Date:  Wed, 30 Nov 1994 08:52:47 EST

From:  Wayne Glowka <wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU>

Subject: Re: The great California freeway isogloss revisited



 The reason I am

>most interested in this is that the loss of the article is a colloquial

>Arabic feature as opposed to the classical language. 'Alexandria'

>in coll. Arabic is 'iskindiriyya; in Classical Arabic it has an al-

>before it 'the' = al'iskandariyya. Does anyone out there have any

>parallels as I am writing this up in an article?

>Alan Kaye



A woman born in Philadelphia in the first decade of the twentieth century

whom I once knew used to say "I have the diarrhea," whereas I--overeducated

person from Texas born fifty years later-- would say "I have diarrhea."

(Pratt may want to note that I'd say "I have the shits" or "I have the

runs" or "I have the Hershey squirts"--sorry, folks. I'll bet the Hershey

folks don't like the latter expression. They may prefer the euphemisms I

hear like "Something is wrong with my system today" or "I have a virus.")



My wife and her central Georgian family say "I'm gonna stay in the bed all

day," whereas I would say "I'm gonna stay in bed all day."



I have always assumed that my practice without the article was "standard."





Wayne Glowka

Professor of English

Director of Research and Graduate Student Services

Georgia College

Milledgeville, GA 31061

912-453-4222

wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mail.gac.peachnet.edu

BITNET Address: Wglowka[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]USCN