What's interesting about hearing this glide in someone like rather's speech is that, at least in the south midland speech of Illinois, this feature (the glide) seems to be disappearing. I had a sample of about 50 speakers from this area, and only the older ones, for the most part, regularly had the glide in "crash" or "ash." Timn Frazer ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 18 Mar 1994 to 19 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 7 messages totalling 111 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. French linguistic legislation 2. Dan Rather (3) 3. Homophone? 4. help 5. Bouncing message reports ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 10:57:47 -0500 From: Tom McClive tommcc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU Subject: Re: French linguistic legislation I wonder if anyone can comment on a French speaker coming to a city like New York; which, like Paris, is a place different from the rest of the country, and where people are supposed to be rude. I have had some wonderful experiences in France, including Paris, speaking French. I have had some wonderful experiences on visits even before I learned how to speak French. But I wonder about visitors wandering around New York City trying to speak English to the natives. How are they treated? Do people expect them to speak English instead of another language? Would anyone scorn their imperfect English? On the whole, I would rather be in Paris with imperfect French than in NYC with imperfect English. Tom McClive tommcc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gibbs.oit.unc.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 14:04:40 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Dan Rather I never realized Dan Rather was from the Deep South until I heard him broadcasting from inside a recently abandoned Iraqi bunker during the Gulf War. He looked weary, had a heavy 5 o'clock shadow, and didn't use a single post-vocalic /r/ in the whole report! Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 14:29:23 -0500 From: Martha Howard UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU Subject: Homophone? I hope that all of you expert dialecticians can figure out for me just where the editor making up a crossword I worked comes from. (Anybody want to diagram *that* sentence?) The clue was "homphone for 'air' ." The answer turned out to be "ire." (I know because I cheated, as usual, and looked upthe answer in the back of the book.) I have heard the aIr of fire, tire, etc. in dialects as the a in cot and father but never as e in hate. To add my two cents to the French discussion, I too had very pleasant experiences in Paris and also during a four week tour covering 2600 miles of France, north, south, east, and west. The French are not really very cordial toward each other and they don't treat us any differently--except in several cases where they were nicer. I would try my schoolbook French, look hoepful, and say " was that right/?" In every case I was assured that it was *almost* right and when I asked how to correctly say something, the French were very gracious about helping me. Of course, the fact that I obviously liked their red wine probably helped break the ice. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 15:35:42 -0500 From: LAUGHING SPIDER SANSONETTI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.RZ.UNI-REGENSBURG.D400.DE Subject: help I'd like to have some info about this list...anybody help me ????? :-) Luca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 21:42:38 -0600 From: Nancy Harwood harwood[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TENET.EDU Subject: Re: Dan Rather On Mon, 21 Mar 1994, Ellen Johnson wrote: I never realized Dan Rather was from the Deep South until I heard him broadcasting from inside a recently abandoned Iraqi bunker during the Gulf War. He looked weary, had a heavy 5 o'clock shadow, and didn't use a single post-vocalic /r/ in the whole report! I think Dan Rather was born in Houston, Texas...I'm sure that's where he grew up...he went to college in Huntsville, Texas. Nancy Harwood ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 20:59:31 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Dan Rather I wouldn't call the part of Texas Dan came from the "Deep South"; it is mostly South Midland. I did note once that he used a nice double modal when reporting the response of a tank-soldier. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 21:15:15 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Bouncing message reports I am still getting messages back from my local listserv saying my messages to ADS-L have been bounced because they are supposedly duplicates of previous messages. I'm wondering if this is a problem with the ADS-L listserv or our local system? The messages seem to echo back o.k. from ADS-L before I get the bounced mail notice from my local listserv? Would it help if I sent back the error notice? --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 19 Mar 1994 to 21 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 5 messages totalling 96 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Actors and accents (2) 2. Bouncing message reports (2) 3. lucrative consultantship ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 06:47:00 EDT From: "David A. Johns" DJOHNS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UFPINE.BITNET Subject: Actors and accents The stereotyped identification of Southern accents with hickish themes, interestingly enough, is reversible. For any of you who admit to having watched Hee Haw, recall the regular who played the announcer at radio station KORN. When I first heard him, I was living in rural Wisconsin, and I remember thinking that he sounded just like some of the older farmers in that area. Later someone told me that he was actually a Canadian Shakespearean actor who was doing the Hee Haw shtick on a lark, and was apparently imitating rural accents from his home area. I've pointed him out to several Southerners over the past few years, and none had ever identified him as a Yankee. Rural -- Southern. An even better example was the actor Walter Brennan. He always played Appalachian or Ozark hillbillies, but his accent always sounded to me like rural northern New England (I grew up in western Massachusetts). It turns out Brennan was born and raised in Lynn, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Coming from there he shouldn't have sounded so rubish, but the basic vowel patterns would have been the same as in New Hampshire or Vermont. Again, no one I have ever asked, including Southern and Southern Midland speakers, ever suspected that anything was amiss -- unless they were familiar with that particular accent. Once more, rural -- Southern. David Johns ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 06:37:58 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Bouncing message reports I am still getting messages back from my local listserv saying my messages to ADS-L have been bounced because they are supposedly duplicates of previous messages. I'm wondering if this is a problem with the ADS-L listserv or our local system? The messages seem to echo back o.k. from ADS-L before I get the bounced mail notice from my local listserv? Would it help if I sent back the error notice? Although I realize that it makes no sense to say in answer to your first question above that the problem does not appear to be specific either to ADS-L or to your local system, that's the impression I got yesterday when this problem was being discussed on LSTOWN-L (list for listowners). Several people reported the problem yesterday with several different LISTSERV lists and different local systems. If the techies on LSTOWN-L figure out some scientific explanation for it, I'll let you know (or do something about it if it's related specifically to ADS-L). Meanwhile, my theory is that it's another temporary rampage of the Net Goblins. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 08:01:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Actors and accents David Johns has not been talking to the right Southerners. I certainly knew the KORN announ cer (of Hee-Haw fame) and Walter Brennan were not South Midland speakers. I suspected Brennan of being rural New England (not bad), and I actually thought the KORN annoujncer was British doing something which he thought was Southern. (Turns out he was Canadian; give me a C-.) If Johns means that nonlinguists saw noting amiss in these performances, I suppose I could be convinced, but I will have to have evidence from more than a few Southerners he has spoken to. Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 09:13:33 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Bouncing message reports Natalie-- It must be a virtual problem. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 13:34:42 -0500 From: No Name Given NOLANDD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNCWIL.BITNET Subject: lucrative consultantship Dear fellow netters: Suppose you wefeatures would you insist on? As a native deep sout convincingly mid-western way, specifically Wisconsonian (no further elaboration at this time). What would you want to make sure that actor sa speaker, Icould use some advise. In return, I'll arrange for you, too, to end up in bright lights. An Academy Award for "Most Convincing Dialect Coaching Job?" Dan Noland (nolandd[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vxc.uncwil.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 21 Mar 1994 to 22 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 7 messages totalling 149 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Dan Rather 2. for the record (4) 3. March Madness 4. Bounced messaged ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 00:10:05 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Dan Rather Dan Rather grew up in Wharton, Texas, 50 miles west-southwest of Houston. LAGS, vol 7, p. xiv, gives the label "West Central Gulf Coast" to the area from New Orleans to about 30 miles west of Wharton. More like "Deep South" than Corpus Christi. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 10:08:06 CST From: Mike Picone MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET Subject: for the record Just for the record, I heard another instance of NPR anti-Southern bias this morning on the radio. Kokie Roberts was referring to some federal legislator (whose name I didn't catch) when she said that he "mumbled in a Mississippi drawl that nobody understands." I will bet money that the person in question was a white Southerner, for she would never have permitted herself such a derogatory remark if it had been otherwise. In fact, the insult is all the greater because of the exaggeration, for even if someone of another ethnic group conceivably spoke a divergent variety of English or an "accented" variety that impeded comprehension, such a remark would be considered inappropriate. Yet in this case it is not credible that the variety of English she is referring to is actually unintelligible to her or anyone else, but she did not hesitate to use exaggeration to make a negative insinuation based on linguistic habits. Mike Picone University of Alabama ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:33:04 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: for the record Isn't Kokie Roberts' family from Louisiana? She overcame or avoided that awful Southern dialect, so why can't the mumbler from Mississippi? If one wants to be upper-class General American, one does not have a strong Southern accent. Certain New England accents will do, but Mississippi, no. Kokie's phonology would be an interesting study. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 11:53:18 CDT From: Randy Roberts robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EXT.MISSOURI.EDU Subject: March Madness Text item: Text_1 Recently a query came my way about the origin/earliest usage of "March Madness" to refer to the NCAA basketball tournament. I have found one 1982 newspaper citation in the Peter Tamony Collection which uses it in this sentence: "Because what was once March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament, has been replaced by Free Throw Fever." I also found one use of the phrase from the 1963 London Times in the Clarence Barnhart/Scott-Foresman Collection. "Now, I think it would be mid-summer or March madness for anyone to oppose collective security." Does anyone have some information or earlier examples of March Madness in the basketball sense? Can anyone tell me if March madness is a Briticism or offer other insights? I believe I've checked the relevant published sources. Randy Roberts, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ext.missouri.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 13:03:07 CST From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: Re: for the record In Message Wed, 23 Mar 1994 10:08:06 CST, Mike Picone MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ua1vm.bitnet writes: Just for the record, I heard another instance of NPR anti-Southern bias this morning on the radio. Kokie Roberts was referring to some federal legislator (whose name I didn't catch) when she said that he "mumbled in a Mississippi drawl that nobody understands." I will bet money that the person in question was a white Southerner, for she would never have permitted herself such a derogatory remark if it had been otherwise. In fact, the insult is all the greater because of the exaggeration, for even if someone of another ethnic group conceivably spoke a divergent variety of English or an "accented" variety that impeded comprehension, such a remark would be considered inappropriate. Yet in this case it is not credible that the variety of English she is referring to is actually unintelligible to her or anyone else, but she did not hesitate to use exaggeration to make a negative insinuation based on linguistic habits. Mike Picone University of Alabama I heard that too, Mike. It was about the chair of the House appropriations committee, whose name I've forgotten, the one who hadn't missed a vote in umpteen years and is now ill and whose name I think begins with H. I was struck by Roberts' bias as well. I think it warrants a reply. NPR gives out its email address, but I always miss it as I'm either driving or cooking while I listen to the news. Has anyone jotted it down? Dennis -- debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ ____________ Department of English / '| ()___________) University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ 608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\ (__) ()___________) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 13:12:48 -0500 From: Martha Howard UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU Subject: Bounced messaged I too have joined the elite group of "those who have been bounced." Glad to know it is not just my own stupidity. Her goes again. In working a crossword recently, I came across the following clue "homophone for 'air'." A three letter word was indicated. It worked out to be "ire." Any educated guesses as to the dialect region to which the puzzle maker belongs? I have heard 'ire' pronounced to rhyme with 'far'. but I don' recall hearing it asrhyming with 'hay'. In my dialect, air rhymes with where, hair, there, etc. Of course, my dialect is *not* homogenous. Marckwardt once described it as polyglot: playground terms from Chicago (lived there from birth to seven years of age), farm terms from the Ozarks (lived on a farm in or outside of Hollister, Mo--2 miles south of Branson--from nine to thirteen), everything else Michigan (13-28). Now, after 44 years in northern West Virginia, who knows what I sound Like! Not Walter Brennan, I assusre you! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Mar 1994 17:35:08 EST From: "Michael McGoff, Assoc. Dean, Acad. Affairs/Admin." MMCGOFF[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BINGTJW.BITNET Subject: Re: for the record In response to the statement about the NPR broadcast "derogatory remark", Isn't Cokie Roberts from the South? Perhaps even Mississippi? This may be an inside joke. Michael F. McGoff State University of New York at Binghamton ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 22 Mar 1994 to 23 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 9 messages totalling 209 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. lucrative consultantship-the legible version 2. for the record (4) 3. record 4. Info from Sigmund Eisner at UArizona (2) 5. mississippi madness ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 13:41:23 -0500 From: Dan Noland NOLANDD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNCWIL.BITNET Subject: lucrative consultantship-the legible version What I meant to type was that a company here in Wilmington, NC needs help get- ting an actor to deliver lines as a (generic) Wisconsin native. I'm not native mid-western, so I could use some advise as to which features you would predict have highest utility. What sources might you suggest? Dan Noland (nolandd[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vxc.uncwil.edu) ng an ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 09:07:01 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: for the record bias this morning on the radio. Kokie Roberts was referring to some federal legislator (whose name I didn't catch) when she said that he "mumbled in a Mississippi drawl that nobody understands." I will bet money that the person in question was a white Southerner, for she would never have permitted herself such a derogatory remark if it had been otherwise. In fact, the insult is all the greater because of the exaggeration for even if someone of another ethnic group conceivably spoke a divergent variety of English or an "accented" variety that impeded comprehension, such a remark would be considered inappropriate. Yet in this case it is not credible that the variety of English she is referring to is actually unintelligible to her or anyone else, but she did not hesitate to use exaggeration to make a negative insinuation based on linguistic habits. Mike Picone University of Alabama The insult is all the worse since Kokie is the daughter of Hale Boggs. Am I not mistook that he was a rep. from Louisiana? Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 09:43:06 CST From: Mike Picone MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET Subject: Re: for the record Concerning Michael McGoff's suggestion that the derogatory reference was an inside joke: I don't know where Cokie/Kokie Roberts is from (I don't even know how to spell her name). Louisiana and now Mississippi have been suggested. But I must say that there was absolutely no hint of jocularity betrayed by any intonational index or anything else that I was aware of. The remark was dead serious, regardless of Robert's own place of origin. Mike Picone University of Alabama ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 10:58:05 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: for the record On Wed, 23 Mar 1994, Donald M. Lance wrote: If one wants to be upper-class General American, one does not have a strong Southern accent. Certain New England accents will do, but Mississippi, no. Kokie's Although congressional representatives are way up there on the social class scale (since you have to be pretty wealthy to run for office), they are under pressure, instead, to maintain strong regional dialects so that their constituents will think they identify with them and they can get re-elected. Doonesbury had a great strip once on Al Gore switching between East Tennessee twang in one campaign setting and harvardese in another. When I was in Chile, I recommended C-SPAN to the EFL teachers I had in my classes as a way to improve listening comprehension for American English. (Yes, they have it there on cable.) Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 10:15:00 CST From: Edward Callary TB0EXC1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NIU.BITNET Subject: record Cokie Roberts is indeed the daughter of Hale Boggs, representative fro Louisians. She is also the daughter of Lindy Boggs, who succeeded Hale upon his death and just retired a year or so ago Although it's been 20 years since I left Louisiana, the general impression was (and I would expect still is) that there are a number of cultured dialects along the Pearl river, but Mississippian is not one. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 09:29:25 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Info from Sigmund Eisner at UArizona On March madness and other matters, I'm passing along information from my Chaucerian colleague Sigmund Eisner. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu From: UACCIT::SEISNER "Sigmund Eisner" 24-MAR-1994 08:21 To: UACCIT::RTROIKE CC: SEISNER Subj: March madness Rudy: Certainly "as mad as a March hare" must have some connection, other than obvious alliteration, with "March madness." "As mad as a March hare" is a Briticism refering to a fact that in March the hare (in Arizona read "jackrabbit") enjoys his mating season and as a result is careless about his personal safety. The expression, of course, is used by Lewis Carroll in the mid nineteenth century. But certainly it was as old as "Mad Hatter" and equally known to Carroll's audience. "Mad Hatter" comes from an ingredient used in pressing hats. It was said to have an intoxicating effect on the hat makers, who used a large quantity of it. Still, in spite of the relationship, I think it comes from sportswriters' love for the pithy phrase. Take, for instance, "he doesn't have a china man's chance": Peter Tamony, mentioned by one of your correspondents and an old friend, once pointed out that nineteenth century British sportswriters called a boxer who would fly into pieces when hit "a china man." He also showed me nineteenth-century British sports newspapers to back up his claim. The expression went from England to Australia and came across the Pacific to California with the "Sydney Ducks" about a century ago. It has nothing whatsoever to do with either the Chinese or the California gold fields, as has often been said. Sportswriters have given us many expressions, especially from cock fighting: "pit them together," "in the ring," "spur them on." Enough? Sig ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 12:33:16 -0500 From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU Subject: Re: Info from Sigmund Eisner at UArizona Hatters more likely mad from the mercury used in felting fur and fiber; irreversible neurological impairment familiar again, alas, via the tuna taint. Robert Kelly / kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]levy.bard.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 13:30:53 CST From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: mississippi madness Now the name comes back to me, as I read today's NY Times. Cokey was referring to William H. Natcher, the ailing 84-year-old representative from -- you got it, Kentucky. Unless of course she was confusing him with Jamie L. Whitten, the 83-year-old Mississippi senior member of the House Appropriations Committee whom Natcher replaced last year. In any case, the new committee chair is from Wisconsin. He's got a thick midwestern accent (that's a line from a cartoon and originally referred to Gerald Ford's "thick Michigan accent." Dennis -- debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ ____________ Department of English / '| ()___________) University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ 608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\ (__) ()___________) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Mar 1994 16:04:39 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: for the record Here are some e-mail addresses for NPR. I hope people will follow Dennis's suggestion of protesting. I may do it, although I'm afraid my anger will end up making my protest less coherent. Anti-Southern bias is one of very few things in the world that evoke anger in me. The only thing that makes me even angrier than anti-Southern bias is the even more specific anti-Mississippi bias. Like many Southerners, I feel what is perhaps an irrationally strong attachment to my state. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ********************************** Weekend Edition/Sunday (wesun[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]clark.net) Weekend All Things Considered (watc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cap.gwu.edu) Talk of the Nation (totn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com) Science Friday (scifri[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com) Fresh Air (freshair[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]shrsys.hslc.org) Please note that e-mail to the above addresses cannot be forwarded to other NPR departments (Audience Services, Transcripts/Tapes, Morning Edition, Weekday ATC, Weekend Edition/Saturday, etc.). For more information, or to order a transcript or tape, call NPR Audience Services at (202) 414-3232. ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 23 Mar 1994 to 24 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 3 messages totalling 93 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. anti-southern bias 2. for the record 3. address (fwd) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 08:56:14 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: anti-southern bias I'm convinced Whitewater would be getting a lot less press if Clinton were from the industrial northeast or California. A lot of pundits blame the clintons for "arrogance." Well, Bush did a lot of arrogant things too, and his boys raked off billions, but the press put up with a lot (until the last year) because Bush is part of the old NE elite. I don't think thats partisanship talking when I say that. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 10:57:27 CST From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: Re: for the record In Message Thu, 24 Mar 1994 16:04:39 -0600, Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU writes: Here are some e-mail addresses for NPR. I hope people will follow Dennis's suggestion of protesting. I may do it, although I'm afraid my anger will end up making my protest less coherent. Anti-Southern bias is one of very few things in the world that evoke anger in me. The only thing that makes me even angrier than anti-Southern bias is the even more specific anti-Mississippi bias. Like many Southerners, I feel what is perhaps an irrationally strong attachment to my state. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ********************************** Weekend Edition/Sunday (wesun[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]clark.net) Weekend All Things Considered (watc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cap.gwu.edu) Talk of the Nation (totn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com) Science Friday (scifri[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com) Fresh Air (freshair[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]shrsys.hslc.org) Add to Natalie's list NPR's 800 number: 1-800-235-1212 And snail mail: 635 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC 20001-3753. Dennis -- Please note that e-mail to the above addresses cannot be forwarded to other NPR departments (Audience Services, Transcripts/Tapes, Morning Edition, Weekday ATC, Weekend Edition/Saturday, etc.). For more information, or to order a transcript or tape, call NPR Audience Services at (202) 414-3232. debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ ____________ Department of English / '| ()___________) University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ 608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\ (__) ()___________) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 12:16:07 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: address (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 25 Mar 1994 10:31:13 -0500 (EST) From: NPR Weekend Sunday wesun[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]clark.net To: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu Subject: Re: address On Fri, 25 Mar 1994, Ellen Johnson wrote: Could you please send me the address for (weekday) Morning Edition on NPR? Also for (weekday) all things considered. Thanks, Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu These programs are not reachable by e-mail. You can write: National Public Radio 635 Massachusettes Ave., NW Washington, DC 20001 ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 24 Mar 1994 to 25 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There is one message totalling 55 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Wisconsin accent ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 20:19:00 EDT From: "David A. Johns" DJOHNS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UFPINE.BITNET Subject: Wisconsin accent # What I meant to type was that a company here in Wilmington, NC # needs help get- ting an actor to deliver lines as a (generic) # Wisconsin native. I'm not native mid-western, so I could use some # advise as to which features you would predict have highest # utility. What sources might you suggest? Dan Noland # (nolandd[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vxc.uncwil.edu) Coincidentally, the night before I read this I had just spent an hour on the phone with a friend who grew up on a farm in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin (about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee) and has lived in Burlington (45 miles southwest of Milwaukee) for the past 20 years. He's high school educated, of Norwegian extraction. His pronunciation is basically "general American," but some deviations stand out: * He has a very wide tone range in his intonation. As compared to standard speakers, people in that area sound excited all the time. * He has a tense, monophthongal /o/ (in BOAT, GO, etc.). Sounds very much like the corresponding German vowel. * He raises the vowel in WRITE, etc. * The vowel in ABOUT, HOUSE, etc., is just about like the general American vowel in BOAT, GO. If you're not listening for it, you'll think that ABOUT and A BOAT are homophones, but the former has a diphthong and the latter doesn't. The conditioning environment seems to be the same as in the Canadian phenomenon, but the vowel is noticeably different. * His /e/ (as in PLAY, TODAY) is tenser and more monophthongal than in general American, but not quite as Germanic sounding as the /o/. * The /a/ (HOT) is a little fronted, and the /O/ (CAUGHT) is less rounded than in general American. * The glide in /aj/ diphthongs (TIME) goes further toward [i] than it does in general American. This may also be true of /aw/, but I really notice it with /aj/. I can't think of any words that he pronounced with a different vowel than I would expect, but some people in that area pronounce the prefix UN- with /a/ instead of /^/. David Johns ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 25 Mar 1994 to 27 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 13 messages totalling 230 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. "Off" (again) (2) 2. Wisconsin accent (7) 3. Clinton's speech (4) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 09:29:00 CST From: Tom Murray TEM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]KSUVM.BITNET Subject: "Off" (again) Here's one for the "For What It's Worth" file, regarding "off" (as in "off ox," etc., which has gotten so much attention of late): James Herriot, in his late st book (Every Living Thing, 1992, Canadian paperback edition, p. 209), writes, "The cow was lame in the off hind foot, and as I bent down and put a finger be tween the cleats, she aimed a warning kick at me." Surely this "off" is the sa me as the one in "off ox"? Herriot uses the phrase with absolutely no explanat ion--could it be something he's picked up in Yorkshire? Or, since he's origina lly from Glasgow, could it be something native to Scots English? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 11:18:31 -0500 From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU Subject: Re: "Off" (again) Bound to fetch a comment from a cricketer about Silly Mid Off ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:45:29 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Thanks to David Johns for a good account of non-English influence. Please, though, let's don't use the term "General American." I like better Raven McDavid's acronym, SWINE, for "STandard White Inland Northern English." It IS a regional dialect, promoted by John Kenyon as GA, which he later admitted was the pronunciation of the Cleveland area (obviously he meant white niddle-class Cleveland.) Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 09:58:16 -0800 From: THOMAS L CLARK tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent David John writes about a Wisconsin dialect, but what the hell is this "general American" he keeps on about? Cheers, tlc ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:18:48 -0800 From: Roger Vanderveen rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Thanks to David Johns for a good account of non-English influence. Please, though, let's don't use the term "General American." I like better Raven McDavid's acronym, SWINE, for "STandard White Inland Northern English." It IS a regional dialect, promoted by John Kenyon as GA, which he later admitted was the pronunciation of the Cleveland area (obviously he meant white niddle-class Cleveland.) If this is meant to be a politically-correct joke, then I am surprised that no one bothered to find a way to insert an abbreviation for the word "male" in the acronym. If it's not, then I think it's one of the most stupid, most un-professional terms ever invented. =============================================================================== Roger Vanderveen Intel Corporation Hillsboro, OR Take me down to Jones's farm =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 13:02:22 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent In a recent posting I used the term 'General American' and later realized I should have put it in quotation marks or inverted commas lest dialectologists out there think I believe it's a real dialect. Kenyon began using the term in about the 4th edition of his book AMERICAN PRONUNCIATION, after Krapp and Mencken introduced it. In Kenyon & Knott's dictionary and in Kenyon's book they divided American English into 3 dialects: Northeastern (eastern New England and metro New York), Southern (Southern + South Midland below the Ohio) and General American. The term is useful for referring to rhotic varieties, but ah/aw merger and the Northern Cities Shift, as well as contemporary developments in MN and WI (cf new posting on Wisconsin speech) -- and all the LANCS and LAUM publications -- reduce the usefulness of the term. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 15:37:51 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Clinton's speech I have promised to respond tomorrow to an AP reporter who's working on a story about the president's speech. He's faxed me a list of phrases he's collected and would like to know their origin, meaning, and what the usage says about the speaker. Also he'd welcome comparisons to past presidents and general reactions to Clinton's lang. use. What say ye? Phrases: I'd JUMP ON this like FLIES ON A JUNEBUG don't have to be as bright as a TREE FULL OF OWLS to figure out... [good intentions, but] THERE ARE A LOT OF SLIPS BTW THE CUP AND THE LIP [in diplomacy] THE DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS still be in Wash. THROWING MUD BALLS AT EACH OTHER they're in a REAL PICKLE THAT'S THE RUB [=problem] GOBBLYGOOK language Euphemisms: don't give a rip don't give a lick out the wazoo load of hooey bunch of bull Anyone have comments on these or care to cite others? Does anyone know the exact wording of a sentence like "They went to dinner with Hillary and I a few times". I recall the hypercorrection involved Hillary but I don't recall the rest of the context. The reporter thinks "out the wazoo" is a "generational thing", but I'm not so sure. Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 16:18:44 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Clinton's speech Ellen, I dunno about that reporter. If you don't like Clinton, you might want to cooperate, but if you do like him, you might watch out. Sounds like he's fixing to trash the speech and wants to talk about what he thinks is "quaint Arkansas language." They did it to Carter and to LBJ (before, even, he got embroiled in Vietnam.) Tim ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 16:29:39 -0600 From: Charles F Juengling-2 juen0001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent On Mon, 28 Mar 1994 mftcf%UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vm1.spcs.umn.edu wrote: Thanks to David Johns for a good account of non-English influence. Please, though, let's don't use the term "General American." I like better Raven McDavid's acronym, SWINE, for "STandard White Inland Northern English." It IS a regional dialect, promoted by John Kenyon as GA, which he later admitted was the pronunciation of the Cleveland area (obviously he meant white niddle-class Cleveland.) Tim Frazer SWINE !!! I can hardly believe that McDavid would have uttered such rubbish. It's even harder to believe that someone would write it on the LIST. If it's a joke, it's been lost on me. I hope I never see it again on ADS-L. CFJ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 19:49:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Whaddaya think, pardners? They don't like SWINE; guess we'd better not tell'em about SOD and GRITS. (Looks like dialectologists better keep their humor to themselves.) Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 21:18:36 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Clinton's speech I suggest your journalist read William Safire's column this week. Some of the items are probably in Mencken. Reporters should be willing to take the time to do some research if they want to write about language. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 21:28:30 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Clinton's speech The more I think about Ellen's AP reporter, the more annoyed I get that journalists should lay the work on others so they can come up with a "quickie" piece like this. As Mike Picone complained about Cokie Roberts, are we in for another subtle round of regional bias? Will reporters comment on how much of Clinton's language lacks regional identifiability? The press certainly tried to use Lyndon Johnson's language as a subtle way to undermine him. If Clinton is really a Southern hick, we can discount his Georgetown and Oxford educational experiences, which make us uncomfortable in a President anyhow, and thus ignore and contain his intellectual abilities by making a buffoon of him. Should we be co-opted into reinforcing this? And supporting a reporter's laziness to boot? Safire discussed "the devil is in the details" at some length last year. Can't reporters read? --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 21:35:33 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Sad to see that Yankees can dish it out, but can't take it. McDavid was a great one for humorous acronyms, and those reacting so negatively obviously know nothing about him or about his scholarship. I think it is one of the best acronyms I've heard yet, and certainly plan to use it in my classes. Moral: before defending your Yankeehood so vehemently, seek enlightenment. Presumably that is what ADS and ADS-L are about. Now of course Don Lance and I know where the purest English is spoken. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 27 Mar 1994 to 28 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 9 messages totalling 148 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Clinton's speech 2. Wisconsin accent (6) 3. reporter 4. SWINE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 08:32:21 EST From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU Subject: Re: Clinton's speech THE DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS Tell this to your reporter: Clinton's aphoristic description of the trouble involved in working out the details of a massive public policy is a clever allusion to medieval rewordings of ancient Germanic sayings about Loki and his other Teutonic analogues. In the account of the Ragnarokr in the *Voluspa*, a wolf comes to eat the moon, a wolf that appears when Loki, the monsters, and the giants come to destroy Asgard. According to Jacob Grimm (*Teutonic Mythology*, trans. J. S. Stallybrass [London: W. Swan Sonnenschein & Allen, 1980], 244-46), Loki's name was replaced with that of the devil in sayings about the chaos at the end of the world, with the result that nineteenth-century Germans still said "the devil is broken loose" as the medieval Norse said "Loki er or bo"ndum" or as Detmar said in his chronik 1, 298 "do was de duvel los geworden." Although the Aesir fall to the monsters in the Ragnarokr, the *Voluspa* does predict a new world of grace and harmony. Clinton, playing perhaps too heavily on his world-class education, is cleverly implying that despite the fall of the world order--or present policy--as we know it, a new world--a new policy--will arise from which the devil (Loki, Saturn, Rush Limbaugh) has been removed or at least returned to his chains. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wayne Glowka Professor of English Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 07:39:28 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Sad to see that Yankees can dish it out, but can't take it. McDavid was a great one for humorous acronyms, and those reacting so negatively obviously know nothing about him or about his scholarship. I think it is one of the I was relieved to see postings like this one because I was beginning to think I was going crazy. When I saw a posting yesterday expressing surprise at the SWINE acronym, my reaction was "Huh??" That's when I decided that I must be missing something in the discussion (quite possible considering how hurriedly I've been reading mail lately). I can't remember whether I ever heard Raven McDavid use the SWINE acronym, but it certainly sounds like him -- and is certainly a good acronym. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 09:11:01 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: reporter A bit more info on this reporter. It does seem to be a hastily put together and poorly researched piece of work for a slow news week. It does not appear to be a hostile piece making fun of the president. He seems pretty sympathetic towards him and interested in his speech as being indicative of his age-group as well as his region of origin. He says that Clinton's use of long and complex sentences makes him difficult to quote but much more eloquent and better able to express complicated ideas than Bush. He always needed a tape recorder for Clinton, even back in Arkansas (he's been covering him for years). Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 10:53:28 -0500 From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent A word of praise for SWINE acronym, both denotation and connotation, and thanks to the great Raven McD. I will use SWINE hereafter, swelp me. And I am of (don't shoot) impeccably Union Army family. rk ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 14:35:20 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent McDavid's notion of SWINE came out of, among other experiences, his attempts to rent an apartment in Chicago. When he would call, he would be told he'd have to come see it. When he appeared and looked like a white from Greenville SC rather than what his speech had suggested over the phone, the landlord was eager to show him the apartment. Raven had fun with these situations. Irony and humor underlay much of his conversation. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 16:15:49 -0600 From: Larry Davis DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Gawd--you yankees sure don't have much of a sense of humor. I for one, however, certainly feel chastened and will promise to mend my ways. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 18:33:13 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Raven also used to tell the story of going to the University of Michigan and runn9i8ng afoul of a SWINEr who insisted that he (Raven) needed speech remediation. And I think he said the same thing happened to Bob Van Riper. Am I keeping my anecdotes straight? Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 20:58:20 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: SWINE My colleague in the Linguistics Department, Dick Demers, adds the note that "The good thing about SWINE is that it rhymes with STRYN, the English of Australia." --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 20:37:43 -0800 From: THOMAS L CLARK tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Like Kelly, I was bemused when I encountered SWINE in Frazer's "Heartland" book and dee-lighted to learn that Raven is with us yet. Interestingly though, Natalie, quick to take offense when her Mississippi or Missouri (one o'them) is made mock of, seems to like this okay. Well, as Spooner might of said, "if the foo shits..." Cheers, tlc ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 28 Mar 1994 to 29 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 17 messages totalling 371 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. ADS-L Digest - 28 Mar 1994 to 29 Mar 1994 (2) 2. Wisconsin accent 3. Message ("your Name (6) 4. SWINE and cetera 5. Things Ravenesque 6. Popular Expressions (6) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 00:09:25 -0500 From: ALICE FABER FABER%LENNY[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VENUS.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 28 Mar 1994 to 29 Mar 1994 I was delighted to read Wayne Glowka's _mise en scene_ for the supposedly Arkansas expression "The devil is in the details". What the expression had reminded me of is "God is in the details", an aphorism which I have seen variously attributed to Albert Einstein and Mies van der Rohe! So, are these related? Which came first? Etc? Good night, Alice Faber Faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Yalehask.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 00:00:49 -0700 From: Rudy Troike RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 28 Mar 1994 to 29 Mar 1994 Alice-- Look up your collection of Wm. Safire columns--he discussed this at length in one last year. --Rudy Troike (rtroike[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ccit.arizona.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 05:38:35 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent Interestingly though, Natalie, quick to take offense when her Mississippi or Missouri (one o'them) is made mock of, seems to like this okay. Well, as Spooner might of said, "if the foo shits..." Interesting point. I don't really see anything so insulting about an acronym like SWINE -- which, of course, may be proof of the very point you're making. SWINE also seems so very Ravenesque. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Mar 1994 21:05:41 LCL From: Preston Junger preston.junger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WINTERMUTE.UVM.EDU Subject: Message ("your Name ****Basketball Cards**** I recently got into the basketball card business and have many cards to sell. Here are just a few of the great deals available from my business: NOTE: All prices are listed as their going price or less according to Beckett Basketball Monthly. Card Number: Name: Year/Style: Price: Brand: 1 Shaquille O'Neal Rookie (92-93) $15.00 Upper Deck PROMO Shaquille O'Neal Rookie (92-93) $6.00 PROMO PROMO Shaquille O'Neal Rookie (92-93) $6.00 PROMO PROMO Shaquille O'Neal Rookie (92-93) $6.00 PROMO 46 Jim Jackson 93-94 $1.00 Fleer 22 Alonzo Mourning 93-94 $1.75 Fleer 149 Shaquille O'Neal 93-94 $3.00 Fleer 380 Anfernee Hardaway Rookie (93-94) $4.00 Skybox PROMO Shaquille O'Neal Rookie (92-93) $6.00 PROMO PROMO Shaquille O'Neal Rookie (92-93) $6.00 PROMO 28 Michael Jordan 93-94 $2.00 Fleer 11of24 Isiah Thomas 93 All-Star $1.50 Fleer DP24 Sam Casswell 93-94 Draft Pick $2.00 Skybox Also I have a complete set of 93-94 series 1 basketball cards which I will sell for $10.00 *Send e-mail for the latest deals on Skybox, Fleer, Hoops, Stadium Club, Upper Deck, etc wax packs or boxes. -All Prices are negotiable and subject to change NOTE: Quantities are limited so if the card you ordered is already sold your check will be returned upon recievement. To order send a check, including $.50 s&h for each card ordered and $3.00 for sets or other larger items and your order to: Preston Junger 23 Thomas RD Shelburne, VT 05482 Make checks payable to Preston Junger. All orders are packaged and shipped on the same day recieved. Please allow 1-3 weeks for delivery depending on where you live in the U.S. For more information on ordering or anything else call 802-985-8532 or send me e-mail. Preston.Junger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]wintermute.uvm.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 09:40:41 -0500 From: "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr." billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: SWINE and cetera On Tue, 29 Mar 1994 mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU wrote: Raven also used to tell the story of going to the University of Michigan and runn9i8ng afoul of a SWINEr who insisted that he (Raven) needed speech remediation. And I think he said the same thing happened to Bob Van Riper. Am I keeping my anecdotes straight? Tim Frazer I remember Raven talking about C. K. Thomas being subjected to remedial speech class after having moved from Oklahoma to Michigan. The reason Raven originally went to the Linguistic Institute in 1937 in Ann Arbor was that his commandant at the Citadel (I don't know the SWINEosity of the commandant) thought Raven needed remedial training in elocution; once he got there Bernard Bloch picked Raven as a sample informant to demonstrate transcription in an Atlas interview (which demonstrates Raven's non-SWINEosity), and the rest is history. For those of you who have the LAMSAS Handbook, you might just look for the one interview by Bernard Bloch among the Atlas records, including a rather full biog. Having been brought up with SWINE, both in actuality in Milwaukee and in acronymity in Chicago, I can find nothing objectionable about the term. My Georgia students usu. find my Wisconsin monophthongs amusing when we talk about my pronunciation in class, but many of them also testify to their experiences with swinish SWINErs (they usu. just call them Yankees) who have mocked or otherwise denigrated their Southern accents. ****************************************************************************** Bill Kretzschmar Phone: 706-542-2246 Dept. of English FAX: 706-542-2181 University of Georgia Internet: billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hyde.park.uga.edu Athens, GA 30602-6205 Bitnet: wakjengl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:04:19 -0500 From: Ellen Johnson ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Message ("your Name I thought the internet was supposed to be non-commercial. I hope we won't be subjected to junk mail now from people peddling various (and sundry, as my dad would say) commodities. Ellen ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:07:04 EST From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU Subject: Re: Message ("your Name I'm sure the posting Ellen refers to appeared simultaneously on dozens of other nets all equally irrelevant to its "message". At least we haven't received any "Make Money Fast" chain-letter solicitations, or versions of the Neiman-Marcus $250 cookie recipe legend, on ADS-L lately. --Larry ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I thought the internet was supposed to be non-commercial. I hope we won't be subjected to junk mail now from people peddling various (and sundry, as my dad would say) commodities. Ellen ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 11:42:25 EST From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU Subject: Re: Message ("your Name The Nieman-Marcus recipe is making its rounds in my department now. A character named Mr. Death with a sidekick named Mr. Incarnate invaded MEDTEXTL the other day with an advertisement for some kind of electronic magazine full of heavy metal lyrics. The medievalists were not amused, and the list owner called the mainframe guru and had the list access restricted to members, despite the problems of neophytes trying to join with incomplete directions. I personally enjoyed the pronouncements of Mr. Death, but I could also complain about the time-consuming clutter. Our list owner could also restrict this list. Sorry about this clutter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wayne Glowka Professor of English Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 10:42:21 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Message ("your Name I thought the internet was supposed to be non-commercial. I hope we The Internet is actually not a single entity. It's a network of networks, including commerical segments. I'm pretty sure, however, that neither the University of Vermont ( From: Preston Junger preston.junger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WINTERMUTE.UVM.EDU ) ^^^ nor The Vermont Education Network ( Organization: The Vermont Education Network) is in the business of offering net resources to people for selling basketball cards. This is one of the down sides of having our list set up with "SEND=PUBLIC." Since changing that to private would cause various problems (e.g., rejection of messages sent by subscribers if they happened to be using a different machine that day), let's hope that we don't receive enough of this kind of junk mail to need to make any kind of change. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 14:11:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Message ("your Name This is a quick note to let you know that Dennis Preston is not related to Preston Junger and has no basketball cards for sale. (With two scoped knees he can't even play it any more.) Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 14:29:58 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Things Ravenesque On Wed, 30 Mar 1994, Natalie Maynor wrote: SWINE also seems so very Ravenesque. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) A few weeks before he died, Raven was at a dinner when Ed Callary had the NCNS meeting at NIU. Someone talked a long time about working in the coal mines. A woman who had been listening turned to Raven and asked him if he'd ever been in a coal mine. Raven replied "No. But I've been to Cleveland." Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 16:30:55 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Popular Expressions An expression that politicians and newspeople like these days is "X can't walk and chew gum at the same time." Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. WhenI was a kid, back in the 1940s, in Texas, a popular challenge was to ask someone to walk backward while chewing gum and synchronize the steps with chewing action. Not all that easy, but not hard to learn to do. Try it; see what it feels like. When Lyndon Johnson commented that Gerald Ford couldn't chew and walk backward at the same time he was referring to this "test" that kids posed for each other back in Texas several decades earlier. The reporters, not being familiar with the specific reference, removed the word that makes the expression meaningful. I hear the expression often, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that someone can't walk and chew gum at the same time. But then sense isn't uppermost in people's minds when they use "country" expressions, or misuse them. In the original query along this line Ellen had asked about Clinton's "like flies on a junebug." That was misspoken. The saying is "like a hen on a junebug." Ever see a hen go after a bug? Not any longer, not even in Hot Springs at the IQ Zoo where trained chickens do all sorts of tricks. Yes, there is an "IQ Zoo" in Hot Springs (or used to be) where pigs and chickens do humorous tricks. A june bug has a rather hard shell and wouldn't offer much to flies. Flies might go after a tumble bug, but not a june bug. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 18:05:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET Subject: Popular Expressions 'Like a hen on a junebug' (which Don Lance comments on) is kin to a whole bunch of junebug and chicken expressions, all of which, apparently, go back to a set of proverbial expressions of West African origin (with similar expressions all of the Caribbean). My on favorite is 'to have no more chance than a junebug in a chicken coop.' The reporter (or Clinton) had obviously combined one of the many 'flies' expression ('to honey,' 'around a dead horse') with the chicken and junebug one. These mixed proverbialisms were done intentionally a few years back with the then popular sarcastic retorts: 'Does a wild bear shit in the woods,' 'Is the Pope Catholic,' yielding such incredible absurdities as 'Does a wild Pope shit inthe woods' and others which I have forgot. Dennis Preston 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 18:31:03 -0500 From: Robert Kelly kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU Subject: Re: Popular Expressions It is my memory (the sieve of despond) that LBJ spoke about Mr Ford an expression which has been _euphemized_ as "...walk and chew gum." The actual verb (in the {walk} position) was similarly tetraliteral, but malodorously intestinal. It argues a true sap. rk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 19:39:57 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Popular Expressions The reporters, not being familiar with the specific reference, removed the word that makes the expression meaningful. I hear the expression often, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that someone can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I think it makes sense. Somebody who can't walk backwards and chew gum at the same time is not as bad off as somebody who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 21:16:25 -0500 From: Mike Agnes by971[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU Subject: Re: Popular Expressions Don Lance corrects "like flies on a June bug" to "like a hen on a June bug." But wasn't it "like a duck on a June bug" in Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind"? [Truth to tell, I'm more interested in discovering whether my memory accurately goes back 30 years to when I read the book!] Mike Agnes Internet: by971[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cleveland.freenet.edu Bitnet: by971%cleveland.freenet.edu[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cunyvm Fax: 216 579 1255 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Mar 1994 20:36:45 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Popular Expressions But wasn't it "like a duck on a June bug" I started to say a little while ago that "like a duck on a June bug" is the only June bug expression I know, but then I started imagining all kinds of other June bug expressions and got confused. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 29 Mar 1994 to 30 Mar 1994 ************************************************ There are 18 messages totalling 326 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Wisconsin accent 2. Popular Expressions (6) 3. Flies on a junebug? (2) 4. ravenesque vs ravenly vs ravenish 5. Ravenesque, Ravenly, Ravenish 6. walk & chew gum 7. hypercorrection (2) 8. Gum chewing 9. Private languages 10. Pig Latin 11. Re hypercorrection ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 15:03:51 +0700 From: Gwyn Williams gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH Subject: Re: Wisconsin accent On Wed, 30 Mar 1994, Natalie Maynor wrote: SWINE also seems so very Ravenesque. ^^^^^ Interesting. Why not "Ravenly", "Ravenish"? Gwyn Bangkok ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 02:02:20 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Popular Expressions Natalie says it makes sense to say someone can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Is that a realistic characterization of klutziness? It may be hypoerbolic. What Johnson seemed to me to mean about Ford wasn't that Ford was absolutely incompetent (which would be the case in the current expression) but that he was klutzy and would have to work hard at not stumbling when required to do tasks of medium difficulty. The current version of the term is dorky, not colorful -- said by someone who really can't walk and chew gum at the same time unless someone writes out the directions. DMLance ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 06:25:02 -0600 From: Natalie Maynor maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU Subject: Re: Popular Expressions Natalie says it makes sense to say someone can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Is that a realistic characterization of klutziness? It may be hypoerbolic. What Johnson seemed to me to mean about Ford wasn't that Ford was absolutely incompetent (which would be the case in the current I agree that it was probably not exactly what Johnson wanted to say about Ford and that it is not an apt description in many cases. But I do think it makes a kind of sense as an extreme insult. --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 08:03:50 EST From: Wayne Glowka wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU Subject: Re: Popular Expressions From Charlie Poole, the fretless banjo player popular at moonshine dances Status: R in the late twenties and early thirties, a verse from "Soldier's Joy": Grasshopper sittin' on a sweet potater vine, Grasshopper sittin' on a sweet potater vine, Grasshopper sittin' on a sweet potater vine, Along comes a chicken and says "You're mine." The morphophonemics may actually be different on the record, but this is good enough for chickens. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wayne Glowka Professor of English Georgia College Milledgeville, GA 31061 912-453-4222 wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 22:16:17 GMT From: "Warren A. Brewer" NCUT054[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TWNMOE10.BITNET Subject: Flies on a junebug? ... like flies on a junebug. sounds to me like a euphemistic blend, for ... like flies on fresh horseshit. Is this a correct analysis? Is the bear Catholic? (The latter taken as a "speech error" by Fromkin.) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 09:02:40 CST From: Andrew White-Kennard C521527[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET Subject: Re: Flies on a junebug? Please remove me from this list. Thanks ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 09:13:22 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: ravenesque vs ravenly vs ravenish I think ravenesque lookes better cause the three e's create eye rhyme. Also I think the /e/-/E/ alternation is good for some reason. Theres a paper somewhere on alternating vowel pairs in poetics. Anyone remember it? Did Andre Martinet write about that? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 09:16:00 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: Ravenesque, Ravenly, Ravenish Gwyn, I think Ravenesque is better because we have a nice eye rhyme with the three e's. Also for some reason I think the /e/-/E/ contrast is good. Somewhere there's a paper on vowel contrasts in poetics. I wonder where I saw it. Anyone remember? Tim ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 09:40:47 CST From: Mike Picone MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET Subject: walk & chew gum Though Clinton, a son of the South, did better in Alabama than many expected, the state went to Bush and most folk still deride Clinton. The can't-walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time snub has been incorporated into the following dig: Reporter: Mrs. Clinton, do you and the President believe in birth control? Hillary: Yes, we do. Reporter: What form do you practice? Hillary: Oh, I just give Bill a stick of gum before we go to bed. Mike Picone ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 11:25:23 -0500 From: 00v0horvath[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BSUVAX1.BITNET Subject: hypercorrection Dear ADS-L-ers: I am trying to compile a list of "hypercorrect" errors in written American English. Here are some points on which I could use your help: 1) Can you direct me to any studies on hypercorrection in written usage? 2) Would you consider the following sentences hypercorrect? (Which, if any, are the ones that would not qualify and why?) Everybody knows Nancy and I. This sugar substitute has fewer aftertaste than the other one. They rent the car to whomever needs it. Between you and I, that movie was very bad. Team's of doctors are trying to predict who might be most harmed by cholesterol. 3) (this is the funniest part of my query, I guess) Could you give any additional examples of hypercorrection in *written* English usage? Thanks in advance. Vera Horvath ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 11:33:31 CST From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: Re: Popular Expressions In Message Wed, 30 Mar 1994 16:30:55 CST, "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mizzou1.bitnet writes: An expression that politicians and newspeople like these days is "X can't walk and chew gum at the same time." Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I think the beauty of the expression, even if it is a folk variation of Lyndon's original, is that it captures the essence: a person who can't do something phenomenally simple. Like finding something with both hands in the dark. Isn't one aspect of linguistic change making sense out of something that "doesn't make a whole lot of sense"? And is this really the origin of the phrase? But then, don't mind me, I'm only the one who innocently asked if you all could ever be singular. Dennis --- debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ ____________ Department of English / '| ()___________) University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ 608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\ (__) ()___________) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 11:33:34 CST From: Dennis Baron debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU Subject: Re: Popular Expressions In Message Wed, 30 Mar 1994 18:05:00 EST, "Dennis.Preston" 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet writes: ' yielding such incredible absurdities as 'Does a wild Pope shit inthe woods' and others which I have forgot. The lead in line is, "Is the bear Catholic?" The follow up line is usu. left unsaid, even to the humor-challenged. (the other) Dennis -- debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu (\ 217-333-2392 \'\ fax: 217-333-4321 Dennis Baron \'\ ____________ Department of English / '| ()___________) University of Illinois \ '/ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ 608 South Wright St. \ \ ~~~~~~~~~ \ Urbana, IL 61801 ==). \ __________\ (__) ()___________) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 10:52:11 -0600 From: mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU Subject: Re: hypercorrection 2) Would you consider the following sentences hypercorrect? (Which, if any, are the ones that would not qualify and why?) Everybody knows Nancy and I. This sugar substitute has fewer aftertaste than the other one. They rent the car to whomever needs it. Between you and I, that movie was very bad. Team's of doctors are trying to predict who might be most harmed by cholesterol. You and I, nancy and I are hyperc. So is the whomever one. Dunno about the others. Tim Frazer ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 11:46:37 EST From: Mark Ingram MAINGR01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UKCC.UKY.EDU Subject: Gum chewing Regarding the fascinating discussion about politicians who can chew gum and walk simultaneously, (sounds like a bad Monty Python sketch :-)), didn't LBJ actually say something CRUDER than "walk"? Not wishing to offend the readers of this list, I will only suggest that Lyndon used more colorful language to describe the activity involved. I can't document this but maybe someone else can. I can easily imagine LBJ using barnyard terms for comical effect. It also is more insulting. :-) Mark Ingram, Lexington, Ky. maingr01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ukcc.uky.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 09:34:14 -0800 From: Roger Vanderveen rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM Subject: Re: Popular Expressions A little bit off the track, but I enjoyed it: A few years ago some MIT students were insulted by allegations that they couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. Rather than retaliate, they turned the other cheek by replacing the glass in the "WALK/WAIT" signal at a pedestrian crossing, so that it read "WALK" or "CHEW". Also, about mixing expressions, my brother used to ask (in the early 80s): "Is the pope Polish?" Roger ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 16:57:42 EST From: Allan Metcalf aallan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Private languages Is anyone expert on private languages - e.g. Pig Latin, twin language, Boontling, Cockney slang? Or are there any good studies of private languages, especially the first two sorts? Offhand I can't think of any, aside from routine mention in textbooks. A reporter from New Jersey has inquired about this. It revealed a gap in my knowledge. I said I'd ask around. (I see reporters as opportunity, not nuisance. But that's another story.) Thanks very much. Allan Metcalf AALLAN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 19:54:06 -0500 From: Martha Howard UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU Subject: Pig Latin To Allen Metcalf: oday ouya antway elpha ithway igpay atinlay oray oday ouya antway otay earnlay otay alktay igpay atinlay? owhay idday ouya alktay ithway outay ourya arentspay underay andstay ingay atwhay ouya ereway ayingsay? This is obviously meant to be an oral, not written language. I have evernay itrayd otay itewray itay eblay orfay. ardhay! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 31 Mar 1994 20:36:10 EST From: Allan Metcalf aallan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM Subject: Re hypercorrection As always, start with *Webster's dictionary of English Usage* (M-W 1989), in this case s.v. *hypercorrection*. - Allan Metcalf ------------------------------ End of ADS-L Digest - 30 Mar 1994 to 31 Mar 1994 ************************************************ .