Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 13:45:58 CDT

From: "Donald M. Lance" ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIZZOU1.BITNET

Subject: Re: Gum chewing



Thanks, Mark, for your response on LBJ. A year or so ago there was a

special program on LBJ with all his cronies talking about Johnson's

politics, his arm-twisting, his language, his successes, his failures.

Some of the coarse language got through unbleeped -- i.e., his friends

quoting him. One such comment had to do with "political bedfellows" and

farting under the sheets. I s'pose someone could do a fair project on

LBJ's language by listening to the tapes in the LBJ Library in Austin.

I caught only a portion of the LBJ special. It was interesting that

those who were on the spot in earlier events told stories that don't wuite

match what we now "know."



This interchange touched off by reactions to a reference to SWINE have

demonstrated something we try to teach in dialects classes -- that EVERYONE

has personal responses to others' speech, even scholarly dialectologists.

I might make some snide remark about squealing like stuck pigs, but I

won't. If you haven't participated in the old hog-killin' activities,

you can't fully appreciate that expression.

DMLance