Date:  Mon, 12 Dec 1994 16:58:28 -0500

From:  Donald Larmouth <LARMOUTD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GBMS01.UWGB.EDU>

Subject: Re: Green Bay



It's hard in this town not to get caught up in the collective giddiness that

comes along with the Bears game--and that may be too polite a term for it.

However, by Monday afternoon I'm usually back in my lonely position as a last-

ditch Vikings fan (of course, I'm really a Bud Grant fan, and we'll not see his

like again any time soon).



However (to keep this a legitimate ADS-L exchange) it is also a time for some

self-affirming pronunciations--one sees assorted versions of "Beat Da Bears"

signs around town (often in bars, of which we have a great many), asserting the

negative prestige of the apico-dental variants for the interdentals. (Note: I

have never seen a "Beat De Bears" sign, a spelling which I think would be

associated with AAVE by way of the Uncle Remus stories, and it wasn't that long

ago that virtually the only African-Americans in Green Bay were football

players or their families.) I did see a "Beat Duh Bears" sign once, but I think

it was intended to be pejorative to the Bears fans, not a self-affirming form,

since it included a cartoon of a very stupid-looking Bears fan--with a

doubtless unintended but still striking resemblance to many Packer fans of a

Sunday afternoon.