There are 2 messages totalling 38 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Variation in AAVE (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 31 Dec 1993 23:50:38 CST

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

Subject: Variation in AAVE



P.S. Those who've asked about regional variation in African American

Vernacular English must read Guy Bailey's article in Dennis Preston's new

volume on research on language variation -- AMERICAN DIALECT RESEARCH (John

Benjamins, 1993). The article doesn't give you "final answers" but

demonstrates why the question is a very complex one. Guy also covers

the 'divergence' issue, and he refers to the essentail bibliography.

John Baugh's 'urban' / 'rural' distinction is at the core of what's been

happening in AAVE in the speech of speakers born after World War II.

                         DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 1 Jan 1994 10:39:42 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: Variation in AAVE



Thanks to Don Lance for the Guy Bailey reference. When I was living in

Urbana, Illinois, it was very obvious to hear differences between "natives"

and those who (or whose families) had moved up from the Lower Mississippi

River and settled out enroute to Chicago. Urbana/Champaign would be a very

good spot to do a full community study (something I was too tied up with other

things at the time to consider). As James Sledd long ago noted, there have

always been social differences in the speech of AA communities, but these have

been inadequately explored as well. If one could gain access, a fascinating

group to study would be the old upper-class AA community in the Washington, DC

area, which was highly closed but very significant. Migration to the cities

is creating an rural/urban split in AA and Anglo communities both, but it will

be useful to rescue evidence of older arrangements before these are totally

subordinated to the rural/urban distinction.

    Happy New Year, y'all

        --Rudy Troike



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End of ADS-L Digest - 31 Dec 1993 to 1 Jan 1994

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There are 2 messages totalling 59 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Regional variation in BE

 2. Headache



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 2 Jan 1994 08:00:53 -0600

From:  Natalie Maynor  maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU 

Subject: Re: Regional variation in BE



  Another items was

  evidence that older speakers in Texas had the /IN/:/EN/ distinction, but that

  it had been lost among younger speakers. This evidence considerably confounds

  the view that the lack of the distinction is an original diagnostic of BE.



Research that Guy Bailey and I did in Texas and Mississippi in the early

'80s (some of it from tapes made earlier than that) found more such evidence.

We found the /In/:/En/ distinction present among older speakers regardless

of race and absent among younger speakers regardless of race.

  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)

   (behind in mail)



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 2 Jan 1994 14:46:17 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Headache



For: Gwyn Williams and anyone else interested in Aches (Happy New Year!)



    Gwyn asked on Dec. 23 re a Thai pronunciation of  ache  and  stomach 

with [tS] rather than [k]. As in all such issues, I followed the example set

by my mentor in Old English (at UTexas), Rudolph Willard, and consulted the

venerable OED. A good habit to cultivate. It makes clear that the /k/ in the

verb is original from OE  acan , but the noun is derivative and was OE  ace .

The latter palatalized in the South, as expected (cf. church, ditch -- note not

only before a front vowel), and in Shakespeare is clearly pronounced that way,

even punning with the name of the letter H. However, for whatever reason,

the unpalatalized Northern /k/ form spread south, and replaced the palatal /C/,

which remained reflected in the spelling. Somehow the Southern spelling for

the noun spread to the verb, which had always been /k/. So the spelling is

now a fossil of a reversed (or better, overrun) sound-change.  stomach  was

originally spelled with  k  or  ck , having been borrowed through Latin and

Old French, but apparently the change in spelling to  ch  resulted from the

Renaissance re-introduction to Greek, and the realization that the trans-

literation  ch  should represent the Greek /x/, proving of course that a

little learning is a dangerous thing.

    A colleague of mine, who is a near-native speaker of OE, Carl Berkhout,

says that he occasionally hears the palatized pronunciation in England, but

has the impression that it is more idiolectal than regional or social. This

strengthens the probability that it is just a spelling-pronunciation. Even

by OED times, the palatalized pronunciation was reported as highly marginalized

and had become voiced, with  head-ache  becoming "eddage". It is possible,

of course, that some early British expatriate who had this idiosyncratic usage

was, like Anna, the founder of a tradition that has been passed down in the

system. Such things do happen.

    The moral is, keep your OED handy; you never know when it will be

useful in settling a question. And condition your students to do likewise

(supplemented where appropriate by DARE, of course).

    Otra vez, Happy New Year and Xin Nian Kwai Le, you-all.



                    --Rudy Troike



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End of ADS-L Digest - 1 Jan 1994 to 2 Jan 1994

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There is one message totalling 31 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Headache



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 3 Jan 1994 15:04:14 +0700

From:  Gwyn Williams  gwyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPIED.TU.AC.TH 

Subject: Re: Headache



 Many thanks for Rudy's detailed reply to my query on the origin of the

Thai and Hong Kong pronunciations of "ache" as [tS]. I likewise dug up and

dusted off the main library's (1965!) OED. Cough! Splutter! Imagine a

university library without air-conditioning in the world's worst polluted

city, Bangkok :-( One of the unannounced dangers of linguistics :-)



 So we know that "ache" is derived from two crossed lineages:

pronunciation from a non-palatalized verb form and spelling from a

palatalized noun form. Most interesting.



  by OED times, the palatalized pronunciation was reported as highly marginalized

  and had become voiced, with  head-ache  becoming "eddage". It is possible,

  of course, that some early British expatriate who had this idiosyncratic usage

  was, like Anna, the founder of a tradition that has been passed down in the

  system. Such things do happen.



 Yes, it is indeed very possible, considering the very limited spread of

English in Thailand until recent times. There are many

such "institutionalized" pronunciations in Thai English. The next step is

to ascertain the point of entry into Thailand.



Thanks,



Gwyn



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End of ADS-L Digest - 2 Jan 1994 to 3 Jan 1994

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There is one message totalling 32 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. ads at NCTE



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 4 Jan 1994 15:45:13 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: ads at NCTE



Allan Metcalf has asked me to organize the ADS session at NCTE in

Orlando next fall (Nov. 18-21 1994). There will be a call for papers

in the January ADS Newsletter, but that won't be out until the end of

the month. In the mean time, I've offered to put this notice on the

NET. (BTW, Allan says he hopes to be networked in about a month)



The past 2 NCTE ADS sessions, both on Taboo words and the classroom,

were very well attended. Since some of our work is too specialized

to attract a good NCTE crowd, Allan and I felt it would be important

to pick a session theme that will ensure a good audience. Possibilities

include something on sexism or slang, but I am drawn to the issue of

politically correct language: our membership and NCTE attendees should

both have a lot to say on the subject. (Anybody see the front page

article on PC signing in yesterday's NY Times?)



Anyway, please send your topics/abstracts to me as soon as possible. NCTE

gives a Jan. 12 deadline, but we can have some extra time to get them

our list of speakers.



BTW, nobody sent me a summary of the New Words session in Toronto, but

I did my commentary on information superhighway nonetheless! Must be

in the air.



(the other) Dennis

--



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There is one message totalling 14 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. A newcomer



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 9 Jan 1994 21:16:20 EST

From:  Allan Metcalf  aallan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 

Subject: A newcomer



At long last the administrative headquarters of ADS is

connected to ADS-L. You will have to pardon my lack of acquaintance with

protocol etc. When I figure out how to upload files, I'll post some items

from the coming ADS newsletter. In the meantime, if you have anything for the

newsletter, let me know. G

oing to press? maybe at the end of the month.

No wonder "information superhighway" turned out to be our phrase of the year.



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 4 Jan 1994 to 9 Jan 1994

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There are 2 messages totalling 51 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. CALL FOR PAPERS

 2. Tim Frazier's address



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 10 Jan 1994 15:08:51 -0600

From:  Joan Livingston-Webber  webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU 

Subject: CALL FOR PAPERS



For the list and the newsletter. Thanks. Repost or forward

as you like.





             CALL FOR PAPERS



         36th Annual M/MLA Convention

        Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL

            Nov. 11-13, 1994





     Associated Meeting: American Dialect Society



              OPEN TOPIC





   Proposals are invited for papers. Send 1-2- page proposals

by March 28, 1994

to:

           Joan Livingston-Webber

           Department of English

             60th and Dodge

         University of Nebraska at Omaha

            Omaha, NE 68182



E-mail ASCII proposals to: webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]unomaha.edu

--

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:  Mon, 10 Jan 1994 17:15:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Tim Frazier's address



I recently sent Tim Frazier (Tim, are you here?) material about

need/want + past participle, but now I wonder whether I have the

correct email address.

Would someone please post me Tim's address? Thanks



beth simon

blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 9 Jan 1994 to 10 Jan 1994

***********************************************







There are 8 messages totalling 359 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. New Words of the Year (2)

 2. retroflex r (4)

 3. new words

 4. New Words



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 11 Jan 1994 01:46:45 EST

From:  Allan Metcalf  aallan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 

Subject: New Words of the Year



In spirited discussion and vigorous voting late in the afternoon of Dec. 29,

at the American Dialect Society annual meeting in Toronto, members and

friends chose the following words and phrases as best typifying the year

1993:

1. Most useful: "thing" as a noun postmodifier, e.g. a Chicago thing, a Bla

ck thing, a PR thing, a Friday thing, a World Series thing. . . .

2. Most unnecessary: "mosa

ic culture" to describe a heterogeneous, multicultural society [Algeo nom.]

3. Most likely to succe

ed: quotative "like" - not the emphatic "like" of hip conversation of years

gone by (the

 media confuse it with this), but "like" with a form of "be" to indicate

speech or th

ought: I'm like, This can't be happening. She's like, O yes it is. [R. Bailey

nom.]

4. Most

 outrageous: "whirlpooling" assault of a female by a group, usually male, in

a swimming pool

while they churn the water as a distraction [Algeo nom.]

5. Most amazing: "cybersex" sexual sti

mulation by computer transmitted stimuli [Algeo nom.]

6. Most imaginative: "McJob" (sp?) a g

eneric, unstimulating, low-paying job taken for lack of better opportunities

7. Most euphemistic: "s

treet builder" homeless person who constructs a shanty [Barnhart nom.]

8. Most unpronounceable: "

Jurassosaurus nedegoapeferkimorum" a new dinosaur [Barnhart nom.]

9. Word or phrase of the y

ear: "information superhighway" system of communication linking computers by

fiber-optic cable [so Algeo; I think the term is also used more broadly]

As you can see, our categories changed from pr

evious years; that's because our two expert nominators invented new

categories. We could have had

 more, but I think we'll go back to just six categories plus an overall

word-of-the-year next time, because six-plus-one is about as much discussion

and voting as the group can comfortably stand.

Also, it

was not clear whether the WOTY could be one of the previous winners or had to

be different. For

'94, I think we should say that WOTY should be chosen from one of the six

category winners. So what do you think?

Preliminary suggestions for 1994 will be welcome for the end-of-January

Newsletter of the American Dialect Society.

Also, all ye who wish to attend our San Diego meeting in the finest

surroundings ever, you can make your reservations right now by phoning Le

Meridien San Diego (at Coronado), 619/435-3000, ask for American Dialect

Society rate of $95 for king or double-double; rate is good Dec. 26-Jan. 1

and for as much as 3 days before or after. Later announcements will explain

why this is such a good deal. But I mention this now because our block was

filled in Toronto and last-minute would-be fellow-trav

elers couldn't get space at our rates.

Is this maybe long enough for my first public service announcement? - Allan

Metcalf]



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 11 Jan 1994 06:48:01 -0600

From:  Natalie Maynor  maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU 

Subject: Re: New Words of the Year



  Is this maybe long enough for my first public service announcement? - Allan



Excellent announcement. And welcome to the list at last!



One reason I'm replying is that I noticed an oddity in the "Reply-To" line

in the headers and thought I'd point it out in case some of you didn't

notice. Allan's system is set in such a way that replies to messages he

sends to the list will go just to him, not to the whole list. This reply

is going to the whole list because I changed the 'to' line from Allan's

address to the ads-l address.



Why is everybody so quiet this week? Allan's going to think I was making

it up when I told him there had been interesting list discussion lately.

  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 11 Jan 1994 10:13:18 EST

From:  "Joseph C. Salmons"  salmons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACE.CC.PURDUE.EDU 

Subject: retroflex r



=Why is everybody so quiet this week?

=  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)

=

Well, maybe that's enough reason to ask an idle question:

What's the distribution, areal and/or social, of retroflex

vs. non-retroflex r in American English? Teaching in north

central Indiana, I hear both but don't see any obvious

pattern.



joe salmons (salmons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mace.cc.purdue.edu)



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 11 Jan 1994 10:44:42 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: new words



Adding to Allan's wonderful summary, I am posting a copy of Matt Groening's

"Life in Hell" panel which appeared in our student newspaper today

(but is dated 1-7-94):



Forbidden Words 1994



BARNEY

(BLAMING) BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD

BEEPER

BOBBITT

BUBBA

BUTTAFUOCO

CAMCORDER

CARJACK

CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED

CYBERPUNK

CYBERSPACE

CYBER ANYTHING

DISNEY'S AMERICA

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL

500-CHANNEL TELEVISION

FORBIDDEN WORDS

GANGSTA

GATT

INFOMERCIAL

INFOTAINMENT

INTERACTIVE TELEVISION

JUST DO IT

KIDVID

KUDOS

NAFTA

NARROWCASTING

NERD

PERSONAL DIGITAL ASSISTANT

POLITICALLY CORRECT

POLITICALLY INCORRECT

POSITIVE VALUES

QUALITY

QVC

ROCK 'N' ROLL HALL OF FAME

SLIMLINE

SMART DRINKS

STOP THE INSANITY

SUCKS

TELEVISION VIOLENCE

TOON

UBIQUITOUS

ULTIMATE

VIRTUAL REALITY

WHAT'S HOT AND WHAT'S NOT

--

END OF LIST

--

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, 11 Jan 1994 10:49:53 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: New Words



Now here's my contribution--, to appear in the Chicago Tribune probably

this week.



--

         The Best Words of 1993







            Dennis Baron





With the coming of each new year we are subjected to a

barrage of retrospective glimpses of the year gone by, on

the offchance that rehashing the top political scandals, the

worst movies, the most sociopathic celebrities, and of

course the most celebrated murderers, will somehow help us fit

our own humdrum lives into the overall scheme of things for

one more year.

   In case you haven't had enough of the ten grossest box

office successes of 1993, or its ten rainiest days, or its

ten worst-performing mutual funds, here is my annual list of

the best words of last year. After all the end-of-year

summing up, and the football, which goes on and on, if we

are still in a mood to take stock of the past, one good way

to discover what a year meant is to look at the meanings of

its words.

   One new word for 1993 was actually a revival, or

perhaps remake would be the better term. The "ATF": it's

not the machine where you get ready cash, it's

the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a division of

the Treasury Department that had been forgotten since 1971,

when David Janssen portrayed "O'Hara, U.S. Treasury" on

television. (An earlier series based on the still-busting,

tax-collecting exploits of the T-persons, "Treasury Men in

Action," ran from 1950 to 1955.) Anyway, the ATF made news

when it bumped up against the Branch Davidians, a sect whose

name is as lucid as its beliefs.

   Another word back in the spotlight after two decades of

low ratings is "warlord," a term first used in 1856 to

translate the German word for Emperor. It was later applied

to regional Chinese rulers, and then to Indonesian factions

and squabbles among Palestinian leaders. Now it refers to

politics in Somalia. It has always been a negative term.

When warlords become really successful we call them

presidential hopefuls. And we send them foreign aid.

   Which brings us to another word, popular in any year,

"democracy." In 1993 democracy got a new twist in Russia,

where it came to mean the freedom to elect leaders who

advocate the end of democratic rule. But then, Russia has

been doing this for years.

   Here at home, there's a group intent on ending language

democracy: these intellectual survivalists, holed out in an

isolated university in northern Michigan, oppose gun control

while they lobby for word control. They would ban from the

language such overused but no longer profitable words as

"paradigm" and "dysfunctional." Or at least impose a

five-day waiting period before you can actually say paradigm

in a sentence.

   It wasn't terrorists last year but our own

democratically-elected Congress that pronounced dead the

unpronounceable "Superconducting Supercollider." Americans,

who spend billions annually on New Age books, music, tofu

and crystals in order to understand the mysteries of the

universe, made it clear they didn't want to spend billions

on science in order to understand the mysteries of the

universe.

   1993 was ultimately the "Year of the Computer." And

the computer word of the year without question was

"Internet," the gigantic, loosely coordinated world-wide

network of personal computers, mainframes and phone lines

that allows millions of people to exchange vital research

and data, to play games when the boss isn't looking, and to

engage in "virtual" relationships, not relationships full of virtue,

but ones which are lifelike but just pretend.

   The Internet, heralded by some visionaries as offering

a "paradigm shift" in human consciousness, allows us to

communicate around the globe from the privacy of our home

computer workstations, and in the workplace it promises to

replace telephone tag with email tag. Have your machine

call my machine.

   Another computer term which was "way big" in '93 was

"the information superhighway." This phrase, used mostly by

politicians and reporters, refers to the limitless

possibilities that will be on offer when our TVs, computers,

and telephones are intertwined in complex, visionary new

fiber-optic ways that will make the Internet look like old

Route 66. The information superhighway has spawned a vast

array of metaphors, as people imagine on and off ramps,

telecommuting to work, public vs. private transportation,

gas stations and rest stops, highway beautification, and of

course the inevitable potholes, toll plazas, gridlock and

air pollution.

   No one on the Internet talks about the information

superhighway. The term is beneath the notice of the true hackers.

So far as I can gather, all the information superhighway means so far

is 500+ cable channels, which means more home shopping, which means more

packages left at your front door by UPS to be rained on or

torn apart by wolves.

   I noticed, by the way, while I was channel surfing last

week, that "O'Hara, U.S. Treasury" is back on cable. Like

many Americans, you may have trouble programming a VCR now,

but that's nothing--just you wait till they build that 500

channel information superhighway right through the middle of

your living room. Then you'll really be dysfunctional. But

you will be able to call O'Hara with your remote control,

and if you press "1" on your Touch-Tone phone he will come

over and personally deliver your income tax refund. But

don't press "2," or he'll lob tear gas through your window.



__________

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, 11 Jan 1994 10:55:43 -0500

From:  Keith Denning  denning[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EMUNIX.EMICH.EDU 

Subject: Re: retroflex r



Joe-

According to D.A.R.E., vol. I, p.xl-xli, you will find a band of curved band

about 650 miles wide of non- or lessened retroflexion of /r/ stretching from

central and southern TX upwards through NM, AZ, southwest CO, UT, NV,northeast

OR, southwest ID and most of WA, and another blanketing the Dakotas. Other

r-full areas (i.e., those other than the Eastern and Gulf coasts) are described

as having 'full retroflexion'.



Keith



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 11 Jan 1994 20:24:08 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: retroflex r



On Tue, 11 Jan 1994, Joseph C. Salmons wrote:



  =Why is everybody so quiet this week?

  =  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)

  =

  Well, maybe that's enough reason to ask an idle question:

  What's the distribution, areal and/or social, of retroflex

  vs. non-retroflex r in American English? Teaching in north

  central Indiana, I hear both but don't see any obvious

  pattern.

 

  joe salmons (salmons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mace.cc.purdue.edu)

 

I would guess that you are talking about /r/ after vowels. In the Inland

North /r/ usually has a velar constriction. In western PA and I suspect

in much of what some of called the "Midland" dialect area, that same /r/

is more strongly constricted; it is often retroflex (more or less

apico-alveolar) with dorsovlear coarticulation. I would guess that in

the lower midwest the strongly constricted version patterns along

the the center of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; I would expect it to be

more rural than urban, though that is only a guess. I have also heard

the strongly contricted version in much South Midland speech. The

feature is discussed in Kurath and McDavid, Pronunciation of English in

the Atlantic States (UAP 1982), and in Frazer, Midland Illinois Dialect

Patterns, PADS #73.



Joe, are you in Indianapolis? If so, it's not surpirsing you hear both

varieties.



Tim Frazer



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 11 Jan 1994 20:38:35 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: retroflex r



In answering Joe Salmon, I'm not sure that Keith and I are talking about

the same thing.



Tim F



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 10 Jan 1994 to 11 Jan 1994

************************************************







There is one message totalling 23 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. consonantal /r/



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 13 Jan 1994 09:44:10 -0500

From:  Ellen Johnson  ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]HYDE.PARK.UGA.EDU 

Subject: consonantal /r/



Back in June, Bill Kretzschmar and I gave a paper at the Assoc. for

Literary and Ling. Computing using an analysis of postvocalic /r/ from

the LAMSAS records as a demonstration. We distinguished /r/s in 2 ways:

 retroflex vs.

non-retroflex (non- being those places, e.g. Deep South "lacking"

postvocalic /r/) and vocalic vs. consonantal. The latter distinguishes

between the "hooked-schwa" and the true consonant. Consonantal /r/ is

found along the Eastern Seaboard in 2 areas in Pennsylvania. Our

computer analysis validated the description of distribution in PEAS. The

two areas have very different /r/s, however. The PA German-influenced

area of SE PA is a "weak velar fricative", while the "apical" /r/ under

discussion here is found in an area centered around Pittsburgh and

extending to the west out of the LAMSAS region.



Ellen Johnson

ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Jan 1994 to 13 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 3 messages totalling 73 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. consonantal /r/ (2)

 2. Cathy Ball's address



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 14 Jan 1994 00:19:16 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: consonantal /r/



    It is curious, when you think about the extensive Scottish, Scotch-

Irish, and Irish immigration to various parts of the Eastern States at

various times (and in the 1840s, in massive numbers), not to find equally

extensive occurrence of post-vocalic consonantal /r/. Particularly given

some of the isolation in Appalachia, it is surprising that some did not

survive or even prevail.

            --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 14 Jan 1994 09:40:00 CDT

From:  JOAN H HALL  JOANHALL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Cathy Ball's address



Would someone please send me Cathy Ball's address, or, Cathy, if

you're listening, please contact me? Thanks. Joanhall[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 14 Jan 1994 22:16:58 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: consonantal /r/



On Fri, 14 Jan 1994, Rudy Troike wrote:



      It is curious, when you think about the extensive Scottish, Scotch-

  Irish, and Irish immigration to various parts of the Eastern States at

  various times (and in the 1840s, in massive numbers), not to find equally

  extensive occurrence of post-vocalic consonantal /r/. Particularly given

  some of the isolation in Appalachia, it is surprising that some did not

  survive or even prevail.

              --Rudy Troike

 

Rudi,



I wonder if p-vc /r/ is in fact more widespread than the LAMSAS data

would suggest. In PADS #73 I charted [r] in "barn" through Illinois,

using both LANCS records and DARE recordings of "Arthur the Rat." (101,

fig. 61). 7 of twenty-odd DARE informants had the consonantal /r/,

somewhere between 25 to 33% I did not find any instances in the DARE

records. I get very nervous if I compare my fieldwork with Ravens or

some of the other Atlas people, but one difference may bethat pvc/r/ is

marked or stigmatized and hence less likely to occur in the single-word

LANCS elicitations than the extended reading for Arthur. It does seem

like I hear this feature more often on the streets of rural Illinois

than even my map would suggest. And I think I hear it fairly often on TV.

Like I said in my earlier posting, it seems like many upland southerners

have it. Doesn't Willie Nelson?



The feature may be stigmatized too because it competes everywhere with

the velar allophone, which has the stamp of being Inland Northern.

I don't, for example, think my friend Joan L-W has this feature, even

though she's from the Pittsburgh area, because she has been in academe

for so many years. I have never heard [r] form anyone in a

suit, as far as I can remember.



I should look up the LANCS responses for "thirty," which on the PEASE map.

There the [r] may be entirely conditioned. But my microfilm reader is

out in the garage and it's about 20 below out there tonite.



In any case, [r] is certainly suggestive of both a dialect region and

dialect which is not quite Northern or Southern, and in which Scotch,

Irish, or Scotch-Irish may have played a significant role, cf the

postings on "Midland" regionalisms last month.



Tim Frazer



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 13 Jan 1994 to 14 Jan 1994

************************************************







There is one message totalling 22 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. consonantal /r/



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 15 Jan 1994 00:34:50 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: consonantal /r/



Tim--

    I hate to tell you it was 76 today, going down into the chilly 40s

tonight! You know I empathize, though. You have a better ear than I for

the velar:retroflex contrast. I used to regularly teach a course on

phonetics, but always felt that these were two different ways to tune the

oral cavity, producing essentially the same acoustic product, and might be

randomly distributed in the population. Your observations re regional

differentiation are interesting.

    I was thinking more of the strong consonantal postvocalic /r/ which

is sometimes characterized as a "Scottish burr", which might vary from a trill

to a brief apical closure. Clearly the vocalized /r/ is a relatively recent

innovation in English history, as comparative Germanic evidence indicates, as

well as internal evidence like metathesis and rhotacism.

    Stay warm. You can think of us next summer when it is 110 here.

            --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 14 Jan 1994 to 15 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 2 messages totalling 47 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. "Leave Out"? (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 16 Jan 1994 09:56:26 -0600

From:  Natalie Maynor  maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU 

Subject: "Leave Out"?



The following is part of a discussion on WORDS-L. Do any of you have

comments? If you do comment, please let me know if it's ok for me to

forward your comments to WORDS-L. And if that's ok, would you prefer

for me to remove your name/address or leave it? (I will delete the

ADS-L header since I don't want to promote ADS-L on lists as huge as

WORDS-L -- huge because of the usenet gateway.)



Somebody from Texas:



       news describing a robbery/shooting said "The robber *left out* before

       anybody in the neighboring shops could get there." That used to be much

       more common..."We're going to leave out before daylight." Can't remember

       the last time I heard anyone say it before tonight.



Me (a Mississippian):



     I don't remember ever having heard it.



Response from the Texan:



   Maybe it's just common to that little Anderson County pocket of East

   Texas where I grew up, then.



Somebody from Kentucky (with Mississippi connections):



  No, I've heard 'leave out' in this meaning all my life, although it's

  not a broadcast quality construction. DARE might have something to

  say on this.



  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 16 Jan 1994 17:13:21 +0500

From:  "Connie C. Eble"  cceble[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GIBBS.OIT.UNC.EDU 

Subject: Re: "Leave Out"?



I grew up in southern Louisiana, and leave out in that construction sounds

strange to me. I don't recall having heard it in North Carolina either.

                     Connie Eble



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 15 Jan 1994 to 16 Jan 1994

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There are 5 messages totalling 74 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. "Leave Out"?

 2. A Painful Case (apologies to JJo

 3.  No subject given  (3)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 17 Jan 1994 13:10:34 -0500

From:  Tom  STEPHENS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ZODIAC.RUTGERS.EDU 

Subject: Re: "Leave Out"?



I grew up in n.w. SC, and "leave out" sounds completely normal to me,

as does "head out."



Tom Stephens

Rutgers University



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 17 Jan 1994 15:03:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston"  22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET 

Subject: A Painful Case (apologies to JJo



Tom,

I have lost Mr. Juengling's address and hope you will forward this to him. We

would be delighted to consider him as an applicant in Linguistics at MSU. We

have people interested in his topics and (from time to time) even financial

support.

Please have him e-mail or write me, or he may write directly to the department

for application: Graduate Admissions, Department of Linguistics and Languages,

Wells Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1027

Best,

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 17 Jan 1994 15:07:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston"  22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET 

Subject:  No subject given 



In a seminar several of my students are at work on 'wake' (forms and distribut

ion). Unfortunately, the DARE volume is not yet out, and I don't think the new

LAMSAS publication from Chicago mentions this item. Could any DARE or LAMSAS

people out there help? I cannot seem to get in e-mail touch with the people at

Georgia (Bill K, Ellen Johnson). Is their e-mail down?

Dennis Preston  22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet 



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 17 Jan 1994 15:17:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject:  No subject given 



Hi Dennis,

    I went down to my office this morning, but I think the UW-Madison

is supporting MLK day by shutting down all life support systems. I'll

be happy to see about `wake' tomorrow. Any and all `wake'?



beth

simon

(at home but who hopes to be at DARE tomorrow)



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 17 Jan 1994 19:20:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston"  22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET 

Subject:  No subject given 



The more wakes the merrier. We are concerned with the following matters:

a- prefixing (awake versus wake)

strong versus weak

particle (up) present or absent

-en suffix (awake versus awaken)

There appear to be some interesting forms out there (awokened up), but we

would like to know more. Of course, we have seen the 'awake' stuff from DARE

I.

Thanks,

Dennis



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 16 Jan 1994 to 17 Jan 1994

************************************************







There is one message totalling 40 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Bounced Mail



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 18 Jan 1994 21:00:59 -0600

From:  Natalie Maynor  maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU 

Subject: Bounced Mail



  Date:     Tue, 18 Jan 1994 21:25:09 -0500

  From: BITNET list server at UGA (1.7f)  LISTSERV[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu 

  Subject:   ADS-L: error report from GIBBS.OIT.UNC.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

  3628 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 (39 lines) -------------------------

  Date: Tue, 18 Jan 1994 21:21:02 +0500 (EST)

  From: Robert Howren  howren[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gibbs.oit.unc.edu 

  Subject: Re: "Leave Out"?

 

  On Mon, 17 Jan 1994, Tom wrote:

 

    Date: Mon, 17 Jan 1994 13:10:34 -0500

    From: Tom  STEPHENS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ZODIAC.RUTGERS.EDU 

    Subject: Re: "Leave Out"?

   

    I grew up in n.w. SC, and "leave out" sounds completely normal to me,

    as does "head out."

   

    Tom Stephens

    Rutgers University

 

  The same for northwest Georgia, where I grew up.  -- Bob H.

     =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

     Robert Howren          Dept. of Linguistics

     howren[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]gibbs.oit.unc.edu    University of North Carolina

                      Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3155

     -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 17 Jan 1994 to 18 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 8 messages totalling 180 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. AWAKE! Etc. (4)

 2. wake (2)

 3. urgent call for information

 4. what is codeswitching?



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 18 Jan 1994 22:59:08 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: AWAKE! Etc.



Dennis--

    Wish I could be of immediate help, but just for reference, I included

this item some years ago in my Texas Dialect Survey questionnaire, and have

several thousand responses sitting in my garage. Now I know why some people

don't get things published until they retire! I'll be interested in DARE data.

            --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 19 Jan 1994 09:16:41 -0500

From:  Ellen Johnson  ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: wake



Dear Dennis (and other interested parties),



There is some information in LAMSAS on 'wake up', both the transitive and

intransitive forms. This item was not investigated by Lowman (who did

most of the interviews), but only in fieldwork by McDavid and students in

South Carolina, Georgia, and N. Florida. We can send copies of the

approximately 25 pages of list manuscripts, if you'd like, for ten cents

per page plus postage. Unfortunately, these two files have not yet made

it into our computer database. It's great that you now have all the

information you need to make sense of informant numbers, etc. in the

Handbook. Since I was away for awhile, you gave me my first opportunity

to pull that tome off the shelf and look something up in it! Felt great!



The question for 'he wakes up' includes several "he wake up"s, a "waken

up", "wakens", "awakes", but I don't notice any a-prefixing. The file

for "wake him up" has various realizations of the verb, plus synonyms

"disturb him", "rouse him" and "arouse him" (!).



You can send me a request for copies via e-mail to:

ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu

I hope it gets through this time.



Ellen Johnson



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 19 Jan 1994 09:32:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston"  22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET 

Subject: AWAKE! Etc.



Sorry about that Texas data sitting in your garage. I was cleverer than you.

My knees got tore up in High School but I waited for arthroscopy to get them

fixed. Now if you had waited for computers, all that good Texas data would be

at our fingertips. (Have you ever thought about asking for a small grant

simply to pay an assistant to put the stiff on a scoring sheet so it could be

computer read?) I'll let you know about local progress on (a)wa/ok(en)e(d)

(up).

Dennis (the one with all high-front vowels)



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 19 Jan 1994 08:56:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Re: AWAKE! Etc.



Dennis, Ellen, Rudy,

    I've gotten the wake data organized for you, but am stuck

at home until it warms up to twenty below. Then my car will start,

and I'll post the material.

    Dennis, I found the "waked (up)" Infs map nicely..chiefly southeast

and Texas. (This jibes with what Ellen just said.) Shall I send you the

maps? There are some interesting age and education statistics as well, but

I'll wait an hour or so to give you the exact figures.

    Do you have access to the LAGS material?



beth simon



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 19 Jan 1994 12:13:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Re: wake



Here is the DARE data:

1. Responses to Question X42, "What other ways do you have to say, "I

stopped sleeping at 6 o'clock"?

690 Infs "woke up". And while this is widespread throughout the U.S., there

are a few interesting holes, in central Pennsylvania, southern Indiana and

southern Ohio, for instance.



64 Infs "woke"--they are widely scattered, and the social stats for them

are not interesting.



50 Infs "waked up". These Infs are chiefly southeast and Texas. (What is

odd, though, is that we have no informants with this response in Louisiana,

the majority are around there.) 39 of these informants are old; 1 is young.

19 of them have a grade school education or less.



10 Infs "waked"--and they are loosely scattered. 8 of the 10 are old,

the other two are over 50. 9 of the 10 are women.



If you batch the "waked up" Infs with the "waked", you have a rather strong

age stat.



1 Inf, a man from North Carolina who is old, rural, who did not finish

grade school, responded with "I woken."





2. Responses to Qu. OO32, "Every night this week, I've" were



6 Infs "waked". 4 of these are in North Carolina, 1 in east Georgia, and 1

in new Mexico.



5 Infs "waked up"--and they are not grouped at all.



1 inf, man in nortwestern Mississippi, rural with a grade school education

says "woken."



beth simon

DARE

blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 19 Jan 1994 14:48:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston"  22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET 

Subject: Re: AWAKE! Etc.



Beth,

Thanks very much for the work on 'wake.' I'd appreciate it if ouy'd send the

maps. I have access to LAGS data.

Dennis Preston



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 19 Jan 1994 19:01:22 EST

From:  Allan Metcalf  aallan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 

Subject: urgent call for information



Help! Reporter for Wall St. Journal asked for information about

makers of lists of condemned words. I thought of Lake

Superior State College annual New Year's Dishonour List,

and of NCTE Committee on Public Doublespeak; but are there

others? (complete with addresses or phone numbers)

   I told him I

'd send him information tomorrow (Thurs 1/20)

so anything you can sent tonight would be a he

lp. I will check

mail early Thurs 1/20 morning. Even after this urgent

deadline, I wouldn't mind inf

o, to be prepared for the future.

   The reporter wasn't mainly concentrating on this; he was

m

ost interested in our choosing "information superhighway"

as word of the year; has already talked with Barnhart,

will talk with Algeo.

   Thanks for your help & suggestions. - Allan Metcalf



------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 19 Jan 1994 21:41:06 -0600

From:  Daniel S Goodman-1  dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU 

Subject: what is codeswitching?



I thought I understood what codeswitching was. Now -- which of the

following are codeswitching?



1. In the Twin Cities, my usual breakfast order includes American fries

and black tea. When I went back to where people talk without an accent

[not serious -- but I don't HEAR Upstate New York or Hudson Valley

dialects, because it's "normal"] in August, I ordered home fries and

regular tea instead.



2. At work, if I say "Manhattan" it means Manhattan, Kansas. Talking

with someone from Long Island, I say "Manhattan, Kansas."



3. Talking with family and relatives, I takke use some Yiddish words I

wouldn't otherwise. (Note: "takke" means, like, you know, man.)



Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 18 Jan 1994 to 19 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 9 messages totalling 214 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. AWAKE! Etc. (3)

 2. urgent call for information

 3. name in print

 4. Expert testimony sought

 5. wake--past ppl

 6. Code-Switching

 7. y'all



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 19 Jan 1994 22:15:37 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: AWAKE! Etc.



Dennis--

    Ironically, if I had done the tallying manually, it would probably

be published by now. Trying to work at the cutting edge, I had most of the

questionnaires put on punch cards. Unfortunately our programmer left and

UT changed computers, and the old program would not run. About then I moved

to CAL and had to put everything in boxes. Punch card readers are now found

only in museums. So much for technological progress. Interesting that we can

still use Guy Lowman's data. Will future generations be able to use ours?

    --Rudyh

(yh is a new aspirated glide produced by planting the index finger between

the  y  and  h  keys: a truly digital product)



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 1994 12:00:00 GMT

From:  ENG0997[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX2.QUEENS-BELFAST.AC.UK

Subject: Re: AWAKE! Etc.



All this talk about wakes - I always thought that the best wakes

were in Ireland!



gggrrrr



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 1994 08:05:00 EST

From:  "Dennis.Preston"  22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET 

Subject: Re: AWAKE! Etc.



Dan Goodman's query about code-switching reminds me of some of our earlier

conversations on this list concerning the sociolinguistic-psycholinguistic

basis of different varieties. I will return to that. First, of course, one

might (more or less) arbitrarily decide what a 'code' is and then determine

code-switching. In case three (assuming 'takke' has not been incorporated into

English), I think nearly everybody would agree that moving from one langauge

to another is code-switching.

In case one, if 'black tea' and 'regular' tea are geogrphical alternates, one

might also suggest that moving from one regional variety to another is a good

example of code-switching.

In case three (where Manhattan KANSAS is required (pragmatically)), I suspect

that many would deny such shifts code-switching status. Consider a simpler

situation: My wife asks 'Who called?' and I answer 'Rudy' (because we know

only on e Rudy; she later asks 'Who called?' and I answer 'Bill Kretzschmar'

(because we know lots of Bills). It would be a big stretch to say that I was

code-switching between first and first plus last name reference.

Left out, however, are cases of switching along a stylistic continuum. 'Have

you eaten yet'; 'Did you eat yet'; 'Dija eachet'; 'Jeechet.' Do you want to

name positions on such a continuum different 'codes'? If so, these are

examples of switching. (I'm not fond of that decision for reasons I'll come

to.)

Finally, how ab out the forms of switching known as 'metaphjoric'? IN these,

one appears to move to another 'vareity' not because of external pressures

(e.g., a more or less formal situation) but because of an internal desire to

make some point or even accomplish some action (e.g., speaking more casually

to let interlocutors know you are just plain folks). And, just like in

discussions of metaphor in general, when do such shifts become so

conventionalized that they are no longer seen as metaphoric (in which case,

they might no longer be examples of code switching).

Really finally, we might devise a more formal approach to code-switching if we

only knew a little more about the psycholinguistics of variety. Although such

research has been common in SLA and bilingual studies, it seems to have been

short-changed by Chomskean declarations that every style in every speaker is a

'different grammar.' (That is a necessary construct, of course, is one needs

an ideal native speaker/hearer.) If you don't believe that (and Occam and I

don't), then there are interesting possibilities for investigation. When is

there a psycholinguitically different grammar. If not between styles, between

what? Maybe there are 'core' versus 'peripheral' grammatical differences in

variety differences (intra- and inter-speaker).

I don't know what code-switching is becuase I don't know what a code is.

Dennis Preston  22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.bitnet 



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 1994 10:33:52 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: Re: urgent call for information



In Message Wed, 19 Jan 1994 19:01:22 EST,

 Allan Metcalf  aallan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com  writes:



 Danny Pearl of WSJ called me last week because he had seen my piece on

"information superhighway" in the Chicago Tribune. I put him on to

David Barnhart and Fred Mish. He says Al Gore claims to have invented

the phrase 10 or 15 years ago. I said I had no idea--could be true, but

Barnhart and Mish were in the best position to offer cites. I also told

him I thought I was seeing the form _information highway_ more often

in the past couple of weeks.



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, 20 Jan 1994 11:23:53 -0500

From:  Mike Agnes  by971[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU 

Subject: name in print



If anyone needs to get into print with his

or her name, a freelance writer is doing

a piece on sports language/general language

for the magazine "American Way." He's eager

to have a good linguist deliver a quote

or two. Call Ed Kirsch at

    407 477-8363  anytime (he says).



[usual disclaimers go here]



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 1994 11:33:12 EST

From:  Larry Horn  LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU 

Subject: Expert testimony sought



For a legal matter, expert testimony is needed from someone with experience in

determining--from grammatical, lexical, and semantic cues--whether two texts

are likely to have been written by the same individual. The texts in question

are not literary, but experience in literary/stylistic detection would

presumably be relevant. The expert testimony would be delivered in New

England later this spring, so responses from those based in New England would

be most relevant. If you don't do this sort of thing yourself but know

someone who does, that would be helpful as well. Please respond to me at the

above address.

--Larry Horn



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 1994 14:03:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: wake--past ppl



Dennis and others,

Here are the responses to DARE Qu. OO32b ("Every night this week, I've____")



460 Infs responded with woke up. (Personally, I think the "'ve" went by the

board, but...) It's widespread, and the stats aren't interesting.



90 Infs responded with "waked up". They are chiefly southeast and Texas

and, and this is somehwat interesting, 44 of the 90 are college educated.



47 Infs responded with "wakened". They are scattered except there is

only 1 of the 47 in the South, and in general, they are much less frequ

Sth, South Midland.



44 Infs say "woke"--these are scattered, but they are less frequent in

the NorthEast and Great Lakes regions. 33 of the 44 are old, and

12 of them have a grade school education or less.



14 Infs responded with "waked". 10 of these are in South Carolina, Georgia,

Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. 7 of them are college educated;

11 of them are women.



9 Infs "wakened up". They too are scattered, except for NEngl, the southeast,

and the Inland South.



Finally, 8 infs "woken"; 4 of the 8 are grade school educated or less.

3 of them are in Missouri, 3 in Mississippi, 1 in TN, and 1 out in New Jersey.



beth simon

DARE

blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 1994 18:58:13 CST

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

Subject: Re: Code-Switching



Code switching? Between Morse and semaphore.

Or when a student asks the prof "Have you eaten yet?" and then turns to

a fellow student and asks "Jeet yet?"

Or when there's an alternation of congestion in the sinuses and the chest.

Well, si puedes, we can talk about lotsa other stuff too, sabes, like, you

know, Yiddish borrowings que parecen palabras griegas, pero hay que

cambiar frm one language to another right in the middle, right en medio de

whatever you're trying to say. No?

                 DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 1994 22:16:59 CST

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

Subject: y'all



I've noticed that in Columbia, Missouri, servers in bars and restaurants

freely use Y'ALL when asking if "y'all need anything else" etc. And these

are not Southerners speaking! The friendlier the banter with customers the

more likely the servers will use "y'all." Not "you all" but "y'all"!



Today when I asked one of my classes about the phenomenon, there was unanimous

agreement that I wasn't making it up. Several students commented that they

normally didn't use that pronoun but felt obliged to use it on the job. One

worked in Colorado last summer and felt pressure to use the pronoun even though

she doesn't use it in other social contexts. Several commented that "it's

friendlier" than other ways of addressing customers. Where else has this item

spread to?



Also, how common is "server" where you are? All restaurants in Columbia

use that term now.

       DMLance, Univ of Missouri



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 19 Jan 1994 to 20 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 8 messages totalling 169 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. y'all (5)

 2. nomail (2)

 3. y'all singular, not!



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 1994 23:35:50 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: y'all



On Thu, 20 Jan 1994, Donald M. Lance wrote:



  I've noticed that in Columbia, Missouri, servers in bars and restaurants

  freely use Y'ALL when asking if "y'all need anything else" etc. And these

  are not Southerners speaking! The friendlier the banter with customers the

  more likely the servers will use "y'all." Not "you all" but "y'all"!

 

  Today when I asked one of my classes about the phenomenon, there was unanimous

  agreement that I wasn't making it up. Several students commented that they

  normally didn't use that pronoun but felt obliged to use it on the job. One

  worked in Colorado last summer and felt pressure to use the pronoun even thoug

  she doesn't use it in other social contexts. Several commented that "it's

  friendlier" than other ways of addressing customers. Where else has this item

  spread to?

 

It appears in South African Indian English, RAjend Methrie in ENGLISH IN

LANGUAGE SHIFT, Cambridge UP 1993. It occurs in "informal letters" and

"formal speeches" and is "below the level of social consciousness." (61)

RM notes that when written it is spelled "you'll."



I would hesitate to say that it had "spread" to SAIE. SAIE appears to be

a learner variety with some influence from Hindi, Tamil, and other Indian

languages, less relation to Indian English.



It has a plural genitive form "ya'll's."



SAIE also uses all a s a general plurality denotation, e.g., "AFter he

died his books-all was at home." (200) RM suggests that this usage might

have an "impetus" from the lingua franca Fanagalo, possibly from Zulu.



Tim Frazer



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 21 Jan 1994 01:05:22 -0600

From:  Charles F Juengling-2  juen0001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all



Don,

No such thing as a `server' in the Twin Cities-- they're `waitrons'!



Fritz Juengling



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 21 Jan 1994 07:40:02 -0600

From:  Alan Slotkin  ARS7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TNTECH.BITNET 

Subject: Re: y'all



Server is the common term here (Cookeville, TN), but waitperson is still

around. The worst I've heard was this past summer in Jackson, WY, where two

restaurants are using waitron--a term that in my mind smacks of automation.



Alan Slotkin

ars7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tntech



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 21 Jan 1994 10:11:34 EST

From:  Dan Mosser  MOSSERD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VTVM1.BITNET 

Subject: nomail



Sorry to do this, but I have tried every which way to send a nomail

message to listserv[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga, listserv[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.bitnet, listserv[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu

and everytime the net acts as if UGA doesn't exist. Was there a natural

disaster I have not heard about. Any way, please set my mail options

to "nomail." Thanks, Dan Mosser  mosserd[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vtvm1.cc.vt.edu 



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 21 Jan 1994 10:50:22 -0500

From:  Ellen Johnson  ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: Re: nomail



Nope, here in Georgia we are (fortunately) snow- and earthquake-free.

Just had a few problems with the broadband. They seem to be resolved for

now. (Knock on wood.)



Ellen



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 21 Jan 1994 09:59:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all



In Madison WI, someone who waits on your table is a waitperson.

I have heard waitpersons, and waitpeople.



beth simon

DARE

blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 21 Jan 1994 11:35:14 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene  mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all



In reponse to Don Lance, Tim Frazier writes:

 It ["y'all"] appears in South African Indian English, RAjend Methrie in ENGLISH IN

 LANGUAGE SHIFT, Cambridge UP 1993. It occurs in "informal letters" and

 "formal speeches" and is "below the level of social consciousness." (61)

 RM notes that when written it is spelled "you'll."

 

 I would hesitate to say that it had "spread" to SAIE. SAIE appears to be

 a learner variety with some influence from Hindi, Tamil, and other Indian

 languages, less relation to Indian English.



 You are right, saying "it had 'spread'" would rule out by fiat the

possibility of parallel and perhaps independent development. The Rajend

Mesthrie discusses the development of SAIE does not suggest possible

influence from the American part of the world, at least not obviously from

his discussion. On the other hand, what justifies the comment "SAIE appears

to be a learner variety?" I didn't develop this impression from reading

Mesthrie's book. All I could tell is that it is one of the several

contact-induced varieties around the world.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 21 Jan 1994 13:00:46 CST

From:  Mike Picone  MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET 

Subject: y'all singular, not!



I had the subject of y'all on my mind, but totally unrelated to the Colorado

phenomenon mentioned. A while back there had been quite a polemic on

Linguist List on the subject of y'all singular. It began when someone asserted

that a polite _y'all_ singular, similar to French _vous_, was on the rise in

the South. I got involved in the polemic when I asserted to the contrary that

I'd never heard it in Alabama since I've been here (5 1/2 yrs.), but had only

heard _y'all_ used in relation to a single addressee when that addressee, in

the addressor's mind, represented a group. For example, when "Y'all come

back" is addressed to a single individual paying at the counter but whose

family or associate(s) had been present and were also the objects of the

invitation to return.



Just a few days ago, it appeared that I had finally met with an exception to

what I just said. I was returning a basketball at the Rec Center and needed to

have my ID card, left as a surety, returned to me. I was making this

transaction alone. When I gave the young work-study student (from

Tennessee) the basketball, she asked, "What's y'all's name?"

Since only one person could possess my name, this looked for all

the world like an exception to the y'all = plural equation.



Two days later, on a return visit, I found out why this was not an exception

but rather a very apt illustration of the scenario alluded to above where the

speaker had a collective referent in mind. This time when I asked what racket

ball court I was assigned to, the same query was directed to me by a work-study

student from Alabama: "What's y'all's name?" I asked about this and she replied

that since groups or partners are all listed under a single name, and the same

is true for giving out equipment to an individual on behalf of the group, the

whole group is thought of as corresponding to that one name, hence the

query _What's y'all's name?_ is a way of identifying a group, not an individual



For what it's worth,

Mike Picone

U Alabama



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 20 Jan 1994 to 21 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 4 messages totalling 59 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. y'all singular, not! (4)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 22 Jan 1994 00:00:49 CST

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

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



Thanks, Mike Picone, for your description of "singular" y'all. As a native

speaker of Y'all, I've always felt that the so-called "singular y'all" is

always addressed to a representative of a real or hypothetical group. But

I haven't wanted to diss others' data. It may indeed be the case that some

people do have only one person in mind when saying "y'all," but not me.

Even if a single, solitary person has visited a y'all-speaking home, the

friendly "Y'all come back" seems to me to be an invitation for the single,

solitary visitor to bring a friend next time if it's convenient-- or it's a

cue that friends of friends are always welcome too. Maybe I've just been

talking to the bellybutton of my hypothetical Sprachgefuehl, but it's an

honest response.            DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 22 Jan 1994 10:23:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



Mike Picone, Don Lance, and interested others,

    You hear singular "y'all" at truck stops, diners, etc., in

nAK. For instance, when two of us ordered breakfast one morning, one

ordered toast, sausage, eggs, coffee. i ordered toast and coffee and the

waitress said "don't y'all want any meat?"



beth simon



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 22 Jan 1994 09:19:22 -0600

From:  Natalie Maynor  maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RA.MSSTATE.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



I agree with Don that the idea of singular "y'all" seems totally alien

to my Southern experience of 50 years (except when used by yankees

pretending to be y'all-users). I realize, of course, that my feelings

about it are unscientific. I also realize that Guy Bailey has found

evidence of singular y'all in the Southwest recently. If it were just

about anybody other than Guy, I would be convinced that the tokens he

has found aren't really singular.

  --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu)



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 22 Jan 1994 15:45:07 CST

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

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



Beth Simon's instance of singular "y'all" is convincing. I don't doubt

that many Southerners do use it for singular reference, but occasionally

proffered examples seem to be candidates for "y'all" referring to a

representative of a group. Often one can't really tell.

                            DMLance



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 21 Jan 1994 to 22 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 3 messages totalling 89 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. y'all singular, not! (2)

 2. DARE in the news



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 23 Jan 1994 00:52:10 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



Howdy, y'all--

    Like Don and Natalie, I would never use "y'all" (or the more coastal

Southern "you-all" (stress on  you ) for a genuinely singular referent, and

have never known any other native speaker who did either. I think most

Southerners are aware of, and either amused by the ignorance of or resentful

of (as I am, I must admit), the usually exaggerated attempts of Northern

would-be comedians to mimic Southern speech, which almost always include this

usage as a highly salient stereotypic marker. This vaudevillean usage obvious-

ly reflects Northern folklore, and thus has a tangential (tertiary) linguistic

interest. I suppose my reaction is like that of a New Yorker who resents

having elsewhere-ers comically mimic NY speech with "toidy-toid" (although

of course there is more historical validity to the latter than the former).

    Now that "you-guys" is sweeping the North and becoming a serious

competitor to "you-all/y'all", which was earlier spreading north (I once

heard a couple from Syracuse, NY using it quite unself-consciously), I do not

doubt that there will be people, especially on the peripheries, who may from

contextual observations similar to those described for "y'all", infer that it

may be used in the singular, and so encrypt it in their internal grammars. One

of my colleagues here, who is from New Jersey, claims to have heard a clear

case of singular "y'all", and on the basis of this justifies the extension

of the usage to all Southern speech, and thus a justification for the use

by Northern comics.

    If there is anything we have learned about language acquisition in

the past 40 years, it is that is amazing that we manage to wind up with so

much similarity in our individual internal grammars, given that we derive them

to such an extent from the accidents of observation and interaction. Thus I

am sure that each of us probably has some idiosyncratic usage or meaning still

lurking in our grammars that has by sheer chance never been socialized out.

So it should come as no surprise that among the millions of "y'all" users,

there should be a small and probably randomly-distributed number who got it

mixed up along the way. What would be surprising would be if there weren't.

It is in such things that the germs of language change lie. However, given

the locale of Beth's and Guy's observations, it may be that the distribution

is not entirely random, but may be higher on the peripheries of the y'all area,

where it has spread and been acquired, but with more opportunity for mislearn-

ing of the "correct" meaning/use. This again would not be unexpected. But

while allowing for the probability of such idiosyncratic "error" (deviation

from the community norm), we should not allow the occasional misuse to under-

mine the certainty of our own life-long experience and strong native intuition.

I sense in Don's and Natalie's disclaimers that they are somehow discounting

thscientific value and validity of their own native-speaker intuition, with

a touch of embarrassment that their opinion as trained linguists has perhaps

less validity than the claims of my colleague from New Jersey, or a comedy

sketch on "Saturday Night Live". Is this latent Southern insecurity complex?

I think we have as much scientific right to our linguistic intuitions as

a Navajo or Basque speaker, and to expect linguistic variation, even when it

is deviant from community norms (="wrong"). Let's not go overboard in

attributing greater knowledge of truth to Northern comedians.

    Pleasant dreams, y'all (even if individual readers of this perceive

themselves as singletons rather than recognizing themselves as part of a

greater body of recipients, those on ADS-L).

            --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 23 Jan 1994 13:22:01 CST

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

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



Rudy,

My earlier message said, in effect, "Y'all may be right." It was Southern

politeness more than Southern insecurity. You laid out the scenario very

well. Unnatural use of 'y'all' also occurs in places like Branson, where

emcees know the busloads of $20 bills expect Southernness, so they use 'y'all'

where plural 'you' would be more natural. We use 'you','you all', AND

'y'all'. An analysis of extended discourse with 2nd pl pronouns would be

interesting. When I read or hear claims by ae-raisers that Southerners use

singular 'y'all' freely (claim based on small sample), I secretly ("politely")

wonder whether the topic of the claim is really language change. After all,

pure Elizabethan English is used in Appalachia and the Ozarks, as we all

know. Now I'm not being polite. Sorry.         DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sun, 23 Jan 1994 19:45:03 EST

From:  Donna Chenoweth  ddonna[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 

Subject: DARE in the news



Congratulations Fred and Joan on your & DARE's charming

profiles in "A Mouthful of America" by Charles Madigan in

today's Chicago Tribune Magazine!

- Donna Chenoweth / Allan Metcalf



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 22 Jan 1994 to 23 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 8 messages totalling 296 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. need some information (4)

 2. y'all singular, not! (3)

 3. "Leave Out"?



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 09:50:38 -0400

From:  Jeutonne Brewer  BREWERJ[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IRIS.UNCG.EDU 

Subject: need some information



I hope readers won't object to answering a few questions. My

adminstration has given program faculty a very short time to

respond to some questions. I will appreciate your help with these

questions:



Does your university/college offer a program in linguistics:



1.  at the undergraduate level

     major?

     minor?



2. at the graduage level

     separate department?

     program within a department?



I know there are more interesting questions to ask, but these are

the basic ones for now.



Thanks.

Jeutonne Brewer

******************************************************************************

* Jeutonne P. Brewer BITNET:  BREWERJ[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNCG                  *

*           INTERNET: BREWERJ[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IRIS.UNCG.EDU            *

* U of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412          *

* Telephone: (919) 334-5263 [office]; (919) 334-5384 [messages]       *

******************************************************************************



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 10:17:02 -0500

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr."  billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



Not not!



I, too, had been laboring under the impression that y'all was plural,

never having heard an undeniable counterexample (my wife says she hears

such examples all the time in the hospitals she works in, but that is

still anecdotal evidence even if I consider it reliable).



Now all is changed. My dept. head, a native of College Park, GA, with

Ph.D. from U of South Carolina, used "y'all" to me in reference to a

personnel matter where I personally was the only subject.



Hallelujah, I'm now a true believer in the singularity (possible, at

least) of y'all.



******************************************************************************

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:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 10:22:01 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



In Message Sun, 23 Jan 1994 00:52:10 -0700,

 Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]arizvms.bitnet  writes:



 Howdy, y'all--

 Thus I

 am sure that each of us probably has some idiosyncratic usage or meaning still

 lurking in our grammars that has by sheer chance never been socialized out.

 So it should come as no surprise that among the millions of "y'all" users,

 there should be a small and probably randomly-distributed number who got it

 mixed up along the way. What would be surprising would be if there weren't.

 It is in such things that the germs of language change lie. However, given

 the locale of Beth's and Guy's observations, it may be that the distribution

 is not entirely random, but may be higher on the peripheries of the y'all area,

 where it has spread and been acquired, but with more opportunity for mislearn-

 ing of the "correct" meaning/use. This again would not be unexpected. But

 while allowing for the probability of such idiosyncratic "error" (deviation

 from the community norm), we should not allow the occasional misuse to under-

 mine the certainty of our own life-long experience and strong native intuition.

 



Mislearning and error -- on the border --

That's what strikes me about Rudy's message. Is phonological variation

error? Mislearned pronunciation? Or is sound production inherently

variable? Mebbe. Mebbe not. But why so quick to assume that a shift

in syntactic/semantic agreement is a deviation from or mislearning of

a standard rule? Why not an analogical extension? A selection of a

normal variant?



I can't explain to my satisfaction why "between you and I" occurs as

often as it does, but I find the hypercorrection explanation thoroughly

unsatisfying. "Between you and I" speakers never seem to commit other

pronoun case "errors."



But I remain very impressed with the insistence of southerners (perhaps

the PC term should be `people of the south') that singular ya'll/you all

either does not ever occur among those who _know_ (=are born with), or

occurs only as error.



Review, if you will, the arguments about shall/will usage in Fowler,

Follett, and so on. They all go like this: "The right sort of English

person knows the differences and never makes a mistake; for the rest of us

poor slobs and furreners here are 20 pages of detailed explanation that

is impossible to follow and that no one will use anyway." It's the

to the manner/manor born insistence that always rings a little untrue.



Of course, everyone from NY says idear; it would be wrong or at best

snobbish not to. Or you'd have to work at Macy's.



As for marginalizing singular ya'llers, well, how postmodren can

you get?





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:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 10:25:54 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: Re: need some information



In Message Mon, 24 Jan 1994 09:50:38 -0400,

 Jeutonne Brewer  BREWERJ[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]steffi.uncg.edu  writes:



 I hope readers won't object to answering a few questions. My

 adminstration has given program faculty a very short time to

 respond to some questions. I will appreciate your help with these

 questions:

 

 Does your university/college offer a program in linguistics:

 

 1.  at the undergraduate level

      major?

      minor?

 

 2. at the graduage level yes

      separate department? yes

      program within a department?

 

 I know there are more interesting questions to ask, but these are

 the basic ones for now.

 

 Thanks.

 Jeutonne Brewer

 ******************************************************************************

 * Jeutonne P. Brewer BITNET:  BREWERJ[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNCG                  *

 *           INTERNET: BREWERJ[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IRIS.UNCG.EDU            *

 * U of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27412          *

 * Telephone: (919) 334-5263 [office]; (919) 334-5384 [messages]       *

 ******************************************************************************

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:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 10:47:06 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



In Message Mon, 24 Jan 1994 10:17:02 -0500,

 "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr."  billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu  writes:



 Not not!

 

 I, too, had been laboring under the impression that y'all was plural,

 never having heard an undeniable counterexample (my wife says she hears

 such examples all the time in the hospitals she works in, but that is

 still anecdotal evidence even if I consider it reliable).

 

 Now all is changed. My dept. head, a native of College Park, GA, with

 Ph.D. from U of South Carolina, used "y'all" to me in reference to a

 personnel matter where I personally was the only subject.

 

 Hallelujah, I'm now a true believer in the singularity (possible, at

 least) of y'all.

 

 ******************************************************************************

 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



Bill,



Surely Hugh was just being polite, referring to you and anyone like

you who might have a similar personnel issue to discuss, or perhaps

he was referring to you and your family, or to you and the rest of the

faculty who are plaguing him with personnel matters when he'd rather

be sipping mint juleps, or perhaps he assumes you have a multiple

personality (we used to call it code switching). But we all know

that singular y'all is a Yankee myth concocted by sociolinguists

to discredit atlas workers. As they say in New Hampshire, live free

or die.



Cheers.



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:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 12:01:46 -0500

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr."  billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: Re: need some information



On Mon, 24 Jan 1994, Jeutonne Brewer wrote:



  Does your university/college offer a program in linguistics:

 

  1.  at the undergraduate level

       major?

       minor?

At Georgia we have both major and minor, though neither has that many

students at the moment (until recently the major was restricted to Honors

students, which has limited the number eligible).



  2. at the graduage level

       separate department?

       program within a department?

 

We have an interdepartmental program, and the degrees are specifically

"Linguistics", not, say, "Anthropology" or "English" with the linguistics

as a specialization.



For your replies, I would tilt the answers so as to get (or maintain)

departmental status for linguistics, or else put it entirely within a

department (like Anthro or English or Modern Lgs). We are having real

trouble with funding and other resources for the interdepartmental program.



******************************************************************************

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:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 12:42:00 CDT

From:  JOAN H HALL  JOANHALL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Re: "Leave Out"?



DARE information shows the phrase "leave out" to be distinctly

South and South Midland in distribution. Our earliest quote is

from 1917, and there's lots of documentation following that.

Of the seven DARE Infs who used the phrase in response to Qu. Y18

(To leave in a hurry: "Before they find this out, we'd better _____")

and Qu. Y 19 (To begin to go away from a place: "It's about time for

me to ______."), four were from Kentucky; the others were from North

Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas. LAGS has at least eleven examples.

Looks regional to me!

Joan Hall, DARE



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 21:15:04 CST

From:  Gerald Walton  VCGW[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UMSVM.BITNET 

Subject: Re: need some information



On Mon, 24 Jan 1994 09:50:38 -0400 Jeutonne Brewer said:

 Does your university/college offer a program in linguistics:

 1.  at the undergraduate level

      major?  YES

      minor?  YES

 

 2. at the graduage level  NO

      separate department? NO

      program within a department? NO



  gww, ole miss



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 23 Jan 1994 to 24 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 6 messages totalling 146 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. y'all singular, not! (2)

 2. Tamony lecture April 21

 3. y'all

 4. need some information

 5. AWAKE! Etc.



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 22:29:32 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



Bill, et al.:

    The experience with Bill's Chair (and as a "Head", no "Chairs" being

hereabouts, I can affirm that even such august personages are not immune to

unique grammars or misspeakings), and his wife with staff (? or patients)

in the hospital o

and Beth's (I think) report of the coffee-server using  y'all  with evident

singularity (the occasion not permitting intrusion into their mental processes)

suggests, as I have been discussing with Don Lance, that there may be an

emerging pattern of evidence for a "polite"  y'all  usage, perhaps parallel

to caregiver use of  we  for  you  (sg.), and inversely parallel to the

polite use of  myself  now confounding GB grammarians. The service contexts

and the power differential perceived between Bill and his Chair suggest some

of the same impulses which produced  you  ---   we  and probably earlier

contributed to  thou  ---   you . Since evidence in other cases makes it

clear that the "politeness" impulse can independently produce parallel results,

it should not be surprising that originally plural  y'all  (arising from the

standard British distributive "you all", which I have heard even from Prime

Ministers -- and remember, if the  thou / you  distinction had not broken down

there would never have been a need for a new plural in the first place)

was being used independently as a polite form. Remember, you heard it here

first!

    So far, though, I have not heard anyone arguing that  we  is not

REALLY first person plural because certain English speakers have been

discovered using it in direct reference to an addressee as second person

singular.

            Rudy



------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 24 Jan 1994 21:56:59 EST

From:  Allan Metcalf  aallan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 

Subject: Tamony lecture April 21



Randy Roberts may have announced this, but just in

case, here is an item from the forthcoming ADS

newsletter:

   John Baugh, ADS president and professor of education, linguistics and

anthropology at Stanford, will present the ninth annual Peter Tamony Memorial

Lecture on American Language at the University

 of Missouri, Columbia at 3:45 p.m. Thursday, April 21.

   "The Evolution of African Ameri

can English and Its Educational Consequences" will be his topic.

   The talk will be held, as always, in Ellis Library, home of the vast

files on slang and colloquialisms collected by Tamony in San Francisco during

his long life. The collection will be on display at the reception that

follows the talk.

   For further information phone Nancy Lankford or Randy Roberts at (314)

882-6028 or write Western Historical Manuscript Collection, 23 Ellis Library,

Univ. of Missouri, Columbia MO 65201.

   NOTE: Apologies for the erratic spaces that seem

to continue to appear in my messages. I am using the

America Online m

ail sending system & haven't yet

figured out how to avoid the spaces. Short lines don't

seem to help. - Allan



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 25 Jan 1994 08:45:37 -0500

From:  No Name Given  NOLANDD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNCWIL.BITNET 

Subject: Re: y'all



    I was told yesterday by an informant currently providing tableside

service in a New Hampshire restaurant that "waitron" is used by the staff in

a self-consciously derisive manner to refer to the way they are treated all-

too-frequently by customers: not really humans but automatons. The stress is

often on the second syllable for emphasis.

    I have heard y'all used in the singular on occasion, but only in Texas.

There's a related Appalachian form, "y'uns," which can be used when addressing

one person but refers to their whole family; "Y'uns come to the house."



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 25 Jan 1994 11:48:06 -0400

From:  Jeutonne Brewer  BREWERJ[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IRIS.UNCG.EDU 

Subject: Re: need some information



Thanks for the information you have sent.

I do know about the Directory of Programs in Linguistics,

but our library has the 1990 volume as the latest information.

Your replies to my questions give me current information.

Thanks again.

Jeutonne Brewer



------------------------------



Date:  Tue, 25 Jan 1994 14:45:52 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: Re: y'all singular, not!



In Message Mon, 24 Jan 1994 22:29:32 -0700,

 Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]arizvms.bitnet  writes:



     So far, though, I have not heard anyone arguing that  we  is not

 REALLY first person plural because certain English speakers have been

 discovered using it in direct reference to an addressee as second person

 singular.

             Rudy



No, but it is often called the editorial or royal `we'





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, 25 Jan 1994 18:36:49 -0600

From:  Daniel S Goodman-1  dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU 

Subject: Re: AWAKE! Etc.



On Thu, 20 Jan 1994, Dennis.Preston wrote:



  Dan Goodman's query about code-switching reminds me of some of our earlier

  conversations on this list concerning the sociolinguistic-psycholinguistic

  basis of different varieties. I will return to that. First, of course, one

  might (more or less) arbitrarily decide what a 'code' is and then determine

  code-switching. In case three (assuming 'takke' has not been incorporated into

  English), I think nearly everybody would agree that moving from one langauge

  to another is code-switching.

It's used in some varieties of "Yinglish". I'm aware that it's not an

English word, but pronounce it as if it was. My mother -- who understands

Yiddish fairly well and speaks it with some difficulty -- pronounces it

properly.



  In case one, if 'black tea' and 'regular' tea are geogrphical alternates, one

  might also suggest that moving from one regional variety to another is a good

  example of code-switching.

Yes, they're geographical alternates.



Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 24 Jan 1994 to 25 Jan 1994

************************************************







There is one message totalling 15 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. y'all



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Wed, 26 Jan 1994 00:13:03 CST

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

Subject: Re: y'all



 Youens  is common in rural Missouri, northern part of the state as well as

Ozarks Plateau. When I was at a meeting in Rolla MO, after having dinner at

one of the best eateries there, our efficient and polite waitress (sorry,

server) said, with a big friendly smile, "Youens all have a good evening."

(to a group, not just to me) Figure 114 of Kurath's WORD GEOGRAPHY shows

 you'ns  in western PA, eastern OH, WV, wVA, wNC. I use my spelling because

of the way it's said in Missouri.

                 DMLance



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 25 Jan 1994 to 26 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 6 messages totalling 124 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. TV and dialect diversity (4)

 2. waiter/waitress (2)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 27 Jan 1994 12:37:15 -0500

From:  ALICE FABER  FABER%LENNY[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VENUS.CIS.YALE.EDU 

Subject: TV and dialect diversity



For a grant proposal that I am preparing with a tight deadline, I need

specific print references defending the statement that TV viewing doesn't

lead to a reduction in dialect differences or a homogenization of dialect

variation. (Of course, I'd love anecdotes, also, but, for purposes of the

proposal, citations are better.) I recall seeing a reference somewhere in

something by Labov that extensive TV viewing doesn't make BEV-speaking

children any less vernacular (or more "standard"). And there's also a claim

out there that hearing children of deaf parents don't learn spoken language at

all through TV. And one could make a claim (tho I don't know if it's been

made) that any network connection between a person and an electronic source is

weaker than any connection that person has with his/her social network.



Thanks in advance for any leads you can provide.



Alice Faber

Faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Yalehask.bitnet

Faber%Yalehask[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]venus.ycc.yale.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 27 Jan 1994 11:51:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Re: TV and dialect diversity



Alice,

    The discussion about hearing children of deaf parents, and the

influence of TV, was, on LINGUIST. You could access the archive and

get the cites that way.



beth simon

DARE

blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 27 Jan 1994 15:37:42 -0500

From:  Ellen Johnson  ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: Re: TV and dialect diversity



From Hans Kurath's *Word Geography of the Eastern United States* (Ann

Arbor: U. MI Pr. 1949), p. 9

Status: R



[the "common man" is considered intermediate betw. folk speech (local)

and cultivated speech (regional, supraregional, or national)]



    The common man reads little besides the daily newspaper, a

popular periodical or two, and perhaps a trade journal. He may read a

novel now and then, but hte smattering of thelanguage of the great

masters of the past that he gets in high school is soon forgotten. His

language habits are hardly touched by the literary language.

    In recent years he hears a Babel of dialects over the radio and

in the movies. He understands them, may even mimic them, but he does not

acquire them. He will of course adopt a fashionable word here and there

or learn the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word from his favorite announcer.

    ...But the speech of the large middle class has hardly been

touched by trained linguists despite a lively popular interest in this

subject.





See also Jack Chambers article in Preston's collection for the ADS

(*American Dialect Research*)



Ellen Johnson

ellenj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 27 Jan 1994 15:36:03 CST

From:  salikoko mufwene  mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU 

Subject: Re: TV and dialect diversity



 In my article "Some reasons why Gullah is not dying yet" (ENGLISH

WORLD-WIDE 12.2 1991), as in my review of LANGUAGE VARIETY IN THE SOUTH, ed.

by M. Montgomery and G. Bailey (J. OF PIDGIN AND CREOLE LANGUAGES 2 1987), I

discuss the problem in the context of mass media and education in general,

relative to loyalty. The article is of course not on BEV/African American

English (narrow definition), but you might find the discussion informative.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

Linguistics, U. of Chicago

s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

312-702-8531



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 27 Jan 1994 19:44:28 CST

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

Subject: waiter/waitress



I'd like to rephrase my inquiry about gender-neutral terms for waiter/

waitress.



When you go to restaurants in your area, how do personnel complete sentences

like these?



(showing customer to table) Welcome to Trattoria Strada Nova. Your _________

will be Cindy.



(at the table) My name is Cindy. I'll be your ___________ this evening. If

you need anything, please let me know.

                   DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 27 Jan 1994 21:30:00 CDT

From:  Beth Lee Simon  BLSIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACC.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Re: waiter/waitress



In Madison,

the person is spoken of as the server.

the sign in the window says the establishment is hiring waitstaff.

the menu includes the suggestion that we ask our waitperson about the

evening specials.



UNLESS, the joint is cheap and not in the pc/university area.



beth simon

DARE



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 26 Jan 1994 to 27 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 8 messages totalling 169 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. waiter/waitress (4)

 2. TV and dialect diversity

 3.  No subject given 

 4. been

 5. regional business names (fwd)



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Thu, 27 Jan 1994 22:18:11 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: waiter/waitress



Don,

    In Tucson, my impression is that a no-naming strategy is used in many

cases (I don't usually eat in such fancy places, though), by saying "The

person serving you this evening will be Cindy", and Hello, my name is Cindy,

and I will be serving/waiting on you(/your table) this evening." This in

itself, of course, is sociolinguistically interesting.

    Rudy



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 28 Jan 1994 11:43:36 +0100

From:  Peter Trudgill  PeterJohn.Trudgill[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ANGL.UNIL.CH 

Subject: Re: TV and dialect diversity



    There is such a claim (or at least a similar one) in my book

DIALECTS IN CONTACT (Blackwells, 1986) pp. 40-41. Best wishes, Peter

Trudgill

Peter Trudgill FBA

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:  Fri, 28 Jan 1994 08:15:28 -0600

From:  Joan Livingston-Webber  webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CWIS.UNOMAHA.EDU 

Subject: waiter/waitress



Most of my restaurant experience in Omaha is at inexpensive

ethnic places where the people don't refer to themselves at

all. At a Chilean restaurant on Tuesday, I had a hard time

simply understanding at all. (It was very good food however.)

I do occasionally go to the Olive Garden, and, there, we are

served by waitresses and waiters. Actually, I THINK the most

common script is something like, "My name is _____ and I'll

be serving you/be back for your order"--shifting to verbs

where gender-marking isn't an issue. Here, I'm still

encountering female grad students using "mankind." And my

department still has an officially designated "chairman." I

hardly expect the restaurant trade to have gone beyond the

English department, tho it would be nice to be surprised.



--

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:  Fri, 28 Jan 1994 09:41:00 CST

From:  Larry Davis  DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU 

Subject: Re: waiter/waitress



It's I'LL BE SERVING YOU or I'M YOUR SERVER in Wichita, too--in the (still)

rare cases where the server doesn't say WAITER/WAITRESS.



Larry Davis



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 28 Jan 1994 10:59:14 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: Re: waiter/waitress



In Message Thu, 27 Jan 1994 19:44:28 CST,

 "Donald M. Lance"  ENGDL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mizzou1.bitnet  writes:



 I'd like to rephrase my inquiry about gender-neutral terms for waiter/

 waitress.

 

 When you go to restaurants in your area, how do personnel complete sentences

 like these?

 

 (showing customer to table) Welcome to Trattoria Strada Nova. Your _________

 will be Cindy.

 

 (at the table) My name is Cindy. I'll be your ___________ this evening. If

 you need anything, please let me know.

                    DMLance



They're all _servers_ here, Don, tho some may still say waiter/waitress.

On the check, there's usu. a place for the server's name or number.

This box is marked "server" by and large. Newspaper want ads will say

waiter/waitress, waitstaff, servers, sometimes waitpersons or waits.



Which reminds me, are all actors unemployed waitrons?



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:  Fri, 28 Jan 1994 14:21:13 EST

From:  Larry Horn  LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU 

Subject:  No subject given 



Hi, y'all. Something new to track down, this one per request of Linda

Shrieves, the de facto pop linguistics columnist of the Orlando Sentinel, who

helped make the quest for ...NOT famous a little over a year ago. This time

she's wondering if anyone can track down the source, or at least a

representative sample of early citations, for "Been there. Done that." as now

used in, inter alia, commercials and no doubt popular movies and TV shows. It

seems to me that I've come across a reference (Safire? Something here or on

Linguist?) but I can't recall where or what.  You can mail to me (at the

above address) or to the list.  Thanks.



Larry



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 28 Jan 1994 18:44:01 -0500

From:  Robert Kelly  kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU 

Subject: been



Dear LH,



just to say it first: Veni Vidi Vici



interesting how non-blase it sounds compared with the beentheredonethat.



rk



------------------------------



Date:  Fri, 28 Jan 1994 19:33:54 -0600

From:  Daniel S Goodman-1  dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAROON.TC.UMN.EDU 

Subject: Re: regional business names (fwd)



---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 19:24:41 -0600 (CST)

From: Daniel S Goodman-1  dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu 

To: Folklore Discussion List  FOLKLORE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TAMVM1.BITNET 

Cc: Multiple recipients of list FOLKLORE  FOLKLORE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TAMVM1.BITNET 

Subject: Re: regional business names



The Twin Cities have had at least two restaurants called "Gopher Grill."

About half of native-born Minnesotans find it hard to understand why I

find this funny. (Same way I didn't realize till recently that "Fishkill

River" could sound like a joke.)



There is a New York Pizza place in downtown MPLS. This is regional in a

negative way -- in Ulster County NY, there don't seem to be any food

places named New York ___. I suspect that there aren't any in

metropolitan New Jersey, either. And that southern Illinois has a lot

fewer Chicago ___ eateries than, say, Minneapolis.



Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]maroon.tc.umn.edu



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994

************************************************







There are 8 messages totalling 147 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1.  No subject given 

 2. waiter/waitress

 3. ADS-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994 (5)

 4. Stereotyping of Accent on Film/TV



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 29 Jan 1994 02:04:22 CST

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

Subject:  No subject given 



In addition to the Latin sentence, "Been there. Done that" MAY be related

to popular use that may be regional. A graduate student of mine would

drive her housmates and friends crazy when she would finish a task, large or

small, and say "Did that" as she filed the paper or threw away scratch paper

used in performing the task -- or when she got a pie ready to go into the

oven or took the pie out and prepared it for serving. Just a wild speculation

on my part, but it's possible that Kathy isn't alone in her usage. She grew

up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which has a rather strong Southern cultural

base.                 DMLance



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 29 Jan 1994 04:30:41 -0600

From:  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU

Subject: Re: waiter/waitress



June and I eat out twice a day; we rarely cook at home. But nobody

around here announces themselves as anything. The last place I was in

where anyone said hi Im X and Ill be your X was a self-consciously trendy

restaurant in Madison WI. You got a little plate a dry green crud for

thirteen

dollars. We had a place here in Macomb where they did that (announced,

not gave you dry green crud). The guy was dressed up in something like

Admiral Nelson's dress uniform, and hovered annoyingly around for the whole

meal. I wanted to say, WILL YOU PLEASE JUST GET AWAY!!!!!!!!! Fortunately,

that place went down the tubes and was replaced by something plainer and

more sensible.



Tim Frazer



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 29 Jan 1994 09:53:58 -0500

From:  ALICE FABER  FABER%LENNY[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VENUS.CIS.YALE.EDU 

Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994



There may not be "New York Pizza" places in Ulster County NY, but there is a

"Manhattan Bagel" chain in the NY Metropolitan area. I'm only familiar with

the one in Middletown CT (a bit out of the NY Met. Area), but there are

apparently branches (?) closer to NYC. Of course, since New Haven claims to be

the American origin of pizza, NY Pizza wouldn't be a selling point. Is there a

generalization lurking here? (:-))



Alice Faber

Faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Yalehask



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 29 Jan 1994 12:12:10 -0500

From:  Robert Kelly  kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU 

Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994



There may be a basic rule or two of American savvy (or superstition) about

restaurants at work here.



If the Rule 1 is: eat at diners where the trucks are parked,



then Rule 2 must be: avoid any French or Italian restaurant whose name is

understandable to those who do NOT know Fr. or It., thus avoid The Tower of

Pisa or the Eiffel Tower or La Rive Gauche or The Gondola or The Rialto,

whereas it's safe to go to La Grenouille or Gerbe d'Or or Il Maialino.



Thus readying us for Rule 3: avoid any restaurant bearing the name of a

famous city (unless you're in the city). ALL NY pizzas, Paris bakeries,

Vienna sausage shops, London fish & chips, ALL will be terrible. Avoid

Pekings and Tokyos and Bangkoks and Athenses.



So these infrastructure rules may prepare us for whatever linguistic rule is

lurking in the names on the Net we're concerned with.



Affably,

R



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 29 Jan 1994 11:06:19 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Stereotyping of Accent on Film/TV



The following note was received from one of my Anglo-Saxonist

colleagues. I thought it might spark some reactions. I haven't thought

about the matter, but maybe it's true. One tends to be more sensitive

to stereotyping of one's own regional variety.

    Rudy Troike



The mention of TV reminds me of this little thing (which might start a

fierce debate on ADS-L): Last year some Brit groused in a letter to The

Times (or the Evening Standard?) that in American telly and movie pro-

ductions the bad guy, or the twit or whatever heavy, was the guy with the

English accent. Being in England at the time, I dismissed this complaint

as standard Brit whining about Yanks. Later, back in blighty USA, I

started to take this complaint more seriously. I don't watch enough

television--and I haven't gone to a cinema since the late 1970s--to be

very scientific about all this, but I suss that the grousing Brit might be

quite right.



Carl Berkhout



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 29 Jan 1994 21:38:32 EST

From:  Larry Horn  LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU 

Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994



The rules sound OK in general but (on a more culinary than linguistic note) I

decline to observe the boycott of city-named restaurants, especially when the

city in question is Bangkok. I have noticed no negative correlation with the

quality of food, and the proposed boycott would have deprived me of the only

Thai food in more than a couple of small American cities. I suppose every

rule has its exceptions, every principle its parametrization...



                         Larry



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 29 Jan 1994 22:39:22 -0500

From:  Robert Kelly  kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU 

Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994



restriction of Rule:



A restaurant named for a city in the country whose cuisine is represented

is to be avoided unless it is the only restaurant in the region serving

such cuisine.  Bangkoks have (speaking personally) been inferior. But

there is the Mandalay in SF.....



rk



------------------------------



Date:  Sat, 29 Jan 1994 20:52:38 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike  RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 27 Jan 1994 to 28 Jan 1994



Implicational rule #3:

    The foregoing notwithstanding, a restaurant not so named serving

cuisine from another country may also need to be avoided (e.g., the Grand

Canyon Restaurant in Flagstaff, Arizona, which serves Chinese food originally

designed for railroad workers).

        --Rudy Troike



------------------------------



End of ADS-L Digest - 28 Jan 1994 to 29 Jan 1994

************************************************





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Status: R



There are 9 messages totalling 169 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Stereotyping of Accent on Film/TV (5)

 2. regional business names (fwd)

 3. stereotyping of accent

 4. can it be said?

 5. ADS-L Digest - 26 Jan 1994 to 27 Jan 1994



----------------------------------------------------------------------



Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 14:12:51 +0100

From:  Peter Trudgill  PeterJohn.Trudgill[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ANGL.UNIL.CH 

Subject: Re: Stereotyping of Accent on Film/TV



    Of course it's true that the villain is often played by a Brit! I

deduce that one connotation for American audiences of Upper Class English

English accents is "sinister". The interesting question is "Why?"

Typically, though, it is only in Dracula-type or science fiction American

horror movies that the villain is played by a Brit, such as Peter Cushing.

Peter Trudgill FBA

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



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Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 07:53:39 -0600

From:  Alan Slotkin  ARS7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TNTECH.BITNET 

Subject: Re: regional business names (fwd)



DAN GOODMAN'S MESSAGE REMINDED ME THAT IN LONDON THEY LONG AGO ADOPTED

EXOTIC PLACE NAMES (U.S.) FOR RESTAURANTS--TENNESSEE FRIED CHICKEN IS STILL

A FAVORITE THERE.



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Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 09:23:27 -0500

From:  Robert Kelly  kelly[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LEVY.BARD.EDU 

Subject: Re: Stereotyping of Accent on Film/TV



I suspect the answer (Why the upper class British accent = villain) is

less a British vs Other issue than a class one:



the Upper Classes are (naturally enough) perceived as the ancient and

traditional victimizers of the lower classes



In Britain, accent reveals class far more dependably than elsewhere in

the anglophonia.



Whoever sucks the blood of the victim (cf pop Marxism) is a "Count" or

"Baron;"



Isn't it the case that in British movies as well, the villain is very often

just that upper class (British Hitchcock, pre-Hollywood, was full of U-speaking

villains)?



RK



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Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 10:59:05 CST

From:  Dennis Baron  debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UIUC.EDU 

Subject: Re: Stereotyping of Accent on Film/TV



 Peter Trudgill  PeterJohn.Trudgill[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]angl.unil.ch  writes:



     Of course it's true that the villain is often played by a Brit! I

 deduce that one connotation for American audiences of Upper Class English

 English accents is "sinister". The interesting question is "Why?"

 Typically, though, it is only in Dracula-type or science fiction American

 horror movies that the villain is played by a Brit, such as Peter Cushing.



And what about American accents as portrayed on British TV? (BTW, it

would be too easy to hire an American actor to do this.) The British

version of what Americans sound like is pretty jarring when shows

play in the US; but in addition, Americans tend not to be sympathetic

characters on these shows either. Even the French fare

better on British TV than Americans.



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           ==).     \ __________\

                   (__)      ()___________)



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Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 09:39:38 PST

From:  Joseph Jones  Joseph.Jones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LIBRARY.UBC.CA 

Subject: stereotyping of accent



A British character that led me to think a little about

stereotyping was the smart-ass gunslinger that almost got

kicked to death by the sheriff in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.

A character you loved to hate, until he got stomped on unfairly.

This is a western, not detective or sci-fi. Two angles.

History: the former colonial oppressor. Otherness: at the supper

table recently my youngest daughter volunteered that a British

accent was unpleasing because it was stuck-up. This in a

country that tends to be anglophile (though this is the west of it).



Joseph Jones   jjones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]library.ubc.ca

University of British Columbia Library



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Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 09:42:06 PST

From:  Joseph Jones  Joseph.Jones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LIBRARY.UBC.CA 

Subject: can it be said?



Recently I was held up to universal family derision for

unselfconsciously saying something 'impossible'. Has my

native intuition gone haywire? Here it is: I could look

for you some books on that.



Joseph Jones   jjones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]library.ubc.ca

University of British Columbia Library



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Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 11:38:00 CST

From:  "Tom M."  TEM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]KSUVM.BITNET 

Subject: Re: ADS-L Digest - 26 Jan 1994 to 27 Jan 1994



Don,



About your query regarding people who wait on others in restaurants: In Manhat

tan, KS, as also in Topeka and Kansas City, I'm hearing SERVER more and more (f

or both of your test sentences)--the result, no doubt, of all the interest in P

C and bias-free language. We heard the same thing (SERVER) in the Black Hills

of South Dakota this past summer, too, and in northern New Mexico the year befo

re that. (In really cheap places, of course, like roadside diners, the person

who seats you usually says something like "Here's a menu; [NAME] will be right

with you"; and when the server arrives, he/she says, "Hi, my name is [_____].

Are you ready to order?"



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Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 12:18:06 CST

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

Subject: Re: Stereotyping of Accent on Film/TV



"sinister" + suave + subtle --- British accents.

plottingly "sinister" + a bit crude -- not upper-class British accent.



A Dracula theme adapted to an American setting wouldn't use a Brit in the

same way. I think other features besides accent come into play, particularly

setting. British and American accents in Rome, Prague, Transylvania,

Istanbul, Reykjevik, New York, Niagara Falls, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los

Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, New Orleans, Montgomery would carry different

connotations.     DMLance



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Date:  Mon, 31 Jan 1994 18:51:55 -0600

From:  Charles F Juengling-2  juen0001[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU 

Subject: Re: Stereotyping of Accent on Film/TV



I was very interested to read of stereotyping of accent in American

film/TV. My children have over the past several years watched quite a few

cartoons. I, too, have noticed that the bad guys quite often have certain

dialects. I can't say, however, that I remember the Brits being picked on.

I've noticed that the bad guys most often have either a Mexican or New

York (probably to be identified with the Mafia) accent.

Fritz Juengling



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End of ADS-L Digest - 29 Jan 1994 to 31 Jan 1994

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