Date:  Sun, 7 Jan 1996 17:12:04 GMT

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

Subject: Re: Various



>Bolinger's *Language: The Loaded Weapon* a very brief discussion of why it is

>that harsh-sounding dialect features tend to disappear in song; why, for examp

>le, a person with a heavy Irish accent when talking is nearly not recognizably

>Irish when singing. The problem, of course, is that my memory is too dim to al

>low me to find Bolinger's discussion, even after perusing the book for upwards

>of an hour. Anyone have a clue?



I don't remember what Bolinger said about it, but I had always thought that

some of what we think of as accent disappears in music because the pitch

is built into the music, thus taking away the pitch contours of the singer's

native language.



>unpopped kernel of popcorn. It certainly is in St. Louis, MO. What do the r

>est of you use in its place?



I don't remember having occasion to call it anything, but I guess I'd say

"unpopped kernels." I started to reply to Joan's posting when I first read

it to say that I *think* my mother once told me that she used to call an

unpopped kernel of popcorn an "old maid." But then I couldn't remember

that for sure. I'll try to remember to ask her. She was born in north

Alabama in 1914 but moved to Mississippi when she was eleven.



>hat one" in describing a particularly ticklish political situation. Does "We m

>ay have to budge on that one" sound as marginal to anyone else as it does to me

>? Is *budge* really not a negative-bias word?



I've never heard positive "budge."

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