From: Mon, 1 Mar 1993 12:02:00 EST To: Multiple recipients of list LORE Subject: Re: Hissy fits I also have heard about hissy fits all my life, and don't know for sure where that comes from, although the cat analogy makes sense. A question though: is there any basic difference between a hissy fit and a conniption fit? (Actual Inin SC, I think it was usually just called a hissy - the "fit" part was pretty much implied... As for traffic on this list - I just subscribed to it last week (heard it was the great center of FOAF-tales on the Internet), and the message regarding hissies was the only one I've received so far. So, if anyone wants to talk I'm here (and verbose on occasion!) Sally G. Waters (waters[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]stetson) / "There ain't no Coup De Ville Queen of Reference / Hiding at the bottom Stetson College of Law Library / Of a Cracker Jack box..." 1401 61st St. S. / St. Petersburg, FL 33707 / -- Meat Loaf ----- forwarded message ends here ----- Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 21:54:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: hissy fits there's an entry for hissy fits in the dictionary of american regional english. (that's with caps, of course.) beth simon blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 01:51:40 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: hissy fits Oh, yes, hissy fits are different from conniption fits. My mother knew well. She grew up in southwest Arkansas (b. 1904). One PITCHES a hissy fit, but one HAS a conniption fit or has conniptions. Hissies are what one does toward others, and conniptions occur to a person as a result of some external trigger. Both entail anger, but there's a transitivity difference, in both the fit and the anger. The hiss doesn't have to have originated as a 'cat' reference, as I under- stood my mother's use of the term. People hiss too, as do snakes. We hiss at others when we are angry with them. The conniption is triggered by an external stimulus, but the fit itself suggests reactions by motor reflexes rather than the volitional hisses of the hissy fit. Syntactic deletion is different for the two. One can have a fit (conniption) but it's less likely for one to pitch a fit (hissy). My father (b. sw AR 1895) would throw or pitch a fit, but it wasn't a hissy fit; it was an angry fit, perhaps with intemperate verbal display that was raucous rather than hissy. DMLance Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 10:12:53 -0800 From: David Harnick-Shapiro Subject: Re: hissy fits On Wed, 3 Mar 1993 01:51, "Donald M. Lance" writes: > The hiss doesn't have to have originated as a 'cat' reference, as I under- > stood my mother's use of the term. People hiss too, as do snakes. We hiss > at others when we are angry with them. > The conniption is triggered by an external stimulus, but the fit itself > suggests reactions by motor reflexes rather than the volitional hisses of > the hissy fit. > Syntactic deletion is different for the two. One can have a fit > (conniption) but it's less likely for one to pitch a fit (hissy). My father > (b. sw AR 1895) would throw or pitch a fit, but it wasn't a hissy fit; it > was an angry fit, perhaps with intemperate verbal display that was raucous > rather than hissy. Everyone so far seems to agree 'hissy' < 'to make a hissing sound'. When I was a (perhaps somewhat overly bookish) child, I assumed 'hissy' < 'hysterical'. (I can't verify this with any authoritative sources as I'm banging this off on company time :-), and so do not have access to my books.) I also understood hissy fits to be more commonly applied to women. (This is certainly in line with the historical interpretation of hysteria.) Note, above, that Donald Lance's father's fits were more "masculine". However, this aspect might support the 'hissing sound' hypothesis, too, since cats are traditionally viewed as female (and females often viewed as cats). Anyone have anything definite to cite, to advance one interp. or the other? -------- David Harnick-Shapiro Internet: david[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ics.uci.edu Information and Computer Science UUCP: ...!{ucbvax,zardoz}!ucivax!david University of California, Irvine BITNet: DBSHAPIR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UCI Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 19:10:57 -0500 From: "David Bergdahl (614) 593-2783" I concur w/David Harnick-Shapiro's judgment that hissy fit = hysteria; here in southern Ohio the term is used the same as my Brooklyn-born Conn Yankee mother's conniption fit. On another topic: the use of liberal I described a while back. A part time instructor asked his class to annotate the newspaper article in which a fraternity president complained that rushing was down because kids were more liberal 4 yrs ago. The general consensus was that liberal meant more willing to drink, party = the euphemism of choice around here. So kids drank more readily four years ago and therefore were more willing to joibn fraternities, the purpose of which is . . . you get it! David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Gateway to West Virginia" BERGDAHL AT OUACCVMB.Bitnet-or-BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU ********************************************************************** Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 19:53:39 EST From: Michael Montgomery Subject: Re: Author search The address of Clyde Smith, Jr. is as follows: Clyde Smith, Jr. Caixa Postal 1621 Natal - RN - Brazil 59072-970 The "Southern English in Brazil, no?" paper was published as follows: Bailey, Guy, and Clyde Smith. 1989. Southern English in Brazil, no? SECOL Review 16.71-89. A related essay on the English of the descendants of the Confederates who migrated to Brazil is Montgomery, Michael, and Cecil Ataide Melo. 1990. The phonology of the lost cause: the English of the Confe- derados in Brazil. English World-Wide 11.195-216. Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 23:28:02 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: hissy fits David Harnick-Shapiro makes a valid obsevation, I think. Both males and females in my parents' families could throw (or pitch) hissy fits, but they would have a sissy quality when thrown by males. Conniption fits, as I recall, weren't sex-marked. The male hissy fit isn't necessarily effeminate, but it makes the male seem "emotional" the way a female would react. I wish I had a citation for the record, but my memory will have to do for now. DMLance Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1993 23:49:50 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Peckerwood Last summer someone was speculating about why people these days might turn 'woodpecker' around. I've just come across a citation from 1893. Yes, exactly a century ago. In OLD RABBIT THE VOODOO, AND OTHER SORCERERS (London, 1983) -- rpt. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 -- Mary Alicia Owen (1950-1935, of St. Joseph MO) tells an intersting story. A "peart an' biggety -feelin' lil boy" was out hunting and "he up wid er rock and bust de laig ob er lil peckerwood dat he see a knockin' at de do' ob Misteh Wuhm's house." The wounded bird made its way home, "hipplety, hopplety," and he "fine he pa an' say 'Looky hyeah at my laig!'" His pa, called "Old Woodpeckeh" in the story, "fix that laig up good ez new." The story is told as a dialogue between a child and "Granny." "How he do it, Granny?" -- "He done hit de way dat suit 'im, dat all I knows. I wuzzen' dar at de time. Howsomedevvah he done hit hit wuz er mighty good job." -- "I didn't know birds were doctors." -- "Dey's two free tings yo' ain't larn yit," said Granny, with a fine irony that was altogether wasted on her auditor, "an' one un um is de pinbt Ise aimin' at. De peckersoods ain't no shoh 'nuff buhds, dey's cunjerers dat kin de buhds ur dey kin be men, an' de boss un um all, Ole Woodpeckeh, he kin look lak de finest kine ob er Injun-chief, ceppin dat he don't hafter paint red, he des grow dataways." This particular item, I suspect,goes deep into Black and Southern culture. It would be a good item for a research paper. I came across this reference in "Mary Alicia Owen, Collector of Afro-American and Indian Lore in Missouri" in the Missouri Folklore Society Journal 2 (1980) 1-14. The author, W. K. McNeil, points out that Mary Alicia, as she is known to Missouri folklorists,did not become well known in this country because she delivered most of her scholarly papers at the Folk-LoreSociety in London and published her books in England. She did not have formal university training but collected a fair amount of material from Negroes and from Sac Indians in the St. Joseph area in the 1880s to 1910 or so. OK. I told you more than you wanted to know, especially from reading small print on screen as you're trying to do your e-mail in ten minutes. Sorry. But enjoy! DMLance, U of MO Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 09:11:52 -0500 From: "David Bergdahl (614) 593-2783" With apologies to Don Lance: my wife, a Dayton OH native and a psychotherapist who talks with local people a lot more than I, confirms Don Lance's use of the terms "hissy fit" and "conniption." [She can't recall "conniption fit" as a phrase.] David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Gateway to West Virginia" BERGDAHL AT OUACCVMB.Bitnet-or-BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU ********************************************************************** Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 12:33:06 CST From: Gerald Walton Subject: Re: Peckerwood On Wed, 3 Mar 1993 23:49:50 CST Donald M. Lance said: >Last summer someone was speculating about why people these days might turn >'woodpecker' around. I've just come across a citation from 1893. Yes, >exactly a century ago. In OLD RABBIT THE VOODOO, AND OTHER SORCERERS (London, >1983) -- rpt. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 -- Mary Alicia Owen >(1950-1935, of St. Joseph MO) tells an intersting story. A "peart an' biggety Thanks for sharing. I did enjoy it. As someone pointed out earlier, I guess this is a kind of phonetic metastasis. I can remember hearing a paper in which the speaker referred to "peckerwoods," "A Model Fords," and 61 Highway," but I can't come up with the who and where. GWW Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 15:01:37 EST From: Ellen Johnson Subject: Re: Peckerwood Woodpecker was one of the questions in my study of lexical variation in GA, SC, and NC. I compared responses from 1990 to those collected for LAMSAS in the 1930s. In the earlier sample, 10 of 39 speakers used peckerwood, while 23 used woodpecker. I only collected 5 instances of peckerwood in 1990. Interestingly, wp was one of 14 terms that were associated with the sex of the speaker, being statistically more frequent among women. I hypothesize that although the metathesized version, pw, was not linked to males, the women were avoiding it because it can also be used as an insulting way to refer to a man with, I think, an oblique genital reference. Another term for wp is woodcock, by the way, though still another,woodhen,appears to contradict the theory link- ing it to the male sex. Raven McDavid noted that pw was a term used by both blacks and whites for rustics, i.e. poor white trash, rednecks. Another interesting switch is hoppergrass (3 in the 1930s set, only used by an 89-yr.-old black former sharecropper in my interviews). Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 15:28:07 EST From: Ellen Johnson Subject: peckerwoods Sorry, I forgot to sign that last message for those of you who don't see the sender in your header. The comments on peckerwoods, woodcocks, hoppergrasses? came from Ellen Johnson atlas[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga is the bitnet address. Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 11:48:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: lexical item anyone familiar with "krunka" ("a" of run) for a particular kind of end piece? thanks, beth simon at the dictionary of american regional english blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 16:51:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: lexical items Is anyone, esp those from Adirondack/mountainous New England, familiar with _quaking pond_? anyone familiar with _quick cheese_ does anyone know someone who is _quinty_? thanks, beth simon at the dictionary of american regional english blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1993 19:41:23 -0600 From: Dan Goodman Subject: language changes This is for a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop: How to accurately portray the language problems of someone who's been zapped 200 years into the future of her native country. There's one article specifically on that subject -- but it appeared in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION in the 1940's. I tried looking up various American dialects, to find out how they might've changed since 1793 -- and which ones were around then, for that matter. And the sources I tried weren't very helpful. I realize there's a shortage of tape recordings from that era, among other problems. Example: I haven't been able to find out when the NYC dialect became distinctively different from the Hudson Valley dialect, and took something like its present shape. Apparently, some shipborne influence struck the dialects of New York City, Boston, Charleston, and New Orleans some time between 1780 and 1880 -- but I'd like to narrow it down a bit more. Oh, yes -- is there a reference work on _North American_ English? One that doesn't assume dialects stop at the American/Canadian border? Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]staff.tc.umn.edu Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 14:08:06 EST From: Brad Grissom Subject: Two idioms Do any of your citation files have information on the expressions 'rocket scientist' (as in "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out") or 'have a bad hair day'? There is curiosity on another list about their origin. Film or TV provenance is suspected. Thanks in advance, Brad Grissom bgrissom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ukcc.uky.edu Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 15:08:58 EST From: Bill Kretzschmar Subject: Re: language changes A couple of suggestions about history of American dialects, following Dan Goodman's message. Jess Bessinger's Caedmon recording of the History of the English Language includes his readings of several early American pieces, so you can have an aural model if you want one. The question of when dialects "diverged" is interesting. Early diaries and other materials have not been sufficiently studied, but two streams of thought have caught my attention. 1) The Helsinki group (Rissanen, Kyto, etc.) have done much to study Early Modern variation, including American; the Helsinki Corpus (computer versions of early texts) should prove valuable for that. 2) Studies of Brazilian Confederates (by e.g. Guy Bailey) and of the Samana colony (Poplack) suggest that what we consider to be typical features of Southern American English may not in fact be very old. Perhaps John Algeo's volume for the Cambridge history on History of American English (forthcoming) will shed more light on the issue. Bill Kretzschmar, UGA Bill Kretzschmar 706-542-2246 University of Georgia FAX 706-542-2181 Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1993 16:40:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: lexical queries Is anyone familiar with the following? : 1. "quaker soil" If so, do you grow strawberries in it? 2. If something doesn't fit very well, or is no longer appropriate, say, a t-shirt you tossed in the dryer, and now it deosn't fit too quick? fit too soon? fit too early? 3. Using "quick" for "soon" as, for instance, "as quick as I was ten years old"? thanks. beth simon at the dictionary of american regional english blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu Date: Tue, 9 Mar 1993 14:59:08 EST From: Ellen Johnson Subject: Re: lexical items Status: RO LAMSAS file for cottage cheese does not show any examples of quick cheese, tho I imagine it's the same thing. Nor does our file for swamp include a quaking pond. Sorry we can't help out this time. Ellen Johnson, atlas[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga. Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 16:01:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: Lexical query Does anyone belong to, or did anyone grow up in, a Methodist church? If so, do/did you have an annual quarterly meeting? thanks, beth at dictionary of american retional english blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1993 20:31:31 CST From: Dan Goodman Subject: Re: language changes On Mon, 8 Mar 1993 15:08:58 EST, Bill Kretzschmar writes: >A couple of suggestions about history of American dialects, following Dan >Goodman's message. > Thanks. I'll pass this on to the person who originally asked, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, and some people I think might be interested. Occurs to me that an American from 200 years ago would have both fewer and more problems than I'd thought. Fewer, because many people wouldn't notice how different his accent was. More, because -- well, let's say he's being offered something to drink. He asks for coffee, because that's the one thing on the list he's familiar with under that name. "Do you want regular or unleaded?" Dan Goodman dsg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]staff.tc.umn.edu Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 18:51:45 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Name Society Sessions at MLA There are openings for papers in the Name Society sessions at MLA in Toronto. The deadline for abstracts is Saturday, March 20. ANS accepts a wide range of topics, from literary onomastics to place names. Send abstracts to Edwin Lawson, Department of Psychology, SUNY-Fredonia, Fredonia NY 14063. You may send your abstract to him by e-mail -- lawson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]fredonia. DMLance Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 21:25:42 CST From: Gerald Walton Subject: speen Anybody ever seen any references to the word _speen_? I was at a party last night with a writer who said he used the expression "tobacco juice speening down his chin." His agent, or editor, told him there is no such word as _speen_, and none of the 15 or so people at the party had ever heard of it (the person grew up in northeast Mississippi). GWW Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 12:40:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: lexical query Does anyone have a term for a small eating place where the food is not especially good? thanks, beth simon at the dictionary of american regional english blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 13:02:05 CST From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: lexical query > Does anyone have a term for a small eating place where the food is > not especially good? A greasy spoon? --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 13:53:14 EST From: Ellen Johnson Subject: Re: Lexical query I don't remember how often they were held, but I often heard my grandmother (from Heard County in west Georgia) tell of the good times had there. This was apparently the main (only?) social event attended by rural people there in the early part of the 20th century and included preaching, singing, and eating. It entailed dressing up in one's finest clothes and people of all denominations (esp. Baptist) came. Then when the Baptists held their (I don't) remember the name) comparable meeting, the Methodists attended theirs as well. The main issue of linguistic interest in all this is how long it took me as a child to understand that it was a QUARTERLY meeting. I thought the name was specific to the event: QUARRLY mtg. (very backed a)! It was many years before I learned it was a common adjective. Ellen Johnson, atlas[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 12:14:46 -0800 From: Alan Kaye Subject: Re: lexical query Dear Beth, The word I use is "Doggie Diner" = "Greasy Spoon", viz., 'small eating place where the food is lousy'. Alan Kaye Ling. Dept. Calif. State Univ. Fullerton, CA 92634 Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 16:40:11 -0400 From: "Terry Pratt, UPEI" Subject: Re: lexical query greasy spoon Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 18:29:13 CST From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Bounced Mail > From: M Lynne Murphy > Subject: Re: lexical query > To: owner-ads-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu (Beth Lee Simon) > Date: Mon, 15 Mar 93 17:07:36 CST > > the term i use is "greasy spoon" (not an unusual term, i think) > > lynne murphy > > > > > Does anyone have a term for a small eating place where the food is > > not especially good? > > > > thanks, beth simon at the dictionary of american regional english > > blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu > > Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 19:59:09 -0800 From: "Thomas L. Clark" Subject: Re: lexical query Beth Lee Simon, The greasy spoon is ubiquitous. But I first heard of it when I was in boarding school in Seattle [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] 1950. We were given "day out," which meant we could run around Seattle unsupervised for a day. But we had to fill our a form announcing where we would take our meals and give the name of the restaurant. I asked my "swot," senior upperclass roomie, where to go. He told me to write down Greasy Spoon, which I'd not heard of. And the location was on "Skid Road." I spent most of the day looking for that restaurant. And no faculty member prevented my leaving campus. Since then I have encountered 'greasy chopstick' in San Jose. An entire class of students from various parts of this country I herded in London for six months are calling such places in this country the "barf 'n' tootle" as the result of eating once in a poor pub named the Bark and Bugle. An unforgetably bad pub meal. Cheers, tlc Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 22:36:06 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: lexical query You're perhaps looking for terms besides 'greasy spoon', which I say with -z- because I grew up in Texas and my parents were both born in southwest AR. I think I would say 'dump' or 'dump of an eating place' -- but with my dialect study I can use 'greasy spoon' only with conscious awareness. After looking at so many student questionnaires I'm not quite sure what I say anymore, but I'm sure I use 'dump' and I think my siblings do too. DMLance Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 01:03:55 EST From: Al Futrell Subject: Re: lexical query Beth: Another term for a rather low-life place to eat is "one-arm joint." It may not be used as much as it used to be, but depending on what circles one travels, it is likely to be blurted out now and then. David Maurer told me over a decade ago that the term is derived from the fact that the waitress usually brings you everything on one arm because the place does not use trays to serve food. --- Al Futrell, awfutr01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ulkyvm.louisville.edu Associate Professor of Communication University of Louisville Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 01:31:41 -0500 From: Mike Agnes Subject: low eateries Although I have never used it, isn't "ptomaine palace" recorded somewhere? Teen slang, perhaps? -- Mike Agnes INTERNET: by971[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cleveland.freenet.edu BITNET: by971%cleveland.freenet.edu[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cunyvm FAX: 216 579-1255 Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 03:59:35 GMT From: Chris Katopis Subject: Origin of "porno" - Greek for ... what is the derivation of "porno"? i was told that it is from the greek for "harlot." is this true? Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 08:17:25 -0500 From: No Name Given Subject: Re: lexical query Beth, there's the presumably widespread "greasy spoon" (That's /grizi spu:n/, which I have heard throughout the south. Also, though its scope is probably more general, "gyp joint." Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 09:35:27 -0500 From: "David Bergdahl (614) 593-2783" ALL OF THESE TERMS FOR GREASY SPOON HAVE A DEPRESSION-ERA FLAVOR TO ME; NOW WHEN WE THINK OF BAS CULTURE WE CALL IT BY NAME, e.g. Wendy"s, McDonald's, RAX &c. On another topic: could anyone on the list tell me (BERGDAHL [AT SYMBOL GOES HERE] OUACCVMB.Bitnet) if his/her library has back issues of the LACUS FORUM? Our ILL Dept is having a hard time finding a library that has it/'em. Thanks in advance. David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens "Gateway to West Virginia"********************************************************************** Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 08:52:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: bas culture and greasy spoons Yes, David, I was quite entertained by the responses from another list, especially those that are now substitutes for Jack In The Box. There were some for RAX too. I've never heard of that. beth Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 23:29:34 EST From: "Warren A. Brewer" Subject: Greasy spoon Dear ADSlers, In the seventies at UCLA, a local-yokel classmate would refer to asy greasy spoon as a scarf 'n' barf, a lovely rhyme formation. Warren A. Brewer Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 10:46:10 -0500 From: "Kim S. Campbell" Subject: Lexical Query In addition to 'greasy spoon' many of my 30-something friends use the term 'dive' for a less than desirable place to eat. Kim Campbell Air Force Institute of Technology kcampbel[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]afit.af.mil Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1993 08:58:15 -0800 From: "Joseph B. Monda" Subject: Re: lexical query On Mon, 15 Mar 1993, Thomas L. Clark wrote: > in London for six months are calling such places in this country the > "barf 'n' tootle" as the result of eating once in a poor pub named > the Bark and Bugle. An unforgetably bad pub meal. > Cheers, > tlc I've heard students refer to places as "Arf and Barf"-- possibly self-explanatory. Joe Monda Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1993 12:04:59 -0600 From: URLIGGINS%MEMSTVX1.BitNet[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pucc.PRINCETON.EDU Subject: TO SUBCRIBE TO ADS RANDY LIGGINS HELLO I AM A FRESHMAN AT MEMPHIS STATE AND I HOPE THAT YOU WILL RESPOND AND GIVE ME A LITTLE INFOMATION ABOUT YOUR ORGANIZATION. I LOOK FORWARD TO HEAEING FROM YOU SO WRITE BACK SOON. Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 18:55:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: names for games What did you call the game, or the play activity (hmm, neopostmodernpc jargon attack, help!) where someone ran to the top of a rise (natural or created) and claimed "I am XXXX" and then others ran up, tried to dislodge the first claimant, and announced "No, I am XXXX"? thanks, beth simon at the dictionary of american regional english blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 21:23:24 EST From: Boyd Davis Subject: Re: names for games The announcement we made at the top of the hill was 'I'm King of the Mountain' After which we all pushed everybody down and those who didn't get pushed promptly fell down and rolled Boyd Davis Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 21:20:52 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: names for games I knew OF the game as 'King of the Hill' but we didn't play it much (in improvised form) because there are no hills in South Texas where we lived after I was 8. I don't recall rules like Boyd's, probably because there was nothing to roll off of. I do recall lots of pushing and shoving, and that I didn't like the game (because it wasn't a 'play activity' for me). DMLance Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1993 23:39:00 EST From: "James_C.Stalker" Subject: names for games In Kentucky in the '50s, we called it "King of the Mountain." Although there wre both mountains and hills in KY, we didn't need either. It was a fairly physical game, lots of pushing and shoving. The object was to push the "king" off his perch, of whatever variety, and become the king yourself. At that point, you were then attacked by all and sundry. JCStalker, Mich State Univ. stalker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1993 07:46:00 EST From: "Charles M. Rosenberg" Subject: Re: names for games Born and raised in Chicago. We called it "King of the Hill." Charles Rosenberg, Notre Dame Reply-To: American Dialect Society From: "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR%MSU.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu> Subject: names for games Southern Indiana (Floyd County); working class, white, 40's and 50's term was 'King of the Hill,' occasionally 'King on the Hill.' Dennis Preston Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1993 11:49:06 EST From: Dan Mosser Subject: Re: names for games That was call "king of the hill" where I grew up (Portland OR). Dan Mosser Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1993 11:04:34 CST From: Joan Livingston-Webber Subject: Re: names for games It was King of the Mountain in western Pa in the 50's. Joan L-W Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1993 15:52:00 -0500 From: "Terry Pratt, UPEI" Subject: Re: names for games In Ontario in 40's 50's, "King of the Castle" Date: Sat, 20 Mar 1993 13:36:38 PST From: Joseph Jones Subject: nName that game No clear memories of playing that game in the fifties in North Carolina. But my three daughters have played it in the eighties in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. It goes like this: Stand on top of a high point (rock, play equipment, mound, whatever). Chant "I'm the king of the castle, you're the dirty rascal." The rascals try to dislodge or drag down the king, occupy the favored place, and then make the same declaration. Perhaps some British influence north of the border. Joseph Jones - University of British Columbia Library jjones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]library.ubc.ca Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 11:13:30 CST From: Kyle Subject: Re: names for games In central Iowa, late 50's/early 60's, we played "King of the Mountain"-- which is odd since there aren't any mountains in Iowa. My wife played a particularly rough variation in Louisville KY in the early 60's: "King of the Tree." That "game" sent more than one kid to the hospital. Kyle Grimes arhu018[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 13:20:34 CST From: Natalie Maynor Subject: Re: names for games Have any of you heard of a game called "Coming Up the Hill," or was it perhaps local to my neighborhood? It was the favorite game of the neighborhood boys, although the girls joined in. And it very clearly reflected the era of not very many years after WWII. (This was in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early '50s.) We would run up a hill and be gunned down by the person at the top of the hill (with an imaginary gun). Then the gunner would decide who had fallen in the most realistic (read gruesome- looking) position. Re my comment about the era -- the people running up the hill were always "the Germans and the Japs." --Natalie (maynor[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ra.msstate.edu) Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 14:50:19 -0800 From: Gail Stygall Subject: Re: names for games It was both *king of the mountain* and less frequently *king of the hill* om Central Indiana in the 50's. Gail Stygall stygall[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]byron.u.washington.edu Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 21:08:14 -0500 From: "David Bergdahl (614) 593-2783" Even though southern Long Island is as flat as Kansas, in the '40s & 50's the game was "King-of-the-Mt." Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 09:59:33 -0500 From: 00clhouck%BSUVAX1.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu Subject: Names of Games I'm new at this, so I hope this gets transmitted correctly. In the 30's and 40's in South Dakota (where we call them hills, but really are mountains), we called the game "King of the Mountain," or "King of the Hill." Basically the rules were similar to what has already been described. Unlike Don Lance, I really enjoyed the game, probably because I was quite good in defending position . Chuck Houck Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1993 15:57:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: lexical query Is anyone familiar with a july hound? thanks, and thanks VERY much for all the king and queen of the mountain (and varr) responses! beth simon at dictionary of american regional english blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 09:04:00 EST From: "James_C.Stalker" Subject: address Can anyone give me an email address for Teresa Labov? James C. Stalker Department of English Michigan State University stalker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu (517) 336 7118 Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 18:48:43 CST From: Joan Livingston-Webber Subject: Enculturate? My colleague and I are wondering about the difference between "enculturate" and "acculturate." We assume there is one, but... I asked aboutthis on a cross cultural communication group. One man searched his anthro sources and could not find "enculturate." But my students use it frequently. Any ideas? Thanks. Joan Livingston-Webber webber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]unomaha.edu Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 22:49:09 -0500 From: RICHARD SPEARS Subject: [hw] I am having a polite argument with a college in a speech department over the status of voiceless [w] (i.e., [hw]) in American English. He is certain that it is declining rapidly in use, and is being replaced with [w]. I have never noticed any such decline and assume that it is as alive and well as it ever was--and I refuse to give it up--as a feature of some dialects. Would you care to share your opinion on this matter, or better yet, any recent facts--formal or informal surveys or the like? Certainly this is a matter in which dialectologists ought to be quite authoritative. I need some ammunition. Thanks. Richard Spears Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 01:01:01 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Enculturate? en- vs ad- + culture + -ate What a difference a prefix makes! For me, the en- prefix tends to pattern with transitive verbs and ad- with intransitive verbs. But what do I know? Joan L-W's students surely know what they're up to when they enculturate others or are enculturated themselves. DMLance Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 07:48:00 EST From: "Thomas M. Stephens" Subject: Re: [hw] Richard, I continue to pronounce [hw], even though I have lived in [w] dialect areas for the last 17 years. When I return home to nwSC, I notice that everyone there still uses [hw] rather than [w]. So here's some ammunition. Tom Stephens (Stephens[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Zodiac.Rutgers.Edu) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 07:59:00 EST From: "Dennis.Preston" <22709MGR%MSU.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu> Subject: [hw] About the only place you culd find agreement with your assessment would be from Kurath and McDavid's Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States. They note that the [h] in [hw] is widespread in the East Coast. The kicker is that they notice that it is largely missing in a wide Mid-Atlantic area -- precisely the area which will 'swell' in influence as American Dialects move West. Yield to your friend; the [h] of [hw] is on its way out. I am a Louisvillian, forexample, and the 40's and 50's pronunciation there was largely with [h]; nowadays, it has gone the way of all useless, marked linguistic fol-de-rol. Doubtless DARE people, particularlly Jim Hartman at Kansas, could give you a more detailed and up to date account of its more precise distribution, but you should be prepared to buy drinks; you lose. Dennis Preston Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 07:32:11 CST From: Salikoko Mufwene Subject: Re: Enculturate? In the kind of literature I have read--unfortunately I cannot provide specific references now--children are enculturated (into their cultures, which will become native to them) while foreign adults are acculturated to the new cultures they are brought into. I understand both processes to be forms of assimilation, the first into what will become one's native culture, the second into a host culture. I hope this information will steer you into some direction. You may consider checking some Ward Goodenough's writings (1960s) on kinship terms. Most of the culture/language contact literature speaks of "acculturation". Best, Salikoko Mufwene University of Chicago s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 07:38:39 CST From: Salikoko Mufwene Subject: Re: Enculturate? Don Lance may be right, but I remember Melville Herskovits and several other Anglophone scholars since him speak of the "acculturation of the Negro" in either the United States or the New World. Salikoko Mufwene s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 08:17:40 CST From: Joan Livingston-Webber Subject: Re: [hw] Sometime in the early 60's in western PA, my high school English teacher forced us in unison classroom drills to aspirate [w] prior to the beginning of certain words--though none of us were ever quite sure which words. I didn't get it at all until I took linguistics some years later and realized that she was an incredible prescriptivist. I have no fondness for [hw] as a result and would be happy if it were actually in decline. I would be suspicious if a communications teacher were actually dealing with [hw]. Perhaps the two of you are arguing about different phenomena--maybe it's just no longer perceived as a presitgious form. (Yeah!) Joan Livingston-Webber Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 08:21:00 CST From: Edward Callary Subject: /hw/ Re: /hw/-/w/. When I moved to Illinois some years ago, one of the things I noticed right off was that there was a small but noticeable group of /hw/ speakers. But, especially in the last decade or so, that group has shrunk to near non-existence, to judge by the usage o the college crowd. Where formerly, during transcription exercises, I could count on at least 3 or 4 (but never more than 5 or 6) who woul transcribe which and witch differently. Four or five years ago this number had shrunk to 1 or 2; then an occasional person, and for the past year or two, no one, not even after we had discussed the possibility in class. I might add that the transcription was correct in that the usage reported there was borne out by personal interview with students. I am still expecting to find /hw/ speakers sporadically, but if not in the next year or so, perhaps they, like so much prairie grass, have disappeared. Edward Callary Northern Illinois University Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 11:28:04 -0500 From: 00clhouck%BSUVAX1.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu Subject: [hw] After teaching hundreds of English linguistics classes over the past 27 years here in Middletown USA (Muncie, Indiana), reflecting primarily east-central Indiana, but also northwest and south, southeast Indiana, I have come to much the same conclusion expressed by Edward Callary and Dennis Preston--it's on the way out. Charles L. Houck Ball State University Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 10:51:21 CST From: "Gregory K. Iverson" Subject: Re: [hw] Charles Houck writes about /hw/: o After teaching hundreds of English linguistics classes over the past 27 years o here in Middletown USA (Muncie, Indiana), reflecting primarily east-central o Indiana, but also northwest and south, southeast Indiana, I have come to much o the same conclusion expressed by Edward Callary and Dennis Preston--it's on o the way out. Older diehards like me notwithstanding, it does indeed seem that /hw/ is quickly going the same way way as /hj/ ('hue' = 'you') for many people. But does anyone know of speakers for whom /hw/ > /w/ yet who still retain /hj/ in contrast with /j/? The distribution appears to me to exclude this possibility, while allowing for the other three: (1) /hw/, /w/, /hj/, /j/; (2) /hw/, /w/, /j/; (3) /w/, /j/. The type of system that appears not to be occur, then, is the one that merges /hw/ into /w/ but still contrasts /hj/ and /j/, i.e. *(4) /w/, /hj/, /j/. Does this seem to others to be the way it is? In Peter Ladefoged's 3rd edition of A Course in Phonetics (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993), p. 66, it is remarked that though /hw/ does indeed seem to be on the way out, speakers may retain the contrast in less common or fancier words, so that 'whether' is more likely to show [hw] than is 'what'. I have pattern (1) above throughout, so it's hard for me to sense this distinction in lexical frequency, but it may well be there for others. -- Greg iverson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]convex.csd.uwm.edu Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 12:52:00 CST From: Edward Callary Subject: /hj/ and /hw/ Re: /hw/ /w/ /hj/ /j/. Gregory Iverson that a three-way contrast of /w/ /hj/ and /j/ 'appears not to occur.' Yet if I read him right, th this is JUST the system which is hardening in the Illinois at least. There is just NO movement toward deleting initial /h/ before /j/. I had thought several years ago that I had detected an incipient change in this direction, albeit highly lexically determined, e.g. occasional h-lessness in human and humor, but none in Houston (the Texas sibb-shibolith), Hugh or other words. Again judging from students' transcription as well as hours of just listening, what little there was has disappeared and whoever I hear it from now is invariably an out of stater. This was one feature of a general dialect survey of Illinois which I was conducting, but, for obvious reasons the item was dropped; where there is no variation, there is no use for diagnostic items. As an aside, now I'm remembering one of the first occasions I became aware of this h-dropping. Oodles of years ago, Dean Martin had the popular song 'Houston,' h-less of course. As a second aside, I've heard of Youston, Texas from dozens of people, none of whom would say Whitney, much less hwitney, Youston. Edward Callary Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 09:33:41 -0500 From: No Name Given Subject: Re: [hw] Isn't voiceless [w]'s range wider than just one cluster? And even [hw] has varied with [w] for a long time. Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 14:09:19 -0500 From: Bruce Southard Subject: Re: [hw] In 1977, while attending an NEH seminar conducted by Raven McDavid at the University of Chicago, I went through the field records for the Linguistic Atlas of the North Central States in order to chart the distribution of /hw/ and /w/ in the words "wheelbarrow," "whetstone," and "whip." The LANCS field records clearly show /hw/ to be the most common pronunciation throughout Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. /w/ was used by more than 50% of the Chicago informants, but had limited and very scattered distribution elsewhere. As far as LANCS is concerned, /hw/ is alive and well. Regards, Bruce Southard English Department, East Carolina University ensoutha[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ecuvm1.bitnet Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 14:25:31 EST From: "Betty S. Phillips" Subject: Re: [hw] In reply to Greg Iverson's query as to whether /w/, /hj/, /j/ is a possible grouping, yes, it is mine. I'm from South Georgia originally. Betty Phillips ejphill[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]engfac.indstate.edu Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 11:17:20 PST From: Joseph Jones Subject: Enculturation Enculturation is listed in the OED 2nd ed., earliest occurrence 1948. That and enculturate are found in Random House dictionary of the English language 2nd ed., the verb described as a back formation. Joseph Jones - University of British Columbia Library jjones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]library.ubc.ca Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 11:18:38 PST From: Joseph Jones Subject: /hw/ /hw/ is persistent. I have lost many markers from the first half of my life in North Carolina, but not that one. Twenty-three years in Canada and a native family that all say /w/ have no effect. Is that feature disappearing in the region(s) where it is well-established? Joseph Jones - University of British Columbia Library jjones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]library.ubc.ca Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 13:47:51 CST From: "Gregory K. Iverson" Subject: Re: [hw] Betty S. Phillips offers the following: o In reply to Greg Iverson's query as to whether /w/, /hj/, /j/ is a o possible grouping, yes, it is mine. I'm from South Georgia o originally. So, it looks as if all the possible combinations are realized, then (well, except for systems in which /j/ > /hj/, or /w/ > /hw/, i.e. the direction of merger is always to the unmarked, voiced glide, right?) -- Greg iverson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]convex.csd.uwm.edu Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 14:52:25 CST From: Joan Livingston-Webber Subject: Re: Enculturate? Actually, I had in mind less a disciplinary distinction between terms than a common usage distinction. The students I was thinking of are in composition classes and are not (as far as I know) making the same distinctions scholars would. If anyone can help me think of a way to elicit the semantics a speaker has in mind, I'd appreciate it. In any case, I think my intial message was misleading. Thanks. Joan Livingston-Webber Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 18:32:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: Re: [hw] I'm [hj] for -humor-, while weather and whether are homophs. beth simon (What has found my personal goat is the pronc for -accurate-, and Acura. Around Madison WI (esp the radio/tv news) is ker ker-, not kjer. Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1993 20:27:00 EST From: Bob Howren Subject: Re: [hw] CONCERNING "VOICELESS .W.": I'm afraid I can't supply you with the ammunition you want in your collegial dispute. I've been teaching the phonetics course for our new linguistics graduate students at UNC-Chapel Hill every fall semester for the past sixteen years, and it has been my observation, if the fifteen or so students in this course each semester constitute a reliable informal sample, that, alas!, your colleague in the speech department is right. I've watched the distinction disappear gradually over the years, until last fall, I was the only person in the classroom, save one Korean and one diehard North Carolinian (I was born and raised in north Georgia), who distinguished between "which" and "witch." It's a cryin' shame, but w(h)at can we do? ----Bob Howren at UNC Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 12:37:38 -0600 From: Alan Slotkin Subject: Re: [hw] I, too, am an [hw] speaker by background (NYC), but am living in a clearly [w] area (Middle Tennessee--between Knoxville and Nashville). None of my students is an [hw] speaker, so clearly that pronunciation is gone from this area even among its most cultured speakers. Sorry about that. Alan Alan Slotkin ars7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tntech Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 10:45:43 -0800 From: Gail Stygall Subject: Re: [hw] I am a midwesterner by background and education, central Indiana, and have never had [hw]. In teaching intro courses in linguistics in Indiana and Ohio, I would usually have a handful of students each year who had the [hw]~[h] distinction, perhaps 5 or 6 in each class of 35-50. Now in the Pacific Northwest, I have even fewer students with the [hw], last quarter having only 2 of 35, typical numbers since I've been in Seattle. At least in my experience, I see the [hw] disappearing. Gail Stygall stygall[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]byron.u.washington.edu Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 13:12:00 CST From: Edward Callary Subject: /hw/ one last time Bruce Southard makes an important point about /hw/ and LANCS. Even though the LANCS records extend over more than 20 years, from Marckwardt's 1939 entries through Shuy's of the 1960s, there is a consistent picture of the Midwest as essentially /h/-ful. I have a couple of the LANCS records in my office and from them the /hw/ extends at least to the Mississippi River. Charles Houck can attest to its presence in Iowa, but in my records for Whiteside County, bordering the Mississippi just north of Rock Island, both speakers, a 74-year old woman and a 45-year old man, have robust initial /hw/ in 'Whiteside.' But it generally disappeared at least in North Central Illinois at least 20 years ago. By 1970 the areas was essentially h-less; which and witch were indistinguishable. We all know that - generally speaking - people come and go, move in and out, but dialects remain. One of the things which fascinated me, moving to Northern Illinois from Louisiana with a New Mexican wife and two infants, was to see the kids grow up with the merger but ostensibly learning to talk from their mother who had then, and still has to this day, a strong aspiration in which, what, why, etc. The prevailing dialect pattern had no effect on her, nor did the kids' mocking her /hwEn/ and /hway/. I can remember this being an embarrassment to them and them asking her, very seriously, /way/ not /hway/ she talked that way. This story (all true) illustrates a number of things about dialects, but the point I want to make is that sometime apparently around the early middle or middle part of this century, in this strongly /h/ ful area, /hwEn/ and its cousins came under obvious social pressure. People became aware of this particular distinction and it was all downhill from that point on. Other distinctions, which to me are just as obvious - or even moreso - fail to raise to any sort of social consciousness at all. But the conscious awareness of /hw/ and its stigmatisiation remains and its initiation and retention since teenagers in DeKalb today are aware when a new kid m move in from out of town and says /hway/ for /way/. They do not, however, seem to care if the newcomer merges or Don and Dawn. I would appreciation hearing from people with similar stories. Edward Callary Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 19:30:00 EST From: Bob Howren Subject: Re: [hw] TO: DENNIS PRESTON 22709MGR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.BITNET My dissertation (Indiana U. 1958) was on the speech of Louisville. I don't have a copy handy as I write this, but it's my recollection that at that time the /hw/vs/w/ contrast was still in evidence in Louisville. But, given my experience at UNC (see my previous posting), I join you in advising Richard to prepare to buy his colleague in the speech department a drink. -- Bob Howren (HOWREN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNC.bitnet) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 18:17:31 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: /hw/ On hw- It seems to me that most Missouri students say wich and which exactly alike, and almost as many say hue and you homophonously. Have any of you ever heard on TV of white toilet tissue? It seems to my ear that it's always wite. Mr. Wipple set the standard some time ago; I'm sure that's the reason only hnuts like me keep the -h. I've collected lots of student questionnaires that should have fairly accurate responses on hw- and hj-, and in a couple of years I'll get around to tabulating results. On en-/ad- and shifting of cultural proclivities. My impression of the litera- ture is the same as Sali's. I've seen references to schools acculturating immigrant children. Maybe enculturate has increased in its frequency and is replacing the intransitive as well as transitive verb for volitional or causal changes in subconscious cultural responses. A purist might insist on using en- in the transitive verb and ac- in the intransitive, but as with many usage items.... Lots of hills of beans will be made by this item. DMLance Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 18:33:52 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: [hw] On hw- again. I think line noise knocked me off while I was reporting on my family's hw-. All five siblings in my generation (South Texas) retained the h-. Borth years 1927 - 1937. But the 9 in the next generation have no h- in either 'why' or 'hue'. Totally unrelated is the fact that all five in my generation are right handed, but 7 or 8 of the 9 in the next are left handed. DMLance Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 18:57:18 CST From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: Enculturate? Joan Livingston-Webber commented that her initial message may have been misleading. Whatever distinction one might want to enforce in the use of 'enculturate' and 'acculturate' might be rather hard to convey to students who continue to hear the two words used interchangeably, or at least seemingly so. These words are more similar than imply/infer, but students persist in using 'infer' where English teachers want 'imply' and may not be much more successful in controlling en- ac-. It would be interesting to look for patterns of usage in discussions of multiculturalism. DMLance Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 20:45:55 -0800 From: "Thomas L. Clark" Subject: Re: left-handedness and lack of aspiration across generations Don Lance needs to call the Associated Press. Can you see the headline? "Scientist discovers left-handedness governs breath" Love it. Best thing on here in days. Cheers, tlc Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1993 11:48:00 -0500 From: "Terry Pratt, UPEI" Subject: Re: [hw] A quick fact is this, that as a teacher of composition, as well as of linguistics, I have to correct spelling mistakes in student essays more frequently than you would believe that confuse WHETHER, WEATHER, AND would you believe WETHER. Here is a rhyme I was taught as a youth. My students find it quite quaint: Whether the weather be cold / Or whether the weather be hot / Whatever the weather, we'll weather the weather / Whether we like it or not. I also find teaching [w] and [hw] in phonetics quite difficult. Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1993 09:17:21 -0800 From: "Joseph B. Monda" Subject: Re: names for games On Fri, 19 Mar 1993, Beth Lee Simon wrote: > What did you call the game, or the play activity (hmm, neopostmodernpc > jargon attack, help!) where someone ran to the top of a rise (natural or > created) and claimed "I am XXXX" and then others ran up, tried to dislodge > the first claimant, and announced "No, I am XXXX"? > thanks, > beth simon at the dictionary of american regional english > blsimon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]macc.wisc.edu King of the Castle. " I'm the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal!" A tussle followed. Joe Monda Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1993 11:05:36 -0800 From: "Joseph B. Monda" Subject: Re: [hw] I use /hw/ in "why" "where" "what" and "when," at least. I learned to talk in central Washington State 60 years ago. I also say /krik/ for "creek." Joe Monda Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1993 15:40:00 CST From: Beth Lee Simon Subject: Re: [hw] I learned my talk in Iowa. Neutral "wh-" questions are [w]; +incredulity questions are [hw]. That, i notice is NOT the case in Wisconsin, where astonished speakers hold the lip rounding, and then take as long as possible with the vowel. beth Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 08:40:00 CST From: Edward Callary Subject: Arkansas natives Bill Clinton, in his resignation speech as Gov of Arkansas, began 'My fellow Arkansans.' I seem to remember some years ago reading that Arkansas natives referred to themselves as 'Arkansawyers.' I believe Gary Underwood mentions this somewhere. Are these terms in free variation, is one formal the other informal, or has usage changed? Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 20:42:54 -0500 From: RICHARD SPEARS Subject: [w] recap Thanks to everyone who responded to my question about initial [w] vs [hw]. The outcome of all this is not who wins, but how this matter is to be characterized in a book that my colleague is writing and I am mmajority, but I am uncomfortable with "[hw] is all but gone." My classroom surveys taken in a phonetics class, 8-20 students, annually, 1965-1990 were totally inconclusive. Totally. Samples taken in a larger undergraduate class in the 1980s were also inconclusive. I had always assumed that my classroom was a hit or miss sampling of the various regional features, and never put much stock in them except as an object lesson in variation. I am still wary about using a nationally random sampling for localized phenomena. Of course, my original question was flawed. There are at least three things to ask about, not two. [w], voiceless [w], and [hw]. One of the responses pointed this out. Maybe a fourth, [Xw] for very heavy, perhaps Spanish influenced pronunciations. That is to say, I am a voiceless w user, but I think that a strong [hw] sounds strange and [Xw] sounds foreign. And again, how is voiceless [w] getting on in those pernicious pockets of h-puffing where it is supposed to be the norm? Classroom surveys will not answer this one. All this has been highly stimulating. I am grateful for your replies, and I hope my colleague and I can say something innocuous or even true about the matter. R. Spears RSPEARS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DELPHI.COM Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1993 16:18:52 EST From: Ellen Johnson Subject: Re: [w] recap >From Ellen Johnson, atlas[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga: For those of you who might have the time and interest to explore it, we have several files from LAMSAS that would be useful in analyzing w and wh in the East and Southeast. These include 'wheelbarrow', 'whip', and one that has been completely entered, proofread, and is available in electronic (ascii) form 'What time is it?'. For information on how to access these, contact me directly at the above address. Any takers? Interpretive aids are included. Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 10:52:15 -0500 From: "J. Chambers" Subject: Re: [hw] Preaspirated /w/ is declining in Canada as in the U.S. Two questions in the Dialect Topography of the Golden Horseshoe, the region around the western tip of Lake Ontario incl Oshawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, and all points between (pop. ca. 5m, more than one-sixth of Cdn pop, in this 250km strip), ask: Do whine and wine sound the same or different? Do witch and which sound the same or different? The database also includes some young people across the U.S. border, in upstate NY. I've included the figures for them as well. Canadians upstate NY whine has [hw] which has [hw] whine [hw] which [hw] % (n/N) % (n/N) % (n/N) % (n/N) 14-19 4.7 3/64 11.3 7/62 3.3 1/33 9.4 3/32 20-29 12.5 37/297 13.6 40/295 0 0/30 6.5 2/31 30-39 13.7 22/166 16.4 27/165 40-49 24.5 37/151 20.7 31/150 50-59 40.6 43/106 36.2 38/105 60-69 48.6 18/37 45.9 17/37 70-79 47.2 17/36 62.5 20/32 ovr 80 68.6 48/70 71.8 51/71 Average 24.3 25.2 The figures make a nice ascending graph correlated with age, as expected. The decline is simmilar in England, with /hw/ disappearing except in RP. It does not seem to be disappearing in Scotland, where it is a feature of all styles in all social groups. It may turn out that, in a generation or so, it is a dialect marker of Scots speech. Jack Chambers .