There are 4 messages totalling 159 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. New Words, Etymology, Lexicography

 2. Call: Symposium on Language Loss

 3. help wanted (2)



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



Date:  Sun, 2 Oct 1994 13:30:25 -0700

From:  James Beniger  beniger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RCF.USC.EDU 

Subject: New Words, Etymology, Lexicography



Do any of you know where on the net, if not here, those most interested

in new words, their origin and usage, and in etymology and lexicography more

generally, might hang out? Where, for example, are the word mavens and

language irregulars of William Safire's column? (I don't want to be one,

I want to talk with them). Where are those who compile the major

English Language dictionaries, or dictionaries of new words or slang,

likely to be found on the Net?



Please send any insights or other help you might have either here or to

me personally.



Thanks.



Jim Beniger







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



Date:  Sun, 2 Oct 1994 15:18:00 MST

From:  Garland Bills  GBILLS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNMB.BITNET 

Subject: Call: Symposium on Language Loss



               CALL FOR PAPERS



        Symposium on Language Loss and Public Policy



             in conjunction with the

   1995 Linguistic Institute of the Linguistic Society of America

             University of New Mexico

            Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA



              June 30-July 2, 1995



The Symposium on Language Loss and Public Policy will bring together scholars

from different disciplines to discuss the linguistic, psycholinguistic,

sociolinguistic, cultural, and policy aspects of language loss. LANGUAGE LOSS

is used here in its broadest sense to subsume three areas of investigation:



   (1) the ATTRITION of native language skills by individual members of

     indigenous and immigrant communities;

   (2) societal SHIFT from the use of the native ethnic language to the use

     of a dominant official language; and

   (3) the consequent DEATH of the subordinate language.



The clear interrelationships among these three areas -- in the linguistic

processes involved and especially in the societal conditions that give rise to

loss -- gives a meeting such as this Symposium considerable scholarly

significance. The fact that the incidence of linguistic and cultural

disruption worldwide is rapidly accelerating also makes the need for such a

Symposium pressing.



The presenters will explore with each other and with other participants in the

1995 Linguistic Institute the accumulated knowledge in the three areas of

language loss in order to arrive at a more global understanding of the

relationships among the linguistic processes in loss, its underlying causes,

its consequences for individuals and societies, and the implications for

policy intervention.



Central objectives of the Symposium will be, in light of what is known about

language loss, to examine its ecological significance, that is, its effects on

individuals, communities, and society as a whole, as well as the policy

implications of what is now seen to be a worldwide and rapidly accelerating

phenomenon. Another important objective is to provide information to members

of the wider community both as an educational objective and as a resource for

those concerned with questions of policy.



Persons intending to submit a formal abstract for the Symposium should send an

expression of interest by November 1, 1994. This preliminary submission should

include a tentative title and specification of the language situation(s)

examined, the area of language loss that will be the emphasis of the report,

and whether the paper will focus on the nature and causes of loss or on the

consequences of loss and policy implications.



The deadline for receipt of formal abstracts providing greater details is

January 31, 1995. Abstracts should not exceed 500 words, and may be submitted

by regular mail, FAX, or electronic mail.



In order to make papers available to other participants in advance of the

Symposium, presenters will be asked to submit pre-publication versions of

their papers by May 15, 1995. Publishable versions of the papers will be due

at the Symposium.



Preliminary expressions of interest, formal abstracts, and requests for

additional information should be directed to:



     Garland D. Bills

     Department of Linguistics

     University of New Mexico

     Albuquerque, NM 87131-1196

     USA



     Telephone: (505) 277-7416 or (505) 277-0324

     FAX: (505) 277-6355

     E-mail: gbills[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]bootes.unm.edu



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



Date:  Sun, 2 Oct 1994 22:42:52 CST

From:  Luanne von Schneidemesser  lvonschn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU 

Subject: help wanted



ADSers:

   As you may have noticed in NADS, I'm giving a talk in San Diego on

terms used in children's games, based of course on DARE's evidence. I would

like to compare to that what is said by younger people in different parts

of the country today, 25 years later. If you could help me by having

a handful of your students/friends/acquaintances/collegues who

are native to your area fill out a two-page questionnaire, questions

from DARE's questionnaire, I would appreciate it greatly.

Please let me know and I'll send you the questionnaire and postage.

(From my own children I know a couple of these terms have changed around

here. I'm interested in seeing which ones, how much, where, etc. Results to

be related in San Diego.)

   Thanks very much.



Luanne v. S.



Luanne von Schneidemesser, 608-263-2748

DARE, 6129 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park, Madison, WI 53706

lvonschn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]facstaff.wisc.edu



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



Date:  Sun, 2 Oct 1994 22:55:53 -0500

From:  Frank Mark R  mrf546t[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NIC.SMSU.EDU 

Subject: Re: help wanted



On Sun, 2 Oct 1994, Luanne von Schneidemesser wrote:



  ADSers:

    As you may have noticed in NADS, I'm giving a talk in San Diego on

  terms used in children's games, based of course on DARE's evidence. I would

  like to compare to that what is said by younger people in different parts

  of the country today, 25 years later. If you could help me by having

  a handful of your students/friends/acquaintances/collegues who

  are native to your area fill out a two-page questionnaire, questions

  from DARE's questionnaire, I would appreciate it greatly.

  Please let me know and I'll send you the questionnaire and postage.

  (From my own children I know a couple of these terms have changed around

  here. I'm interested in seeing which ones, how much, where, etc. Results to

  be related in San Diego.)

    Thanks very much.

 

  Luanne v. S.

 





What is the specific target age group for your questionnaire? I would be

interested in helping you. I am a native of the Springfield, MO area.



--Mark Frank



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 30 Sep 1994 to 2 Oct 1994

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







There are 7 messages totalling 145 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. help wanted (3)

 2. dialect leveling (3)

 3. Common ground?



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



Date:  Mon, 3 Oct 1994 08:58:00 CDT

From:  Edward Callary  TB0EXC1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NIU.BITNET 

Subject: Re: help wanted



Luanne:

I would be happy to question as many of my northern illinois

students as you think would be helpful. just send me

the materials.



edward callary



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



Date:  Mon, 3 Oct 1994 09:40:50 -0500

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

Subject: dialect leveling



I have a student (undergraduate in an intro. ling. course) who wants to do a

paper concerning the leveling of dialects among persons who move around a

good bit. As an "army brat" she's had her own native dialect essentially

obliterated through contacts, and is extremely interested in pursuing the

topic. Does anyone have references, suggestions, etc., that would help her

in this regard?



I'd really appreciate your responses. If there is enough material to

warrant it, I'll put a summary out to the list.



Please respond directly to me: Alan Slotkin, Tn Technological Univ.

ARS7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TNTECH.EDU



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



Date:  Mon, 3 Oct 1994 10:44:56 -0400

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr."  billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: Re: dialect leveling



The first citation that I know about for the effects of army personnel on

dialect is McDavid's "Postvocalic -r in South Carolina: A Social

Analysis" (AmSp 23, 1948), which suggests that the influx of army people

might be changing patterns of use of -r in SC. The best recent article is,

I think, J. K. Chambers' article in *Language* (1992) called "Dialct

Acquisition", which is the product of a long period of work and has lots

of references.



Regards, Bill

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

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, 3 Oct 1994 16:05:00 EDT

From:  Travis Kidd  TKIDD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CLEMSON.EDU 

Subject: Re: dialect leveling



On Mon, 3 Oct 1994 10:44:56 -0400 "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr."  billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA

.EDU  said:

  The first citation that I know about for the effects of army personnel on

  dialect is McDavid's "Postvocalic -r in South Carolina: A Social

  Analysis" (AmSp 23, 1948), which suggests that the influx of army people

  might be changing patterns of use of -r in SC. The best recent article is,

  I think, J. K. Chambers' article in *Language* (1992) called "Dialct

  Acquisition", which is the product of a long period of work and has lots

  of references.

As a South Carolinian, I would like to know what you are talking about!



  Regards, Bill

  University of Georgia      Internet: billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hyde.park.uga.edu

  Athens, GA 30602-6205      Bitnet:  wakjengl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga

-Travis



P.S. If you thought Alabama was a hard team to play, just wait till THIS

   Saturday! :-)



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



Date:  Mon, 3 Oct 1994 17:44:04 EDT

From:  Terry Lynn Irons  t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: help wanted



Dear Luanne,



Sorry to reply directly to the list, but I would be happy to

admin your questionnare. In fact, I will use it in a dialect class

I am teaching now, if that meets with your approval. I am in

Eastern Kentucky, so that gives you a sense of the target group you will

have to add to your data base. Send me the materials at the smail

below.

 

  ADSers:

    As you may have noticed in NADS, I'm giving a talk in San Diego on

  terms used in children's games, based of course on DARE's evidence. I would

  like to compare to that what is said by younger people in different parts

  of the country today, 25 years later. If you could help me by having

  a handful of your students/friends/acquaintances/collegues who

  are native to your area fill out a two-page questionnaire, questions

  from DARE's questionnaire, I would appreciate it greatly.

  Please let me know and I'll send you the questionnaire and postage.

  (From my own children I know a couple of these terms have changed around

  here. I'm interested in seeing which ones, how much, where, etc. Results to

  be related in San Diego.)

    Thanks very much.

 

  Luanne v. S.

 

  Luanne von Schneidemesser, 608-263-2748

  DARE, 6129 Helen C. White Hall, 600 North Park, Madison, WI 53706

  lvonschn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]facstaff.wisc.edu

 





--

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)

Terry Lynn Irons    t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu

Voice Mail:       (606) 783-5164

Snail Mail:       UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)



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



Date:  Mon, 3 Oct 1994 20:10:44 EDT

From:  AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: Common ground?



A while ago I got an inquiry from the dept. of sociology and anthropology at

an eastern university about the origins and meaning of: "common ground."

Any information?

Thanks - Allan Metcalf  AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com



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



Date:  Mon, 3 Oct 1994 17:24:19 -0700

From:  "Karen L. Adams"  ATKLA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ASUACAD.BITNET 

Subject: Re: help wanted



What are the target ages? I'm in the Phoenix, AZ area. Send me

the information and I'd be glad to look at it.



Karen L. Adams

Arizona State Univ.



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



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

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







There is one message totalling 22 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. help wanted



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



Date:  Tue, 4 Oct 1994 13:05:15 EDT

From:  David Carlson  Davidhwaet[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 

Subject: Re: help wanted



Luanne,



I'd be happy to have some of my students help out with the questionnaire.



Please send me 35-40 copies.



Regards,



David R. Carlson

Department of Humanities

Springfield College

263 Alden St.

Springfield MA 01109



Davidhwaet[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 3 Oct 1994 to 4 Oct 1994

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







There are 7 messages totalling 119 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Aunt Rhody (3)

 2. help wanted (2)

 3. replying to individuals (2)



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



Date:  Wed, 5 Oct 1994 00:43:54 CDT

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

Subject: Aunt Rhody



Are any of you familiar with the variant line "Go tell Aunt Nancy" in the

"Old Gray Goose" song? If so, have you detected evidence that this variant

may be related to Anansi? If so, regionality is likely. Or other variants?

Song books have "Aunt Rhody."

                Donald M. Lance, University of Missouri



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



Date:  Wed, 5 Oct 1994 08:33:00 EDT

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

Subject: Re: help wanted



Luanne,

I have 300 (yes, 300) overnourished, hypoactive southern MI undergraduates

(actually about 80% natives, I reckon). If the work is either short (in class)

or can be assigned for out of class, I'll take it on.

Best,

Dennis Preston

 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu 



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



Date:  Wed, 5 Oct 1994 08:41:00 EDT

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

Subject: Aunt Rhody



I haver not heard Aunt Nancy for Rhody, but Don's query makes me wonder about

the spelling of Rhoda. It is clearly meant to reflect the schwa-[i]

alternation in Upland Southern (or whatever your favorite term is today)

speech. I wonder if the spelling (i.e., dialect spelling) was always thuis,

and, if so, if those unfamilair with the dialect it imitates fail to make the

connection between the names Rhody and Rhoda. (Don't snort impossible; I've

got lots of respondents who don't see an apt in inept, and there is an obvious

majority of native speakers of English who find no sacred in sacrilegious,

although they get sweaty-palmed when asked to cite examples of other words

with the negative prefix sac-).

Sorry to ramble, but it's still dark at 7:00 AM here in MI. Already!

Dennis Preston

 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu 



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



Date:  Wed, 5 Oct 1994 13:50:59 -0400

From:  Bob Lancaster  SLANCASTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU 

Subject: Aunt Rhody



 Are any of you familiar with the variant line "Go tell Aunt Nancy" in the

 "Old Gray Goose" song? If so, have you detected evidence that this variant

 may be related to Anansi? If so, regionality is likely. Or other variants?

 Song books have "Aunt Rhody.

 I've sung this as Nancy as long as I can remember. My wife remebers it when

she was a child. We both grew up in Delaware, so the regional "Anansi"

looks pretty doubtful. Re the sonbooks, John and Alan Lomax "Folk Song USA"

has Nancy.

 Bo b Lancaster

SUNY - English emeritus

Hamilton, NY src6



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



Date:  Wed, 5 Oct 1994 14:10:26 -0500

From:  00v0horvath[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BSUVC.BSU.EDU

Subject: Re: help wanted



Luanne:



I could also have some of my students (about 30 or 40) fill out your

questionnaire. The school is in East-Central Indiana but the students tend to

be from all over the state.



Vera Horvath

Ball State University

Department of English

Muncie, IN 47306



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



Date:  Wed, 5 Oct 1994 22:57:41 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: replying to individuals



As a newcomer to the list (though I know some several of you on it!),

I've been wondering. On other lists I'm on, it's customary to reply to

individuals for some topics; here, messages addressed to individuals

keep getting forwarded to the whole list (eg, about a dozen replies to

Luanne v.m.'s request for assistance/informants

. Is this customary? or are people just unaware of it?

    Unenlightened in DC



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



Date:  Wed, 5 Oct 1994 22:11:18 -0500

From:  Frank Mark R  mrf546t[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NIC.SMSU.EDU 

Subject: Re: replying to individuals



On Wed, 5 Oct 1994 PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET wrote:



  As a newcomer to the list (though I know some several of you on it!),

  I've been wondering. On other lists I'm on, it's customary to reply to

  individuals for some topics; here, messages addressed to individuals

  keep getting forwarded to the whole list (eg, about a dozen replies to

  Luanne v.m.'s request for assistance/informants

  . Is this customary? or are people just unaware of it?

      Unenlightened in DC

 



I, for one, apologize for mis-posting. I realized after I sent off my

reply that the whole list didn't need to see it and that I had needlessly

wasted bandwidth. Consider this my final, penitent, public reply to a

private inquiry.

Thanks,

Mark Frank



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 4 Oct 1994 to 5 Oct 1994

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







There are 12 messages totalling 344 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. replying to individuals (5)

 2. Don't care to (3)

 3. Don't Care To (2)

 4.  No subject given 

 5. Positive "don't care to"



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 07:02:48 -0500

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

Subject: Re: replying to individuals



    I've been wondering. On other lists I'm on, it's customary to reply to

    individuals for some topics; here, messages addressed to individuals

    keep getting forwarded to the whole list (eg, about a dozen replies to

    Luanne v.m.'s request for assistance/informants

    . Is this customary? or are people just unaware of it?



You must be on some unusual lists. This list seems fairly typical to me

in that some people do reply to the individual (e.g., I replied to Luanne

directly, as I'm sure many other people did) and some people reply to the

whole list because they don't notice the 'reply-to' line in the headers

and think they're replying to the individual, or they realize that this

is a low-traffic list and that most of us don't mind seeing their replies,

or they're too lazy to readdress.



  I, for one, apologize for mis-posting. I realized after I sent off my

  reply that the whole list didn't need to see it and that I had needlessly

  wasted bandwidth. Consider this my final, penitent, public reply to a



So far, I haven't found anybody who could really explain how bandwidth

can be wasted. I've become convinced that the concept of wasted bandwidth

is a cybermyth.

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



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 08:45:19 EDT

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

Subject: Re: replying to individuals



This and ARTHURNET are two very friendly lists. Those of you who have been

on CHAUCERNET and MEDTEXTL, as I have been, know that some people on some

lists are downright foul and nasty, telling students to go somewhere else

to ask questions, telling fellow scholars to go to the library and do their

own work, and telling everyone to go to hell for merely existing. No one

here seems to mind questions about common knowledge, and the system itself

does not send you an insulting list of frequently asked questions (FAQ's)

the way a certain long-winded medieval English list does.



No, the ADS is, unlike other professional organizations and groups,

composed of self-actuated, friendly folks, trained to discuss theory and to

discuss "funny words used around here for various things."



Here's to one of the few professional societies with a sense of humanity

and a sense of humor. NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE HERE.





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



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 07:40:09 -0500

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

Subject: Re: replying to individuals



Replying to my own reply...



  So far, I haven't found anybody who could really explain how bandwidth

  can be wasted. I've become convinced that the concept of wasted bandwidth

  is a cybermyth.



I didn't say that right. What I meant was that there's still plenty of

bandwidth to go around and thus no need to worry about the waste. This

does not, of course, address the question of subscribers' attitudes toward

extra mail. I sometimes forget that, since I have all list mail filtered

into separate files, keeping it from cluttering my regular mail space.



As long as I'm cluttering, I might as well use this opportunity to remind

y'all of a few LISTSERV basics. The 'reply-to' line is included in your

headers, unless your particular system cuts off some of the headers. Lists

can be set up to reply to either the whole list or the individual. I find

that the latter arrangement tends to discourage list discussion (which is

probably why not very many lists are set up that way). On ADS-L an ordinary

reply command sends to the whole list in most cases. (I won't bore you

with the details of the exceptions. You can tell if somebody is an exception

by looking at the 'reply-to' command in the headers.) How to change your

'to' line in a reply depends upon your system.  If you're using Unix, you

enter the 'r' to reply and then enter '~h' to edit the 'to' line.



Other odds'n'ends: To stop mail for a while (e.g., if you're going out

of town), send this command to listserv[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu:

set ads-l nomail

When you want to start mail again, send this:

set ads-l mail

To unsubscribe, send this:

unsub ads-l

To receive a list of subscribers, send this:

review ads-l

To check your list settings, send this:

query ads-l

For more listserv commands, send this:

help



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



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 08:39:56 -0500

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

Subject: Re: replying to individuals



Sorry for not changing the subject line.



I am just beginning work on a dialectal form from mid-TN that creates

problems because of its complete difference from presumably standard

American usage: *don't care to*. For example, on a test I just graded, a

student wrote the following: When she started a poem, she (Emily Dickinson)

did not care to change subjects after the first line; as when she says, *Let

me tell you about the sunrise...," then she changes to the passage of time.



Has anyone else encountered this form around the southeast? Does anyone

remember seeing it covered in any article or other work?



I appreciate all input.



Alan

ARS7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tntech.edu



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 10:12:52 -0400

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr."  billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: Don't care to



I have noticed this around Athens, but it has made only a small impact and

I have not cared to pay attention to it. I will now.



Regards, Bill

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

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:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 11:01:54 EDT

From:  Terry Lynn Irons  t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Don't Care To



"Don't care to" has a sense or meaning in Eastern Kentucky that

has driven me crazy. Last year I asked a student if he would do

some typing for me, and he replied, "I don't care to." And I

replied back that I needed him to do it today and inquired if he

was going to do it. He said again, "I don't care to." I finally

said something like, "Well, I don't care if you care to or not, do it

anyway." I have sense realized that the use of the phrase in this

region, probably reaching into Tennessee, has the meaning that the

person will do something. The meaning, I guess, is that not caring

to means a person has no objections (cares) to something and hence

will do it.



Sincerely,

Terry

--

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)

Terry Lynn Irons    t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu

Voice Mail:       (606) 783-5164

Snail Mail:       UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 11:59:40 -0400

From:  Undetermined origin c/o Postmaster  POSTMASTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET 

Subject:  No subject given 



    (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #5)

    id m0qsvEq-0007WpC; Thu, 6 Oct 94 10:00 MDT

Received: by cpu.us.dynix.com (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03)

     id AA95703; Thu, 6 Oct 1994 09:36:58 -0600

Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 09:33:02 -700 (MDT)

From: Warren Keith Russell  wkr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cpu.us.dynix.com 

Subject: Re: replying to individuals

To: American Dialect Society  ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu 

In-Reply-To:  m0qstiw-0007VnC[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]amlibs.com 

Message-Id:  Pine.3.05.9410060958.C57716-b100000[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cpu.us.dynix.com 

Mime-Version: 1.0

Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII



On Thu, 6 Oct 1994, Natalie Maynor wrote:



      I've been wondering. On other lists I'm on, it's customary to reply to

      individuals for some topics; here, messages addressed to individuals

      keep getting forwarded to the whole list (eg, about a dozen replies to

      Luanne v.m.'s request for assistance/informants

      . Is this customary? or are people just unaware of it?

 

  You must be on some unusual lists. This list seems fairly typical to me

  in that some people do reply to the individual (e.g., I replied to Luanne

  directly, as I'm sure many other people did) and some people reply to the

  whole list because they don't notice the 'reply-to' line in the headers

  and think they're replying to the individual, or they realize that this

  is a low-traffic list and that most of us don't mind seeing their replies,

  or they're too lazy to readdress.

 

I have seen this "rule" most often implemented in Usenet newsgroups,

where messages/articles are stored for a period of time on the server, and

individual messages have a real tendency to clog things up. Once the

original poster has had her question answered, she cannot simply delete

the message, as she can with a mailing-list message.



In Usenet group, private postings to the groups can generate an amazing

number of flames.



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

Keith Russell          Personal Messages: KeithR[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]infonaut.com

wkr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]us.dynix.com                  MagicSpelr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 11:13:00 CDT

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

Subject: Re: Don't Care To



A good friend of mine, an Australian, often replies with "I don't care,"

to questions of the sort, "Would you like a cup of coffee?" "Shall I pick

you up?" "Would you like me to give you a million dollars?" She means, "Yes, I'd

like X" and this is a polite way to say so. She considers saying "Yes, I

would like that," much closer to "gimme".



Beth Simon



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 13:34:56 EDT

From:  Terry Lynn Irons  t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: Don't care to



Bill,



I am of course cluttering up the list with a personal reply, but...



If you care to pay attention, that means you don't want to.

If you don't care to pay attention, that means you will.

At least, if you speak a south midland dialect (which ain't

upper south 'tall!)



Sincerely,

Terry

--

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)

Terry Lynn Irons    t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu

Voice Mail:       (606) 783-5164

Snail Mail:       UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 13:47:09 -0400

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr."  billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Don't care to



On Thu, 6 Oct 1994, Terry Lynn Irons wrote:



  If you care to pay attention, that means you don't want to.

  If you don't care to pay attention, that means you will.

  At least, if you speak a south midland dialect (which ain't

  upper south 'tall!)



This just goes to show that I have not been paying attention :) I either

will or won't in future, accordingly.



Regards, Bill

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

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:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 16:23:18 -0500

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

Subject: Re: replying to individuals



  In Usenet group, private postings to the groups can generate an amazing

  number of flames.



Usenet culture, except of course for the bit.listserv.* hierarchy, is

quite different from mailing-list culture -- as you probably realize.

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



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



Date:  Thu, 6 Oct 1994 20:57:16 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: Positive "don't care to"



Gosh, I thought everyone KNEW. Throughout Southern Appalachia, the phrase

"don't care to" means (quite uniformly) either "don't mind" (neutral to

positive) or "want to" (quite positive). When we talk about this pattern

in my introductory linguistics courses, I can see the light dawn on the

part of non-Sppalachian speakers. They drop their mouths and begin to

say things like, "Oh, you mean that when my roommate last week said that

he didn't care to go to the movies and was puzzled when we went on

without him that he really meant ..."



(Sorry--make that "Appalachian" above)



My favorite story about the pattern involves Joe Trahern, head of the English

Dept. at the U of TN for 10 years. He is from Middle Tennessee, but I

thought he had been here long enough to know what the phrase means here.

But, one day he needed a secretary to work overtime, something we try not

to do. He walked into the secretarial pool and explained his plight,

then asked whether anyone wanted to volunteer to work overtime. Donna

looked up and said, "I don;t care to work late."



Joe said, "Oh, that's perpefctly all right. We'll just get someone else."



Donna: "But I really don't care to."



Joe: "That's really all right. I'm sure someone else will be able to."

After about the third response from Donna, Joe finally got the message

that the phrase had a different meaning from the one he was familiar

with and he got the situation straighened out.



I remember vividly the first time I saw the phrase used in that sense

in writing here (20 years ago). I taught the last Saturday class in the

college of Liberal Arts. Because the campus police would not let my

students park on the campus on football Saturdays, we didn't meet very

many times (and we were still on the quarter system then). I had

students keep journals ontheir reading ("Modern Grammar") and the first time

I took them up and read them, I read the sentence, "I don't care to work hard,

but ..." I remember being glad tat I knew the local meaning of that

phrase, because that was the first time I had encountered it in that sense

other than in a book about speech varieties (probably Vance Randolph's

Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech first).



I usually hear the phrase in the positive sense at least several times a

day. Variants include "don't mind to". I also hear thins like, "If you

don't care to," "If you don;t mind to, ..."



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 5 Oct 1994 to 6 Oct 1994

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







There are 13 messages totalling 313 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. I don't care (to)

 2. Name that syntagm (8)

 3. -"had" Constructions (3)

 4. Positive "don't care to"



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 13:08:36 GMT

From:  "Warren A. Brewer"  NCUT054[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TWNMOE10.BITNET 

Subject: I don't care (to)



This mentioning "I don't care to" in sense of "I'm willing to" reminds

me of my painful experience with "I don't care" as a child in

Maryland. A pedantic adult would ask me a yes/no question, and if

my answer was yes, I'd probably have said "I don't care," until

disapproval must have seared the usage from my youthful lexicon.



This "I don't care to" sure sounds similar.



                ---Wab.



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 18:35:56 GMT

From:  "Warren A. Brewer"  NCUT054[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TWNMOE10.BITNET 

Subject: Name that syntagm



Okay, do the perfessional linguists (what's a "linguist"? That's another

list) have a technical term for phenomena like "I don't care (to)"?



One big problem I've had with my Taiwanese students has been when they

offer to do something for me, and I say, "That's okay."



My meaning: "No thank you, I don't want to put you to any trouble."



Non-native speaker's (literal) interpretaion: "I accept your offer."



Cf. could care less --  couldn't care less



Got a name for it?

                    ---Wab.



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 08:05:00 EDT

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

Subject: Name that syntagm



The term you are looking for (or at least one of them), when the compositional

semantics does not add up to the pragmatic meaning (or illocutionary force) is

indirect speech act. When one finds these (and even direct speech acts and

other matters misinterpreted cross-linguistically, the generally agreed upon

area of study appears to be interlanguage pragmatics.

This ought to convince people that there are linguists out there. At least we

have a code.

Dennis Preston

 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu 



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 09:56:10 EDT

From:  Bruce Southard  ENSOUTHA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ECUVM1.BITNET 

Subject: -"had" Constructions



 One of my colleagues asked me about the function of "stolen" in the

following phrase:

   "She had her purse stolen last night." I analyzed the function as

that of objective complement, but then started thinking about similar

constructions:

   1. I had my house painted last year.

   2. The secret police had the politician jailed until last week.



It seems to me that these sentences differ in terms of causality or

"agent" relationships, but I'm unable to pinpoint the reason for the

differences in meaning/relationships. Does anyone have an explanation?



Bruce Southard

English Department

East Carolina University

ensoutha[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ecuvm1

ensoutha[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ecuvm.cis.ecu.edu

919-757-6041

919-757-4889 (FAX)



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 09:27:43 -0500

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

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



 Okay, do the perfessional linguists (what's a "linguist"? That's another

 list) have a technical term for phenomena like "I don't care (to)"?

 

 One big problem I've had with my Taiwanese students has been when they

 offer to do something for me, and I say, "That's okay."

 

 My meaning: "No thank you, I don't want to put you to any trouble."

 

 Non-native speaker's (literal) interpretaion: "I accept your offer."

 

 Cf. could care less --  couldn't care less

 

 Got a name for it?

                     ---Wab.



I've been looking for some time for a suitable name for words (or

expressions) that mean both themselves and their opposites (literally,

ravel, let, oversight -- see "A Literal Paradox" in _Declining Grammar_

[Urbana: NCTE 1989], pp.. 73-80). I've never encountered positive "I don't

care to" until this discussion, but now I'm sure I'll notice it a lot (I

still remember hearing my first might could about a week after I learned

about double modals years ago). Anyway, if you can name that syntagm, maybe

ADS will give you a prize at the annual new words meeting (are you

listening, Alan?).



Dennis

--

Dennis Baron                       debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



Department of English                  217-333-2392

University of Illinois                fax: 217-333-4321

608 South Wright Street

Urbana, Illinois 61801



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 09:27:48 -0500

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

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



 The term you are looking for (or at least one of them), when the compositional

 semantics does not add up to the pragmatic meaning (or illocutionary force) is

 indirect speech act. When one finds these (and even direct speech acts and

 other matters misinterpreted cross-linguistically, the generally agreed upon

 area of study appears to be interlanguage pragmatics.

 This ought to convince people that there are linguists out there. At least we

 have a code.

 Dennis Preston

  22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu 



Well, other Dennis, I don't think indirect speech act is narrow enough for

this particular phenomenon. True, it is that, but it is also more. At least

we have a code. But has anybody got the secret decoder ring?



(the real) Dennis

--

Dennis Baron                       debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



Department of English                  217-333-2392

University of Illinois                fax: 217-333-4321

608 South Wright Street

Urbana, Illinois 61801



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 10:17:16 -0400

From:  "William A. Kretzschmar, Jr."  billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ATLAS.UGA.EDU 

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



On Fri, 7 Oct 1994, Bruce Southard wrote:



   [A.] "She had her purse stolen last night." I analyzed the function as

  that of objective complement, but then started thinking about similar

  constructions:

    1. I had my house painted last year.

    2. The secret police had the politician jailed until last week.



I think these are essentially parallel in structure, with `have' used as a

factitive verb. The "causation" that we see in (1) and (2) is a

"semantic" feature added to the grammatical relationship invoked by use of

`have' as a factitive. I.e., in (1), we see that `house' and `painted'

are set into a linking relationship by the factitive verb; in a separate

clause the linking would be invoked by a form of `to be' as "house was

painted". The same is true in the target sentence [A]: `purse' and

`stolen' have been set in a linking relationship by the factitive verb.

The only difference between [A] and (1) or (2) is the semantic role of the

grammatical subject of the sentence; in [A] there is no causal role

toward the factitive relationship, while in (1) and (2) there is. One

might say that when `have' is used as a factitive verb, it may or may not

semantically include causality; other factitive verbs are sematically

more explicitly causal, like `elect' or `make'.



Regards, Bill

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

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:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 08:20:58 -0700

From:  Peter McGraw  pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU 

Subject: Re: Positive "don't care to"



This discussion is fascinating. How did I manage to live in Chattanooga

for six years without EVER encountering "don't care to" in this meaning?

Is Chattanooga some kind of island, or was I just unobservant?



Peter McGraw

Linfield College

McMinnville, OR



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 13:45:05 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



Wm. Labov talked about this with "got" instead of "have." He

contrasted "He got arrested" ("He was arrested")with "He got

arrested to test the ordinance" ("He had himself arrested) somewhere.



Bethany Dumas = dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utkvx.utk.edu



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 13:17:20 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



I agree with Dennis B. that Dennis P.'s suggestion of 'indirect speech act'

for this particular quirk of 'don't care to' is too narrow. (It may also be

too broad, if I read the original query rightly.) But there is a term in the

non-academic literature that we might draw upon for these Janus-like entries.

John Train (author of Preserving Capital and Making It Grow, The Money

Masters, and--in a more relevant vein--Remarkable Names) has been referring to

these items (since his 1985 book "Remarkable Words") as ANTILOGIES. He

portrays himself as the coiner of the term, although the concept has been

around at least since Freud's 1910 curious essay on "The Antithetical Meaning

of Primal Words". Classic examples from Train's material include



     cleave 'stick together'/'hack apart'

     could care less

     let 'permit'/'hinder' (let ball, let or hindrance)

     table [as verb] 'bring up for discussion'/'defer discussing'

     overlook 'watch over'/'ignore'

     sanction 'permit'/'ban'

     enjoin 'force'/'forbid'

     bomb [theatrical] 'success' [U.K.]/'disaster' [U.S.]

     temper 'harden' (steel)/'soften' (justice with mercy)

     moot '(no longer) under consideration'



Many examples on closer inspection turn out to involve irony or sarcasm (as in

'could care less')--terrific, Fr. un malheur, sacre'--and quite a number

involve lack of specificity about what would now be called thematic relations:

rent (from vs. to), Fr. apprendre, dust (crops vs. shelves), string (beans vs.

beads). In fact, I've written about these last batch in a paper a few years

back; they are fun to think about. Related participials that allow source vs.

goal readings are legion: horned, pitted, boned. Some of these are also

featured in the literature on puns, not least the Amelia Bedelia series for

kids (remember her version of trimming the steak or dusting the furniture?).

One of the ones that always puzzles me is "It's all downhill from here": does

it get easier (and thus better), or worse?  There's also a nice paper by

Charles Li many years back on a Chinese expression (cha-yidiar, plus various

diacritics, if I remember correctly) which glosses literally as

'miss-a-little' and means either 'just barely' or 'not quite'. And even in

English we talk about the 'near miss' of two airliners, as well as missing not

being somewhere. Anyway, 'antilogy' seems to be as good a term as any.



--Larry



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 13:50:51 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



Am I the only linguist in the country who believes that "could care less"

is merely a (highly predictble) phonological reduction of "could

not care less" and not necessarily a pattern involving sarcasm,et.c?



Bethany Dumas = dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utkvx.utk.edu



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 19:28:32 -0500

From:  "Timothy C. Frazer"  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



On Fri, 7 Oct 1994, Bethany Dumas, UTK wrote:



  Am I the only linguist in the country who believes that "could care less"

  is merely a (highly predictble) phonological reduction of "could

  not care less" and not necessarily a pattern involving sarcasm,et.c?

 

  Bethany Dumas = dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utkvx.utk.edu

 

No, you're not. I believe!



Tim Frazer



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



Date:  Fri, 7 Oct 1994 20:56:53 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



Mark Frank has asked me for my "evidence" that "could care less" is the

natural (and highly predictable) result of the phonological reduction of

"could not care less." Briefly, when "could not care less" is

contracted (as statements containing negatives usually are in informal

speech), it ends up with a /dntk/ internal sequence. I suspet that

consonant cluster reduction gets rid of the /t/ and reduces the /n/ to

nasalization of the preceding vowel.



There's another factor, I think. Americans in general are uptight about

double negatives, and I think that "less" is perceived as a kind of

negative, which makes it appropriate to get rid of the "not" or "n't."



Finally, I simply do not hear sarcasm or irony in the voices of those who

say "could care less."



Tim Frazier wrote to say that he is a believer,also. What is your analysis,

Tim?



Bethany Dumas = dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utkvx.utk.edu



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 6 Oct 1994 to 7 Oct 1994

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







There are 4 messages totalling 108 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Name that syntagm (2)

 2. Positive "don't care to"

 3. Phila. dialect



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



Date:  Sat, 8 Oct 1994 12:40:31 RSA

From:  lynne  104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WITSVMA.WITS.AC.ZA 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



 

 I've been looking for some time for a suitable name for words (or

 expressions) that mean both themselves and their opposites (literally,

 ravel, let, oversight -- see "A Literal Paradox" in _Declining Grammar_

 [Urbana: NCTE 1989], pp.. 73-80). I've never encountered positive "I don't

 care to" until this discussion, but now I'm sure I'll notice it a lot (I

 still remember hearing my first might could about a week after I learned

 about double modals years ago). Anyway, if you can name that syntagm, maybe

 ADS will give you a prize at the annual new words meeting (are you

 listening, Alan?).

 

 Dennis

 --

 Dennis Baron                       debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



i don't think this is what you're looking for, dennis, but there is the

term "Janus word" for a single term that expresses opposite concepts.

e.g., "temper" can mean 'to harden' or 'to soften'.



however, i don't think the overuse of 'literally' qualifies it for this

title.



lynne murphy

university of the witwatersrand



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



Date:  Sat, 8 Oct 1994 13:03:59 -0500

From:  "Timothy C. Frazer"  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



On Fri, 7 Oct 1994, Bethany Dumas, UTK wrote:



  Mark Frank has asked me for my "evidence" that "could care less" is the

  natural (and highly predictable) result of the phonological reduction of

  "could not care less." Briefly, when "could not care less" is

  contracted (as statements containing negatives usually are in informal

  speech), it ends up with a /dntk/ internal sequence. I suspet that

  consonant cluster reduction gets rid of the /t/ and reduces the /n/ to

  nasalization of the preceding vowel.

 

  There's another factor, I think. Americans in general are uptight about

  double negatives, and I think that "less" is perceived as a kind of

  negative, which makes it appropriate to get rid of the "not" or "n't."

 

  Finally, I simply do not hear sarcasm or irony in the voices of those who

  say "could care less."

 

  Tim Frazier wrote to say that he is a believer,also. What is your analysis,

  Tim?

 

  Bethany Dumas = dumasb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utkvx.utk.edu

 

I think Bethany's hypothesis about consonant cluster reduction is very

convincing. About sarcasm: I first heard this expression 34 years ago

and have run into it frequently since. I have never heard it in a frame

where it would work to read the remark as sarcasm.



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



Date:  Sat, 8 Oct 1994 15:38:57 -0500

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

Subject: Re: Positive "don't care to"



My first year in Cookeville, I started to have a house built using a

carpenter rather than a contractor. He simply told me who to contact when

he was ready for that aspect of work. When it came time to have someone

build the fireplace, I contacted the person he suggested, who, after getting

my name and the name of my carpenter, said that he didn't care to. So, I,

new to the area and this wonderful loqution, asked another mason. Needless

to say, both were thrilled when they showed up on the appointed day. Maybe

Chattanooga is outside the area of positive "don't care to." I know it's

alive and well through most of upper middle Tennessee.



Alan Slotkin

ars7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tntech.edu



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



Date:  Sat, 8 Oct 1994 21:05:40 -0400

From:  Claudio Salvucci  CSALVUCCI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DELPHI.COM 

Subject: Phila. dialect



    I was wondering if anyone on the list could help me find material

(by that I mean books, journals, articles, etc.) on dialect speech in the

Delaware Valley / SE Pennsylvania area, especially urban Philadelphia.

    Linguistics is more a hobby than a profession, and as such I

am completely in the dark about where to look, and what research has

been done in this area. I have consulted "The Pronunciation of English

in the Atlantic States", but the examples of "typically Philadelphian"

speech don't correlate with my own personal experience of growing up

there. Perhaps the time frame (data collected around 1940) and the

social context (educated, "well-to-do") have something to do with this.

    I remember learning about vowel-raising in college, but never

learned where this data came from. Any information would be greatly

appreciated, as the only treatments I have been able to find come from

the popular press, and as such, are of limited value. Thanks in advance

and I apologize for the length of this posting.



    Claudio R. Salvucci

    csalvucci[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]delphi.com



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 7 Oct 1994 to 8 Oct 1994

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







There is one message totalling 15 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Phila. dialect



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



Date:  Sun, 9 Oct 1994 06:59:26 -0500

From:  "Timothy C. Frazer"  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU 

Subject: Re: Phila. dialect



William Labov and his colleagues have done a lot of work on PHiladelphia

speech. I know there's a paper on Phil. in the collection of papers

published as "Locating Language in Space and Time" from Academic Press.

(or is it "time and space"") But that's 1980; there must be more recent

work that someone on the list can cite.

I'd like to heear about it too.



Tim Frazer



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 8 Oct 1994 to 9 Oct 1994

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







There are 4 messages totalling 110 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Phila. dialect

 2. Language and Education (2)

 3. Antilogies



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



Date:  Mon, 10 Oct 1994 08:31:46 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Phila. dialect



As a poor soul who used to ride into Philadelphia for several years by

taking the bus from West Whester and then the el from 69th street (one can

watch the Pepsi bottles fly off the roofs of bombed out houses toward the

metal band on the el car), I can tell you that the dialect situation in

Philadelphia is extremely complex. Neighborhoods are important since they

are tied directly in many cases to ethnicity and social/economic status. I

learned this summer just how similar West Philadephia speech out by the GE

plant is to Dublin English. Accent also changes as one takes the train out

the mainline to Paoli and beyond. By the time you're out in West Chester,

you're out in a different world. Folks out there sound like upper

Chesapeake folks--depending on many things, of course. But these are all

uninformed impressions.



By the way, Sledd (if I may take his name in vain) was mercilessly cruel in

class on atlas treatment of cities like Philadelphia.





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



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



Date:  Mon, 10 Oct 1994 14:30:00 GMT

From:  J.Kirk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]QUEENS-BELFAST.AC.UK

Subject: Language and Education



My colleagues and I are currentlydesigning a new MA module entitled:



Language and Education: Policy and Issues



To help us along, I wonder whether anyone on the net - or your

colleagues - teach on anything at all similar, and whether you could

let us have sight of your syllabuses and reading lists. Email

or fax (+44) 232 314615 would be fine. It's a new departure for us,

and we'd certainly be interested to see how it's done elsewhere.



Any help any of us can give us will certainly be appreciated!



With many thanks,



JOHN KIRK

School of English

The Queen's University of Belfast

Email: eng0997[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]qub.ac.uk



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



Date:  Mon, 10 Oct 1994 11:33:47 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Language and Education



Try Donald Larmouth at U of Wisconsin, Green Bay (or see his article in

Glowka and Lance, _Language Variation etc._, MLA, 1993: 219 ff.).





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



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



Date:  Sun, 9 Oct 1994 15:57:21 GMT

From:  "Warren A. Brewer"  NCUT054[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TWNMOE10.BITNET 

Subject: Antilogies



RE: I don't care to ("I don't mind")



Isadore of Seville might've called this antiphrasis. His neatest

example is "Canis a non canendo," a dog is called CANIS because

it can't sing (CANERE).



Cf. other Isodorean possibilities:



Literally: I literally busted a gut laughing (because it was really

   only figuratively).



Rush-hour traffic: Because nobody can rush anywhere.



Humane Society: Because they could care less about humans.



They could care less: Because they couldn't.



That's okay: Because it's not okay.



Antilogies: Borrow me your book (= loan); What are you inferring

   (= implying)?



Polarity switching:

   There was no love lost between us. (We loved each other

     completely --  We loathed each other.)

   I am willing to work more, if not thrilled at the prospect.

     (I am thrilled ~ I am not thrilled)

   You lucked out. (You're out of luck --  You're lucky.)

   Bad means good. War means peace. If a woman says no...



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



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

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







There are 9 messages totalling 225 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Name that syntagm (4)

 2. Aunt Rhody (2)

 3. -"had" Constructions (3)



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 02:32:37 -0400

From:  Allan Denchfield  dench[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CAMBRIDGE.VILLAGE.COM 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



Hey, I thought dialects collapsed with the fall of marxism. If I can join

this tenacious bunch, hesitate and sign me up! Is this ADS the more

virulent contagious strain?



-AOBD (as obi one can know me)



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 02:35:55 -0400

From:  Allan Denchfield  dench[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CAMBRIDGE.VILLAGE.COM 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



Thanks, Larry (via brad grissom).





-AOBD (hesitate and call)



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



Date:  Mon, 10 Oct 1994 14:18:56 -0400

From:  BHOWARD  BHOWARD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU 

Subject: Re: Aunt Rhody



Donald, it was "Aunt Nancy" in Lewisburg, West Virginia, in the 1950's when my

grandmother (whose father immigrated from Wales) sang it to me.



Becky Howard



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 04:36:07 -0700

From:  James Beniger  beniger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RCF.USC.EDU 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



Relevant true story: At a major international conference, a pompous

speaker droned on and on to a packed crowd. After what seemed an

eternity, he finally built to his point, declaring: "In English, for

example, there is not a single example of a double positive which means

its negative." At this point, the noted Princeton philosopher, Saul

Kripke, rose from his seat near the back of the audience and shouted;

"SURE, SURE!" The speaker has not been seen much since.



                -- Jim Beniger

                  University of Southern California

*******



On Fri, 7 Oct 1994, Dennis.Preston wrote:



  The term you are looking for (or at least one of them), when the compositional

  semantics does not add up to the pragmatic meaning (or illocutionary force) is

  indirect speech act. When one finds these (and even direct speech acts and

  other matters misinterpreted cross-linguistically, the generally agreed upon

  area of study appears to be interlanguage pragmatics.

  This ought to convince people that there are linguists out there. At least we

  have a code.

  Dennis Preston

   22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu 

 



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 09:01:35 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



I don't know if the story is apocryphal, but I've always heard it cited

(including every time I have talked about "logical" double negation before an

audience containing philosophers) along the following lines:



   [Speaker] "...and while two negations often cancel out to an affirmative,

    there is no known attestation of two affirmatives reducing to a

    negative."

   [Sidney Morgenbesser, in a loud sotto voce] "Yeah, yeah."



I've come across the same anecdote a few times in print since including it in

my 1989 book "A Natural History of Negation" (p. 554) and in my 1991 CLS

paper "Duplex Negatio Affirmat...: The Economy of Double Negation" (plug,

plug) and each time the attribution was to Morgenbesser. From what I've heard

of Morgenbesser, master of the rapier-like counterexample through many decades

at Columbia, and what I know of Kripke, the standard version of the anecdote

appears more likely. But was I dere, Charley? No.



Larry Horn



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 13:40:31 CDT

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

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



There is more to the "'had' Constructions" than has been discussed so far.

Bruce Southard started the discussion by citing these examples:

 (1) She had her purse stolen last night

 (2) I had my house painted last year

 (3) The secret police had the politician jailed until last week



(1) and (3) are ambiguous sequences:

 (1a) She had her purse stolen last night, and she misses it

 (1b) She had her purse stolen last night, so that she could see if there

       is a pattern in residential burglaries in River City



(1b) is hard to set up in the second reading because of the time adverb. Cf:

 (1c) I had a purse stolen, and I sure do miss the money

 (1d) I had a purse stolen, and thankfully the thief didn't finger me

 (1e) I had a purse stolen, but I got cold feet and put it back on the shelf



The painted house sequence can also be structurally ambiguous:

 (2a) We had our house painted blue for several years, and then

     we had the house and garage painted gray and like it a lot better



Likewise the jailed politicians:

 (3a) The police had the politicians jailed until last week, so that

      the military could pull off a coup

 (3b) The police had the politicians jailed until last week, but somehow

      they got out and spoiled the coup attempt



So it appears that we need more than the two labels that Bill Kretzschmar

discussed (if you buy his 'factitive' argument, which I really haven't

thought through to accept or reject).



While you're pondering 'have + dir obj + past participle qua complement',

you might add 'have + dir obj + infinitive':



 (4) I was real busy and then I HAD THREE CALLS COME IN and

        then I was really behind



(The first example that occurred to me was "I had my pants fall down on me"

but looked for other examples, even though this one has a very interesting

"dative of interest" in it.)



This sequence is also structurally ambiguous:



 (4a) I had three calls come in and couldn't finish what I was doing

 (4b) I had three calls come in so that the boss would be impressed



Some might quibble over whether 'dir obj' is the right term for these NPs,

but that quibble is part of bigger questions.



And 'present participle qua complement':



 (5a) We had three copters circling overhead to make the scene more graphic

 (5b) We had three copters circling overhead and couldn't hear well



I have a faint echo in my mind that says Nelson Francis or Charles Hockett

or some other linguist from that era discussed this ambiguity. Maybe Fries.

Or Sledd. Or A. A. Hill.

                       DMLance



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 14:19:32 CDT

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

Subject: Aunt Rhody



I've had only three responses to my 'Aunt Rhody' query. More interesting

topics intervened. No problem. This isn't a big item.

By the way (i.e., BTW), I don't mind seeing short responses to requests

for info/help; that tells me where there are linguists/dialectologists

who are interested in particular topics and who they are. So I don't see

my colleagues' postings as intrusions, not on this list.



Dennis Preston posted a query about Rhody/Rhoda. According to THE GUINNESS

BOOK OF NAMES, 6th ed (1993), 'Rhoda' is listed (p. 41) under "Some biblical

first names for girls":

  Rhoda -- Greek 'rose'

In the section titled "First name profiles" the following statistics are cited

for the incidence of the name per 10,000 girls born in the year indicated.

The statistics are for births in England and Wales (p. 72)

 1900 16, 1925 8, 1935 4, 1950 2, 1955 2, 1970 4, 1980 2, 1990 1



The name Rhona is listed among "Some Scottish first names for girls":

      Rhona -- Scottish place name 'rough isle'



Rhona came into general use, so says Guinness, in England and Wales in 1870,

with the following frequencies of use:

 1935 2, 1935 4, 1950 6, 1955 8, 1965 4, 1980 2



I added Rhona because of the folk uses of "Rhony" as well as "Rhody".



You may wonder about Rhonda (different vowel sound). Guinness doesn't list

an etymological source for it, but it was the 44th most popular girl's

name in the USA in 1970 (p. 53). It came into general use in England and

Wales in 1927, with the following frequencies reported (p. 72):

 1950 5, 1955 2, 1960 6, 1965 2, 1975 2

The name was not in the top 50 names in the USA in years other than 1970.



More'n you ever wanted to know, but here it is.

                        DMLance



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 18:51:00 EDT

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

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



I agree with Don Lance that the [on me] phrase in {I had my pants fall down on

me} is interesting. I sense a tonal requirment in all these on+pronoun

constructions - namely, it must be something not wanted, preferred, liked,

etc... I would prefer calling them malefactives rather than datives of

interest, but I do not want to be a category mongerer.

Dennis Preston

22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 19:45:23 -0700

From:  Judith Rascoe  boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



Isn't there an Irish construction along the lines of "he had a drink taken".

As I understand it, it's a faintly euphemistic way of suggesting that the

subject has taken many drinks. ("He claimed he swerved to avoid the cat, but

he had a drink taken if you ask me.") In this sense it reminds me a bit of

what a Peruvian friend said about Spanish -- that lots of things seem to

happen by themselves in that language ('the vase broke itself'). The 'had O

part.' construction relieves the subject of onus. It's trying to shuffle the

action into the "I had my car sideswiped" category, where the subject is

victim.



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



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

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







There are 11 messages totalling 265 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Antilogies (2)

 2. Name that syntagm (2)

 3. Phila. dialect

 4. -"had" Constructions (4)

 5. Source of Kripke Story

 6. Fiddling in Appalachia



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 00:13:47 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: Re: Antilogies



I'm not sure I buy all of Wab's cases of polarity switches, though

that's what I first thought of before Larry Horn suggested "antilogy"

(which seems wonderful but maybe best only on the lexical level?)

    "No love lost" I've always understood to come from "no love

there to lose in the first place", and it also seems to me to have

that dry sarcastic tone that the others don't.

    "If not" is something I've been puzzling over for a long time,

and would like to know if it's been written up anywhere. But I think

it's only a written phenomenon, since there are two very distinct

intonation contours that disambiguate meanings in conversation:

    "X, if not Y"  "X," pause, lower pitch, "if not Y," with

            a trailing low pitch on "Y"

            Means "but not Y"

    Ex: "It was bad, if not terrible", when it wasn't terrible.



    "X, if not Y"  "X", no or very brief pause, "if not Y" with

            as-high or even-higher pitch and contrastive

            stress on "Y". "X" is often aggravated or

            intensified, and "Y" is even more so and in

            the same direction. Means "X, indeed, Y".

    Ex: "It was (downright) silly, if not absurd"



But I've also tried in vain to get non-linguists to hear the ambiguity

and the intonation patterns, so maybe mine are idiosyncratic or

dialectal. Also, I wonder if there's a polarity-like phenomenon of a

change spreading in one direction: polarity changes spread towards the

positive, which is semantic bleaching, don't they? So is the 2nd

reading winning out? or are they too functionally distinct for that to apply?



Whoops! my maiden (substantive, after that individual-reply fiasco)

speech was a bit long...

    --peter patrick

    georgetown u. lx



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 00:25:52 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



James Beniger's "Sure, Sure" story reminds me (but alas only

partially) of a joke my father used to tell. Unfortunately this is

typical of his humor! Some similarly pompous or confident fellow is

proclaiming that "there are only 3 words in the English language which

begin S-U- but are pronounced 'shu-': SUGAR, SUMAC and [?]". His

listener then asks, "Are you sure?"

    The problem is I can't remember the 3rd one, or find one in a

dictionary, excepot variants of "sure". Does anyone know...?

    --plp



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 00:48:43 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: Re: Phila. dialect



As other folks pointed out re: Philly dialect studies, Labov and a

whole list of collaborators have written a whole slew of stuff. But a

starting point (for white, as opposed to black, Philly vernacular)

would be "The Exact description of the speech community", which

painstakingly describes the precise phonetic conditioning of the /ae/

to /aeh/ split. But it also briefly notes and reviews other Philly

studies, from the 1940s on, including Ferguson, Cofer etc.

    Unfortunately I don't know where it's published, I only have a

mid-80s manuscript. Anybody know the proper ref?

    "Three Dialects of English" also has some Philly stuff (pub. I

think in Penny Eckert's edited NWAVE volume, 1992?)...

    --plp



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



Date:  Tue, 11 Oct 1994 21:59:46 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



On Tue, 11 Oct 1994, Judith Rascoe wrote:



  Isn't there an Irish construction along the lines of "he had a drink taken".

  As I understand it, it's a faintly euphemistic way of suggesting that the

  subject has taken many drinks. ("He claimed he swerved to avoid the cat, but

  he had a drink taken if you ask me.") In this sense it reminds me a bit of

  what a Peruvian friend said about Spanish -- that lots of things seem to

  happen by themselves in that language ('the vase broke itself'). The 'had O

  part.' construction relieves the subject of onus. It's trying to shuffle the

  action into the "I had my car sideswiped" category, where the subject is

  victim.

 

My Sanskrit teacher pointed out to us that in Sanskrit, the active and

the passive have the same status - both derived from the verbal root, and

neither derived from the other. Thus they have even passives for

intransitives: "It is gone by me" as a way of saying "I go."



Maybe these bureaucratic passives, and the "had" constructions, date back

to this layer in *IndoEuropean?



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 02:01:37 CDT

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

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



My use of "dative of interest" reflected a conversation a colleague and I

had of "I had my pants fall down on me" back in 1968-69. He suggested the

term as one that might include not only the "malefactives" as Dennis Preston

called them but others that I can't now recall.

                        DMLance



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 02:07:30 CDT

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

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



Se me ocurrio' cuando lei' el mensaje de Judith Rascoe that any language

oughta give the speaker syntactic escape hatches for deflecting blame--any

self-respecting language, that is. It has occurred itself to me also that,

caramba!, Chinese does something "funny" with the equivalent of 'occur'

because I've seen "was occurred" in the writing of Chinese students. A

couple of times I asked if the Chinese equivalent of 'occur' was sort of

like a passive; the response was affirmative.



On a comparative/contrastive note, the discussed of these 'have' constructions

reminds me that 'be' and 'have'='own' use the same word in, I think, Swahili,

with sort of a dative construction in the latter use.

                           DMLance



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 04:58:55 -0700

From:  James Beniger  beniger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RCF.USC.EDU 

Subject: Source of Kripke Story



My source for the Kripke story was a New York Times Magazine cover story

on him roughly 10 years ago. Because the article was based on interviews

with an impressive number of scholars from several countries, including

Kripke, I tend to believe that the story is not (entirely) apocryphal.

But I wasn't there, either.



                -- Jim Beniger

*******



On Tue, 11 Oct 1994, Larry Horn wrote:



  I don't know if the story is apocryphal, but I've always heard it cited

  (including every time I have talked about "logical" double negation before an

  audience containing philosophers) along the following lines:

 

    [Speaker] "...and while two negations often cancel out to an affirmative,

      there is no known attestation of two affirmatives reducing to a

      negative."

    [Sidney Morgenbesser, in a loud sotto voce] "Yeah, yeah."

 

  I've come across the same anecdote a few times in print since including it in

  my 1989 book "A Natural History of Negation" (p. 554) and in my 1991 CLS

  paper "Duplex Negatio Affirmat...: The Economy of Double Negation" (plug,

  plug) and each time the attribution was to Morgenbesser. From what I've heard

  of Morgenbesser, master of the rapier-like counterexample through many decades

  at Columbia, and what I know of Kripke, the standard version of the anecdote

  appears more likely. But was I dere, Charley? No.

 

  Larry Horn

 



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 08:15:26 -0500

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

Subject: Fiddling in Appalachia



Forwarded from hel-l (history of the English language):



  Date: Tue, 11 Oct 1994 15:29:22 -0400

  Sender: hel-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ebbs.english.vt.edu

  From: Allan Robb  Allan_Robb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BAYLOR.EDU 

  Subject: Appala. Dialects and the Fiddle

 

    One of my collegues has a master's student who wants to write a chapter

  in his American Studies thesis attempting to match up Appalachian dialects

  with styles of fiddling. This is outside my area of interest, and any help

  would be greatly appreciated. What is needed, I think, is a series of detailed

  descriptions of Appalachian dialects and subdialects, and some detailed

  dialect maps. Older materials would be especially welcome.

    Reply privately, and I will summerize for the net if there is any general

  interest.

 

  Cheers,

  Allan Robb

  Baylor University Dept. of English

  Allan_Robb[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]Baylor.edu



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 09:17:16 CST

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

Subject: Re: -"had" Constructions



In Message Wed, 12 Oct 1994 02:07:30 CDT,

 "Donald M. Lance"  ENGDL%MIZZOU1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uicvm.uic.edu  writes:



 On a comparative/contrastive note, the discussed of these 'have' constructions

 reminds me that 'be' and 'have'='own' use the same word in, I think, Swahili,

 with sort of a dative construction in the latter use.

 In Lingala and Kikongo-Kituba, two languages I speak, the closest analog

is combining the verb COME with the applicative suffix. The latter is used

for benefactive as well as malefactive constructions. In cases more

specific than 'occur', diverse verb bases may combine with the applicative.

For instance, a car owner may complain that his/her child ruined their car

'on them'(?), or that a wreckless driver killed a pedestrian 'on them'(?),

etc. These are kinds of statements where the speaker suggests that somebody

other than the agent is victimized by the agent's action.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 10:14:47 -0700

From:  Judith Rascoe  boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: Name that syntagm



Sugar, sumac and pressure?



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



Date:  Wed, 12 Oct 1994 15:10:12 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Antilogies



In response to Peter Patrick's query on the two 'if not' constructions:



I don't want to be accused of excessive autocitation, but the first systematic

exploration I know of is mine, in my thesis (On the Semantic Properties of

Logical Operators in English, UCLA, 1972, IULC version distrib. 1976), in

section 1.22. Other more recent treatments are those in W. Welte,

Negationslinguistik (Munich, 1978), p. 205 and my negation book, A Natural

History of Negation (Chicago, 1989), p. 393. A sample minimal pair is

   The book is excellent if not (exactly) perfect

    [fall-rise intonation, concessive reading, corresp. to German

      'wenn (auch) nicht...']

   The book is excellent if not (downright) perfect

    [straight fall intonation, suspension (i.e. presupposition/implicature

      suspension) reading, corresp. to German 'wenn nicht (sogar)...']



As discussed in Horn 1989, only the former reading is preserved when the

negation is incorporated (The book is excellent if imperfect); this correlates

with the fact that the concessive reading can be taken as 'X if [not Y]' and

the suspension [='and maybe even...'] reading as 'X [if not] Y'. Other

minimal pairs:

   Our victory is possible if not probable. (ambiguous pending resolution

                         by intonation contour)

   Our victory is possible if improbably   (unambiguous; concessive only)



--Larry Horn



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Oct 1994 to 12 Oct 1994

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







There are 2 messages totalling 43 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. HAVE constructions

 2. The two [if not]s: one more reference



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



Date:  Thu, 13 Oct 1994 16:18:28 -0400

From:  Ronald Butters  amspeech[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ACPUB.DUKE.EDU 

Subject: HAVE constructions



See "Existential and Causative HAVE . . . TO," AMERICAN SPEECH 61.2

(1986), 184-90. See also Lauri Karttunen, "On the Semantics of Complement

Sentences," PAPERS FROM THE SIXTH REGIONAL MEETING, CHICAGO LINGUISTIC

SOCIETY, 328-39. The AMERICAN SPEECH article points out that there is

regional dialect variation between HAVE and HAVE TO (as in, say, "I`ll

have these players (to) play something like the murder of my father

before my uncle") as well as the fact that there are both EXISTENTIAL and

CAUSATIVE senses. Actually, as Karttunen points out, there is also a

third sense--termed POSSESSIVE--as in "They had the money to buy the

sofa." I think that Ivan Sag has also done some work on the

syntax/semantics of the construction(s), but I have only a handout from a

paper that he gave in 1973 at the LSA Summer Meeting in Ann Arbor; Sag

uses the term HAPPENSTANCE HAVE rather than EXISTENTIAL HAVE.



I missed Bruce Southard`s original query on this topic, and so I

apologize if I have repeated any of his wisdom (or anyone else`s) here. I

think that Quirk et al. (COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR) also talk about these

various senses of HAVE; I know that Poutsma does.



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



Date:  Thu, 13 Oct 1994 16:30:36 EDT

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

Subject: The two [if not]s: one more reference



I knew there was something else I was going to add to yesterday's note, but it

I would like to suggest that for "traditional grammar" of the late 19th

/ early 20 century you might like to have a look at _Two grammatical

models of Modern English: the old and the new from A to Z_, published in

1993 in paperback by Routledge (with some fairly useful

took a Linguist posting by the author on a totally different subject to remind

me of the reference. It's Fritz Stuurman's book "Two Grammatical Models of

Modern English: The old and the new from A to Z", Routledge 1993, whose "I"

entry (yes, it really does go from A to Z) is for if-not.



Larry



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 12 Oct 1994 to 13 Oct 1994

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







There is one message totalling 14 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. The two [if not]s: one more reference



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



Date:  Fri, 14 Oct 1994 00:03:03 EDT

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

Subject: Re: The two [if not]s: one more reference



Sorry about that last message I sent about Stuurmann and 'if not'. I guess I

must have collaborated with a quirky editing system in putting it together,

although it strikes me as having been written by some sort of random

amalgamation process. Oh well; I hope it can be understood even if it can't

be parsed.



LH



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



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

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







There is one message totalling 68 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. CILCA



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



Date:  Sun, 16 Oct 1994 17:29:15 -0400

From:  Alberto Rey  alrey[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CLDC.HOWARD.EDU 

Subject: CILCA



                AVISO IMPORTANTE

        TERCER CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE LITERATURA CENTROAMERICANA

                C.I.L.C.A. '95

        Ciudad de Guatemala: 22-24 de febrero de 1995



Mande resenas (una pagina) y propuestas para sesiones especiales antes

del 15 de noviembre de 1994 a:



Send abstracts (one page) and proposals for special sessions by Nov. 15,1994

to:



Jorge Roman-Lagunas

Conference Director

Foreign Languages & Literatures

Purdue University Calumet

Hammond, IN 46323-2094

Telephone: (219)989-2632

Fax:    (219)989-2581

E-mail:  in%"romanlj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pucal.bitnet"



Congreso organizado por la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala y

        Purdue University Calumet



La conferencia se especializa en literatura de Centroamerica pero ahora

estamos haciendo una llamada especial a los linguistas interesados en

presentar un tema relacionado con algun estudio linguistico sobre

Centroamerica.



The Conference is prncipally interested in research on Central American

literature but is making a special call to linguists for research on

Central American linguistics.



Mande abstractos sobre estudios de literatura centroamericana al:

Profesor Roman Lagunas

Mande abstractos de linguistica al:

Profesor Rey



Send abstracts on studies of Central American Literature to:

Professor Roman-Lagunas

Send linguistics abstracts to:

Profesor Rey



Fecha limite para los abstractos es el 1 de diciembre de 1994.

Deadline for abstracts is Dec. 1, 1994.



Inscripcion/Registration:

Profesores- $95(antes/before 15-nov-94)

       $125(despues/after 16-nov-94)

Estudiantes- $65(antes/before 15-nov-94)

       $85(despues/after 16-nov-94)

Favor de enviar cheque o giro postal a nombre de "CILCA" a: Jorge

Roman-Lagunas a la direccion indicada anteriormente.





 Alberto Rey

Department of Modern Languages & Literatures

Howard University

Washington,D.C.  20059

Phone: (202)806-6758

Fax:  (202)806-4562

E-mail: alrey[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cldc.howard.edu



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 14 Oct 1994 to 16 Oct 1994

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







There are 9 messages totalling 378 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. offending idioms (6)

 2. GURT 1995 (long posting)

 3. Watch your s-mail (2)



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 09:16:09 -0600

From:  Judy Kuster  KUSTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU 

Subject: offending idioms



I am preparing a lecture on cultural sensitivity and language and

wonder if anyone can help me think of examples of idioms that are

insensitive to ethnic origin, religion, race, gender, etc. I've

thought of a few - Indian giver, Jewed him down, More bang for the

buck. Anyone think of any more - or suggest where I might find some?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Judy

Kuster[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vax1.mankato.msus.edu



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 10:16:58 -0500

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

Subject: Re: offending idioms



 I am preparing a lecture on cultural sensitivity and language and

 wonder if anyone can help me think of examples of idioms that are

 insensitive to ethnic origin, religion, race, gender, etc. I've

 thought of a few - Indian giver, Jewed him down, More bang for the

 buck. Anyone think of any more - or suggest where I might find some?

 Thanks for any suggestions.

 Judy

 Kuster[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vax1.mankato.msus.edu



Chinese fire drill. Texas-leaguer. Welch on a bet. Welsh rabbit. Gyp.Dutch

courage. To go dutch. Jesuitical. Pontificate. There are millions of 'em.



I like to add campus ones if possible. Like dorm (to which residence hall

or student life center people strongly object)



Dennis

--

Dennis Baron                       debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



Department of English                  217-333-2392

University of Illinois                fax: 217-333-4321

608 South Wright Street

Urbana, Illinois 61801



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 11:59:39 -0400

From:  GURT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: GURT 1995 (long posting)



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

Preliminary Conference Announcement - GURT 1995



GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ROUND TABLE

ON LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS 1995



Conference and Pre-sessions: March 6 - 11, 1995



"Linguistics and the Education of Second Language Teachers:

Ethnolinguistic, Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Aspects"



Chaired by

James E. Alatis, Dean Emeritus

Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and Modern Greek

School of Languages and Linguistics

Georgetown University, Washington, DC



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



SPEAKERS:

Main Sessions: March 8 - 11, 1995



David Andrews, Georgetown University

Cathy Ball, Georgetown University

Leslie M. Beebe, Teachers College, Columbia University

Gillian Brown, Cambridge University

Isolda Carranza, Georgetown University

Marianne Celce-Murcia, University of California, Los Angeles

Anna Uhl Chamot, Georgetown University

Kenneth Chastain, University of Virginia

Virginia Collier, George Mason University

Jeff Connor-Linton, Georgetown University

Barbara A. Craig, Georgetown University

JoAnn Crandall, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Bessie Dendrinos, University of Athens, Greece

Nadine O'Connor DiVito, The University of Chicago

Madeline E. Ehrman, U.S. Department of State, FSI

Mary El-Khadi, Old Dominion University

Aviva Freedman, Carleton University, Ottawa

Eugene Garcia, Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Affairs

William C. Hannas, Georgetown University

Elaine K. Horwitz, University of Texas at Austin

Kurt R. Jankowsky, Georgetown University

Adam Jaworski, University of Wales Cardiff

Christina Kakava, Mary Washington College

Steve Krashen, University of Southern California

Donna Lardiere, Georgetown University

Diane Larsen-Freeman, School for International Training

Ronald Leow, Georgetown University

Don Loritz, Georgetown University

Steve Loughrin-Sacco, Boise State University

Joan Morley, University of Michigan

David Nunan, The University of Hong Kong

Linju Ogasawara, Japanese Ministry of Education (ret.)

Anne Pakir, National University of Singapore

Yuling Pan, Georgetown University

Sophia C. Papaefthymiou-Lytra, University of Athens, Greece

Martha Pennington, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong

Terry Pica, The University of Pennsylvania

Guy Spielmann, Georgetown University

John J. Staczek, Georgetown University

Charles Stansfield, Center for Applied Linguistics

Steven Sternfeld, University of Utah

Earl Stevick, Independent Researcher

G. Richard Tucker, Carnegie Mellon University

Andrea Tyler, Georgetown University

Bill VanPatten, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Monique Wong, Hellenic American Union, Athens, Greece

Shelley Wong, University of Maryland, College Park

Dolly J. Young, University of Tennessee

Gen-Yuan Zhuang, Hangzhou University

Elizabeth Zsiga, Georgetown University



For more information, please contact:



Carolyn A. Straehle, Coordinator, GURT 1995

School of Languages and Linguistics

303 Intercultural Center

Georgetown University

Washington, DC 20057-1067

e-mail: gurt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.bitnet

or   gurt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.georgetown.edu

phone: (202) 687-5726

fax:  (202) 687-5712



GURT registration information and detailed program flyer

available from late December 1994 (will be sent automatically to

individuals already on mailing list).



Proceedings of the Round Table are published annually and are

available from Georgetown University Press (410) 516-6995.



Annual Meeting of the INTERNATIONAL LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION

(ILA) also to be held at Georgetown, Friday, March 10 - Sunday,

March 12. The theme of the 1995 ILA meeting is Discourse and Text

Analysis. For more information, contact Ruth Brend, 3363 Burbank

Dr., Ann Arbor, MI 48105. Tel: 313/665-2787; Fax: 313/665-9743;

E-mail:Ruth.Brend[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]um.cc.umich.edu. Deadline for abstracts

submitted to ILA is January 4, 1995. Abstracts relevant to theme

or any other linguistics topic invited.



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



Pre-Conference Sessions: March 6 - 8, 1995



The pre-conference sessions will be held in the Intercultural

Center of

Georgetown University. Please contact the

individual organizers for more information.



Teaching and Learning Spoken Arabic

Organizer:   Dr. Margaret Nydell

     G.U. Department of Arabic

     Washington, DC 20057-1068

     (202) 687-5743



Spanish Linguistics

Organizers:  Dr. H ctor Campos, Mr. Eric Holt,

     and Ms. Norma Catalan

     G.U. Department of Spanish

     Washington, DC 20057-0989

     (202) 687-6134

     hcampos[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.bitnet

     hcampos[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.georgetown.edu



History of Linguistics

Organizer:   Dr. Kurt R. Jankowsky

     G.U. Department of German

     Washington, DC 20057-1068

     (202) 687-5812



African Linguistics VI

Organizer:   Rev. Solomon Sara, S.J.

     G.U. Department of Linguistics

     Washington, DC 20057-1068

     (202) 687-5956

     ssara[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.bitnet

     ssara[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.georgetown.edu



Portuguese Linguistics

Organizer:   Dr. Clea A. Rameh

     G.U. Department of Portuguese

     Washington, DC 20057-0991

     (202) 687-5705



Innovative Audio and Looking at Multimedia (two sessions)

Organizer:   Jackie Tanner, Director

     G.U. Language Learning Technology

     Washington, DC 20057-0984

     (202) 687-5766

     jtanner[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.georgetown.edu



Issues in Slavic Linguistics

Organizer:   Dr. David Andrews

     G.U. Department of Russian

     Washington, DC 20057-0990

     (202) 687-6108/6147



Discourse and Agency: Responsibility and Deception

Organizer:   Dr. Patricia E. O'Connor

     G.U. Department of English

     Washington, DC 20057-1068

     (202) 687-5956/6226

     oconnorpe[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.bitnet

     oconnorpe[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.georgetown.edu



Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis

Organizer:   Dr. Susan Herring

     Program in Linguistics

     University of Texas

     Arlington, TX 76019

     (817) 273-3133

     susan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]utafll.uta.edu



Celebration of Bilingual Immersion Programs

Organizer:   Prof. Dorothy Goodman

     Friends of International Education

     P.O. Box 4800

     Washington, DC 20008

     (202) 363-8510



Issues in Foreign Language Program Direction

Organizer:   Dr. Ron Leow

     G.U. Department of Spanish

     Washington, DC 20057-0989

     (202) 687-6134

     rleow[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.bitnet

     rleow[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]guvax.georgetown.edu



Workshops:



Criterion-Referenced Curriculum and Test Development for Language Teachers and

Administrators



Presenter:   Dr. Jeff Connor-Linton

     G.U. Department of Linguistics

     Washington, DC 20057-1068

     (202) 687-6156



Authentic Documents in the Language Class: Theoretical

Perspectives and Didactic Applications



Presenter:   Dr. Guy Speilmann

     G.U. Department of French

     Washington, DC 20057-1054

     (202) 687-5717



Language Acquisition and Language Education: A Review of Research

and Theory and Current Issues

Presenter:   Dr. Steve Krashen

     School of Education

     University of Southern California

     Los Angeles, CA 90089-0031





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

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



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 09:18:59 PDT

From:  "Jim Ague, ague[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]redrck.enet.dec.com, Col Spgs,

     CO"  ague[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]REDRCK.ENET.DEC.COM 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



Maybe I've become desensitized, but how is "More bang for the buck" offensive?



-- Jim



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 17:02:29 -0400

From:  AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: Watch your s-mail



happy members of the American Dialect Society!

 For, as these electrons flash along the Internet, the old Highway

Superhighway is bringing you the newest Newsletter of the A.D.S.!

 with 28 pages including:

- Complete program for the ADS Annual Meeting, San Diego, December; and a

reminder of our special hotel and special hotel rates

- Complete program for ADS session at Linguistic Society annual meeting

- Proposal on sites of future ADS Annual Meetings

- Programs for the four Regional Meetings this month and next

- Calls for future meetings, including Methods IX in Wales, summer 1996

  and the Dictionary Society in Cleveland next July

- Special opportunities: to nominate a student for Presidential Honorary

Membership, to participate in the Usage Committee

- Nominations for next year's new officers

- Directory of our approximately 520 members

- our 4-page Teaching Newsletter as an insert

- and last but not least, an inside report from our very own ADS-L list owner

Natalie Maynor, telling everything you'd like to know about what she did Oct.

1.



If you happen not to be a member of the American Dialect Society, you won't

get this issue. Unless you ask. Send me your s-mail address and I'll

first-class a copy your way, along with a form that will make it convenient

for you to join the Society at just $30 a year (which includes not only the

newsletter, but American Speech and our monograph series PADS).



Happy reading! - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary  AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com 

- Eight new books by ADS members



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 16:14:08 -0600

From:  Judy Kuster  KUSTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



YOu are the second to ask - maybe I'm wrong, or the person who presented

the workshop on cultural sensitivity I attended recently, was wrong. I

asked a female colleague and she said it is offensive and vulgar to her,

too - it has sex for money connotations it her mind, mine, too. How

do I find out the actual entomology?

Judy

Kuster[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vax1.mankato.msus.edu



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 16:33:58 -0700

From:  Roger Vanderveen  rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



How about bleeding-heart liberals?





===============================================================================

Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

                               Hillsboro, OR

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 19:08:23 -0500

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

Subject: Re: offending idioms



On Mon, 17 Oct 1994, Judy Kuster wrote:



  I am preparing a lecture on cultural sensitivity and language and

  wonder if anyone can help me think of examples of idioms that are

  insensitive to ethnic origin, religion, race, gender, etc. I've

  thought of a few - Indian giver, Jewed him down, More bang for the

  buck. Anyone think of any more - or suggest where I might find some?

  Thanks for any suggestions.

  Judy

  Kuster[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vax1.mankato.msus.edu

 

Overheard a couple years ago in a local thrift shop ("local=MPLS): "He

tried to Christian me down. I can't say he tried to Jew me down, because

he told me he was the treasurer of his synagogue."



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



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 19:36:36 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Watch your s-mail



Chuck Coker

2347 Muscupiabe Drive (be careful with the spelling, our mail takes a long

San Bernardino, CA 92405   time to reach us when misspelled)

(909) 882-2099

Internet: CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



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



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

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







There are 18 messages totalling 569 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Watch your s-mail

 2. offending idioms (13)

 3. Yankee

 4. Offending idiom?

 5. Historical and socio

 6. Free Syllabus magazine subscription



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 21:04:36 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Watch your s-mail



Sorry about the message containing my snail-mail address, etc. I REPLYd by

mistake to the list instead of sending my stuff to the intended recipient.

I'll try not to let it happen again.



:-) Chuck Coker



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



Date:  Mon, 17 Oct 1994 21:31:57 -0700

From:  Roger Vanderveen  rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



  From: Judy Kuster  KUSTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU 



  YOu are the second to ask - maybe I'm wrong, or the person who presented

  the workshop on cultural sensitivity I attended recently, was wrong. I

  asked a female colleague and she said it is offensive and vulgar to her,

  too - it has sex for money connotations it her mind, mine, too. How

  do I find out the actual entomology?



It owuld be nice tohave some of the context included so we could figure out

what you're talking about.



Entomology? Better check your dictionary for that word before you include it

in your paper.





===============================================================================

Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

                               Hillsboro, OR

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:26:03 EDT

From:  David Muschell  dmuschel[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



    Though some males may preen at being called a "hunk" or "stud,"

these objectifying terms can be as jarring as the older, informal term for

a girl: "filly." Male libbers may also look askance at the use of "booty"

as a posterior descriptive, especially when thinking of the denotative

"loot" or "treasure." Even "groovy" has its potential as a sex offender

when thinking of its origins as "in the groove," meaning exciting or

stimulating, seen most strongly in song lyrics such as "shake your groove

thing." But there seem to be two levels at which these terms work. On the

public level of usage, offense seems to occur more readily from idiomatic

animal comparisons like "chick." On the private level, there is, at times,

an enjoyment, amusement, and enthusiasm for the malleability of our

language. So on one plane, certain highland clans may take humbrage at

"scot free" (though it has no relation to the many derogatory references to

Scottish cheapness), while on another, the inner group enjoys a certain

mockery of itself. And terms change from negative to positive (as in

"yankee") or shift focus (as in "honky"). Am I making sense here? Perhaps

I need some Dutch courage or maybe I'm just horsing around (originally a

sexual idiom).



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:25:00 EDT

From:  "James_C.Stalker"  STALKER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



Robert Chapman,  New Dictionary of American Slang  gives this etymology for

"bang for the buck": fr a frivolous way of referring to the national defense

budget and the destructive power it produces. (p. 16). He does not provide

evidencefor his etymology, but the contextsin which it seems to occur most

frequently would support him.



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 07:32:29 -0500

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

Subject: Re: offending idioms



  mockery of itself. And terms change from negative to positive (as in

  "yankee") or shift focus (as in "honky"). Am I making sense here? Perhaps



You were making sense until you gave "yankee" as an example of a term that

has changed from negative to positive. ;-)



Are we talking about terms that are subtly offensive because of etymology

that isn't necessarily apparent, or are we including blatantly offensive

terms? If the latter, nobody has mentioned "nigger rig" yet.

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



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 09:00:43 EDT

From:  David Muschell  dmuschel[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



A Yankee was originally a derogatory term for a Dutchman ("Jan Cheese"

[though there is disagreement about this]), but the colonists took the slur

on with pride, transforming the nasty "Yankee Doodle Dandy" into a marching

song. The term became negative again during the War of Northern Agression;

then positive during World War I ("the Yanks are coming"), then negative

again during the Civil War Centenniel of 1960-64. Yankee ingenuity has a

positive note, but down here, the negative connotation still exists, though

tempered with humor.



"Honky" seems to have degenerated from "bohunk," a term for "ignorant"

eastern European immigrants from Bohemia and Hungaria (later "hunky" and

adopted by African Americans integrating the deteriorating Harlem. I'd

cite sources but I'm almost late for class and they're all piled in my

closet (the sources, not my students).



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:59:39 EDT

From:  MICHAEL K PARSONS  mkpars01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



It maybe a shot in the dark, but I also have the impression that

"more bang for the buck" has leadings towards assumed prostition.

Another phrase that has similar connotations is "wham bam thank you ma'm."

It's from a song called (I think) "Something Jessie Did." Not sure of the

artist, but it's a good song, anyway.



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:32:25 -0600

From:  Judy Kuster  KUSTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



good one, Roger. Thanks.

Judy



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:59:34 -0600

From:  Judy Kuster  KUSTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



Thanks for a "real life" (and close to home - I frequent the thrift

shops in Mpls, too) example!

Judy



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:10:03 PDT

From:  Joseph Jones  jjones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNIXG.UBC.CA 

Subject: Yankee



In Canada, Yankee refers to anyone south of the border,

no matter how far south, unless you cross into Mexico.

Not a completely positive term. Hard for a transplanted

southerner to take.

Joseph Jones



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 08:44:21 -0700

From:  Judith Rascoe  boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



'Another phrase that has similar connotations is "what bam thank you ma'am."

Ot

It's from a song ...'



Nope, it's not. It's a pretty old catchphrase ... that has always had sexual

intent (unlike 'bang for the buck').



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 09:25:06 -0700

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



. . . snip, snip . . .



  nobody has mentioned "nigger rig" yet.

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



This is a tangent, sorry, but I was offended by this:



When my grandfather and grandmother were building Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam

is the proper name) on the Colorado River, they had a camp mascot. It was

a jet black dog -- I've seen many pictures -- named "Nigger." In the

thirties, I suppose that was acceptable. Anyway, during the construction,

the dog got run over and died. The workers buried the dog in the dam,

sealing his tomb with the concrete you see nowdays. They marked Nigger's

resting place with a plaque -- something to the effect of: Here lies

Nigger, who helped build this damn dam. Don't quote me on that, but it was

something like that. The plaque was about halfway up the dam and could

not be seen unless you were looking for it. (I saw it through binoculars

once as a child.) Somebody complained -- I don't know how they saw the

marker, unless they knew about it before looking -- and the plaque was

removed. Offensive or not, that was a small part of history. The plaque

was *NOT* in plain sight where everybody *HAD TO* look at it. (You could

just barely see it if you knew it was there!) I find it offensive that

a piece of history was removed in the name of political correctness. If the

federal government feels the need to stop the use of the word "nigger,"

how about they start in my neighborhood where the black people call each

other "nigger." (I also object to the politcally correct term African-

American -- the only true "African-Americans" I know are of European

ancestry many generation back, and they are whiter than I am. I don't

personally know any black African-Americans.) (I think I mispelled plaque,

but I don't feel like getting my dictionary out right now. :-) )



Maybe "nigger" doesn't seem worth fighting over to me because I'm part white

and part Indian (oops, Native American). By the way, I am *NOT* racist.



Here's some offensive idioms (?) for your list:

Indian Giver

Apple (red on the outside, white on the inside)

Coconut (brown on the outside, white on the inside -- my wife is Mexican)



Hey, how about sports teams:

Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, Kansas City Chiefs, etc., etc.

We need, just to be fair, the Nashville Niggers and the Hoboken Honkies.



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



===============================================================================

There have been no dragons in my life, only small spiders and stepping in gum.

I could have coped with the dragons.

                              Anonymous (but wise)

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 13:04:47 CDT

From:  Randy Roberts  robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EXT.MISSOURI.EDU 

Subject: offending idioms



   I recall that folklorist Archie Green, in a paper on Labor Lingo,

   reported the terms Irish buggy and African diesel were being used on

   construction sites to refer to a wheelbarrow. William Safire, in a

   column from August 1980, discussed occupational slurs. I think he

   used the term occuslurs.



   Re: "more bang for the buck" If anyone is interested I can provide

   information from the Peter Tamony collection that relates to the

   sexual connotations of the term bang and as it relates to drug usage.

   Tamony collected info from the works of Eric Partridge, David Mauer

   and others for bang as a sexual term. He also found examples from the

   writings of James Baldwin, Jack Kerouac and others.



   Randy Roberts

   University of Missouri-Columbia

   robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ext.missouri.edu



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 12:54:21 CST

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

Subject: Re: offending idioms



In Message Tue, 18 Oct 1994 09:25:06 -0700,

 "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]csupomona.edu  writes:



 If the

 federal government feels the need to stop the use of the word "nigger,"

 how about they start in my neighborhood where the black people call each

 other "nigger."



 It's true that some African Americans often/sometimes use the term

"nigger" with special pragmatic intent, but I don't know whether I would

formulate it the way you do.



 (I also object to the politcally correct term African-

 American -- the only true "African-Americans" I know are of European

 ancestry many generation back, and they are whiter than I am.



  Could you cite your source(s)? I am curious?



 Maybe "nigger" doesn't seem worth fighting over to me because I'm part white

 and part Indian (oops, Native American). By the way, I am *NOT* racist.



 How would you know the difference when you don't even realize when you

might offend or hurt others? Let the rest of us tell you what we think of

your remarks.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 14:19:58 EDT

From:  Michael Montgomery  N270053[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDU 

Subject: Offending idiom?



Natalie Maynor's mention of "Yankee" reminds me of something. The

following idiom would be ironic and, perhaps, offensive to some:



   "Let me give you a Yankee dime."

   "If you do this for me, I'll give you a Yankee dime."



The folks at DARE can doubtless inform us of the regional spread of

this, but it's a well-known phrase, among old-timers at least, in the

South. A "Yankee dime" is a kiss, and not necessarily a cheap one!

Perhaps DARE can speculate on its origin as well?



Michael Montgomery, Dept of English, U of South Carolina, Columbia SC 29208



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 11:32:48 -0700

From:  bucholtz[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GARNET.BERKELEY.EDU

Subject: Historical and socio



I've noticed that there's some overlap in the subscribers to this list

and to Anglo-Saxon Net, which I find heartening since I'm a grad student

in sociolinguistics but I also do more historically oriented research on

English, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the world with both

interests.



I'd appreciate hearing from people who have similar research interests to

know how you're reconciling two areas that unfortunately are often

not seen as closely related (I can't tell you how many times people have

expressed surprise at what I do). I'd be interested in knowing:



- How common is it to find a position that allows one to wear both hats?

- Are such positions primarily in English departments, or do they exist in

linguistics departments as well?

- What kind of courses do you teach, and are both aspects of your research

equally valued and supported by your department? Were you hired to

teach in both areas or is only one seen as your "official" role?

- Which professional organizations do you belong to and what conferences do

you participate in?

- If you supervise graduate students, what type of interests do they tend to

have?

- Do you feel at all marginalized, or are there advantages to having diverse

interests?



A lot of questions, I know, but I can use all the information I can get.

Please reply privately; I can send a summary to anyone who would like one.



Thanks a lot,



Mary Bucholtz

bucholtz[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]garnet.berkeley.edu



Dept. of Linguistics

2337 Dwinelle Hall

University of California

Berkeley, CA 94720



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 12:45:00 -0500

From:  Syllabus Press  Syllabus[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NETCOM.COM 

Subject: Free Syllabus magazine subscription



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 16:06:00 EDT

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

Subject: Re: offending idioms



It is true that Wham Bam Thank you Mam is an old catchphrase, but it is also

only a part of a longer old rabbit joke. A horny old rabbit is moving among

his females saying Wham Bam (rapidity and frequency of rabbit intercourse is

the joke for you city folks). In the telling of the joke this is said several

times, then the line Wham Bam Sorry Sam concludes the telling.

Although the line, therefore, orginally had animal sexual reference, the

transfer to humans was obvious and usual (at least in my Louisville KY 1940s

and 50s childhood).

I wanted to set the rabbit history of this phrase straight.

Dennis Preston



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



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

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







There are 13 messages totalling 393 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. offending idioms (7)

 2. CILCA '95

 3. VOSEO

 4. Listas/e-mail

 5. spread of NYC dialect

 6. names question

 7. Future American English



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 18:28:44 -0400

From:  "Terry Pratt, UPEI"  TPRATT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UPEI.CA 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



Dead white European male.



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 22:36:11 -0400

From:  Alberto Rey  alrey[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CLDC.HOWARD.EDU 

Subject: CILCA '95



 Disculpen los pequenos errores del ultimo anuncio(fecha limite):







                AVISO IMPORTANTE

        TERCER CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE LITERATURA CENTROAMERICANA

                C.I.L.C.A. '95

        Ciudad de Guatemala: 22-24 de febrero de 1995



Mande abstractos (una pagina) y propuestas para sesiones especiales

antes del 1 de diciembre de 1994 a:



Send abstracts (one page) and proposals for special sessions by Dec.1,1994 to:



Jorge Roman-Lagunas

Conference Director

Foreign Languages & Literatures

Purdue University Calumet

Hammond, IN 46323-2094

Telephone: (219)989-2632

Fax:    (219)989-2581

E-mail:  in%"romanlj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pucal.bitnet"



Congreso organizado por la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala y

        Purdue University Calumet



La conferencia se especializa en literatura de Centroamerica pero ahora

estamos haciendo una llamada especial a los linguistas interesados en

presentar un tema relacionado con algun estudio linguistico sobre

Centroamerica.



The Conference is prncipally interested in research on Central American

literature but is making a special call to linguists for research on

Central American linguistics.



Mande abstractos sobre estudios de literatura centroamericana al:

Profesor Roman Lagunas

Mande abstractos de linguistica al:

Profesor Rey



Send abstracts on studies of Central American Literature to:

Professor Roman-Lagunas

Send linguistics abstracts to:

Profesor Rey



Fecha limite para los abstractos es el 1 de diciembre de 1994.

Deadline for abstracts is Dec. 1, 1994.



Inscripcion/Registration:

Profesores- $95(antes/before 15-nov-94)

       $125(despues/after 16-nov-94)

Estudiantes- $65(antes/before 15-nov-94)

       $85(despues/after 16-nov-94)

Favor de enviar cheque o giro postal a nombre de "CILCA" a: Jorge

Roman-Lagunas a la direccion indicada anteriormente.





Alberto Rey

Department of Modern Languages & Literatures

Howard University

Washington,D.C.  20059

Phone: (202)806-6758

Fax:  (202)806-4562

E-mail: alrey[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cldc.howard.edu



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 22:37:06 -0400

From:  Alberto Rey  alrey[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CLDC.HOWARD.EDU 

Subject: VOSEO



SI PUEDEN---



NECESITO AYUDA EN COSTA RICA !





Lo que he hecho hasta ahora son estudios en Nicaragua, Honduras y Colombia sobre las

correlaciones sociales del uso del usted/tu/vos en diversas situaciones

de actos de comunicacion. Esto lo hago a traves de encuetas directas con

individuos de diferentes clases sociales, niveles

educacionales/ocupacionales, diferentes ingresos economicos, etc. Ahora

estoy preparando una propuesta para una beca del Social Science Research

Council (EE.UU.). Para ayudarme a conseguir la beca necesito una persona

"GRANDE" en el campo de linguistica/ciencias sociales en C.R. que me

sirva de coordinador/"contact person". Esta persona me conseguiria de 5 a

7 personas capacitadas en encuestas linguisticas y coordinara las

encuestas para que sean llevadas a diferentes niveles de vecindarios en

San Jose. Ese coordinador estaria en continuo contacto con los

entrevistadores y conmigo para asegurar que estan cumpliendo con las

normas establecidas para las encuestas. Yo pienso que se les pagaria a

los entrevistadores unos $4/entrevista y al coordinador de

$1-2/entrevista, dependiendo de la dificultad del sondeo y su "involvement".

Le cuento que el "contact person" en Nicaragua fue Jorge Eduardo Arellano

- Presidente del Instituto Nacional de Cultura de Nicaragua y Director

General de la Biblioteca Nacional- Jorge Eduardo me escribio una carta de

apoyo/colaboracion que me ayudo muchisimo en conseguir la beca. Claro es

que como esta tan ocupado, me consiguio a otra persona como el

coordinador- Carlos Aleman Ocampo. Espero que con estos datos me pueda

ayudar.

Si tiene alguna pregunta o inquietud escribame.



De nuevo, MUCHAS GRACIAS !

Alberto Rey



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 01:04:42 -0400

From:  Alberto Rey  alrey[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CLDC.HOWARD.EDU 

Subject: Listas/e-mail



Sabe alguien de una lista en Costa que se llamaba IRAZU[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ucrvm2.bitnet ?

Parece que ya no existe.

Tambien antes existia otro "nombre"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]huracan.cr .Que les paso ?

O sea, estoy buscando una lista actualizada para la investigacion que

estoy preparando sobre el "voseo" en Costa Rica.

Toda ayuda sera apreciada.

Gracias.

Alberto Rey



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 22:28:19 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



On Tue, 18 Oct 1994, Terry Pratt, UPEI wrote:



  Dead white European male.

 



Terry, ya dinna understand. "Dead white European male" is PROGRESSIVE.

What is progressive cannot be insensitive, and if you think it is, you

are being DEFENSIVE.



Any questions? There will be a quiz, of course.



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 08:30:51 EDT

From:  David Muschell  dmuschel[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



 . . . snip, snip . . .

 

   nobody has mentioned "nigger rig" yet.

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

 

 This is a tangent, sorry, but I was offended by this:

 

 When my grandfather and grandmother were building Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam

 is the proper name) on the Colorado River, they had a camp mascot. It was

 a jet black dog -- I've seen many pictures -- named "Nigger." In the

 thirties, I suppose that was acceptable. Anyway, during the construction,

 the dog got run over and died. The workers buried the dog in the dam,

 sealing his tomb with the concrete you see nowdays. They marked Nigger's

 resting place with a plaque -- something to the effect of: Here lies

 Nigger, who helped build this damn dam. Don't quote me on that, but it was

 something like that. The plaque was about halfway up the dam and could

 not be seen unless you were looking for it. (I saw it through binoculars

 once as a child.) Somebody complained -- I don't know how they saw the

 marker, unless they knew about it before looking -- and the plaque was

 removed. Offensive or not, that was a small part of history. The plaque

 was *NOT* in plain sight where everybody *HAD TO* look at it. (You could

 just barely see it if you knew it was there!) I find it offensive that

 a piece of history was removed in the name of political correctness. If the

 federal government feels the need to stop the use of the word "nigger,"

 how about they start in my neighborhood where the black people call each

 other "nigger." (I also object to the politcally correct term African-

 American -- the only true "African-Americans" I know are of European

 ancestry many generation back, and they are whiter than I am. I don't

 personally know any black African-Americans.) (I think I mispelled plaque,

 but I don't feel like getting my dictionary out right now. :-) )

 

 Maybe "nigger" doesn't seem worth fighting over to me because I'm part white

 and part Indian (oops, Native American). By the way, I am *NOT* racist.

 

 Here's some offensive idioms (?) for your list:

 Indian Giver

 Apple (red on the outside, white on the inside)

 Coconut (brown on the outside, white on the inside -- my wife is Mexican)

 

 Hey, how about sports teams:

 Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, Kansas City Chiefs, etc., etc.

 We need, just to be fair, the Nashville Niggers and the Hoboken Honkies.

 

 Chuck Coker

 CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu

 

 ===============================================================================

 There have been no dragons in my life, only small spiders and stepping in gum.

 I could have coped with the dragons.

                               Anonymous (but wise)

 ===============================================================================

    It may sound patronizing (or matronizing), CJ, but it may be

consciousness-raising time for you as cave-dweller. As much as I wouldn't

want to offend the memory of your grandparents, the name they gave their

dog is racist and reflects the very deep-seated, dehumanizing treatment of

black people through a long and mainly unfortunate contact with caucasians.

 The humor they might have found in the name (perhaps even laughing

good-naturedly as they called him/her to supper, "Here, Nigger!") is the

kind that derogates rather than uplifts--even if quite human. Intuitively

speaking, it would seem that one of our goals as cherishers of language is

recognition of its powerful vileness as well as its beauty and wonder.

Though the PC mindset has gone overboard, its original notion was an

inclusiveness in contrast with the exclusivity of the past. Now, whether a

group is apparently seeking identity by renaming itself to highlight a

trampled heritage--and seems separatist in so doing--the renaming itself

reflects respect for language's power in the naming of things.

    I remember a former partner/spouse's mountain kin goading me on at

a Thanksgiving dinner, knowing I was the "liberal college boy," by loudly

passing me a bowl and asking if I wanted some "nigger toes" (Brazil nuts)

and shouting at the TV football game, "Run, nigger, run!" their eyes

glinting with a kind of secret glee, almost hoping I would burst on their

turf. No scene for me, whether through cowardice or the holiday's own

stifling of conflict (probably the former), though I never returned. The

huge sense of mockery of another group clung to me like an annoying

fungus--and I itch to this day. I, who am French, Indian, German, Swedish,

Scotch-Irish, may grin at the latest excess in lingualaundering, but I

certainly understand the "why" of it.

    CJ, the plaque should have been removed, just as offensive graffiti

is washed from the walls, not because the original intent may have seemed

harmless to the "insiders" who knew its story, but because we really do

need to be wary of the inadvertant hurt caused by terms that are (how do I

underline in e-mail?) racist and carry the weight of years.

    So, I'm preaching and you're offended...the neat thing about these

billboards on the superhighway is that, unlike plaques hung on distant

dams, you can delete this with one keystroke.





  David



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 12:07:28 -0700

From:  Roger Vanderveen  rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



I suggest "Anglo". Look at my surname and tell me if that's English.





===============================================================================

Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

                               Hillsboro, OR

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 15:00:14 EDT

From:  JOHN A KIDD  jakidd01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



 

  Judy,



    I cannot think of any idioms at this time but I think the "How

many Pollocks does it take..." jokes are extremely insensitive and

would be a good example to use in this type of lecture.



Hope I helped!

John A. Kidd



 



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 13:12:25 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



On Wed, 19 Oct 1994, David Muschell wrote:



 ... I, who am French, Indian, German, Swedish,

  Scotch-Irish, may grin at the latest excess in lingualaundering, but I

  certainly understand the "why" of it.

      CJ, the plaque should have been removed, just as offensive graffiti

  is washed from the walls, not because the original intent may have seemed

  harmless to the "insiders" who knew its story, but because we really do

  need to be wary of the inadvertant hurt caused by terms that are (how do I

  underline in e-mail?) racist and carry the weight of years.

      So, I'm preaching and you're offended...the neat thing about these

  billboards on the superhighway is that, unlike plaques hung on distant

  dams, you can delete this with one keystroke.

 

 

    David

 



David -

This is the best defence of the PC mindset I have seen in a long time.

You are moderate, kind and reasoned. Well done.



On the other hand (Knew that was coming, eh?), we have the odd situation

that people who ARE NOT MEMBERS of a group decide they will defend the

group, whether asked or not. Dangerous, not unlike Boy Scouts dragging

unconsenting old ladies accross intersections.



One curious and really pernicious result is that people with cruel hearts

and tongues, who relish hurting with epithets, are getting to occupy the

defender-of-freedom role.



Another odd thing is the almost certain backfire. Rules are created by

which it is unacceptable to say something bad about any group. Intended

to protect minorities from harm, these rules nevertheless have a

universal applicability. They can therefore, in the humorless arena of

the courts, be used to stifle criticism of the majority. And they will.



There are other - maybe the word should be something neutral - "reactive

byproducts" to enforced goodness. But the country's experiment with

Prohibition still stands as an archetype, and a warning.



Where would the Mafia be today, without the Women's Christian Termperance

Union?



Birrell



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 17:03:40 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



On Wed, 19 Oct 1994, Roger Vanderveen wrote:



  I suggest "Anglo". Look at my surname and tell me if that's English.

 

 

  ===============================================================================

  Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

                                 Hillsboro, OR

  ===============================================================================

 

As one might imagine, this one is doubly annoying to Irish-Americans.



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 18:16:57 -0500

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

Subject: spread of NYC dialect



Are there any studies of how far the New York City dialect has spread

north into Upstate NY? And is there a pattern to the spread -- faster in

more urbanized areas, for example?



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



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 18:19:19 -0500

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

Subject: names question



Does anyone know when it stopped being common to name American male

children after incumbent Presidents? (Not just the first name, but also

the President's surname as a middle name.)



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



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 18:32:03 -0500

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

Subject: Future American English



In 1938, ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION (now ANALOG) published "Language for

Time Travellers" -- an article by L. Sprague De Camp. By this time, they

might be ready to publish another article on the same topic. If not, one

of their competitors might be. Or any of several publications for people

writing (or trying to write) science fiction.



Has anything useful been written on the future of American English? I'm

attempting to write a novel set mostly in 2156 America (Upper Midwest).



I _think_ it's safe to assume that 1) American English will still be

intelligible to someone of our time -- though with some difficulty; 2)

There will still be dialects -- not necessarily the same ones that exist

today; 3) there will be new immigrant dialects.



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



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



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

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







There are 21 messages totalling 601 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. names question (5)

 2. Afro-Seminole

 3. offending idiot (3)

 4. Bounced Mail (2)

 5. offending idioms (5)

 6. Recognize these sayings?

 7. Forty-eleven

 8. Animal Gender, Again

 9. Naming after Presidents

 10. Net Gremlins at UGA



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 22:43:12 -0700

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: names question



  Does anyone know when it stopped being common to name American male

  children after incumbent Presidents? (Not just the first name, but also

  the President's surname as a middle name.)

 

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



I don't know about incumbent presidents, but my grandfather (b. 1905) was

named Andrew Jackson Coker -- after the president. My father (b. 1936)

was named Gerald Jackson Coker; the Jackson name was kept, but Gerald was

substituted for Andrew. (I (b. 1959) am Charles Jackson Coker). My

grandmother was fiercely politcal, so a presidential name would not have

surprised me. However, naming after presidents may have stopped being common

by 1936; maybe my grandparents just simply didn't like a presidential name;

or maybe, since my grandfather married a Cherokee woman, and Andrew Jackson

was arguably the most anti-Indian president in US history (especially

anti-Cherokee, among others), my grandmother found the name Andrew Jackson

offensive. (I find it ironic that *ANDREW JACKSON* married a Cherokee

woman.)



This probably doesn't answer your question, but I have been curious about

naming practices also. (You should see my youngest daughter's Social Security

card; it says: Galiquoginei Unvquola -- seems Social Security can only handle

21 letters. Her full first name is Galiquoginei Unvquolatvi (Cherokee =

Seventh Rainbow) after my grandmother. Pronounce vowels like in Spanish, v

like u in but.)



I'd like to see more on the list about naming practices, also.



Hello out there,

Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



===============================================================================

There have been no dragons in my life, only small spiders and stepping in gum.

I could have coped with the dragons.

                              Anonymous (but wise)

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 23:42:21 -0700

From:  Audrey Wright  awright[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SEACCD.CTC.EDU 

Subject: Afro-Seminole



Does anyone know of any sources which has as the content information

about Afro-Seminole creole/dialect? I am in sore need of developing a

working list of sources around this dialect. Thanks so much for any help

in advance



Audrey...



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 00:35:32 -0700

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



I'm they guy who sent the Boulder Dam story along with a few comments of

my own regarding "offending idioms."



Since that posting, which I sent on 18 October, I have received numerous

replies. At last tally, the vote was roughly 3 to 2 in favor of me being

an *OFFENDING IDIOT* (my words). Salikoko S. Mufwene of the University of

Chicago, Department of Linguistics said:

  . . .

  when you don't even realize when you

  might offend or hurt others? Let the rest of us tell you what we think of

  your remarks.

  . . .



He is correct; my comments might (did) offend others. And, yes, the rest of

you told me what you thought of my remarks. (Not all was negative, however,

some agreed with me.)



I OFFER MY HUMBLEST APOLOGY TO ALL WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN OFFENDED -- THOSE WHO

WROTE ME AND THOSE WHO DID NOT.



The point I was trying to make (obviously not very well) was that I think

the "offending idioms" are stupid. (The people that use the racial, etc.

slurs, *NOT* the people who responded to me or to the original request.)



For to those of you who asked, my vital statistics are:

Married

Heterosexual Male

Myself: White (?) European and Cherokee Indian descent (the name Coker was a

     Moorish name around 800 A.D., appeared in England around 1200 A.D.)

Wife:  Mexican descent (possibly some French way back)

Child 1: 18 years, adopted (wife's previous marriage), half-Mexican,

     half-Black

Child 2: 17 years, adopted (wpm, as above), half-Mexican, half-Black

Child 3: 14 years, twin, White, Indian, Mexican

Child 4: 14 years, twin, White, Indian, Mexican

Child 5: 11 years, White, Indian, Mexican

Child 6: 10 months (oops!), White, Indian, Mexican

Child 7: 3 years, granddaughter, White, Black, Oriental, Indian, Mexican,

     (that I know of anyway -- I don't know the father's history)



In summary, no, I am *NOT* racist, as I said before. Yes, I do realize my

remarks might have offended somebody. No, that was not my intention -- I

apologize to those offended.



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



By the way, does anybody know what box my granddaughter should check on forms

that ask about race? Personally, I consider myself _Homo sapiens sapiens_,

along with all others on this list (and elsewhere, too).



P.S. #2: I just realized that I SET PERSONAL_NAME to Caveman a while back

and never changed it. When considering my remarks, consider the source --

a guy nicknamed "Caveman."



===============================================================================

There have been no dragons in my life, only small spiders and stepping in gum.

I could have coped with the dragons.

                              Anonymous (but wise)

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 05:45:34 -0500

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

Subject: Bounced Mail



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

 REMINDER: WHEN INCLUDING A PREVIOUS LIST POSTING IN SOMETHING

 YOU'RE SENDING TO THE LIST, BE SURE TO EDIT OUT ALL REFERENCES

 TO ADS-L IN THE HEADERS.

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

  Subject:   ADS-L: error report from VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU

 

  The enclosed mail file, found in the ADS-L reader and shown under the spoolid

  9425 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 (57 lines) -------------------------

  Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 16:33:58 -0700

  From: ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]violet.berkeley.edu

  Subject: Re: offending idioms

 

     Date:     Wed, 19 Oct 1994 15:00:14 EDT

     From: JOHN A KIDD  jakidd01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

     Subject:   Re: offending idioms

 

       Judy,

 

         I cannot think of any idioms at this time but I think the "How

     many Pollocks does it take..." jokes are extremely insensitive and

     would be a good example to use in this type of lecture.

 

     Hope I helped!

     John A. Kidd

 

  POLLOCK : ALSO POLLACK :A marine food fish, _Pollachius virens_,

  of northern Atlantic waters. [Scottish podlok.]

  POLLOCK, Jackson. 1912-1956. American artist; a leader of the

  abstract expressionist school.

  POLACK: 1. Obsolete. A native of Poland; a Pole. 2. Slang.

  A person of Polish descent or birth. An offensive term used

  derogatorily. [Polish Polak...]

  SPELLING: ... b. The art or study of orthography. . . .

 

  (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,

  New College Edition)

 



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 06:57:03 EDT

From:  BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: Re: offending idioms



From:  NAME: David Bergdahl

    FUNC: English

    TEL: (614) 593-2783           BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX 

To:   NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"  MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX 



Since it was used a while back in this discussion, let me register my offense at

"The War of Northern Aggression,:" y'all.

                        DAVID

David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens OH    BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CaTS.OHIOU.EDU



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 08:14:27 -0400

From:  Ernest Scatton  ESCATTON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ALBNYVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: names question



Naming after presidents (at least first names) went on past 1936. My

brother is Franklin...after Franklin D. Roosevelt; he (brother) was born

in 1943. Incidentally, middle name is Winston, after Churchill: a nice

display of WWII solidarity. Next brother, born 1946, was _not_ named

after Truman, nor have any other of the many male offspring in our

largish family, since.then



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 08:58:38 EDT

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

Subject: Re: names question



On the decline of the Presidential naming practice: my guess would be that

there was a huge fall-off between the set of babies who were middle-named

"Roosevelt" into the 1940's and those who were middle-named "Truman" or any

subsequent such name. But I imagine a graph would prove very uneven, with

considerably more "Roosevelt"s (in Teddy's day) and perhaps "Wilson"s than,

say "Taft"s or "Hoover"s. Just an uneducated guess, of course.



  Larry



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 09:32:04 -0600

From:  Larry Davis  DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



Those of you interested in this subject might take a look at McDavid's edition

of Mencken's THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE and Pederson's (1966) disseration on

Chicago English. Both contain a wealth of material on "terms of abuse" for

ethnic groups.



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 11:24:17 EDT

From:  EMILY J LOVELY  ejlove01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



What about the term "JAP SLAP".  I have heard this term used by my younger

brother: "I'm gonna Jap Slap you." From the context it is obviously some

sort of violent act that he wishes to perform on me. Whether this is an

offending idiom I don't know, I'm just throwing it out to see if any one else

knows and to complete a class assignment for Terry Irons.

E. Lovely MSU undergraduate student



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 08:56:23 -0700

From:  Roger Vanderveen  rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



  From: "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 



  Child 7: 3 years, granddaughter, White, Black, Oriental, Indian, Mexican,

      (that I know of anyway -- I don't know the father's history)



  In summary, no, I am *NOT* racist, as I said before. Yes, I do realize my

  remarks might have offended somebody. No, that was not my intention -- I

  apologize to those offended.



Sorry, Chuck, you just offended someone there by saying "Oriental!"



One of the ridiculous aspects of "supposed racism", is that you are called a

racist if you "don't keep" with the currently accepted term, or if you are not

a member of the group you refer to.



The example already given was niggers, oops, sorry, I mean negroes, no, wait a

minute, coloreds, no, that's not right either, umm, Afro-Americans, oops, that

was 60s, it's, uhh, blacks, yeah, no! it's become African Americans, yeah, you

people, calling yourselves niggers!







===============================================================================

Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

                               Hillsboro, OR

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 13:07:59 -0400

From:  TPRATT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UPEI.CA

Subject: Recognize these sayings?



Some members of this list probably know of my DICTIONARY OF PRINCE

EDWARD ISLAND ENGLISH, 1988, and a few may know I am close to

finishing a sequel, on Prince Edward Island sayings. The thing is, I

have a few in this second collection that I don't trust as being

"local," and a few others the meanings of which simply escape me. I

haven't found enough information on either group in the numerous

other famous and otherwise collections of sayings (or catchphrases,

proverbs, idioms, etc) that I consult for each contender.

As a last resort, then, I turn to the members of this well-informed

list.

What I propose to do here is show you these 19 sayings in two groups,

and ask you to write me, very briefly, if you have heard any of them.

I suspect that most subsribers would prefer that we not clutter the

list with public responses, so do consider that I have one of the

easiest addresses on the highway, simply:



"tpratt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]upei.ca"



But I will also number the sayings, so if you want to write a fast

public (or private) response, just list the numbers.



First, Group I, the ones that sound to me as if they probably are

used widely. I ask you simply to tell me if they are found OUTSIDE

THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES OF CANADA OR THE NEW ENGLAND STATES. You

might mention where the broader distribution is, but even that is not

necessary:

1. Crazy as a lark. [not "happy as ..."]

2. Who died and left you king / queen / boss / God?

3. They would drink the well dry. [alcoholic]

4. Eatons don't tell Simpsons their business. [Canadian dept stores]

5. Someone will have lots of stars in their crown [in heaven].

6. You might as well try to keep Niagara Falls back with a

teaspoon / fork.

7. You might as well try to fill the Grand Canyon with a teaspoon /

fork.

8. You might as well try to climb Mount Everest.



Now Group II. These ones may well also be non-"local" non-

contenders. But in any case, I don't know what they mean. Sometimes

cognate or parallel or similar sayings, from anywhere, can help to

shed light on a meaning. Consider this list, with its attached

questions, analogous to the ones that the DARE editors sometimes send

out, about uncertain data:



9. A cross between a door-sill and a door-mat.

  -- Someone is doubly imposed upon? Or something is an impossible

mixture?

10. A face that could wear out two bodies.

  -- Means ugly or pretty? Or two-faced, a double-dealer?

11. All that's left of him is the gear shift / the running gear.

  -- And what's that? Is this sexual? Could it ever be "her"?

Does it mean 'very thin'?

12. Cakes and pies before your eyes where porridge was intended.

  -- Used when? Any German connection here?

13. I went to school and got my Ph.D. [meaning 'posthole digger']

  -- Rueful? An attack on eggheads?

14. When you see a pig you should kick it.

  -- Why? (poor pig!) Is this a proverb?

15. You can hang a powder horn on the tip of the moon.

  -- A weather saying re new moon, but for good weather or bad?

16. The two days will come to everyone.

  -- Which two days - birth and death? The weekend?

17. To slip one's mind. [meaning NOT 'forget', but 'die']

  -- Can this really have the meaning 'to die'?

18. By the end of the stick! [a mild oath]

  -- Why? What stick?

19. To be sure to think one is not the train

  -- How's that again?



That's it and thanks. You will be acknowledged in the volume, and I

will also post a thanks at the end of this process, along with any

generalizations that might seem useful.



Terry Pratt, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI,

Canada C1A 4P3. (902) 566-0677. FAX (902) 566-0420.

E-mail "tpratt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]upei.ca"



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 13:48:25 EDT

From:  LORI B BALDRIDGE  lbbald01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



 

      Though some males may preen at being called a "hunk" or "stud,"

  these objectifying terms can be as jarring as the older, informal term for

  a girl: "filly." Male libbers may also look askance at the use of "booty"

  as a posterior descriptive, especially when thinking of the denotative

  "loot" or "treasure." Even "groovy" has its potential as a sex offender

  when thinking of its origins as "in the groove," meaning exciting or

  stimulating, seen most strongly in song lyrics such as "shake your groove

  thing." But there seem to be two levels at which these terms work. On the

  public level of usage, offense seems to occur more readily from idiomatic

  animal comparisons like "chick." On the private level, there is, at times,

  an enjoyment, amusement, and enthusiasm for the malleability of our

  language. So on one plane, certain highland clans may take humbrage at

  "scot free" (though it has no relation to the many derogatory references to

  Scottish cheapness), while on another, the inner group enjoys a certain

  mockery of itself. And terms change from negative to positive (as in

  "yankee") or shift focus (as in "honky"). Am I making sense here? Perhaps

  I need some Dutch courage or maybe I'm just horsing around (originally a

  sexual idiom).

 









    Some animal rights activists may be offended by your use of animal references. Last year I read a book (I can't remember the exact title, but it was something like "1001 Ways to Save the Animals"), in which a whole chapter was

dedicated to erasing phrases such as "dog ugly" and "fat as a pig" from the

English language.



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 14:01:38 EDT

From:  SHANE J SALLEE  sjsall01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Forty-eleven



    I was wondering if anybody out there has ever heard of the expression  forty-eleven. I used to live in Lexington, Kentucky and never heard of this  until I moved up to Carter County, Kentucky. At first, I thought, "What the  hell?" But now, it's become common place to me and I say all the time. For  those of you who need a definition(Lori, my God, quit staring over my     shoulder), forty-eleven is a number that is not defined. It can mean a few or very many things in a group. Anyway, before I was interrupted, I just wanted to see if this was common anyplace else other than here.

Thanks a whole forty-eleven bunch,



Shane Sallee



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 11:17:13 -0700

From:  ctlntt[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU

Subject: Re: offending idioms



On Wed, 19 Oct 1994 jakidd01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE][AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU wrote:



       Judy,

 

         I cannot think of any idioms at this time but I think the "How

     many Pollocks does it take..." jokes are extremely insensitive and

     would be a good example to use in this type of lecture.

 

     Hope I helped!

 

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

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

 POLLOCK : ALSO POLLACK :A marine food fish, _Pollachius virens_,

 of northern Atlantic waters. [Scottish podlok.]

 POLLOCK, Jackson. 1912-1956. American artist; a leader of the

 abstract expressionist school.

 POLACK: 1. Obsolete. A native of Poland; a Pole. 2. Slang.

 A person of Polish descent or birth. An offensive term used

 derogatorily. [Polish Polak...]

 SPELLING: ... b. The art or study of orthography. . . .



 (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,

 New College Edition)



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 14:50:29 EDT

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

Subject: Animal Gender, Again



The comments I received earlier about the pronouns used here and there for

animals were interesting, but inconclusive. The problem of mixed up gender

for animals with specified sex showed up in my reading last night in

Vinaver's 1971 edition of Malory's _Works_ (original text before 1471, the

year of Malory's death). In this passage, read Malory's normal _brachet_

for _bracket_, 'a female dog':



    And anone thys lityll bracket felte a savoure of sir Trystram. He

lepte uppon hym and lycked hys learys and hys earys, and than he whyned and

quested, and she smelled at hys feete and at hys hondis and on al the

partyes of hys body that she myght com to. (p. 309)



As far as I can tell, Tristram is not leaping and licking on the dog and

Damsel Brangwayn and La Beall Isode are not sniffing at Tristram's feet,

hands, and other accessible body parts. Apparently, the dog is referred to

with both _he_ (surely not a remnant of _heo_!) and _she_.



At any rate, this confusion is not limited to our times.







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



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 13:54:53 -0600

From:  Judy Kuster  KUSTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU 

Subject: Re: names question



For those interested in naming practices, a good place to ask

might be roots-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vm1.nodak.edu There are many genealogists there

with good information:-)

Judy

Kuster[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vax1.mankato.msus.edu



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 13:37:06 -0700

From:  Judith Rascoe  boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



 One of the ridiculous aspects of "supposed racism", is that you are called

a racist of you"don't keep" with the currently acceptied term, or if you are

not a member of the group you refer to. 



.. I'm not as sure that somebody who uses last season's word is seen as

racist in the worst sense as much as he's seen as somebody who hasn't been

paying attention. It's like your sister's deciding she wants to be called

'Stacey' now rather than 'Bootums' or 'Hag-face'. She's asserting, and

you're resenting, the implication that your understanding is not as compelte

as you thought it was.



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 16:54:38 EDT

From:  Michael Montgomery  N270053[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDU 

Subject: Naming after Presidents



EArlier today Chuck Coker wrote that it was ironic that Andrew Jackson,

under whose administration the Trail of Tears occurred, had married a

Cherokee woman. Am I misremembering my Tennessee history? Jackson

married Rachel Donelson, but was she part Cherokee? Perhaps Coker is

confusing Jackson with Sam Houston, who did marry a Cherokee woman in

Blount County sometime around 1819; Houston was governor of Tennessee

before going to Texas.



Haven't had time to look this up, though.



Michael MOntgomery, Dept of English, U of South CArolina, Columbia SC 29208



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 17:28:51 -0500

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

Subject: Net Gremlins at UGA



In case you're wondering why mail from ADS-L has been so slow the past

few days and is perhaps arriving out of order, it's because something

strange happened with UGA's net connectivity earlier this week. Although

connectivity was reestablished within 24 hours or so, LISTSERV is still

choking on the backlog.

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



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 17:22:22 -0700

From:  "Joseph B. Monda"  monda[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SEATTLEU.EDU 

Subject: Re: names question



Perhaps tih Eisenhower. I've known folks first-named Roosevelt and Truman,

but not Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, or Nixon.

Joe Monda



On Wed, 19 Oct 1994, Daniel S Goodman wrote:



  Does anyone know when it stopped being common to name American male

  children after incumbent Presidents? (Not just the first name, but also

  the President's surname as a middle name.)

 

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

 



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 19:57:02 -0500

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

Subject: Bounced Mail



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

 REMINDER: WHEN INCLUDING A PREVIOUS LIST POSTING IN SOMETHING

 YOU'RE SENDING TO THE LIST, BE SURE TO EDIT OUT ALL REFERENCES

 TO ADS-L IN THE HEADERS.

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

  Subject:   ADS-L: error report from ACDCA.ITT.COM

 

  The enclosed mail file, found in the ADS-L reader and shown under the spoolid

  0685 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 (44 lines) -------------------------

  Date: Thu, 20 Oct 94 14:46:24 PDT

  From: benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acdca.itt.com (Peter Benson)

  Subject: Re: Forty-eleven

 

    Date:     Thu, 20 Oct 1994 14:01:38 EDT

    From: SHANE J SALLEE  sjsall01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

    Subject:   Forty-eleven

   

      I was wondering if anybody out there has ever heard of the

     expression  forty-eleven. I used to live in Lexington,

     Kentucky and never heard of this  until I moved up to Carter

     County, Kentucky. At first, I thought, "What the  hell?"

     But now, it's become common place to me and I say all the

     time. For  those of you who need a definition(Lori, my God,

     quit staring over my     shoulder), forty-eleven is a

     number that is not defined. It can mean a few or very many

     things in a group. Anyway, before I was interrupted, I just

     wanted to see if this was common anyplace else other than

     here.

   

    Thanks a whole forty-eleven bunch,

   

    Shane Sallee

   

  I am only familiar with forty-eleven from an old comic book I read in my youth.

  I believe it was Mighty Mouse.

 

  What about umpteen or umpty-ump as other dialect terms for an unspecified or

  very large number of things.

 

  Peter Benson, Ph.D.       | ITT Aerospace/Communications Division

  phone: (619)578-3080      | 10060 Carroll Canyon Road

  fax:  (619)578-5371      | San Diego, CA 92131

  email: benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acdca.itt.com or Peter_Benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUSM.edu or benson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]escondido.csusm.edu



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



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

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







There are 12 messages totalling 255 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Forty-eleven (5)

 2. Afro-Seminole (2)

 3. names question

 4. Yankee

 5. Naming after Presidents

 6. Offensive terms (2)



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 21:32:00 EDT

From:  "James_C.Stalker"  STALKER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSU.EDU 

Subject: Forty-eleven



When I grew up in the south end of Louisville (in the 50s) 40-11 was an

indeterminate number, but enough to note, a worthy amount. I haven't heard it

since leaving Louisville in my rearview mirror. I have since spent time in

NC, NY, WI, MI and a couple of other places, but they didn't have 40-11.



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 20:09:18 PDT

From:  John Baugh  John.Baugh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]STANFORD.BITNET 

Subject: Re: Afro-Seminole



REPLY TO 10/20/94 03:50 FROM ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET "American Dialect Society":

Afro-Seminole



For Audry Wright:



Ian Hancock at the Ling. Dept. of the Univ. of Texas at Austin has

done a lot of work on this topic. He can be reached at 512)

471-1701. He should be able to provide additional sources.

John Baugh



To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 22:39:27 -0500

From:  Nancy Harwood  harwood[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TENET.EDU 

Subject: Re: names question



When my father was born, in March, 1913, my grandfather named him Woodrow

Wilson Davis, and that is the name that went on his birth certificate.

He apparently had not consulted my grandmother about this, and she was

*not* happy...said she did not intend to have any child of hers named

Woodrow Wilson...they compromised and gave Daddy his paternal

grandmother's maiden name for a middle name...so he was Woodrow Grayson

Davis instead of Woodrow Wilson. Incidentally, he stopped using Woodrow

before he was out of grade school, switched the order of the names, and

went by Grayson for the rest of his life.

-----Nancy Harwood-----------------------------------------------------------

harwood[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tenet.edu        News is *not* more important than breakfast.

                      But e-mail might be.

                        --Mic Kaczmarczik



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 23:14:22 -0400

From:  Claudio Salvucci  CSALVUCCI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DELPHI.COM 

Subject: Re: Yankee



    Regarding the etymology of "yankee", someone mentioned

that it was a term for the Dutch, which is confirmed in some dictionaries.

However, there are quite a few 19th century scholars who derive it from

an Algonquian (Lenape) attempt to pronounce "English" (The actual

Algonquian form given is "Yengwe", later anglicized to "Yankee".

    I don't know if modern etymological studies have disproved this,

but so goes the theory in the 1800's (i think by Rev. John Heckewelder)



Claudio R. Salvucci

csalvucci[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]delphi.com



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



Date:  Thu, 20 Oct 1994 23:47:27 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Naming after Presidents



I was refering to my grandfather, Andrew Jackson Coker, not the president.

I just thought it funny that somebody with first and middle names Andrew

Jackson married a Cherokee. That's all.



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 06:12:00 EDT

From:  "David A. Johns"  DJOHNS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UFPINE.BITNET 

Subject: Offensive terms



# Since it was used a while back in this discussion, let me

# register my offense at "The War of Northern Aggression,:" y'all.

#

# David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens OH



A few years ago, while exploring back roads along the bluffs

overlooking the Mississippi in southwestern Wisconsin, I found a

cemetery with graves going back to the mid-19th century. Near the

back were a few headstones dated 1861, with inscriptions indicating

that the young men buried there had died in the "Infamous Southern

Rebellion". So there.



"Yankee", by the way, is definitely a negative term in Waycross, GA,

where I'm living now -- I've even seen bumper stickers saying "I had

[!] rather be dead than be a Yankee." But natives have no qualms

about using it openly; in fact, I hear "Are you a Yankee?" several

times a week, not to mention constant references to Yankees "coming

down here and telling us how to live our lives".



I don't know what this says about Southern manners.



David Johns

Waycross College

Waycross, GA



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 08:15:32 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



 When I grew up in the south end of Louisville (in the 50s) 40-11 was an

 indeterminate number, but enough to note, a worthy amount. I haven't heard it

 since leaving Louisville in my rearview mirror. I have since spent time in

 NC, NY, WI, MI and a couple of other places, but they didn't have 40-11.



Kind of like _umpteen_ but not as much as _a zillion_?







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



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 09:40:51 -0700

From:  Audrey Wright  awright[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SEACCD.CTC.EDU 

Subject: Re: Afro-Seminole



Thanks much for the reference. Recently, Ian Hancock's name has been

recommended to me for several different projects I have been involved in.

I am definitely contacting that man.



Thanks



Audrey



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 12:25:50 CST

From:  Joan Hall  jdhall[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU 

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



re forty-eleven: Take a look at DARE, where quotes go back to 1860. The

phrase seems pretty widely scattered; I know it from the West too. Though

some of the quotes spell it forty-eleven, I'll bet the folks who use it

always say forty-leven.

Joan Hall, DARE



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 12:45:56 EST

From:  "Betty S. Phillips"  EJPHILL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ROOT.INDSTATE.EDU 

Subject: Re: Offensive terms



I sympathize with David Johns and his encounters with the term

"Yankee". My mother, from Wisconsin, married my native-Georgian

father in 1945, and Waycross was her first point of entry into the

South. She never did find any humor in her new relatives' "Damn

Yankee" jokes. But as David's comment about how people show no

embarrassment or hesitation about asking, "Are you a Yankee?"

suggests, the resentment toward Northerners is really fairly shallow

(in my experience). Certainly, I've known Northerners who

assimilated fairly rapidly and painlessly into Southern life.



Betty Phillips

Dept. of English

Indiana State U.

Terre Haute, IN 47809















Date sent:   Fri, 21 Oct 1994 06:12:00 EDT

Send reply to: American Dialect Society  ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu 

From:      "David A. Johns"  DJOHNS%UFPINE.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu 

Subject:    Offensive terms

To:       Multiple recipients of list ADS-L  ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu 



# Since it was used a while back in this discussion, let me

# register my offense at "The War of Northern Aggression,:" y'all.

#

# David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens OH



A few years ago, while exploring back roads along the bluffs

overlooking the Mississippi in southwestern Wisconsin, I found a

cemetery with graves going back to the mid-19th century. Near the

back were a few headstones dated 1861, with inscriptions indicating

that the young men buried there had died in the "Infamous Southern

Rebellion". So there.



"Yankee", by the way, is definitely a negative term in Waycross, GA,

where I'm living now -- I've even seen bumper stickers saying "I had

[!] rather be dead than be a Yankee." But natives have no qualms

about using it openly; in fact, I hear "Are you a Yankee?" several

times a week, not to mention constant references to Yankees "coming

down here and telling us how to live our lives".



I don't know what this says about Southern manners.



David Johns

Waycross College

Waycross, GA



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 12:17:25 -0700

From:  William Seaburg  seaburg[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]U.WASHINGTON.EDU 

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



When I was growing up in the Seattle-Tacoma area in the 1950s, my older

brother always used the phrase "A buck two-eighty" or "A buck three

ninety" to specify an undetermined sum of money--sounds like a similar

principle here.



Bill Seaburg



On Thu, 20 Oct 1994, SHANE J SALLEE wrote:



      I was wondering if anybody out there has ever heard of the expression  forty-eleven. I used to live in Lexington, Kentucky and never heard of this  until I moved up to Carter County, Kentucky. At first, I thought, "What the  hell?" But now, it's become common place to me and I say all the time. For  those of you who need a definition(Lori, my God, quit staring over my     shoulder), forty-eleven is a number that is not defined. It can mean a few or very many things in a group. Anyway, before I was interrupted, I just wanted to see if this was common anyplace else other than here. 

  Thanks a whole forty-eleven bunch,

 

  Shane Sallee

 



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 15:24:52 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



For what it's worth, I heard, "a dollar three-eighty," both in Southern

California and in the late 70s when I lived on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.



Question (New Thread): Why do we, in Southern California, capitalize the

word Southern? I have noticed that in northern California, the word

northern is usually NOT capitalized. Any clues?



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



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



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

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







There are 2 messages totalling 76 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Afro-Seminole

 2. offending idiot



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



Date:  Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:06:55 CST

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

Subject: Re: Afro-Seminole



In Message Wed, 19 Oct 1994 23:42:21 -0700,

 Audrey Wright  awright[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]seaccd.ctc.edu  writes:



 Does anyone know of any sources which has as the content information

 about Afro-Seminole creole/dialect?



 Please get in touch with Professor Ian F. Hancock, Dept. of Linguistics,

U. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712. His office number is 512-471-1701. He has

written several papers on Brackettville Afro-Seminole and will gladly share

some with you.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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



Date:  Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:34:50 CST

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

Subject: Re: offending idiot



In Message Thu, 20 Oct 1994 08:56:23 -0700,

 Roger Vanderveen  rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ichips.intel.com  writes:



 Sorry, Chuck, you just offended someone there by saying "Oriental!"

 

 One of the ridiculous aspects of "supposed racism", is that you are called a

 racist if you "don't keep" with the currently accepted term, or if you are not

 a member of the group you refer to.

 

 The example already given was niggers, oops, sorry, I mean negroes, no, wait a

 minute, coloreds, no, that's not right either, umm, Afro-Americans, oops, that

 was 60s, it's, uhh, blacks, yeah, no! it's become African Americans, yeah, you

 people, calling yourselves niggers!



 I am afraid you have trivialized the offense in Chuck's note. As well

stated in David Muschell's reply, the offense derives in part from Chuck's

grandparents naming their dog a racial/racist epithet. Once posted on the

dam, not everybody new "Nigger" was used for a dog. Besides at the time the

dog was named "Nigger," this term was not an accepted designation for Blacks

or African Americans. Do you recall any time in the history of the USA when

"Nigger" was an acceptable term for African Americans? I do not know that

African Americans would be offended today if you described them as "black"

(with or without a cap). While we might find it amusing that names for a

particular ethnic group keep changing (and I take no offense at this), the

particular incident at issue here is not so amusing (except perhaps in the

privacy of our homes). I doubt that the reason the sign was removed had to

do with being politically correct. There is more to the act than some may

want to recognize.

 By the way, I was careful in telling Chuck "let the rest of us tell you

what we think of your remarks" not "of you" (i.e., Chuck). What I thought

was primarily that the remarks were insensitive, that he was careless in

posting something that was bound to be interpreted diversely and perhaps

differently from what he intended, that some of us may think he is racist.

Chuck has been wise enough to apologize. I, among the people who were

offended, accept the apology. But I find your trivialization of the issue

ridiculous.

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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



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

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







There are 10 messages totalling 323 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Forty-eleven (6)

 2. no combines on the blacktop

 3. forty-leven

 4. "Look, Boris. Eez moose and elk!"

 5. Distribution of positive "anymore"



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 07:53:39 EDT

From:  BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



From:  NAME: David Bergdahl

    FUNC: English

    TEL: (614) 593-2783           BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX 

To:   NAME: MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"  MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX 



Does 70-11 have anything to do with 7-11?



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 10:02:00 CDT

From:  Edward Callary  TB0EXC1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NIU.BITNET 

Subject: no combines on the blacktop



This morning I noticed the following sign on Lincoln

Highway, the main drag thru DeKalb, Il. I offer it to

the list not so much to ask but to share with other lovers

of the mysterious uses of the English language a

particularly beautiful example of something, though I'm

not quite sure what.

The sign reads:



CONSTRUCTION

TRANSPORTED

IMPLEMENTS OF

HUSBANDRY OVER 8FT 6IN

WIDE PROHIBITED



I'm not even sure what this means. My first reading is a quite

literal 'Farm Implements which are themselves over 8ft 6in wide

and are being transported, i.e., carried on flat bed trucks

or the like are prohibited.' And yet, this is a sight rarely

seen in this area. The 'Implements of Husbandry' are most

often driven or pulled from one job to the next. This would

make the reading something like: 'No farm implements over 8ft

6in wide permitted.'



The only I have would be speculative: do you think anyone

concerned would be able to correctly interpret the sign on

first reading?



Have you come across other examples of ponderous writing which

most probably in this case originated in the brain of a

Springfield bureaucrat rather than in that of a concerned farmer?



Yours for greater pomposity,



Edward Callary



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 11:50:52 -0400

From:  Bob Lancaster  SLANCASTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU 

Subject: forty-leven



Shane - My grandparents and parents both used "forty-'leven" as a semi-joking

reference to a lorge but undeterminate number. They were from Delaware and the

Eastern Shore of Maryland, so it was certainly more widely distributed than

Kentucky and Tennessee.



Bob Lancaster

SUNY emeritus. English

slancaster[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]colgate.edu



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 09:42:31 -0700

From:  Judith Rascoe  boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



"Does 70-ll have anything to do with 7-11?"



Certainly pre-dates 7-11 for me. Typical usage "I've got seventy-'leven

things to do this morning, so I can't have lunch with you, sorry." But

could 7-11 stores have picked up on that association with 'busy-ness'?



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 10:37:08 -0700

From:  James Beniger  beniger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RCF.USC.EDU 

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



7-11 connotes good luck, from shooting craps. Also, the stores were=20

originally open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., a revolutionary development in=20

retailing at the time.



*******



On Sun, 23 Oct 1994, Judith Rascoe wrote:



  "Does 70-ll have anything to do with 7-11?"

 =20

  Certainly pre-dates 7-11 for me. Typical usage "I've got seventy-'leven

  things to do this morning, so I can't have lunch with you, sorry." But

  could 7-11 stores have picked up on that association with 'busy-ness'?

 =20

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wner-aapor50[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VM.usc.edu Sun Oct 23 09:57:54 1994

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  Date:     Sun, 23 Oct 1994 12:57:36 -0400

  Reply-To: American Association for Public Opinion Research 50th

          AAPOR50[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VM.usc.edu 

  Sender: American Association for Public Opinion Research 50th

          AAPOR50[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VM.usc.edu 

  From: BLACKJS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

  Subject:   Calling for papers in Cyberspace

  X-To:     AAPOR50[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vm.usc.edu

  To: Multiple recipients of list AAPOR50  AAPOR50[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VM.usc.edu 

 =20

  Jim;

 =20

  I think it's a great idea to call for Student Award papers on-line. The =

more

  the merrier, and presumably, more papers means better quality. It's the =

best

  kind of publicity for AAPOR. Besides, if we can't find students in

  cyberspace, where will we find them?

 =20

  Before your post the Call for Papers, I hope you'll think about the

  implications. I think previous Conference Chairs will agree that the

  response to the Call for Papers from members is surprising in several way=

s.

  Decent papers -- most on methodology -- easily fill the available slots,=

 so

  there's not much room for all those wonderful ideas your committee had fo=

r

  organized sessions. You're left at the last moment trying to decide how =

to

  squeeze everything you want on the program in.

 =20

  There is a reluctance to reject papers from active members, many of whom

  count on presenting findings here. The solution lately has been to offer

  more concurrent sessions

  (6 or 7 instead of 3 or 4). This has implications for the nature of the

  program which you should consider (it's harder for attendees to get to al=

l

  the papers that seem essential, there are fewer shared experiences, etc.)

 =20

  What if you get many more papers from non-AAPOR members? What if the qua=

lity

  from these new sources is really terrific? At first blush, that sounds

  wonderful. But for most members, AAPOR is the Conference, and many have =

to

  present to attend. Are you willing to reject a lot of papers from regula=

r

  attendees? Should most presenters be AAPOR members? Are you going to ma=

ke

  the presenters from cyberspace join AAPOR in order to be on the program? =

 I

  have the impression that non-members are more likely to be no-shows. (Am=

 I

  mistaken, or have we had more no-shows recently?)

 =20

  I've been wondering if there won't be a big increase in submissions this =

year

  any way because such a large committee is talking to one another so

  regularly.  I think the excitement is great, but I hope you have a strat=

egy

  for handling an avalanche of submissions! Of course you're already

  experiencing time slot problems with the plenaries. Concurrent plenaries=

 are

  a major departure -- somehow it diminishes their importance. I'd be very

  surprised if Council were willing to change the time of the Business Meet=

ing

  or to hold it at the same time as anything else.

 =20

  Joan Black

 =20



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 11:02:48 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



I doubt there is any connect between 7-11 stores and 40-11, 70-11, etc.

I don't have an address -- e-mail or snail-mail -- but, Southland Corporation

owns 7-11 stores (along with Chief Auto Parts and a few others). You might

try their public relations department of somethng like that



Chuck



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 18:53:05 CDT

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

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



Forty-eleven would certainly be more than 50.

Yes, I heard that a bunch in Texas. Also sebmty-lebm.

                           DMLance



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 17:39:57 -0700

From:  THOMAS CLARK  tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



My wife, born in Wyoming, has used it all her life. She infected the

children.

Cheers,

tlc



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 23:17:06 EDT

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

Subject: Re: "Look, Boris. Eez moose and elk!"



On positive (non-polarity) 'anymore'...



----------------------------Original message----------------------------



Someone with an OED will probably inform us that "anymore" has been used in

this form by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tenneson, Auden, and Nixon, first

appearing in 1305. Say it ain't so.

_______________

No, Jack, it ain't--as far as I can tell, which isn't very, since the OED

(at least in my first edition version) doesn't see fit to consider 'anymore' a

single lexeme, since it's evidently spelled as two words (even in its time ad-

verbial use). But D. H. Lawrence does have Birkin admit "Suffering bores me

any more". It's even cited in the Webster 3 entry for 'anymore', along with a

citation from Betty Grable. That must have been a fun session for the lexi-

cographer folks.



--Larry



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 23:42:39 EDT

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

Subject: Distribution of positive "anymore"



It's a lot broader than Pennsylvania and Ohio. There was quite a lively dis-

cussion with many citations in the journal...yup, American Speech, although

before most of us were members of the Society, back in the 20's and 30's. My

impression is that it stretches almost coast-to-coast, rare in New England,

but attested as far west as California (by immigrants from the Midwest?), and

is more prevalent in rural than urban settings (e.g. Chicago vs. downstate

Illinois). And then there's that citation I mentioned from "Women in Love",

which makes one wonder whether it's found elsewhere in the motherland. "Needs

washed", on the other hand, is I think largely (though someone will be sure

to correct me) confined to Western Pennsylvania and adjacent regions.

                              Larry



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 22 Oct 1994 to 23 Oct 1994

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







There are 20 messages totalling 527 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Help Stats&Nicaragua

 2. Forty-eleven (2)

 3. Overweening expressions (2)

 4. Q: Mllions of Cats (6)

 5. more bang for the buck

 6. Yankee Dime and Dutch Quarter (2)

 7. bang and bhang

 8. offending idiot (3)

 9. Distribution of positive "anymore" (2)



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 00:39:09 -0400

From:  Alberto Rey  alrey[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CLDC.HOWARD.EDU 

Subject: Help Stats&Nicaragua



I have recently completed a research project on the social correlates of

the variation of" you" subject pronouns in Nicaragua. The correlations

that came out are quite unexpected, at least for me. It seems that in

some social situations some social variables show a positive correlation

for the usage of Usted, tu, AND vos, not more usage of one pronoun and

less of another pronoun, as has been the case in other research that I've

completed in Honduras and Colombia. For example, when speaking to male

subordinates in the workplace, the more educated subjects used usted, vos,

AND tu significantly more, hile less educated Ss used the three pronouns

less. In the past studies it would be more like the Higher educated would

use Usted more and Vos less, so the lesser educated Ss would use Usted

less and Vos more.



I hope this makes sense. I mean my dilema.



If anyone out there can help me with the interpretatation of the statistics

and/or the sociolinguistic situation in Nicaragua, I would be most appreciative.



Thanks,

Alberto Rey



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 23:37:56 CDT

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

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



Sebmty-lebm is just a variant of forty-lebm, not related to 7-11.

On a recent trip I noticed lots of convenince stores named C-Store.

I was told that these used to be 7-11 stores. I wonder whether the

owner of C-Stores may be trying to change the way Americans refer to

convenience stores. Anybody know about that?

                       DMLance



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 23:43:27 CDT

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

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



7-11 stores used to be open from 7 to 11. Lotsa things have changed in

30-40 years.

      DMLance



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 23:50:14 CST

From:  "Krahn, Al"  AKRA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSIC.LIB.MATC.EDU 

Subject: Overweening expressions



Sometime in the late 40s I saw a sign behind a shoeshine

stand in Stroudsburg PA that read something like this:



Pedal habiliments

aritistically lubricated and illuminated

with ambidextrous facility

for the infinitesimal remuneration

of 25 cents.



Below it was another sign:



10 cents ain't my price no more.

My back is aching and my knees are sore.

15 cents is now my price.

Gimme two bits and I'll do it twice.

Shine, boy, shine.



AKRA



Albert E. Krahn           E-Mail AKRA[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSIC.LIB.MATC.EDU

Division of Lib. Arts and Sciences  Fax  414/297-7990

Milwaukee Area Technical College   Ph (H) 414/476-4025

Milwaukee, WI  53233-1443     Ph (W) 414/297-6519



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



Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 23:09:39 -0700

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Q: Mllions of Cats



Hi:



We (my wife and I) read to the wee ones each night. Tonight we read a book

called "Millions of Cats" by Wanda Ga'g (ISBN 0-590-40612-4, Scholastics Inc,.

730 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 - 1928). Any way we have several questions:



1. Is the apostrophe in Ga'g a symbol indicating missing letters, as in

  can't (cannot) or don't (do not)? Or is it a glottal stop symbol

  commonly used iin many orthographies? Is it something else entirely?

  (The book is hand-lettered so I am sure it is not a diacritical mark

  over the a.)



2. The old man in the story "set out" instead of walking or something

  similar. Is this 1928 lingo? My 3-year-old didn't know what set out

  meant because we never use it.



3. The cats "quarreled" instead of fought. Again, no recognition of the

  word -- was it also more common in 1928?



4. Do cats eat grass? I thought they were carnivores, but I'm not a

  biologist -- of course, anybody on ADS-L probably isn't either.



Anybody have any answers? We're baffled.



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



===============================================================================

There have been no dragons in my life, only small spiders and stepping in gum.

I could have coped with the dragons.

                              Anonymous (but wise)

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 05:53:31 EDT

From:  BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: Re: Overweening expressions



From:  NAME: David Bergdahl

    FUNC: English

    TEL: (614) 593-2783           BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]A1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX 

To:   MX%"ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.CC.UGA.EDU"[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MRGATE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAX



My favorite was in the men's room of the British Museum:



                CASUAL

                ABLUTIONS

                ONLY

                        DAVID

David Bergdahl Ohio University/Athens OH    BERGDAHL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CaTS.OHIOU.EDU



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 08:36:14 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Q: Mllions of Cats



 4. Do cats eat grass? I thought they were carnivores, but I'm not a

   biologist -- of course, anybody on ADS-L probably isn't either.

 

 Anybody have any answers? We're baffled.

 

 Chuck Coker





Yes, they do eat grass in order to throw up a hair ball on your car or on

the carpet that you just shampooed.







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



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 13:39:25 CDT

From:  Randy Roberts  robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EXT.MISSOURI.EDU 

Subject: more bang for the buck



   Cites for "bang" meaning sexual intercourse--

   Warren Miller, The Cool World (Boston: Little, Brown and Company,

   1959), p. 29.

   James Baldwin, Another Country (New York: Dial Press, 1962), p. 273.

   Jack Kerouac, On the Road (New York: Viking Press, 1957), pp. 42-43.

   Farmer and Henley, Slang and Its Analogues, see bangster.

   David Maurer, American Speech (February 1935), pp. 10-29.

   Eric Partridge, Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Fourth

   Edition, 1951, see bang (3) pp. 31.



    "Speculation"

   I find no direct connection between "more bang for the buck" and the

   term "bang" meaning a drug or the result of taking drugs, but it might

   raise a connection for someone. Some relevant cites are--

   John B. Gough, Sunlight and Shadow, At Home and Abroad (1881), p. 248.

    "'In other parts of the world,' says the London Times, 'may be seen

   the frown of the African when excited by rum, the contortions of Arabs

   under the influence of hashish, Malays furious from bang, Turks

   trembling under the effects of opium, . . . .'"



   Webster's Dictionary, 1884. Bang, n. a drug.



   Paul Robert-Beath, "More Crook Words," American Speech (December 1930)

   quoted from Colonel Charles G. Givens, "The Chatter of Guns," Saturday

   Evening Post (13 April 1929). Bang, n. A charge of dope. Also,

   Bangster, n. A dope fiend.



   The Confessions of a Stool Pigeon (Cincinnati, 1931), pp. 38-39.

    "The drug racket is the hardest of all of them to bust into for a

   shake-down. You can't get a rat to squeal, for they are all snow

   sniffers or are taking bangs, and a squeal means shutting off their

   supply. . . . It was while we were trimming the peddlers that one of

   my stools slipped me a tip on a guy who had a bunch of janes working

   the streets for him. . . . We picked one of them up who was banged to

   the ears."



   David Maurer, "Junker Lingo", American Speech (April 1933), p. 27.

    " The injection of dope is referred to as a bang in the arm or a

   shot in the arm."



   A. J. Pollock, The Underworld Speaks (San Francisco, 1935).

    Bang, a morphine injection. Bang, marihuana, hemp, hashish.



   Alfred R. Lidesmith, "The Argot of the Underworld Drug Addict," The

   Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Northwestern University

   School of Law, Chicago: July-August 1938), p. 264.

    "A Bang, or to Bang: An injection of drugs is often called a bang.

   To be banging up is to be giving oneself a shot. Also used as a

   synonym of kick, as in 'I got a whale of a bang out of the pipe.'

   Also for a small amount of drugs as in, 'Can you spare me a bang.'"



   T. A. Evenson, "I Attend A Marihuana Party," Shock (vol. 1, no. 1, p.

   9: October 1941).

    "Two cigarette papers are used for each cigarette. First, because

   the rough sharp pieces of the weed penetrate the thin sheets, whereas

   two sheets provide sufficient strength. Second, two papers, well

   wetted, help retain the Marihuana oil. It is the oil that gives the

   Bang."



   Fortnight (vol. 5, no. 7, p. 12: 24 September 1948).

    "Marihuana . . . In India it is known as hashish, and is either

   smoked or drunk as an infusion with the colorful name of 'bhang'."



   Randy Roberts

   robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ext.missouri.edu



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



Date:  Fri, 21 Oct 1994 14:16:43 CDT

From:  Randy Roberts  robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EXT.MISSOURI.EDU 

Subject: Yankee Dime and Dutch Quarter



   Michael Montgomery mentioned Yankee Dime = a kiss. Related are Dutch

   Quarter and Dutch Nickel. DARE has Dutch nickel = hug or kiss; and

   Dutch quarter = kick another in the posterior. I have encountered the

   term Dutch quarter to mean a hug.



   Randy Roberts

   robertsr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ext.missouri.edu



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 07:43:00 CDT

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

Subject: Re: Q: Mllions of Cats



The cats you live with will appreciate oat grass. Tasty, easy to swallow,

particularly effective. Quite pretty while growing in the container. Go

to your farmer's coop, where you'll find a five yr supply of seed for

a couple dollars. Put some potting soil in a casserole size container,

scatter a scant handful of seed across the top, wet it down.



Of course cats quarrel.



Beth Simon



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 07:47:00 CDT

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

Subject: bang and bhang



Randy,

    The "bang" in the quote about furious Malays is a sp for

*bhang*.



Beth Simon



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 09:08:41 -0500

From:  Shannon M Walbran  swalbran[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PIPER.HAMLINE.EDU 

Subject: Re: Q: Mllions of Cats



The question was re: Wanda Gag's accent mark on her last name.

As it happens, this weekend was Oktoberfest in the extremely Germanic

small town of New Ulm, Minnesota, known for (at least) two things:

excellent family-owned brewery which produces Schell's beer (my

recommendation would be Schmaltz's Alt, very dark) and the birthplace of

Wanda Gag, author of _Millions of Cats_. I would like to hazard that the

Gag family is Bohemian German, as were many of the settlers of New Ulm.

I would also like to add that her father, Anton, was an artistic type

whose primary patron was August Schell (brewery founder 2d generation --

they are now in their 5th generation). Apparently August supported Anton

through some tough times; when Anton died an untimely and not wealthy

death, his final words were "Now Wanda will finish what I have started."

    Good book, good beer, and a kick of an Oktoberfest. What more

could you want?

Shannon Walbran

Hamline University

St. Paul, Minnesota



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 10:17:58 -0600

From:  Judy Kuster  KUSTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU 

Subject: Re: Q: Mllions of Cats



Being from New Ulm, the birthplace of Wanda Gag (no apostrophe), and

knowing several Gags who still live there, there is no apostrophe.

I don't know if the German name originally had an umlaut. The "a"

is pronounced like the 'a' in father - at least the midwestern way

I say father. ALso, set out may be a midwestern thing, too. I still

hear "we set out on a trip" or "I set out to do something". I wonder

if it has its roots in German. In New Ulm folks still refer to hair

in the plural - e.g. my hair are dirty. I have to wash them. That

originates from the German where hair is a plural noun.

Judy

Kuster[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vax1.mankato.msus.edu



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 10:07:28 -0700

From:  Judith Rascoe  boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: Q: Mllions of Cats



"to set out to" also used in Idaho. It seems to mean "to embark on a course

of action", and the action can be physical or verbal ("He set out to explain

how he built that dam")



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 13:55:18 -0700

From:  Roger Vanderveen  rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



  Date:     Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:34:50 CST

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



  In Message Thu, 20 Oct 1994 08:56:23 -0700, Roger Vanderveen

     rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ichips.intel.com  writes about frivolous changing of

    "acceptable" names for non-whites.





   I am afraid you have trivialized the offense in Chuck's note. As well

  stated in David Muschell's reply, the offense derives in part from Chuck's

  grandparents naming their dog a racial/racist epithet. Once posted on the

  dam, not everybody new "Nigger" was used for a dog.



Granted.



                           Besides at the time the

  dog was named "Nigger," this term was not an accepted designation for Blacks

  or African Americans. Do you recall any time in the history of the USA when

  "Nigger" was an acceptable term for African Americans?



Sure. It's an acceptable term now, in many quarters. For myself, I do not and

would never use it, and cringe when I do hear it used. I will admit that it's

not acceptable now among the media and universities, but I know that if many

of the readers of this list went off-campus, they would find lots of people

using it, especially in the South. For some, there is a negative element, and

for others, it's simply the term they've used all they're lives. Who has the

right to sit in judgment?



                            I do not know that

  African Americans would be offended today if you described them as "black"

  (with or without a cap).



I don't get the "cap" reference. And how about negro?



                While we might find it amusing that names for a

  particular ethnic group keep changing (and I take no offense at this), the

  particular incident at issue here is not so amusing (except perhaps in the

  privacy of our homes).



So I can laugh at home, but not in public? Don't ask, don't tell?



            I doubt that the reason the sign was removed had to

  do with being politically correct. There is more to the act than some may

  want to recognize.



  Chuck has been wise enough to apologize. I, among the people who were

  offended, accept the apology. But I find your trivialization of the issue

  ridiculous.



All right, then let me use another example having nothing to do with race:

idiot, moron, half-wit, mentally retarded, developmentally disabled, special,

mentally challenged. Nothing trivial, only individual words. See the

connection?



===============================================================================

Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

(503) 696-4331                          Hillsboro, OR

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 15:52:28 +2157800

From:  Karen Wood  SLAINTE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]LUST.BITNET 

Subject: Re: Distribution of positive "anymore"



On Mon, 24 Oct 1994, Larry Horn wrote:



  Oops. I seem to have misposted this response to the threads on 'anymore' and

  'needs washed' to the wrong list. The reference below to 'that citation [from]

  Women in Love' was to a line Lawrence gives to Birkin that's cited (along with

  an attribution to Betty Grable) in the Webster III entry for 'anymore':

   "Suffering bores me any more."

  ----------------------------Original message----------------------------

  It's a lot broader than Pennsylvania and Ohio. There was quite a lively dis-

  cussion with many citations in American Speech during the '20s-'30s. My

  impression is that it stretches almost coast-to-coast, rare in New England,

  but attested as far west as California (by immigrants from the Midwest?), and

  is more prevalent in rural than urban settings (e.g. Chicago vs. downstate

  Illinois). And then there's that citation I mentioned from "Women in Love",

  which makes one wonder whether it's found elsewhere in the motherland. "Needs

  washed", on the other hand, is I think largely (though someone will be sure

  to correct me) confined to Western Pennsylvania and adjacent regions.

                                Larry



I suppose I should have said in the first place that I'm not just from

penna, but indeed, from Western Penna, and that's really the only place

I've heard the "needs washed" well really "needs warshed" phrase, except

from a few relocated Pittsburghers (which incidentally is usually

pronounced "picksburgh". But I always to my knowledge used only the

negative "anymore" until I started hanging around with Iowans. I suppose

I've become accustomed to the positive "anymore", but the hanging "with"

(as in "Do you wanna come with?" of Minn/Wisc fame I think) still makes me

do a double take. Has that one spread beyond the northern midwest or have

I just missed it?



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 17:54:26 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: Yankee Dime and Dutch Quarter



May I nominate Randy Roberts as the Actual Scholar of the Week.



Bravo!



Birrell Walsh



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 21:32:23 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: Re: offending idiot



Most ADS-L readers probably don't need the reference, but in 1991

American Speech ran two excellent articles on the subject of terms

of group self-reference by African Americans (or "American Slave

Descendants" in Baugh's neutral term), by Geneva Smitherman and John

Baugh. Baugh's article gives a detailed breakdown of preferences by

age among ASD for such terms as "black, colored, negro, nigger" etc.

It's quite evident from this that "nigger" is not a neutral term for

anyone in the African American community today.

    As a Yankee-born (NYC, 1959) but Southern-bred (Virginia in

1690 was as far north as my mother's family line lived, and mostly in

Georgia since) WM who has lived about equally in the South and

Northeast, I don't know a single white Southerner who doesn't realize

that "nigger" is an offensive term when used by whites. I don't think

linguists have much business making excuses for the use of offensive

terms, especially when the research on attitudes is so clear-cut.



    And by the way, I would hate to see this list be a place where

"Southern" is equated with "racist" casually and thoughtlessly, as it

so often is in discourse among non-Southerners and foreigners. White

Southerners have a lot of history to be ashamed of, and most of us

are, but there's a tremendous anti-Southern prejudice out there too

which most Yankees remain comfortably ignorant of and complacent about...



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 18:31:27 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



I know I started the "offending idiot" thing with my apology to anyone I might

have offended, but what happened to "offending idioms" that were being posted.

I was rather enjoying them (in the privacy of my own home). IMHO, half the

problem with these terms are that *I* can talk about my family, but *YOU*

can't, hence African-Americans using the term "nigger" for example, while

"white" people cannot.  == FOR EXAMPLE -- not meaning to offend anyone.

Personally, I enjoy "white" people jokes -- usually I would be classified

"white" as I don't look that American Indian -- I take jokes for what they

are, jokes. If I can't laugh at myself, I certainly have no business laughing

at others. I know that the jokes are offensive to others, however. I don't

find "Indian" jokes as funny as "white" jokes, although I have 3 "white"

grandparents and 1 "Indian" grandparent. (The two that met at Boulder Dam

were both white, BTW.) I find many things humorous, but I know I am more

"sensitive" to anything said about Indians, no matter who says them. I find

white people on the reservations to be offensive (without knowng so) much of

the time (see my genealogy is pror sentence) -- in ALL cases, before becoming

offended, CONSIDER the source! Somebody that was educated -- as I assume to

be the case with those on the list -- offends me less often that some who is

uneducated, even though they can say exactly the same thing to me. Maybe

this is human nature, or maybe my own quirk, but I take the educated person's

remark as a joke, and the uneducated person's as bigotry. 'course what's said

my influence whether I or not I consider a person educated.



Just another 2 cents worth . . . now, back in my cage.



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 22:09:09 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Distribution of positive "anymore"



Well, I TRIED to send my reply to Karen's message directly to her at the above

address, but my mailer told me that LUST was an unknown node, suggesting such

sublimations as 'CUSB', 'HUSC', 'MUSC', and 'TUSK'. Talk about safe sex...

  Anyway, what I was going to say to her and will perforce announce to one

and all is that a propos of intransitive (or adverbial) 'with', Safire's "On

Language" column yesterday in the New York Times Magazine (p. 20) presented

this as a trend sweeping the nation. He speculates a bit about possible

Germanic sources, citing our own John Algeo ("the neo-linguistic observer for

American Speech") and then suggesting that we view object-less 'with' as an

insance of "what the great Danish grammarian Otto Jesperson called 'drift'".

I thought it was JespersEn. And in fact, I REALLY thought it was Sapir.

Of course, it's all the same to them anymore; after all, you can't take it

with.     --Larry



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 23 Oct 1994 to 24 Oct 1994

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







There are 33 messages totalling 939 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Offending idiot

 2. offending idiot (4)

 3. P.S. re Offending Idioms (4)

 4. offensiveness (2)

 5. Distribution of positive "anymore" (3)

 6. That word in the South (3)

 7. go/come with (4)

 8. Offensive Terms and Gender?

 9. thanks for stopping! (2)

 10. Distribution of positive "an

 11. 40-11

 12. Euphemisms

 13. Consistency of Usage

 14. Is "conservative" a slander word?

 15. Does conservative - country club?

 16. offending idioms (2)

 17. This needs listened to



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



Date:  Mon, 24 Oct 1994 21:17:55 PDT

From:  John Baugh  John.Baugh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]STANFORD.BITNET 

Subject: Offending idiot



REPLY TO 10/24/94 19:22 FROM ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET "American Dialect Society": Re:

offending idiot



I wanted to thank Peter Patrick for elevating the discussion

regarding terms that are offfensive to African Americans.

Having lived in the North and South (East and West) I share his

concern that white Southerners not be equated with "racists."



Many white Southerners are among the most progressive people I have

ever met (several are active ADSers). Again, my gratitude to those

who have maintained the intellectual high road on this sensitive

topic. John Baugh







To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET

cc: RICKFORD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSLI



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 06:56:48 -0500

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

Subject: Re: offending idiot



  Northeast, I don't know a single white Southerner who doesn't realize

  that "nigger" is an offensive term when used by whites. I don't think



Nor do I. And I will add, in response to the comment by somebody else

that "nigger" is used "especially in the South," that in my 51 years of

living in the South I have never heard anybody use the word -- except to

talk about the fact that it is an offensive term. I'm not, of course,

saying that nobody in the South uses or has used the term. I'm simply

saying that enough people don't use it that I've managed to lead a pretty

normal life for all these years without bumping into the Southerners who

do use it.

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



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:28:52 EDT

From:  David Muschell  dmuschel[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



    In response to Roger Vanderveen's reply to Salikoko Mufwene, there

would seem to be more explanation of the term "trivialization." For me,

offending idioms have huge distinctions of offense: a "dunce" was once

very mocking of the followers of John Duns Scotus and its later translation

as a term for any ignorant person gave it lasting negativity; however a

"guy," which was once a derogatory term for traitorous individuals (from

Guy Fawkes--it's a long story), lost negative weight as history blurred a

brief incident of rebellion. "Nigger," however, has hundreds of years of

corrosive racism attached to it as it jumped from its Spanish origin into

English. Its application to a large group who happened to have extra

melanin in their skin carried the notion of chattel, slave, one to be

bought and sold as a mule in the marketplace. We, who feel enlightened,

must frown in amazement at the fact that our Civil Rights Movement barely

edged through the 1960's, that apartheid only now has seen its demise. The

offending word is so un-trivial that anecdotes about dogs given the

appellation with tones of "I don't understand what the big deal was" cause

not knee-jerk reactions, but a more heart-wrenching sense that this

horrendous history of the term has somehow been diminished to a kind of

fluff that we can laugh about. These levels of distinction in offending

idioms make some terms so connected to past wickedness that they cannot be

spoken of without that connection in mind. So, while "Indian" may offend

and "Native American" is now "politically correct" (or maybe humanly

correct), we know that the Western moniker was given under the mistaken

assumption that we "white folk" had somehow reached the isles of India and

thus its offense bears less of a load on the human consciousness.



                                David



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 07:27:04 -0500

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

Subject: P.S. re Offending Idioms



I was sitting here thinking about my previous posting, the one saying

that I'd never heard anybody use the word "nigger," when it occurred to

me that that's not entirely accurate. I did hear the expression "nigger

rig" when I was a small child. And I remember being surprised when I

realized that it was an offensive expression -- that the word "nigger"

was part of it. Keep in mind that I was very young at the time (and

that "nigger" was not a word in my active vocabulary). When I heard

"nigger rig," I heard it as one long, funny-sounding verb: niggerrig.

I can't remember now exactly how I discovered "nigger" in it. I think

maybe I repeated the word at home and my mother pointed out to me what

I was saying. Presumably I would have figured it out myself sooner or

later, but this brings up a question that I think was implicit in something

I said earlier in this discussion. I wonder how many offensive idioms

are kept alive by people who don't realize what they're saying. I also

remember hearing the expression "jew down" and not associating it with

Judaism. The language is full of homonyms. Although these two examples

are of expressions that are pretty easy to figure out if you're over

eight years old, I wonder how many other expressions are floating around

out there that are based on insults not so easily recognizable. And does

that make them less offensive?

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



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 08:59:32 EDT

From:  David Muschell  dmuschel[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



   Northeast, I don't know a single white Southerner who doesn't realize

   that "nigger" is an offensive term when used by whites. I don't think

 

 Nor do I. And I will add, in response to the comment by somebody else

 that "nigger" is used "especially in the South," that in my 51 years of

 living in the South I have never heard anybody use the word -- except to

 talk about the fact that it is an offensive term. I'm not, of course,

 saying that nobody in the South uses or has used the term. I'm simply

 saying that enough people don't use it that I've managed to lead a pretty

 normal life for all these years without bumping into the Southerners who

 do use it.

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



    Having been privy to plenty of "inner circle" discussions by "good

ole boy" groups of small town elites here in the South, I must say the term

was (is) widely used and with the offensive intent of a majority's fear of

a less-than-equal group gaining control (ie. "if we let that nigger get

elected sheriff, the whole county'll go to hell"). The use has gone

further underground now, but is still prevalent, though with the election

of that African American law enforcement officer and hades not appearing,

the "either-or" fallacy became more apparent to the large, decent group of

whites who sometimes sat timidly on the fringes of those circles, not

voicing dismay (myself included) at the bigotry, using their votes instead.

    Having gone from the journalistic endeavors of those days to the

more insulated towers of academe, I have not heard the term ever mentioned

by students or colleagues, except in its disparagement.





  David



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 02:00:00 LCL

From:  "M. Lynne Murphy"  104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA 

Subject: offensiveness



after months of no epithets on the ads list, i unsubscribed for a

couple of weeks while i was away, and returned to find a string i am

most interested in, already in progress. my name ain't murphy fer

nuthin.



i'm interested in decisions re: offensiveness in dictionaries (not

sure how this string got started) and noted with alarm that the buro

van die woordesboek van die afrikaanse taal has decided not to define

any "racially offensive" terms. this troubles me greatly--it seems

that the way some south african dictionaries are dealing with the

legacy of apartheid is to try to shove some of its linguistic

ugliness under the rug.



what also troubles me is the special status given to racial epithets

in dictionaries and in popular thought. while something such as

"nigger" or, in SA, "kaffir" is so unspeakable that some dictionaries

won't include them, it's not clear to me that they are as important

to their supposed referents as they are to us whiteys. for instance,

i asked my assistant if it unnerved him to have to type definitions

of words like "kaffir" and "darkey" into a database for me, and he

said "no, these words are used so much they don't mean anything."

(similarly, i have another friend who likes to introduce himself to

white people as "hi, i'm a kaffir, but i'm a FIRST CLASS CITIZEN."

so, now some of his friends, of all ethnic backgrounds, refer to him

as "hey, kaffir." the word is reclaimed and its affect diffused quite

easily.)



now, consider the excruciating rates of suicide among gay teenagers,

and wonder how many of those were brought on by one too many taunts

of "sissy" or "fag" or "bulldagger." yet these terms (and related

ones, e.g., moffie and lettie in SA) are not treated with the hands-

off attitude that racial epithets are.



i think the dictionary policies come down to not "what's the right

thing to do", but "what will we get in trouble for"? a white person

can't get away with 'When i called you a nigger, i was only kidding'

but a straight person can get away with "i was just joshing when i

called you a faggot, can't you take a joke?" or a man can get away

with "so, i called you a 'broad', don't get uptight!" i don't think

this has a lot to do with the seriousness of the offense, but with

the acceptability of different kinds of prejudices. while racist

prejudices are deeply ingrained in white people, most of us know

they are wrong, or feel guilty about them, or are loathe to admit

them. but where only "extremists" say things like "black people are

intellectually or morally inferior to whites" (though, certainly,

more people think it, but would never admit to it in liberal

company), it is not, at this stage, shameful for people to say "women

should stay at home" or "gay people are perverse." the epithets used

against these people are at least as harmful to their addressees as

racial terms, but social mores determine who is ok to offend and who

is not.



none of this is meant to say that racist terms aren't offensive or

harmful--just that they're not the only game in town and context is

everything.



lynne murphy

















































































______________________________________________________________________

M. Lynne Murphy

Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

Johannesburg 2050         e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

South Africa



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 10:00:38 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: Re: Distribution of positive "anymore"



actually, you can take it with:

may I suggest a few grains of salt?



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 09:54:01 EST

From:  "Beverly S. Hartford"  HARTFORD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UCS.INDIANA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Distribution of positive "anymore"



both 'needs Xed' and postive 'anymore' are native to southern Indiana.

I first heard them when I moved here to Bloomington. So we know

it's in the Ohio valley. I've heard the "come with" from northern

Indiana folk. (I'm from Maine, so they're all strange to me) Bev Hartford



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 11:26:41 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: That word in the South



I have followd with great interest the discussion of offending words,

particularly the recent items on who uses n___ in the south. The word

is alive and well among the upper-middle-class speakers who belong to

or hang around Cherokee Country Club in Knoxville, TN. Such facts are

among the many reasons that I was not certain I could live in Knoxville when

I first moved here. I used to describe it as the most socially and politically

conservative place I had ever lived. Obviously, "conservative" is a

euphemism. But let me assure you that the word is alive and well among

many speakers who use it with full knowledge of its offensiveness and

with every intention of being offensive.



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 11:38:53 -0400

From:  Steve Harris  etnibsd!vsh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UUNET.UU.NET 

Subject: Re: P.S. re Offending Idioms



With regard to racially offensive phrases, and their place within the

language, here are two more examples using "nigger".



1. "Nigger work": difficult and unpleasant work, work which one would

  prefer not to do (e.g., pick and shovel work on a hot and humid

  day).



  The "nigger" in "nigger work" connotes powerlessness: anyone with

  power would find a way to make somebody else do the work.





2. My college roommate, who grew up in Tennessee, had a childhood pal

  who:



    "attached a 'nigger knob' to his bicycle handlebar".



  Referring to the little hand knob that some people attach to their

  car steering wheel. Here, I think, there is a connotation of

  stupidity.





Though I would never use these phrases in public, as I run them through

my mind, I confess I find them (1) descriptive and (2) humorous. The

phrases _are_ insensitive and demeaning; nevertheless, in a literary

context, each describes in a concise and vivid way, both an activity

and the mindset of the individual using the phrase.





--

 Steve Harris - Eaton Corp. - Beverly, MA - vsh%etnibsd[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uunet.uu.net



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 13:18:35 EDT

From:  DIANE M GARDNER  dmgard01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: go/come with



    I was transplanted from Michigan to Kentucky about twelve years ago

and have been using some expressions that have puzzled my Kentucky friends ever since. I'm always telling people "I want to come (or go) with" or asking "Do you want to come with?" The only other people I've heard use these expressions is my immediate family; not even our friends in Michigan recognize the term

(if it helps, my father is from northern Illinois and my mother was raised in

northern Maine.) Does anyone know where we picked this up at?



Thanks,

Diane G. Morehead State



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 13:07:22 -0500

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

Subject: Offensive Terms and Gender?



Before you start wondering how I seem to be replying to a posting you

didn't see, let me point out that this was a direct note to me from

Peter Patrick. I'm replying on the list because I thought that others

might also find the question of offensive terms and gender interesting

and because this was Peter's last paragraph in the note to me:



     Don't know why I didn't post this to the group-- if you want

  to continue it, you can forward (I don't know how to once I've begun

  the message in this mail system!). Thanks again,

     --peter



  Natalie,

     I appreciated your message about use of "nigger" in the South.

  I have to admit I was a bit shocked, though, that you'd _never_ come

  across the derogatory use, and I'm wondering if it has something to do



I've been thinking about it off and on all morning, wondering if I have

heard "nigger" in my life but have managed to block it out of my memory

since I am always quite annoyed when people equate Southernness and

racism (which is an erroneous equation -- and thank you, John Baugh, for

saying so). At lunch today I was talking with a colleague originally

from North Carolina but who has lived in Mississippi for the past twenty-

five years and asked her whether she had ever heard "nigger" used outside

of movies or discussions about the term. She said no. When I told her

why I was asking, she added, "Face it. You and I don't run around with

the kind of people who would use that word." Since she had to leave for

class then, we didn't continue the conversation -- as in defining "the

kind of people who would use that word."



  with gendered patterns of audience design. Like David Muschett, I too

  (despite my lack of any strong Southern accent-- or perhaps because of

  it, in the sense of an "outsider" being baited?) have been on the

  fringes of many exchanges where it was used among white Southerners.

  But mostly men, and mostly without women participating: so I wonder if

  there's an expectation of censoriousness by Southern women, a version

  of the usual projection of virtue and morality onto women (with all

  the negative consequences THAT imposes!), so that in the default case

  female hearers are expected to disapprove of the term.

     I certainly know my own mother would have smacked me across

  the room if I had ever used it in front of her!

     Don't know why I didn't post this to the group-- if you want

  to continue it, you can forward (I don't know how to once I've begun

  the message in this mail system!). Thanks again,

     --peter



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



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 11:47:36 -0700

From:  Roger Vanderveen  rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ICHIPS.INTEL.COM 

Subject: Re: That word in the South



  Date:     Tue, 25 Oct 1994 11:26:41 -0400

  From: "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB%UTKVX.BITNET[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.cc.uga.edu 



  I have followd with great interest the discussion of offending words,

  particularly the recent items on who uses n___ in the south. The word

  is alive and well among the upper-middle-class speakers who belong to

  or hang around Cherokee Country Club in Knoxville, TN.



That's unfortunate, since, as you state below, they do use it derogatorily.



                                Such facts are

  among the many reasons that I was not certain I could live in Knoxville when

  I first moved here. I used to describe it as the most socially and politically

  conservative place I had ever lived. Obviously, "conservative" is a

  euphemism.



Obvious from your context, yes. Do you always use it as a euphemism for bigoted?

Or do you use it in general to slander conservatives? And do you in general lump

conservatives in with country clubs?



       But let me assure you that the word is alive and well among

  many speakers who use it with full knowledge of its offensiveness and

  with every intention of being offensive.







===============================================================================

Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

(503) 696-4331                          Hillsboro, OR

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 14:57:54 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: thanks for stopping!



The "Go/come with" questions reminded me of something I encountered

about 12 years ago. After college at UGA, I lived in Chapel Hill Nc

for a while and canvassed for ACORN all over central Carolina, working

out of Durham and going door-to-door to raise money (middle-class and

poorer folks) and organize (mostly poorer folks). Over and over people

would say to me at the end of an interaction (andd this was whether

they gave me money or not-- unless they were really upset at me),

    "Thanks for stopping." [actually, /stapIn/]

The first few times I wondered "stopping what?" and thought maybe

they'd left off the "in", or "by". Finally I just decided it was a

Carolina thing. Is this usage customary elsewhere? Do others from the

region know it? Again, this wasn't just in the big Triangle towns, but

also in Henderson, Oxford, Gray, working-class black neighborhoods in

Greensboro, etc.

    I don't hear it anymore now that I'm in DC. But then this is

not, contrary to popular opinion, a Southern town (even though NC is a

primary source of immigration, esp. African American), and I don't

knock on doors much anymore...

    --peter patrick



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 14:58:00 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Distribution of positive "an



I was not surprised to hear Bev Hartford's characterization of positive

anymore as native to southern Indiana (I am a native user), but I was very

much surprised to hear her characterize need X-ed as common in that region.

Admittedly, I am from farther south (Louisville), but my first encounter with

need X-ed was one of amazement; I thought it was non-native English (let alone

extra-regional). Perhaps it has spread (although certainly not to southernmost

Indiana which I visit regularly). I would have predicted that need X-ed forms,

if in Indiana at all, would have been central to north and generally on the

east side of the state. The form for non-native speakers of it is so

remarkable that a few hearings may stick with one. Perhaps that is what

happened to Beverly in Bloomington.

Best,

Dennis Preston



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 15:03:33 EDT

From:  BRENT D HUTCHINSON  bdhutc01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: 40-11



All my life I have heard the expression "40-11" as well. I too am from eastern Kentucky, and I simply assumed that the expression was local. However, I have spent a considerable amount of time on coastal South Carolina and heard

the same expression there, meaning an undeterminable (but large) quantity.

Is this expression concentrated in the Eastern U.S., or is it used

nationwide?



Thanks,

Brent H.-Morehead State



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 13:37:40 CST

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

Subject: Re: offending idiot



In Message Mon, 24 Oct 1994 21:32:23 -0400,

 PPATRICK%GUVAX[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uicvm.uic.edu writes:



 Most ADS-L readers probably don't need the reference, but in 1991

 American Speech ran two excellent articles on the subject of terms

 of group self-reference by African Americans (or "American Slave

 Descendants" in Baugh's neutral term), by Geneva Smitherman and John

 Baugh. Baugh's article gives a detailed breakdown of preferences by

 age among ASD for such terms as "black, colored, negro, nigger" etc.

 It's quite evident from this that "nigger" is not a neutral term for

 anyone in the African American community today.

 Thanks, Peter, for adding the references to the discussion. The article by

Geneva Smitherman actually provides a chronology of the terms. On p. 118 (AS

66, 1991), she observes that "nigger" was a term used by "Europeans in

Colonioal America" as a racial label, not as an epithet, to refer to African

Americans "when the enslavement status was unknown, or where there was

occasion to use a collective term for all Africans [in North America?]." In

the next paragraph (second on the same page, she says that the most

frequently used label by Africans to refer to themselves was "African."

 Having lived in the South for 10 years with African-American and White

American friends, I have a hard time contextualizing Roger Vanderveen's

claim that the term "Nigger" is acceptable and used by lots of people in

the South. As this discussion began, I didn't question that it was used. I

admitted that it is used among African Americans with special pragmatic

effect. So, some African Americans insult or tease one another using the

term "Nigger." I don't think it as a neutral term. My wife is AA and she

takes serious offense at the term. One of her aunts often uses it to put down

other AAs she despises, which iritates my wife a lot. I suppose Roger will have

 to be

more specific in his claim. On the other hand, Chuck Coker sounds accurate

in describing some of the pragmatic constraints on the usage of such

epithets.

 I hate to use this addition to Peter's note as a way of replying to some

parts of Roger's intervention. What one says in the privacy of their home is

more or less like what one thinks in the privacy of their minds. There are

things that are considered tasteless by others which some of us may like.

Everybody does not like everybody, and that's fine though not ideal; but

that does not mean that society allows them to abuse or offend everybody

they do not like. Why should I even bother discussing this anyway?

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 02:00:00 LCL

From:  "M. Lynne Murphy"  104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA 

Subject: Re: go/come with



leaving out the object in "go/come with" is typical of northern

illinois and other parts of the midwest, and presumed by many to be

from germanic influence.



the phenomenon is much more widespread here in south african english,

where, e.g., i could offer you lunch and ask "have you had?"



lynne



______________________________________________________________________

M. Lynne Murphy

Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

Johannesburg 2050         e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

South Africa



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 15:45:20 -0500

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

Subject: Re: go/come with



  northern Maine.) Does anyone know where we picked this up at?



German?

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



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 17:27:37 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: Euphemisms



Roger Vanderveen raises several intersting issues in his series of Qs to

me in response to my item about "that word in the south." I shall

respond to them individually. First: can any word be a euphemism apart

from being a euphemism in its context? That question would never have

occurred to me, since I think that words always derive their meanings from the c

  contexts in which they occur. The word "conservative" cannot possibly be a

euphemism, it seems to me, apart from the way it is being used ia a specific

context. But I think that the same thing is true of any other content

word.



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 14:37:22 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: Distribution of positive "anymore"



I heard anymore from my first wife, who grew up in Mechanicsburg PA, and

from a fellowworker who went to school at the University of Ohio (not

sure where raised.)



Both of them used it rarely.



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 17:33:44 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: Consistency of Usage



In response to my comment about the use of "that word" in Knoxville, Roger

Vanderveen asked whether I "always use [conservative] as a euphemism for

bigoted." Well, I don't know whether I do or not. I suspect that I

sometimes use it to mean "Republican" and sometimes use it to mean "non-

liberal" or "non-Liberal." I am certain that I use it to describe Wm Buckley who

  m

I do not think to be bigoted. But the interesting question here, I think, is tha

  t

about consistency of usage. Do speakers in general use euphemisms in highlyy

predictable ways such that that are highly restricted in meaning? It

seems to me that if a speaker always used the word "conservtive" as a synonym

for, say, "bigoted," that would be an interesting pattern. I don't know

whether speakers do that or not, but would be interesting to know if anyone

has examined that question.



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 17:37:08 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: Is "conservative" a slander word?



In response to my post about the use of "that word" in KNoxville, Roger

Vanderveen asked whether I use it [the word "conservative"] "in general

to slander conservatives." ?!? I find it astonishing that one might be

taken to be "slandering" conservatives by calling them conservatives. Can

one slander someone by calling by the label that rightfully belongs to

them? Or has the word "conservative" become non-PC without my noticing that

that has happened?



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 17:41:41 -0400

From:  "Bethany Dumas, UTK"  DUMASB[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UTKVX.BITNET 

Subject: Does conservative - country club?



Finally, I was aked by Roger Vanderveen (in response to my note about Knoxville

usage of "that word") whether I "in general lump conservatives in with

country clubs." I have quite limited experience of country clubs, and so I

want to reiterate that my observation was limited to denizens of Cherokee

Country Club in Knoxville, TN. I certainly associate country clubs more with

Republicans (one sense of conservative in my vocabulary) than with

Democrats and more with political/social conservatives than political/social

liberals. Other than that, I also associate CCs with the corporate world more

than the non-corporate world. I am not certain what the real question is here.



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 16:33:21 CST

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

Subject: Re: offensiveness



In Message Tue, 25 Oct 1994 02:00:00 LCL,

 "M. Lynne Murphy"  104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za  writes:



 i'm interested in decisions re: offensiveness in dictionaries (not

 sure how this string got started) and noted with alarm that the buro

 van die woordesboek van die afrikaanse taal has decided not to define

 any "racially offensive" terms. this troubles me greatly--it seems

 that the way some south african dictionaries are dealing with the

 legacy of apartheid is to try to shove some of its linguistic

 ugliness under the rug.



  In my opinion, no offensive term is less abusive than any other. If a

person resents any term used in reference to them, then users of the term

should discontinue using it. It is a simple matter of civility.

  On the other hand, I deplore the decision of the Buro van die Wordesboek,

because I consider a dictionary as a useful source of various source of

information about dictionaries. I would find a dictionary more useful if it

could also help me tell which particular terms are likely to offend (and

under what conditions). What's the point of omitting racist terms if they

are used anyway and people who do not know the connotations of particular

terms would not have a way of checking why they may have offended somebody

or failed to react in some appropriate way to the offensive speaker?

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 18:00:30 EDT

From:  LISA A BRAMEL  labram01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



I have read over most of the messages referring to idioms,

many exploring more serious ones, so i'd like to change to

a lighter note. What about 'beat you like a red-headed

step child' or 'red on a head like a peter on a poodle.'

There are many others, besides the two I have mentioned but

which I have drawn a mental blank on.



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 18:38:00 EDT

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

Subject: thanks for stopping!



Thanks for stopping (with no in or by) was OK in Louisville in the 40s and 50s

(and is live and well in my speech).

Dennis Preston

 22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu 



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 16:30:49 CDT

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

Subject: Re: That word in the South



I have been trying to limit e-mail time because of other commitments, but

after reading the racial epithet exchange, I found myself composing a

contribution in my head, and I don't think it will be exorcised from my mind

until it gets said. So...



All my life I have been very sensitive to race issues. I grew up in a very

liberal home with parents who, at an earlier age, passionately defended the

cause of racial equality. As a kid, I was taken to meetings and marches.

I remember meeting Martin Luther King when I was about 9 or 10 and he was

just beginning to gain national prominence (I stood at his elbow and

listened while he was engaged in a conversation; he made a wide gesturing

motion and gave me a solid knock in the head; the apostle of non violence

turned to apologize profusely; I recall nothing of what Dr. King said but

recall well this little incident - such is the memory of a ten-year-old.)

My parents tried to live out their convictions by staying on in our

neighborhood after a black family moved in down the block and all other

whites fled in a panic (this was Maywood, a near west Chicago suburb). So

in the space of about a year, all my friends changed from white to black.

There was no racism among most of us kids. I remember black kids and white

kids (including me) having crushes on each other and this was not considered

strange by anyone. But I do remember the day I went cross town to visit a

white friend and he used the word _nigger_. I verbalized my shock. He said

that's what his dad used. Things changed as we got older. The little black

girl who I had a crush on (Sandra) and who was one of the brightest kids

in the class became morose and pessimistic. So did others. Later, one

kid, Fred Hampton, a year older than me, became president of the

Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers and was shot dead as he slept during

a raid by the Chicago police. However, we had left Maywood by then.

My parents idealism was sorely tried on the night that a rock came crashing

through the back window into my father's face. Having moved to an all white

neighborhood, Park Forest, my parents continued to work for integration of our

new community, however.



It is ironic that I now sit and write this message a stone's throw away

from the spot where Gov. Wallace made his famous "stand in the schoolhouse

door." I remember watching that scene with appropriate disgust when it was

being broadcast into our living room back in my youth. I also remember

my parents, and other liberals, attaching tremendous stigma to anyone or

anything Southern, including drawl. I even pointed out to them, I recall,

that this was inconsistent with their own views on ethnic prejudice.



However, it was with some trepidation, I confess, that I came to interview

at the University of Alabama. The ghosts of all that negative history would

not leave my mind alone. My very first encounter with an Alabamian

on Alabama soil just about reinforced all my fears and misgiving. This was

the chauffeur who picked me up at the airport to bring me on campus. He started

going on about "the niggers" and asking me if they were as bad elsewhere as

they were here. Fortunately, this individual (who doesn't work here anymore)

turned out to be very much the exception, not the rule.



Even so, I must concur with Bethany that the pejorative use of _nigger_ is

very much alive in the South. Sometimes it is couched in an expression:

like when my sweet, lovable, gentile and, yes, racist, neighbor lady (may her

soul rest in peace) reproved me for "working like a nigger" when I labored in

our yard under the hot midday sun.



I spend more time in the Louisiana boonies, with my Cajun friends, than I do

here in Alabama. There, _nigger_ is encountered with alarming frequency.

It is a paradox (but an easy one to resolve) that the one Cajun fellow who

could hardly open his mouth without uttering this word, was the same one

who took the greatest offense at the thought that anyone should call him a

_coonass_. In Cajun French (or Metropolitan for that matter) it is harder

to determine intent because the _negro_/_nigger_ dichotomy never existed.

In Louisiana it was always _neg'_ for both, though some now do say _les

noirs_. In France, too, _negre_ is ambivalent. It can be a very scholarly

adjective in the mouth of an Africanist, "la litterature negre," or a put-

down as in the derisive term for bad French, "le petit-negre." Most people

tend to avoid it. But anti-Black feeling among some French is strong, too.



Once, while living in Aix-en-Provence, my wife and I invited an African

friend over to our apartment. Our landlady lived across the hall. The next

day she rebuked me for inviting a Black man in, and she was especially

incensed about it because she was sure that I would never have dared so

such a thing back in America. She knew because `she had seen the movies'.



So the long and the short of it is that ethnic prejudice is ubiquitous. I

have encountered it everywhere I have gone (including former socialist

countries where it was supposed to have been wiped out but where gypsies

were kicked off the busses I rode; well, we all know now that socialism

in Eastern Europe only served to put ethnic hostility in the deep freeze).



No region has a monopoly on it. Not the South or anywhere else. Living

down here I am more sensitive than ever to the hypocrisy of a mass culture

that derides every type of prejudice except that which is directed against

Southerners (and I have gone on record against this in previous postings).



Well, I have rambled long enough. But sometimes, in my own darker moments,

I think of Kings trilogy of evils "racism, war and poverty" and wonder to

myself `When the last two have become things of the past, will the former

will continue to flourish?'



Mike Picone

University of Alabama

MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.UA.EDU



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 16:41:00 -0700

From:  Peter McGraw  pmcgraw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CALVIN.LINFIELD.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



On Mon, 17 Oct 1994, Roger Vanderveen wrote:



   From: Judy Kuster  KUSTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX1.MANKATO.MSUS.EDU 

 

   YOu are the second to ask - maybe I'm wrong, or the person who presented

   the workshop on cultural sensitivity I attended recently, was wrong. I

   asked a female colleague and she said it is offensive and vulgar to her,

   too - it has sex for money connotations it her mind, mine, too. How

   do I find out the actual entomology?

 

  It owuld be nice tohave some of the context included so we could figure out

  what you're talking about.

 

  Entomology? Better check your dictionary for that word before you include it

  in your paper.

 

 

  ===============================================================================

  Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

                                 Hillsboro, OR

  ===============================================================================

 

This use of "entomology" is obviously one of those offensive idioms!



Peter McGraw

Linfield College



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 18:56:37 -0500

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

Subject: Re: go/come with



On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, M. Lynne Murphy wrote:



  leaving out the object in "go/come with" is typical of northern

  illinois and other parts of the midwest, and presumed by many to be

  from germanic influence.

 

  the phenomenon is much more widespread here in south african english,

  where, e.g., i could offer you lunch and ask "have you had?"

 

It's common in Minnesota, which certainly does have German influence. It

apparently never caught on in the parts of New York State that used to be

Dutch-speaking.



Something else I wonder about --- "If he would have" where standard

English would be "If he had." It's common in Minnesota -- is it from

German, and/or one of the Scandinavian languages?



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



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 17:35:46 -0700

From:  THOMAS CLARK  tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU 

Subject: Re: P.S. re Offending Idioms



On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, Natalie Maynor wrote:



 When I heard

  "nigger rig," I heard it as one long, funny-sounding verb: niggerrig.

  I can't remember now exactly how I discovered "nigger" in it. I think

  maybe I repeated the word at home and my mother pointed out to me what

  I was saying. Presumably I would have figured it out myself sooner or

  later, but this brings up a question that I think was implicit in something

  I said earlier in this discussion. I wonder how many offensive idioms

  are kept alive by people who don't realize what they're saying.



Bingo! Natalie makes the point that young people often acquire forms,

the lexical history of which they are unaware.

    It sucks. (no sexual connection made)

    Brown nose. (no execretory connection made)

    and

 I also

  remember hearing the expression "jew down" and not associating it with

  Judaism.



Cheers,

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 17:45:14 -0700

From:  THOMAS CLARK  tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU 

Subject: Re: P.S. re Offending Idioms



On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, Steve Harris wrote:

(snip)

 My college roommate, who grew up in Tennessee, had a childhood pal

    who:

 

      "attached a 'nigger knob' to his bicycle handlebar".

 

    Referring to the little hand knob that some people attach to their

    car steering wheel.



In Montana, we called those round swivels affixed to the steering wheel

"love handles." That was on the steering wheel so you could keep your

right arm across the back of the seat, in case there might be a young

woman in that place.

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 23:30:55 -0400

From:  AAllan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: This needs listened to



Readers of the September Newsletter of the American Dialect Society (pp. 8-9)

know that the definitive word on "needs + p.p." will be spoken by the troika

of Heartland experts Tim Frazer, Tom Murray, and Beth Lee Simon at about 9

a.m. Saturday, November 12 in the Midwest Regional Meeting of the American

Dialect Society, Chicago, Palmer House, Parlor H.

- Allan Metcalf



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 24 Oct 1994 to 25 Oct 1994

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







There are 21 messages totalling 501 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Nigger stick (surveyor's rod)

 2. offending idioms (3)

 3. go/come with (2)

 4. Offensive terms (4)

 5. 40-11

 6. Distribution of positive "anymore" (2)

 7. a couple (of) things

 8. P.S. re Offending Idioms

 9. Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school (2)

 10. love handles

 11. "I don't care" -- a footnote

 12. Is "conservative" a slander word?

 13. "Home Training"



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 11:46:00 GMT

From:  "Warren A. Brewer"  NCUT054[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TWNMOE10.BITNET 

Subject: Nigger stick (surveyor's rod)



For the record, since we're collecting such stuff, when I was with a

California National Guard engineering batallion in 1985, we had a private

who called the surveying rod a "nigger stick". For a short while.



                   ---Wab.



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



Date:  Tue, 25 Oct 1994 22:39:25 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



I am glad to see offending idioMs back on line.

Chuck Coker



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 00:56:55 -0500

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

Subject: Re: go/come with



On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, M. Lynne Murphy wrote:



  leaving out the object in "go/come with" is typical of northern

  illinois and other parts of the midwest, and presumed by many to be

  from germanic influence.

Lynne, what do you mean when you say that this is presumed to be from

"germanic" influence? Don't you mean GERMAN influence? If this is

indeed a transfer from German, it should not be thought of as "leaving

out the object", as the German verbs 'mitgehen' and 'mitkommen' are

separable verbs which require no object. BTW, my wife,

a native Oregonian, says "go/come with." It sounds odd to me in English,

though; but now that we are in Minnesota, she feels right at home.

Fritz Juengling





  the phenomenon is much more widespread here in south african english,

  where, e.g., i could offer you lunch and ask "have you had?"

 

  lynne

 

  ______________________________________________________________________

  M. Lynne Murphy

  Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

  University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

  Johannesburg 2050         e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

  South Africa

 



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 01:25:24 -0500

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

Subject: Re: offending idioms



Does anyone know when the word 'nigger' became derogatory in meaning in

the US? Kluge reports that the term has been in America since the end

of the 18th century. There are (at least) two words in German for 'Black

person'-- 'Schwarze', which is an adjectival noun formed from the German

word meaning 'black'; and 'Neger'. What's interesting is that 'Neger'

carries with it absolutely no negative connotations whatsoever. (Many of my

students don't believe this and refuse to say the word). The word

'Neger' has been German since at least the beginning of the 17th century

and came from French. Given the Spanish meaning and that the German has

no negative connotation, it seems that the derogatory meaning developed

in ?American? English, and rather late at that. Can anyone shed any

light on this?

Fritz Juengling



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 02:00:00 LCL

From:  "M. Lynne Murphy"  104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA 

Subject: Re: go/come with



fritz said:

 

    leaving out the object in "go/come with" is typical of northern

    illinois and other parts of the midwest, and presumed by many to be

    from germanic influence.

  Lynne, what do you mean when you say that this is presumed to be from

  "germanic" influence? Don't you mean GERMAN influence? If this is

  indeed a transfer from German, it should not be thought of as "leaving

  out the object", as the German verbs 'mitgehen' and 'mitkommen' are

  separable verbs which require no object. BTW, my wife,

  a native Oregonian, says "go/come with." It sounds odd to me in English,

  though; but now that we are in Minnesota, she feels right at home.

  Fritz Juengling

 



i said "germanic" because i'm not sure that it is from german, since

there is a large and (linguistically) influential scandinavian

population in that area, and maybe it's from there, i don't know. it

seems to me that this query was answered within the last year either

on this list or on Linguist--does anyone remember?



certainly, in south africa (my other e.g.) i need to say "germanic"

since it came from afrikaans.



lynne



    ______________________________________________________________________

    M. Lynne Murphy

    Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

    University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

    Johannesburg 2050         e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

    South Africa

   

 

______________________________________________________________________

M. Lynne Murphy

Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

Johannesburg 2050         e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

South Africa



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 05:33:00 EDT

From:  "David A. Johns"  DJOHNS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UFPINE.BITNET 

Subject: Offensive terms



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



# And I will add, in response to the comment by somebody else that

# "nigger" is used "especially in the South," that in my 51 years

# of living in the South I have never heard anybody use the word --

# except to talk about the fact that it is an offensive term. I'm

# not, of course, saying that nobody in the South uses or has used

# the term. I'm simply saying that enough people don't use it that

# I've managed to lead a pretty normal life for all these years

# without bumping into the Southerners who do use it.



Well, I'm afraid I can't say as much for my one year in Waycross,

Georgia. I hear the word at least a dozen times a week.



One source is a group of men, mostly retired, who socialize on the

streets of my residential neighborhood just after sunup, walking their

dogs, jogging, or whatever. One neighbor is obsessed with how blacks

are ruining the country, the schools, and the YMCA, and alternates in

his references between "nigger" and "black", the latter, I think, in

deference to me as younger, more educated, and an outsider. During

Ken Burns's "Baseball" series another neighbor was talking about the

"nigger league" as though that were the term used on the show.



A particularly painful incident occurred one morning while I was

sitting in the waiting room of a local opthamologist. There were

probably about 20 people in the room, including three or four

middle-aged black women. At one side sat two elderly white women,

upper class by their accents, clothes, and hairdos. One of them was

apparently a bit deaf, judging by how loud she spoke, and maybe a bit

senile as well. At some point she decided she wanted to talk to her

friend about the "nigger who killed his wife in Los Angeles". The

entire room froze. Her friend desperately tried to change the

subject, but this woman kept on, with "nigger" this and "nigger" that,

eventually getting around to how fair his kids were, and what a shame

it was that "they" were "mixing our blood" like that.



Among my students, generally working class, average age 28, range

18-40 with a few outlyers, I have never heard the word. I have,

however, heard the moral equivalent: one young white male started

ranting one day about how "they should be grateful, because they'd all

still be cannibals in the jungle if it wasn't for us." But he did

wait until there were no blacks in the room, and at least he knew he

wasn't supposed to use "that word".



To northerners, the racial tension in this community is palpable. Most

whites seem to have accepted the notion that blacks are equal before

the law, but they still don't want to have anything to do with them.

Blacks mingle with whites in public, but are much more silently

hostile toward whites than in the North, especially the men. But every

incident of outright rudeness I have heard of here, on the part of

whites, has been directed not at blacks alone, but at mixed groups,

such as the faculty of the college out at a country restaurant.

"Separate but equal" is still the ideal.



On the other hand, many of my students -- not a random sample of the

community, of course -- are very concerned about race relations and

seem willing to break with the traditions of the area. I see this

more clearly among young women than among men.



Southern society, as I see it here anyway, is certainly complex, and

although stereotypes are not very predictive, it's not hard to see

where they came from. And there are certainly many aspects of

southern culture that I, as an outsider, find disturbing, if not

offensive.



So let's not talk about the flag, hear?



David Johns

Waycross College

Waycross, GA



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 07:17:27 -0500

From:  Denise Adams  dadams[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TENET.EDU 

Subject: Re: 40-11



Brent,

    Although it's not used as much now, all of my elder relatives say

40-ll. I'm originally from central Missouri.



Denise

Austin, TX





On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, BRENT D HUTCHINSON wrote:



  All my life I have heard the expression "40-11" as well. I too am from eastern Kentucky, and I simply assumed that the expression was local. However, I have spent a considerable amount of time on coastal South Carolina and heard

  the same expression there, meaning an undeterminable (but large) quantity.

  Is this expression concentrated in the Eastern U.S., or is it used

  nationwide?

 

  Thanks,

  Brent H.-Morehead State

 



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 09:48:12 EDT

From:  Alana Gaymon  agaymon[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FDIC.GOV 

Subject: Re: Distribution of positive "anymore"



I also heard "anymore" going to college in Winston-Salem North Carolina.

Nowhere else, though.



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 09:21:50 -0600

From:  Larry Davis  DAVIS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



After reading the ADS-list comments on offending idioms, and cannot be help

but be struck by the fact that many of my colleagues, while perhaps

well-meaning lack some old-fashioned virtues--including good manners

and a sensitivity to the feelings of others.



Old-fashionedly (and proud of same) yours,

Larry Davis



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:07:15 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Offensive terms



Just a quick note: Yestererday, my dogs got out (Rottweilers) and went

straight to a neighbor's house and started fighting with her dog through

a fence. This woman, white, I'd guess in her sixties or seventies, came

to my house, and started calling me names, "nigger" among them. I know that

I am responsible for what mu dogs do, but I found it somewhat odd that she

called me a "nigger," as I look VERY white. (This is Southern California,

BTW.) Is "nigger" becoming a generic "I hate you" term that can be used toward

anybody, regardless of their skin color? Or does this lady need her glasses

checked? It was indeed shocking to be called a "nigger." A witness to this

whole thing was my friend, Joe, who lives straight across the street from me.

Joe is VERY dark-skinned. My three-year-old and his three-year-old play

together all the time, oblivious to skin color. Anyway, when the dog thing

was over, Joe came over, and he was laughing *AT* the woman from down the

street. By hanging out with Joe, do I become an "honorary" "nigger"? The

episode immediately made me think of the thread on this list. Can white

people be "niggers" too?



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 10:09:46 -0500

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

Subject: Re: a couple (of) things



#1. An new mag, Image, (for black men, the cover says) has

an article on the word 'nigger' in its premier issue, about sept

or oct, I think. It's a slick high gloss mag with corporate

looking men in the clothing ads.



#2. Raised in Johnstown, PA, I didn't know needs + -ed was a dialect

form till it was corrected on a grad paper in North Dakota. (non-

native, hurumph!) Also postive anymore--it took several times for

Tim Frazer to explain it to me, since it's such a natural form

for me, I couldn't figure out how to distinguish it from other

uses (negative anymore, I guess). (HI Mechnaicsburg PA!)



#3. My kids learned "go with" (along with "borrow me that") in

North Dakota. I pikced up the first but not the second. In

Nebrasksa and in south-central IL, "go with" gets commented on (commenting

on?) but no one ever said anything about it needing done--I

think my kids have quit going with, but I haven't--especially to

intro to linguistics students, who need a good dose of "nonstandard"

speech in high places. (Well, I'm high to them, I guess, or at

least to some of them.)

--

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:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 11:23:38 EDT

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

Subject: Re: P.S. re Offending Idioms



 2. My college roommate, who grew up in Tennessee, had a childhood pal

   who:

 

     "attached a 'nigger knob' to his bicycle handlebar".

 

   Referring to the little hand knob that some people attach to their

   car steering wheel. Here, I think, there is a connotation of

   stupidity.



In San Antonio, TX, in the late 1960s, we called this old-fashioned

steering wheel attachment a _necker knob_. Older guys (who were

perpetually seventeen since the mid to late 1950s) with pointed shoes and

hair greased into ducktails had necker knobs on old fixed-up Fords and

Chevies. We may have had a euphemistic mispronunciation of the term, but I

always figured that a necker knob allowed the driver to steer with one hand

and then neck with his girlfriend with the other. I suggest that either

way the connotation of the term has to do with laziness (although I have

often thought that having one of those things would be a bit of

cleverness).





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



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 08:56:29 PDT

From:  John Baugh  John.Baugh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]STANFORD.BITNET 

Subject: Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school



REPLY TO 10/26/94 07:22 FROM ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET "American Dialect Society": Re:

offending idioms



Thanks Larry:



It's good to know that ADS will be lead by a scholar who is also a

gentleman. In the hood we'd say "That man has good HT." (i.e. Home

training).



In the African American community, saying that someone had good "HT"

or worse, that someone "ain't got no HT" is a way of distinguishing

those who are considerate of others, and those who simply lack such

training. Are there comparable expressions in the white community

(in the U.S. or elsewhere?)





Best, John Baugh



To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET

cc: RICKFORD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSLI



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 09:02:10 PDT

From:  John Baugh  John.Baugh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]STANFORD.BITNET 

Subject: Re: Offensive terms



REPLY TO 10/26/94 08:28 FROM ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET "American Dialect Society": Re:

Offensive terms



No. Professor Coker is not an honorary nigger, nor is there any

prospect that he will ever attain that status. John Baugh



To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET

cc: RICKFORD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSLI



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 11:28:14 -0500

From:  "Timothy C. Frazer"  mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU 

Subject: Re: love handles



Tom Clark said these were on a steering wheel. Mine are right above my hips.



Tim Frazer



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 09:58:48 -0700

From:  Judith Rascoe  boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: "I don't care" -- a footnote



Sensitized by the discussion here, I noticed the following exchange in a

novel about Indiana in the mid l9th century:



Kindly gentleman to poor, hungry child: "Won't you join me for dinner?"

Child, gratefully accepting: "Thank you. I don't care if I do."



(The novel is 'The Dark Fantastic' by Echard, pub in 1947. The author

says it's based on events in the life of her great-grandmother, who lived

near Terre Haute).



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 12:21:59 -0500

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

Subject: Re: Distribution of positive "anymore"



  I also heard "anymore" going to college in Winston-Salem North Carolina.

  Nowhere else, though.



The first time I ever heard positive "anymore" was from a North Carolinian

living in Florida. I remember it because I was fascinated by what struck

my Mississippi ears as very strange usage.

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



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 13:15:56 EDT

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

Subject: Re: Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school



On John Baugh's query re equivalents to the "'hood" use of H[ome] T[raining]--





In the African American community, saying that someone had good "HT" or

worse, that someone "ain't got no HT" is a way of distinguishing those

who are considerate of others, and those who simply lack such training.

Are there comparable expressions in the white community (in the U.S. or

elsewhere?)



--sounds similar to the French "bien elev'e(e)". I don't know any colloquial

English equivalent in the white community.



Larry



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 13:34:48 -0400

From:  Tom McClive  tommcc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]EMAIL.UNC.EDU 

Subject: Re: Is "conservative" a slander word?



On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, Bethany Dumas, UTK wrote:



  In response to my post about the use of "that word" in KNoxville, Roger

  Vanderveen asked whether I use it [the word "conservative"] "in general

  to slander conservatives." ?!? I find it astonishing that one might be

  taken to be "slandering" conservatives by calling them conservatives. Can

  one slander someone by calling by the label that rightfully belongs to

  them? Or has the word "conservative" become non-PC without my noticing that

  that has happened?



I am reminded of the 1988 American presidental campaign, when the George

Bush team tried, and succeed, to turn "liberal" into a tabboo word.

Micheal Dukakis was compelled to avoid its use and its label; in fact it

was a major news story the day that Dukakis finally decided to adopt it

and call himself a liberal. His attemps to detabboo it failed; it is of

course still being used now in this election season to bash the democrats.



To address an earlier post, I do believe that a single word can become a

euphonism. Once people agree on a context, almost any word or phrase

will do I remember a company I worked for that used the word

"opportunity" instead of the word "problem". This eventually carried

over to all forms of conversation and the word "opportunity" expanded and

became a joke.



    Tom McClive

    University of North Carolina

    tommcc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]email.unc.edu



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 13:22:19 -0500

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

Subject: Re: Offensive terms



With regard to Chuck Coker's encounter and the extension of "nigger" as a

generalized hate term. I was appalled here (middle Tennessee) when our

students in the mid-70s began to refer to a contingent of Libyan students as

"sand niggers." Perhaps, once this term encompasses everyone, it will lose

all meaning and disappear.



Alan Slotkin

ARS7950[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]TNTECH.EDU



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



Date:  Wed, 26 Oct 1994 12:41:01 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: "Home Training"



I believe the white equivalent of "H.T." is "manners." Often it is found

in the sentence "so & so's got no manners."



This is lower middle class GAD, methinks.



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 25 Oct 1994 to 26 Oct 1994

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







There are 6 messages totalling 129 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. White HT?

 2. Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school (3)

 3. Offensive terms

 4. Things are getting complicated anymore...



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



Date:  Thu, 27 Oct 1994 09:24:03 -0500

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

Subject: White HT?



        "brought up right"



"Those kids were brought up right." "Those kids never

had a good upbringing." And the more neutral: "They're

bringing up three kids." "They were brought up in the church."





--

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:  Thu, 27 Oct 1994 12:17:39 EDT

From:  GLENN D STEWART  gdstew01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school



 

  On John Baugh's query re equivalents to the "'hood" use of H[ome] T[raining]--

 

 

  In the African American community, saying that someone had good "HT" or

  worse, that someone "ain't got no HT" is a way of distinguishing those

  who are considerate of others, and those who simply lack such training.

  Are there comparable expressions in the white community (in the U.S. or

  elsewhere?)

 

  --sounds similar to the French "bien elev'e(e)". I don't know any colloquial

  English equivalent in the white community.

 L   Larry



 Perhaps a close equivalent might be "What's the matter with you, were you born in a barn? or is that only local Eastern Kentuckian?



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



Date:  Thu, 27 Oct 1994 16:12:17 EDT

From:  BRENT D HUTCHINSON  bdhutc01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school



 

  On John Baugh's query re equivalents to the "'hood" use of H[ome] T[raining]--

 

 

  In the African American community, saying that someone had good "HT" or

  worse, that someone "ain't got no HT" is a way of distinguishing those

  who are considerate of others, and those who simply lack such training.

  Are there comparable expressions in the white community (in the U.S. or

  elsewhere?)

 

  --sounds similar to the French "bien elev'e(e)". I don't know any colloquial

  English equivalent in the white community.

 

  Larry

 





Here in Appalachia, the term "raised right" is quite prevalent and is used to

mean the same thing for whites. I guess that the negative equivalent would be

"not raised right"?!



Brent Hutchinson & Diane Gardner

Morehead State University

Morehead, KY



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



Date:  Thu, 27 Oct 1994 15:35:26 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school



"Born in a barn" is not local Eastern Kentuckian. I was raised in

Southern California, and I, too, was "born in a barn."



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



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



Date:  Thu, 27 Oct 1994 20:54:28 -0400

From:  Claudio Salvucci  CSALVUCCI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DELPHI.COM 

Subject: Re: Offensive terms



A friend of mine from college, born and raised (though not all of

his life) in Zaire, told me that "sand nigger" was quite a common usage

in Zaire, referring to Africans above the Sahara. What I don't

remember (if he ever told me) was whether black Zairois or Belgians

or both used it. In either case, it was not a general term of contempt

but was quite directly

imed at the Arab-speaking world.



Claudio Salvucci

csalvucci[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]delphi.com



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



Date:  Thu, 27 Oct 1994 21:14:40 -0400

From:  Claudio Salvucci  CSALVUCCI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DELPHI.COM 

Subject: Things are getting complicated anymore...



    My college linguistics teacher asked the class if anyone had

ever heard the usage of positive "anymore". I was the only one who

had, and she informed us that it was a local (Philadelphia) usage.

I have seen the usage described in books (although not scholarly

ones, I must admit) as a SE Pennsylvania usage. This was not a recent

book, either. And as a lifelong resident of Phila., I have heard it

used, and am hearing it used with greater frequency. (or perhaps I'm

more sensitive to it)

    Secondly, I have also heard the "wanna come with?" usage

described earlier. Whether it's a common local usage or an

aberration, I don't know.



    (Sigh) Here I am, trying to establish a linguistic identity

for Philadelphia, and I find out these usages are about as scattered

in the country as hydrogen is in the universe.



    You can try all you want, but there's no way in the world

I'm giving up "Yo". Next thing you know, somebody'll tell me that

a "hoagie" is a Los Angeles sandwich.



Claudio "Data? Ah, who cares about data?" Salvucci

csalvucci[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]delphi.com



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 26 Oct 1994 to 27 Oct 1994

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







There are 39 messages totalling 848 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. born in a barn (3)

 2. The Southland (2)

 3. buggy vs. cart (14)

 4. forty-twelve

 5. Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school (3)

 6. Forty-eleven

 7. Folklore sayings (3)

 8. 'needs fixed' fun

 9. go/come with

 10. Offensive terms

 11. 7-11

 12. grass and cats

 13. need + p.p.

 14. The word 'damn'

 15. shopping cart/caddie

 16. GURT 1995 - corrections

 17. offending idioms (2)

 18. offending idiot



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



Date:  Thu, 27 Oct 1994 23:28:36 -0500

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

Subject: born in a barn



In my childhood home, "born in a barn" referred exclusively

to someone who didn't close an outside door behind them. For

table manners, there was a verse, "Mabel, mabel strong and able

                  Get your elbows off the table."

I use born in a barn with my kids and their friends, and I,

too, use it exclusively as a way to say, "shut the door !" I

have always assumed it had to with not having to pay to heat a

barn so it didn't matter if the door was left open, probably

because it was often followed by something about not paying to heat

the outside.



I think children in Johnstown were not raised or reared, we

were brought up. You were brought up right if you were

seen and not heard, said yes ma'am and no sir, didn't backtalk,

pushed your chair back under the table, didn't put your elbows

on the table and so on. My sense is that being brought up right

had as much or more to do with manners as with ethics and morals

(e.g. being honest, loyal, etc). My grandfather (95 yrs old) is

a linguistic relic--I'm 6th or 7th generation Johnstown by his

line.  I plan to go home next summer. Any

suggestions about how to query him for a form on this? (He does

put his elbows on the table and say "three mile down the road" and

"I seen a guy the other day."))

--

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 Oct 1994 05:01:00 EDT

From:  "David A. Johns"  DJOHNS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UFPINE.BITNET 

Subject: The Southland



# I sympathize with David Johns and his encounters with the term

# "Yankee". My mother, from Wisconsin, married my native-Georgian

# father in 1945, and Waycross was her first point of entry into

# the South. She never did find any humor in her new relatives'

# "Damn Yankee" jokes. But as David's comment about how people

# show no embarrassment or hesitation about asking, "Are you a

# Yankee?" suggests, the resentment toward Northerners is really

# fairly shallow (in my experience).



Hmmm ... maybe, but I've been taking it as an indication of how

comfortable southerners are with social stratification. People of

inferior station know their place, so there's no reason not to talk

about it openly.



# Certainly, I've known Northerners who assimilated fairly rapidly

# and painlessly into Southern life.



True, although to me it's like living in a city, where you can always

find people who share your values, no matter how aberrant they are.

But unlike cities, where "virtual communities" seem to be more

compartmentalized, here your life seems to be much more intertwined

with people who see you as something between an alien and an enemy.



David Johns

Waycross, GA



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 08:43:32 EDT

From:  DONNIE J GRAYSON  djgray02[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: buggy vs. cart



  For over two and a half years combined I worked at two grocery stores, and observed customers intering the store and finding an instrument to push around the store to put foodstuffs in for purchase. The customers not only used

 either "cart" or "buggy" for this shopping basket on wheels, but also the

 employees of each store used only one of these terms by itself. For example,

 in the first grocery store, this was a "cart" and only a "cart." But, in the

 second grocery store, the word "buggy" was exclusively used.

  These two grocery stores were seperated by only ten miles, but each had

 differnt terminology for the same instrument. I want to know whether "cart"

 or "buggy" are predominately southern, northern, or used interchangeably

 everywhere?



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 08:56:16 EDT

From:  DONNIE J GRAYSON  djgray02[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: forty-twelve



   In response to an earlier message about 'forty-eleven," I have heard the

  usage of the phrase 'forty-twelve.' In a numbering sequence, 1 would mean

  alone, 2 a couple, 3 a few, 4-to-12 a many, and then from 13-to 19 the teens

  In my hearing of the term 'forty-twelve' it means any number of things, peo-

  ple, etc. numbering between four and twelve.



  e-mail adress: djgray02[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu.



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 02:00:00 LCL

From:  "M. Lynne Murphy"  104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



donny grayson asks about shopping carts...



where i grew up (upstate ny) they were only "shopping carts", that i

remember (usually not shortened to "cart") (i also worked in a

grocery store, in the early 80s).



in south africa (as well as other more-recently-british places, i

think), they use "trolley", but i think i'd heard that in the states

too (perhaps when i lived in massachusetts?).



lynne





______________________________________________________________________

M. Lynne Murphy          e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

Johannesburg 2050 South Africa



   "Language without meaning is meaningless." --Roman Jakobson



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:09:08 -0400

From:  Elizabeth Martinez  MARTINEZE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COFC.EDU 

Subject: Re: Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school



  "Born in a barn" is not local Eastern Kentuckian. I was raised in

  Southern California, and I, too, was "born in a barn."



  Chuck Coker

  CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu

In New York City we too were "raised in a barn".



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:13:18 EDT

From:  LORI B BALDRIDGE  lbbald01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: Forty-eleven



    I have a friend from Grayson (Carter County) who has heard of forty-

eleven, but I only live about 30-45 minutes from both of you and I've never

heard of it.



P.S. I was not staring over your shoulder, but for that I'm giving you

extra assignments.



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:17:37 EDT

From:  SHANE J SALLEE  sjsall01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Folklore sayings



Good Morning Internet,



    It's getting to be cold in Kentucky nowadays. With the ushering in of winter comes the assault of folklore. I'm considering on writing a book,   called "The Folklore Almanac", listing all the folklore for each month and day.So, I'm asking for some help out there. I need to know folklore sayings and  doings around the world. Things like, "If the wooly worm-caterpillar- is all black, then there will be no break in winter. Or, if a spider spins it's web

backwards means a storm is a-comin'. Write to me with your sayings.



Shane Sallee, Morehead State University



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:10:15 -0500

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

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



For some reason which is not clear to anybody I continually refer to the

shopping vehicle in grocery stores as a "carriage." When people in the

midwest questioned this I told them I assumed I learned it in NY, but on

further checking no NYers I know use it, nor does anyone in my family from

NY. So where did I get it? I always thought it must be an idiotisme (is

that the word in French?) but this mention of calling it a "buggy" leads me

to mention "carriage," in case anybody else has collected the term.



Dennis (idiot savant) B

--

Dennis Baron                       debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



Department of English                  217-333-2392

University of Illinois                fax: 217-333-4321

608 South Wright Street

Urbana, Illinois 61801



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:42:58 EST

From:  Trace  mchenry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MACE.CC.PURDUE.EDU 

Subject: 'needs fixed' fun



    I am interested in this particular thread b'c I had _never_ heard

this form until I came to IN (from Alaska). I was quite thrilled when a

new PhD student in my inrto to ling class said "My car needs washed!" I thought

it was the most unusual structure I had ever heard. Now, three years later

I still listen for it--and I don't hear it very much at all. Until recently

when a very close friend was showing me an 'ad' he had written for some

sort of secretish underground electronic journal. He had cleverly used

the "anonymous" service so that no one here would know it was him, until

I pointed out his use of the 'needs Xed'. I did not mean it as an indsult--

I meant only to warn him that he may be giving himself away since he is the

only person in the department that I had heard use that form. He was furious

and told me to "shut up you damn linguist". I didn't know it was a sore spot.

He's from Southern IN and doesn't really have many other traits of Southern

IN speech. Well, next time I will think more before pointing out a

linguistic trait that I find wonderful but others may hate.

    Tracey

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

 "The first problem for all of us,       Tracey McHenry

  men and women, is not to learn,        mchenry[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]mace.cc.purdue.edu

  but to unlearn."               Learning . . . .

  --Gloria Steinem--

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



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 02:00:00 LCL

From:  "M. Lynne Murphy"  104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



  For some reason which is not clear to anybody I continually refer to the

  shopping vehicle in grocery stores as a "carriage." When people in the

  midwest questioned this I told them I assumed I learned it in NY, but on

  further checking no NYers I know use it, nor does anyone in my family from

  NY. So where did I get it? I always thought it must be an idiotisme (is

  that the word in French?) but this mention of calling it a "buggy" leads me

  to mention "carriage," in case anybody else has collected the term.

 

  Dennis (idiot savant) B

  --

  Dennis Baron                       debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



this doesn't sound unfamiliar to me (and i've lived in both places),

but i'm wondering if it's by association with "baby carriage", which

is a very similar thing, and which shopping carts are often used as.



lynne





______________________________________________________________________

M. Lynne Murphy          e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

Johannesburg 2050 South Africa



   "Language without meaning is meaningless." --Roman Jakobson



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:23:59 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: Re: Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school



As Brent Hutchinson noted, I'm most familiar with "raised right",

though not from Appalachia-- my dad's from Muskegon MI, my mom from

Athens GA (a good hour south of the mountains). I think it's from my

mom, and that both the credit and blame in fact generally attach to

the mother: so the negative is, "Didn't your mama raise you right?"

[She did.] It's also interesting because if you accuse someone of not

being raised right, you're in theory not blaming them, but undercover

you're casting a slur on their mama-- so it's pretty serious. Is this

true of HT also?



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:44:28 -0400

From:  Allan Denchfield  dench[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CAMBRIDGE.VILLAGE.COM 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



As one who bagged groceries for Coral Gables shoppers back in the early

sixties, I recall 'cart', 'carriage', 'basket' and 'wagon' all sometimes

following 'shopping-'. When the little baby seat was installed to these

contraptions it was easy to call it a 'carriage' (as in 'baby carriage').

The managers often called them 'carts', though the customers called them

'baskets'. There are, of course, both the hand-held and the rolling

variety of shopping baskets.





-AOBD (who transported bags, bundles, satchels, goods, groceries,

    purchases, and shoppings to customers' autos - celebrating all the

    while the inherent dignity of manual work)



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:45:54 -0400

From:  PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: Re: The Southland



David Johns writes about how upsetting it is to be called a Yankee as

if he were something between an alien and an enemy, down there in

Waycross Ga.

    Not to be unsympathetic, Dave, but you ARE an alien: someone

who comes from somewhere else, quite different. That's just a fact.

It's a little odd that people actually ask "Are you a Yankee?", cause

it should be pretty obvious from people's speech whether they are or not.

    Also it's a little odd that feeling unwelcome makes you think

that people are treating you as socially inferior in status. I think

that's confusing two things. Not everyone who's made to feel unwelcome

can claim they're being "put down" in social-class terms; sometimes

people who represent a dominating, overwhelmingly prejudiced group

with a fine sense of its own superiority are unwelcome, too.

    Not that I'm attributing such attitudes to you (seriously).

But there's plenty of evidence for anti-Southern prejudice, including

practically every college campus I've visited outside the South, so

it's hard to see that calling you a Yankee is going overboard with

hostility.

    Besides, there ARE good Yankees! and no doubt you're one...

One indication of that might be a historical sense of guilt over the

historical mistreatment of Southerners, black and white, and a truly

sensitive person might well feel uncomfortable at having that feeling

constantly evoked. (There are also good halfbreeds, like me: Michigan

father, Georgia mother, who accused him and "his people" of

stealing the silverware up to a few years ago, when she got really angry...)

    For what it's worth, there are worse things to be called!

    --peter lumpkin patrick



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:02:04 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



Here in San Francisco it seems to be "cart" in-store. It is "shopping cart"

when one of Reagan's Children is pushing it down the street with all

their belongings.



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:05:23 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: Larry Davis: a gentleman and scholar of the old school



    "Born in a barn" is not local Eastern Kentuckian. I was raised in

    Southern California, and I, too, was "born in a barn."

 

    Chuck Coker

    CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



When I grew up in Orange County in the early fifties, many of my

neighbors were Oklahoma & Arkansas -ancestored. Lots of that in our

childhood speech.



Birrell



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:06:34 -0400

From:  Allan Denchfield  dench[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CAMBRIDGE.VILLAGE.COM 

Subject: Re: go/come with



On Tue, 25 Oct 1994, Daniel S Goodman wrote:



  It's common in Minnesota, which certainly does have German influence. It

  apparently never caught on in the parts of New York State that used to be

  Dutch-speaking.



My two older brothers, who were educated in Denmark (my mother's

birthplace), would often invite me (in their new quaint way), "do you want

to come with?" Being educated in a strict Benedictine abbey school in

Trinidad (frightfully British), I reminded them prescriptively (in what

were Churchill's words?) that this usage was not something up with which

I'd put.



You don't need Garrison Keilor to remind you what nationality was settled

Minnesota with.



-AOBD (ah, what Mark Twain could have done with Danish)



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 11:48:12 CST

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

Subject: Re: Offensive terms



In Message Thu, 27 Oct 1994 20:54:28 -0400,

 Claudio Salvucci  CSALVUCCI[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]delphi.com  writes:



 A friend of mine from college, born and raised (though not all of

 his life) in Zaire, told me that "sand nigger" was quite a common usage

 in Zaire, referring to Africans above the Sahara. What I don't

 remember (if he ever told me) was whether black Zairois or Belgians

 or both used it. In either case, it was not a general term of contempt

 but was quite directly

 imed at the Arab-speaking world.



  I was born in Zaire, a francophone country, and didn't leave it till I

was 27 years old. I don't remember ever hearing the term, i.e., what "sand

nigger" must be a translation of. Could it have been used among European

expatriates? Black Africans do not consider Arabs blacks!

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:09:24 -0400

From:  Martha Howard  UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU 

Subject: 7-11



For Pete's Sake, you-all. Quit trying to make some deep scholarly

interpretation of 7-11--stores so named because that's the hours they

were open!



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:15:52 -0400

From:  Martha Howard  UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU 

Subject: grass and cats



Do cats eat grass? Is the pope Polish? They eat not only grass but any

houseplants, floral arrangements, and such like that unwary householders

leave in cat reach.



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:21:02 -0400

From:  Allan Denchfield  dench[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CAMBRIDGE.VILLAGE.COM 

Subject: Re: born in a barn



On Thu, 27 Oct 1994, Joan Livingston-Webber wrote:



  In my childhood home, "born in a barn" referred exclusively

  to someone who didn't close an outside door behind them.



If'n I had'na ever heard the explanation following use of this expression,

I could have easily associated it (confused it) with the Christmas story

and interpreted it to mean, "you think you're so high and mighty" or "do

you think you're so special", or, "who do you think you are - God?"



-AOBD (who may have closed far too many doors behind me)



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:23:14 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



My aunt Florence was raised in Brooklyn eighty years ago. She has lived

in Noo Yawk all her life. Her first take was "Grocery Cart", but she

corrected that to "Shopping Cart."



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:23:50 EDT

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

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



As soon as Dennis B. mentioned "carriage" I had an almost Proustian recall.

Yes, that was the word we used in New York in the '50's, although I should say

A word, since "shopping cart" (not, I think, reduced to "cart") was also

extant. Wow, "carriage"--that really takes me back.



Larry



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:07:41 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: Folklore sayings



"Gulls in the Meadow" here in San Francisco means a rainstorm is blowing

in off the sea. They (the gulls) do indeed come to the beaches and

meadows of the partk, and sit together in flocks, before a storm.



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 12:38:42 EST

From:  Beth Simon  SIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPFWCVAX.BITNET 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



Check Vol I, Dictionary Of American Regional English.



Beth Simon



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:38:25 EDT

From:  JOHN A KIDD  jakidd01[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: Folklore sayings



Shane,

    Throughout the years, I have hear several folkloric expressions.

Some are very weird and most based on superstition



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:58:48 -0400

From:  Martha Howard  UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU 

Subject: need + p.p.



In German, ther verb "brauchen" (to need) takes the p.p., instead of the

infinitive. Could this be the background for the use of need + p.p. in western

Pa., where much of the speech is heavily influenced by the Pa Dutch (Germans)

Incidentally, need + p.p. is used in WV as well as western Pa.



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 10:43:28 -0500

From:  Lewis Sanborne  lsanbore[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SAUNIX.SAU.EDU 

Subject: Re: born in a barn



Joan Livingston commented

 In my childhood home, "born in a barn" referred exclusively

 to someone who didn't close an outside door behind them. For

 table manners, there was a verse, "Mabel, mabel strong and able

                   Get your elbows off the table."



These were the phrases and meanings in our family as well in the 60s. My

father was raised in upstate NY and my mother in Brooklyn. We replaced

Mabel with the name of the appropriate sibling, and were occassionaly bold

enough to insert father. Mom NEVER put her elbows on the table.



 My sense is that being brought up right

 had as much or more to do with manners as with ethics and morals

 (e.g. being honest, loyal, etc).



My experience matches Joan's here as well. My parents still seem more

concerned with the surface manifestations of manners than with broader

ethical issues. Manners, or their absence, are easier to identify and

hence judge.

Lew Sanborne

St. Ambrose University

Davenport, IA 52803

319 324-8266



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 15:02:51 -0400

From:  Elizabeth Martinez  MARTINEZE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COFC.EDU 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



    For some reason which is not clear to anybody I continually refer to the

    shopping vehicle in grocery stores as a "carriage." When people in the

    midwest questioned this I told them I assumed I learned it in NY, but on

    further checking no NYers I know use it, nor does anyone in my family from

    NY. So where did I get it? I always thought it must be an idiotisme (is

    that the word in French?) but this mention of calling it a "buggy" leads me

    to mention "carriage," in case anybody else has collected the term.

   

    Dennis (idiot savant) B

    --

    Dennis Baron                       debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



  this doesn't sound unfamiliar to me (and i've lived in both places),

  but i'm wondering if it's by association with "baby carriage", which

  is a very similar thing, and which shopping carts are often used as.



  lynne





  ______________________________________________________________________

  M. Lynne Murphy          e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

  Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

  University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

  Johannesburg 2050 South Africa



    "Language without meaning is meaningless." --Roman Jakobson

Both these terms sound familiar to me too. I grew up in NY City (Queens)

and I remember the term "shopping cart" (no abbreviations, i.e., cart) in

certain contexts, such as "Go get a shopping cart"; but I remember using

"carriage" in other contexts:"Get in the carriage" or "I want to get in the carriage



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 21:00:46 HOE

From:  Alberto RIO  RIOGARAL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VM1.SDI.UAM.ES 

Subject: The word 'damn'



  Recently I saw a cartoon in the International Herald Tribune about

Cubans refugees and Mr. Clinton which, when translated in Spain ('El Pais'

newspaper, center-left), changed the word 'damn' to a Spanish

'equivalent', a hard word meaning 'solid waste from the bowels'.

Could you tell me whether 'damn' ('dammned', I

guess) is a taboo word and in what degree? In our dictionaries, encyclopaedias,



etc., it doesn't appears as such. Perhaps in Mr. Clinton native Arkansas ...



  Thank you in advance. Yours,

  Alberto RIO                  Fax.: +34 1 397-8599

Servicio de Cartografia, modulo de Geografia   Phone: +34 1 397-3894

Universidad Autonoma de Madrid          e-mail:

Campus de Cantoblanco               riogaral[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]vm1.sdi.uam.es

E-28049 Madrid, Spain               riogaral at emduam11



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:07:38 EDT

From:  Terry Lynn Irons  t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



Growing up in Ohio, I always heard people use the term "cart" or "grocery

cart." I lived in Missouri for ten years and all I heard was the same term

"cart" or "grocery cart." I lived in Georgia--northeastern corner a stone's

throw from the Alabama border--for two years, and it was there that I first

heard the expression "buggy" to refer to what I always called a grocery cart.

Of course, I pay some attention to language choices people make, but I

remember that this term really stood out when I first heard it. I at first

thought the term had some semantic difference associated with it--what

people called a "buggy" at this one local store--with lots of local poor

working class people (not the shopping mall types)--was a huge plastic

shopping cart (on wheels of course). But I soon determined that the term

"buggy" extended to include wire carts as well. Having heard the term in

no other regions where I have lived (Except I do hear it some now in Kentucky)

and hearing no reports of such use in other regions, as indicated in

responses so far to the list, I think it may be safe to conclude that

the use of "buggy" to refer to a shopping cart is a distinctive southern

feature. Which was the original query, I believe.



P.S. I was a Yankee living in the South, and I felt the sort of exclusion

others have mentioned--this is in the rural areas. I realized I would

probably never be truly accepted, even if I joined the Baptist Church

and married a local gal. SO I left.



Terry



--

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)

Terry Lynn Irons    t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu

Voice Mail:       (606) 783-5164

Snail Mail:       UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 15:41:50 -0500

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

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



 As soon as Dennis B. mentioned "carriage" I had an almost Proustian recall.

 Yes, that was the word we used in New York in the '50's, although I should say

 A word, since "shopping cart" (not, I think, reduced to "cart") was also

 extant. Wow, "carriage"--that really takes me back.

 

 Larry



I'm glad to know I didn't imagine carriage. My wife still thinks I made it

up, even when I read her Larry's reply. I grew up in NY in the 40s and 50s.

She's from Chicago, and we all know how impoverished their vocabulary is.



Dennis

--

Dennis Baron                       debaron[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uiuc.edu



Department of English                  217-333-2392

University of Illinois                fax: 217-333-4321

608 South Wright Street

Urbana, Illinois 61801



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 17:05:05 EDT

From:  Terry Lynn Irons  t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



 

  Check Vol I, Dictionary Of American Regional English.

 

  Beth Simon

 

The use of buggy to refer to a shopping cart is not cited in DARE,

but American Heritage 3RD Edition lists buggy to refer to a shopping

cart, especially for groceries as Chiefly Southern US.



Terry



--

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)

Terry Lynn Irons    t.irons[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msuacad.morehead-st.edu

Voice Mail:       (606) 783-5164

Snail Mail:       UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351

(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 17:51:14 CDT

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

Subject: shopping cart/caddie



Dennis Baron asked (parenthetically):



 For some reason which is not clear to anybody I continually refer to the

 shopping vehicle in grocery stores as a "carriage." ...

 So where did I get it? I always thought it must be an idiotisme (is

 that the word in French?)...



The most ususual word in France is _caddie_ which used to be a brand name

for this sort of device and is a name borrowed from the Anglicized

terminology of golf. Sometimes one also hears _chariot_, which is short

for _chariot de supermarche'_. In French, the usual meaning for _chariot_

is concerned with the totally inglorious transport of merchandise in various

cart-like devices equiped with wheels. I am reminded of one of the worst

mistranslations of a movie title from English to French: "Chariots of

Fire"   "Les chariots de feu". All the sense of speed and glory is lost

in the French version. The allusion comes from an English poet building,

no doubt, on the Biblical account of Elijah taken up in the fiery "char".



Mike Picone

University of Alabama

MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.UA.EDU



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 16:04:55 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: buggy vs. cart



This is a tangent, but, . . . How do homeless people get all the good carts,

buggies, wagons, baskets, and carriages, when all I can find at the local

store are ones in which all four wheels point in four different directions?

Is this something like one of the laws of physics or something?



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 09:48:48 -0400

From:  GURT[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET

Subject: GURT 1995 - corrections



GURT - Corrections/additions to preliminary announcement:



Please note the following corrections to the GURT 1995

program:



1) Pre-Conference session Discourse and Agency:

   The contact numbers for Dr. Patrician E. O'Connor were

   listed incorrectly. THE CORRECT NUMBERS are

   tel: (202) 687-7622

   fax: (202) 687-5445



2) The title for Dr. Jeff Connor-Linton's workshop has been

revised to:

   "Criterion-Referenced Curriculum and Test Development

   for Language Teachers and Administrators."





Also, since many of you have inquired -- for the past several years,

there has been no call for papers for the GURT conference. Instead,

speakers have been invited by the Chair. There may be changes to this

policy for conferences beyond 1995, though this is uncertain. My best

advice at this point is therefore to stay in touch with GURT staff.



Carolyn Straehle

Coordinator, GURT 1995



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



Date:  Wed, 19 Oct 1994 09:29:44 -0500

From:  Lewis Sanborne  lsanbore[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SAUNIX.SAU.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



 Another phrase that has similar connotations is "wham bam thank you ma'm."

 It's from a song called (I think) "Something Jessie Did." Not sure of the

 artist, but it's a good song, anyway.

 





Charles Mingus wrote and recorded a song called "wham bam, thank you ma'm"

in 1961. Much of his jazz in that era attempted to capture the essence and

flavor of his culture; other songs he did around the same time include

"Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" and "Eat That Chicken."



Lew Sanborne

St. Ambrose University

Davenport, IA 52803

319 324-8266



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 22:02:11 -0700

From:  "Joseph B. Monda"  monda[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SEATTLEU.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



"More bang for your buck" may have pharmacological and sexual implications

now, but it did not when it was first used. It applied to ordnance. A

case of semantic drift, folk etymology or what?

Joe Monda who wishes he had more bucks



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



Date:  Tue, 18 Oct 1994 21:51:45 PDT

From:  John Baugh  John.Baugh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]STANFORD.BITNET 

Subject: offending idiot



[7606] TUE 10/18/94 21:23 FROM John.Baugh "John Baugh": OFFENDING IDIOT;

    43 LINES



ADSers:



I read Chuck Coker's politically correct remarks concerning his

sense of personal loss at the desecration of his grandparent's dog's

burial site. Salikoko has raised many of the points that I wanted

to raise, but I have three personal observations as an African

American:



1) Were Coker's grandparents recipients of affirmative action, and

were African Americans fairly or equally employed when those dams

were built?



2) In the 60's when I was a boy scout,in a racially integrated scout

troop, several of my fellow scouts (who happened to be white) would

often dare groups of older boys(who would be white) to call me a

nigger == because they knew that I would fight any and all comers

who flaunted racial taunts. I still carry physical scars that

resulted from those fights. One of the white boys that I fought told

me of the betrayal of my fellow scouts (all of whom claimed not to

be racist).



3) Since then it has been my experience that racists are usually the

first to claim that "I'm not racist."



PS: As a general rule, members of oppressed groups (or formerly

oprressed groups) may use terms that might otherwise be offensive to

members of that group;

that is, as long as it is used in the proper context by another bona

fide member of that same group. I don't doubt that Dr.Coker saw some





African Americans refering to fellow Blacks as "Nigger." Indeed (as

Sali observed) there are pragmatic constraints on these norms.



When non-members of the group begin to toss around offensive and

derogatory terms (which seems to be the politically correct trend)

is when sparks (or worse) may fly.



  I regret that I haven't followed this discussion more closely,

but as I read Prof. Coker's remarks I was reminded of the term

"white trash" and "peckerwood" as other offensive idioms. Again, I

suspect that I am covering old territory.





In the meantime I look forward to seeing a lot of y'all when you

come to town for NWAV. All best, John Baugh





















To: ADS-L[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UGA.BITNET



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 27 Oct 1994 to 28 Oct 1994

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







There are 10 messages totalling 279 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. The word 'damn'

 2. offending idiot (5)

 3. buggy / cart

 4. raised in a barn

 5. anymore, needs+pp, V+with

 6. please help with addresses



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



Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 18:09:16 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: The word 'damn'



On Fri, 28 Oct 1994, Alberto RIO wrote:



  Could you tell me whether 'damn' ('dammned', I

  guess) is a taboo word and in what degree? In our dictionaries, encyclopaedias,

 

  etc., it doesn't appears as such. Perhaps in Mr. Clinton native Arkansas ...

 



I am just now fifty, raised in Southern California, New Mexico and Central

Coast California, with excursions for five years to Massachustetts.



In my childhood, "damn" and "damned" were risque, but many adults said

them. Now I believe they have lost all flavor and significance.



I do believe they have always been less significant in the south of the

US, but I could not prove it. Just an impression.



Now, you have to tell us, WHAT Spanish word was used in translation, and

what freight does it carry in Spain? Most of the Spanish we hear here is

New World...



Thanks,

Birrell Walsh



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 00:38:06 PDT

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



Hi:



Chuck Coker here. First of all, I would like to point out that I am not

Professor Coker (I teach occasionally, but only because I know my stuff; I am

not faculty anywhere), nor am I Dr. Coker (I don't have a Ph.D. in anything,

that is, of course, unless you use the "Piled Higher and Deeper" meaning).

However, if anybody used those terms seriously, I'm flattered; but most of the

time I took them to be sarcastic (well-deserved) jabs at my comments. I don't

want anybody to lose sleep over this, I can take it :-).



Second, I am famous (infamous?) for being politically UNcorrect. I often

speak without my brain being properly engaged, as all have witnessed (in this

case, I "keyboarded" without brain properly engaged). I often say what comes

to mind rather than filtering it to avoid hurt feelings, etc. This has caused

me many problems during my life in one way or another -- primarily at work,

when talking to the boss, for example.



Anyway, what I wanted to respond to was the question about the Boulder Dam

(aka Hoover Dam) project. All I really know, other than the dog story -- it

was a camp mascot, by the way, not my grandparents' dog -- is all about the

electrical design of the dam (my grandfather was an electrical engineer on

the project). Everytime we would pass the dam (my grandparents took their

grandkids travelling often) we'd get the whole electrical blueprints recited

again and again. I have seen WPA cards (Works Progress Administration, or

something like that -- this was during the depression) at my mothers house.

I think these were analogous to modern-day company ID cards. I don't really

know all the details like ethnic makeup of the workforce or anything. My

mother is back east right now (she lives about an hour from me), but upon her

return I'll pick her brain on anything she remembers about such things, and

get her to dig out old photos taken during construction. After which, I will

forward a summary of what I find out.



In closing, I would like to point out that since this is the American Dialect

Society (not the Politically Correct Society), I have heard the dam referred

to as "Boulder Dam" only by those who worked on the project. Everyone else

seems to refer to it by its proper name, "Hoover Dam." The nearest town to

the work camp was Boulder City, Nevada, hence the name "Boulder Dam." Has

anybody else heard of it referred to as Boulder Dam by people not affiliated

with the project? Or as in my case, their descendants?



Comments and Flames always welcome,

Prof./Dr. Chuck Coker :-)

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



P.S.: If you want a REALLY GOOD political correctness argument, see the one

on ANTHRO-L. Some guy named Rushton recently published a book that

"clearly demonstrates" the "racial superiority" of white people over "people

of color." Rushton claims scientific truth to his bigotry (bigotry is MY

word, not his), others claim that the level of melanin in one's skin has

absolutely zero effect on IQ, etc. (a theory I also subscribe to).



P.P.S: John Baugh: I have heard the term "white trash," but not

"peckerwood." I have three white grandparents, one Indian (oops, Native

American -- there I go again) grandmother -- so I think I qualify as a white

guy. Therefore, am I a "peckerwood?" (If it's not a noun, is it something

I do? I've been called "peckerhead" before, but that was something

different, I think.)



Also, I made the claim that I am not racist. My granddughter, who I

love dearly, has ancestors that are (forgive me here) white, black, indian,

mexican, and oriental (I don't know her father's complete genealogy). As I

claimed to be NOT racist (which really means I am), which part of my

granddaughter should I hate? I've always been confused about that. (This is

in jest, please don't reply to it. I am, however, curious about peckerwood.)



===============================================================================

There have been no dragons in my life, only small spiders and stepping in gum.

I could have coped with the dragons.

                              Anonymous (but wise)

===============================================================================



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 07:17:38 EST

From:  Beth Simon  SIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPFWCVAX.BITNET 

Subject: buggy / cart



When I suggested checking DARE for buggy and cart entries, I was thinking

of the regionality of the uses that are entered, and wondering whether

they were similar to what might emerge here with this discussion. I don't

have DARE at home, so I didn't offer the information myself, but I

should have made my suggestion clearer.



Beth Simon

Indiana University/Purdue University-Fort Wayne



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 12:17:30 EDT

From:  Sonja Lanehart  R2SLL1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AKRONVM.BITNET 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



Concerning the use of offending words, Geneva Smitherman presents an

interesting and informative perspective on the use of "nigger" and

"nigga" in her new book, _Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood

to the Amen Corner_. 1994. Houghton Mifflin. She also has an entry on

the term "wigga" (literally, a white nigger--p.237).



Sonja Lanehart

University of Michigan

Department of English

Sonja.Lanehart[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]um.cc.umich.edu



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 11:18:06 CST

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

Subject: Re: offending idiot



In Message Tue, 18 Oct 1994 21:51:45 PDT,

 John Baugh  John.Baugh%STANFORD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uicvm.uic.edu  writes:



 [7606] TUE 10/18/94 21:23 FROM John.Baugh "John Baugh": OFFENDING IDIOT;

     43 LINES

 Can any of the e-mail gurus on this list explain why John Baugh's mail

was distributed 10 days late?

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 16:22:34 -0400

From:  Martha Howard  UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU 

Subject: raised in a barn



I know people in Michigan who were "raised in a barn!" And judging from

some of the comments I have read this afternoon, maybe we should ask our-selves

if we were HT



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 17:07:13 -0500

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

Subject: Re: offending idiot



   Can any of the e-mail gurus on this list explain why John Baugh's mail

  was distributed 10 days late?



He sent it at about the time UGA lost net connectivity for 24 hours or so.

During that time they moved a bunch of list mail to tape. I'm guessing

that one of the tapes was overlooked when they regained connectivity and

was discovered a day or so ago -- that's when a spurt of old mail showed

up on WORDS-L, which also runs on the UGA mainframe.

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



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 20:03:27 EDT

From:  flanigan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: anymore, needs+pp, V+with



          Ohio University Electronic Communication





  Date: 29-Oct-1994 08:02pm EST



   To: Remote Addressee           ( _mx%"ads-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.bitnet )



  From: Beverly Flanigan              Dept: Linguistics

     FLANIGAN                 Tel No:



Subject: anymore, needs+pp, V+with





  Several comments on several threads:

   -- Like fellow Northerner (and friend) Bev Hartford, I had never

  heard positive, or fronted, 'anymore' before going down to Bloomington,

  Indiana. In fact, after having heard a paper on the many syntactic and

  semantic constraints on 'anymore' (at the Summer ADS meeting in

  Albuquerque in 1980, by Frank Parker?), I was amazed to hear every rule

  confirmed when I moved to Southeastern Ohio. I've heard it from people

  from as far north as Akron, but no farther; nor have I heard it from

  "Deep" Southerners.

   -- Unlike Bev, I don't recall hearing "needs+p.p." in Bloomington,

  but it is ubiquitous in this part of Ohio, and is by no means limited

  to the "uneducated townies," contrary to what my out-of-state

  undergraduates (and some graduates) think. Indeed, one of my graduate

  students (from Portsmouth, Ohio) said that, rather like Joan

  Livingston-Webber, she had never heard any alternate form until she

  came to Ohio University. I like to show my classes a clipping from the

  local newspaper showing the "Pillar Paintin'" of a church, with the

  caption "The pillar bases needed replaced because they were rotting."

  A reader (clearly an outsider, probably a "gownie") wrote in to

  complain that his second-grader was "having enough trouble speaking

  English correctly," and that while he "hate[d] to be picky," "maybe the

  editor needs woke up"; to which the editor replied, "You're right.

  You're being picky. I admit, though, the caption needs corrected."

   -- "Come with" and similar constructions are very familiar to this

  native Minnesotan, and, like others, I associate it with the German and

  Scandinavian two-part (or separable) verbs used by our ancestors.

  However, contrary to Allan Denchfield, no Minnesotan (not even Garrison

  Keillor in his most fun-poking moments) would say "what nationality was

  settled Minnesota with." BTW, my Indianan-Ohioan son laughs at my use

  of "come with" but will occasionally say "needs washed," despite his

  expressed rejection of this region's speech.

   -- Minor notes: "Set out" and "if he would have" are indeed common

  in Minnesota; on the latter, I don't know if German or the Scandinavian

  languages allow this alternate subjunctive form. On equivalents of

  John Baugh's "Home Training," I was about to offer "raised right," but

  that's from 20 years in southern Indiana and Ohio; in Minnesota, we

  were "brought up right."

   -- Finally, Joan L-W is right about students needing "a good dose of

  'nonstandard' speech in high places." I have my grad students replicate

  Trudgill's test of polylectal comprehension (in _On Dialect_) using

  Appalachian and other forms, and they regularly get "The sort of thing

  only a foreigner would say" or "Nobody would say this, not even a

  foreigner" on the first three expressions listed above, except from

  respondents who have been here a while, who allow, "I'd never say this,

  but some others might." It makes for good consciousness-raising.

                     --Beverly Olson Flanigan







Received: 29-Oct-1994 08:03pm



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 20:10:55 -0500

From:  00v0horvath[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BSUVC.BSU.EDU

Subject: please help with addresses



I would like to get in touch with two linguists from Finland: Kari Nahkola and

Marja Saanilahti. I spotted their names on the NWAVE program, so I think

somebody who was there might be able to help me out with their addresses.

Thanks in advance.

Vera Horvath



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 12:20:57 -0500

From:  Gregory D Waltigney  walt0015[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



Perhaps those out there who feel the need to use this forum as a soapbox

for determining political correctness could take their drivel elsewhere

rather than degenerating into a bunch of blathering "offending idiots"!



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 28 Oct 1994 to 29 Oct 1994

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







There are 15 messages totalling 366 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. offending idiot (7)

 2. please help with addresses

 3. needs + p.p.

 4. Boulder Dam

 5. born in a barn

 6. OH Language Files (2)

 7. forty-leven et similares

 8. Boulder Dam



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 21:04:58 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



    Can any of the e-mail gurus on this list explain why John Baugh's mail

  was distributed 10 days late?

  Sali.

  Salikoko S. Mufwene

 



I sent one to the list that never got distributed at all - maybe 12 days ago?



Birrell



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 00:05:11 -0400

From:  Abigail Sarah Margulies  asm16[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COLUMBIA.EDU 

Subject: Re: please help with addresses



On Sat, 29 Oct 1994 00v0horvath[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]BSUVC.BSU.EDU wrote:



  I would like to get in touch with two linguists from Finland: Kari Nahkola and

  Marja Saanilahti. I spotted their names on the NWAVE program, so I think

  somebody who was there might be able to help me out with their addresses.

  Thanks in advance.

  Vera Horvath

 



Dr. Kari Nahkola was speaking at Columbia a few weeks ago. I don't know

his address, but I can tell you that he's from the University of Tampere,

if that helps.



Abbie



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



Date:  Sat, 29 Oct 1994 21:15:57 -0700

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



On Sat, 29 Oct 1994, Gregory D Waltigney wrote:



  Perhaps those out there who feel the need to use this forum as a soapbox

  for determining political correctness could take their drivel elsewhere

  rather than degenerating into a bunch of blathering "offending idiots"!

 

I tend to agree. PC of various sorts is really name-magic. But naming

is how we humans create worlds, yes? So there is no way PC arguments

will stop. Resign yourself to it.



The funny part is that the effort-to-control is comming from people who

speak of freedom. But hey, it's still the 20th Century - typical of it.

Birrell



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 11:12:08 -0500

From:  Martha Howard  UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU 

Subject: needs + p.p.



Received: from WVNVMS.WVNET.EDU by WVNVMS.WVNET.EDU (PMDF V4.3-12 #5406)

 id  01HIT6YWO8Y8OCIVBN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVMS.WVNET.EDU ; Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:57:54 -0400 (EDT)

Date: Fri, 28 Oct 1994 13:54:14 -0400 (EDT)

From: UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU

Subject: need + p.p.

To: ads-l[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uga.ccuga.edu

Message-id:  01HIT8XLL0YMOCIVBN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVMS.WVNET.EDU 

Organization: West Virginia Network

MIME-version: 1.0

Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII



In German, the verb "brauchen" takes the p.p., instead of the infinitive.

Could this be the background for the use of need + p.p. in western Pa, where

In German, the verb "brauchen" takes the p.p., instead of the infinitive



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 12:21:24 -0400

From:  Bob Lancaster  SLANCASTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU 

Subject: offending idiot



Re Birrell's mailing of 30 Oct., it's become almost a truism that liberals

are almost as likely as facists to impose thier convictions on their fellow

citizens by fiat. That's why some of us who have been proud for decades to

call ourselves liberals are able to feel some sympathy for the libertarians

Bob Lancaster

SUNY Emeritus - English



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 11:22:53 -0500

From:  Martha Howard  UN106005[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WVNVAXA.WVNET.EDU 

Subject: Boulder Dam



When it waas first constructed, it was known as Boulder dam and that's

how I knewit when I wasin grade school (in the 30's). Also, the queries

about whether damn has a bad connotation confuse me. Don't any of you

remember the furore when Clark Gable turned, in the final scene of "Gone

With the Wind", and said to Scarlett, "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a

damn." Very shocking, and titillating, I might add. You-all ( use the

term advisedly) make me feel very, very old sometimes. But then, at

72, I can't claim to be a spring chicken, anymore , can I?



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 12:37:25 -0400

From:  Bob Lancaster  SLANCASTER[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU 

Subject: born in a barn



We have always used "born in a barn" primarily to refer to failure to close the

door, but secondarily in reference to any actions that treat the house as if it

might as well be a barn--eg., leaving clothes on the floor, shouting and

yelling, etc. Hence to some degree the phrase is concerned with "manners."

In this regard, by the way, I don't believe the distinction between manners and

ethics and morals which Lew Sanbourne made is entirely valid. Truly good

manners are not concerned simply with elbows on the table; their rational is

surely the need to act with kindness, compassion, and gentility in all the

appropriate circumstances. Seen this way, they cover a lot of virtues.ra

Bob Lancaster

SUNY emeritus - English

(Sorry about that - "rationale")



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 14:21:25 EST

From:  Beth Simon  SIMON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]IPFWCVAX.BITNET 

Subject: OH Language Files



Has anyone used OH Language Files with students who haven't had any

linguistics?



thanks,

Beth Simon

IPFW



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 02:00:00 LCL

From:  "M. Lynne Murphy"  104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA 

Subject: Re: OH Language Files



  Has anyone used OH Language Files with students who haven't had any

  linguistics?

 

  thanks,

  Beth Simon

  IPFW



i've ONLY used it with students who haven't had any linguistics

(i.e., in intro classes). i see that although it isn't required for

the linguistics courses here, it is a textbook at the university

bookstore, so i guess some other dept. is using it for people who

aren't even in linguistics classes.



lynne















______________________________________________________________________

M. Lynne Murphy          e-mail: 104lyn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]muse.arts.wits.ac.za

Lecturer, Dept. of Linguistics          phone: 27(11)716-2340

University of the Witwatersrand         fax:  27(11)716-8030

Johannesburg 2050 South Africa



   "Language without meaning is meaningless." --Roman Jakobson



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 15:59:07 -0600

From:  Gregory D Waltigney  walt0015[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GOLD.TC.UMN.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



One last (hopefully) time. My comments about taking the PC discussion

elsewhere are intended to stress the fact that this is indeed a list of

the ADS and not PCDISCUSSIONS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pc.bs.whocares.



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 19:01:47 EST

From:  Shani Walker  s.walker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MSUACAD.MOREHEAD-ST.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



First I would like to say that all this talk about offending terms is getting

on my last and final nerve...what is the big deal?  The term "nigger" simply

means ignorance, and those who specialize in using this nerve are seldom seen

useful for anything else. Being an African-American female in this society has

made me come to realize and accept that you can not please everybody. We are

all adults here, so let's act like it. On to another subject...have you ever

heard of the term "twader"? My friends and I use this term in reference to

someone who babbles on and on about irrelevant facts. Have you heard this term

use before? If so, in this same reference?



Shani Walker

Morehead State University

Morehead, KY



   Date:     Sat, 22 Oct 1994 10:34:50 CST

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

 

   In Message Thu, 20 Oct 1994 08:56:23 -0700, Roger Vanderveen

       rvander[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ichips.intel.com  writes about frivolous changing of

      "acceptable" names for non-whites.

 

 

    I am afraid you have trivialized the offense in Chuck's note. As well

   stated in David Muschell's reply, the offense derives in part from Chuck's

   grandparents naming their dog a racial/racist epithet. Once posted on the

   dam, not everybody new "Nigger" was used for a dog.

 

  Granted.

 

                            Besides at the time the

   dog was named "Nigger," this term was not an accepted designation for Blacks

   or African Americans. Do you recall any time in the history of the USA when

   "Nigger" was an acceptable term for African Americans?

 

  Sure. It's an acceptable term now, in many quarters. For myself, I do not and

  would never use it, and cringe when I do hear it used. I will admit that it's

  not acceptable now among the media and universities, but I know that if many

  of the readers of this list went off-campus, they would find lots of people

  using it, especially in the South. For some, there is a negative element, and

  for others, it's simply the term they've used all they're lives. Who has the

  right to sit in judgment?

 

                              I do not know that

   African Americans would be offended today if you described them as "black"

   (with or without a cap).

 

  I don't get the "cap" reference. And how about negro?

 

                  While we might find it amusing that names for a

   particular ethnic group keep changing (and I take no offense at this), the

   particular incident at issue here is not so amusing (except perhaps in the

   privacy of our homes).

 

  So I can laugh at home, but not in public? Don't ask, don't tell?

 

              I doubt that the reason the sign was removed had to

   do with being politically correct. There is more to the act than some may

   want to recognize.

 

   Chuck has been wise enough to apologize. I, among the people who were

   offended, accept the apology. But I find your trivialization of the issue

   ridiculous.

 

  All right, then let me use another example having nothing to do with race:

  idiot, moron, half-wit, mentally retarded, developmentally disabled, special,

  mentally challenged. Nothing trivial, only individual words. See the

  connection?

 

  ===============================================================================

  Roger Vanderveen                       Intel Corporation

  (503) 696-4331                          Hillsboro, OR

  ===============================================================================

 



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 17:58:37 -0800

From:  Judith Rascoe  boise[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



--the "Born in a barn" thread makes me think of our family joke (and mild

scold) of people who show bad manners at the table with their "boarding

house reach." Interesting how these two relics of another era hang on.

Anybody else have any examples of lingering archaisms that refer to polite

(or impolite) behavior?



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 18:39:09 -0800

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: forty-leven et similares



While watching Newton's Apple, which originates in the TwinCities,

Minnesota, one of the characters is talking about the a supermarket price

whose amount is unknown. She called it "A Buck Three Eighty." Copyright

on the show was 1991, I noticed.



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 19:11:13 -0800

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idiot



On Sun, 30 Oct 1994, Shani Walker wrote:

  ... Has anyone

  heard of the term "twader"? My friends and I use this term in reference to

  someone who babbles on and on about irrelevant facts. Have you heard this term

  use before? If so, in this same reference?

 

  Shani Walker

  Morehead State University

  Morehead, KY

 



OED doesn't support it, but it sure sounds related to twaddle...



Birrell Walsh



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 19:22:31 -0800

From:  THOMAS CLARK  tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Boulder Dam



On Sun, 30 Oct 1994, Martha Howard wrote:



  When it waas first constructed, it was known as Boulder dam and that's

  how I knewit when I wasin grade school (in the 30's).



MH brings up an interesting variant that we are tracking in the Nevada

Language Survey. By the 40's, school children were being taught "Hoover

Dam," and probably snickering at the current furor over Clark Gable's

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." During construction, the dam

was called "Boulder Dam" in spite of the fact that it was being built in

Black Canyon rather than in Boulder Canyon (the original site).



Boulder Highway, leading southeast out of Las Vegas, takes one to Boulder

City, where I live a few days a week (a welcome respite from Las Vegas).

The dam was part of the huge WPA machination and thus known to every

construction worker in the western world, who passed the information onto

all of his (this is the 1930's) progeny.



When the dam was dedicated, the mood of the country (or at least the

Congress) had shifted, and the name of the project was changed from

Boulder to Hoover.



This created local problems. Hoover was not PC, according to local

Democratic bosses. It appears there may have been a social split --

Democrats refused to call the damn thing Hoover.



Today, in Nevada, you can take a socio-political reading (we think,

hypothesis on the way) by whether young people use "Boulder Dam" or

"Hoover Dam." People from families who have been in Clark County (Las

Vegas area) for more than 25 years use "Boulder." Newbies use Hoover,

unless they have been "reached." Local media are careful to make the

distinction between Boulder and Hoover. Interestingly, when local

politicians want to make a point with SENIOR CITIZENS, a voting bloc,

they will carefully refer to Hoover Dam projects. But that sometimes

backfires. Recently, a refurbishment of the Visitor's Center cost about

three times what the entire dam project cost.



Factual: About half of native Clark County residents use Boulder to

refer to the structure.



Anecdotal: My children grew up here. They use Hoover. They are Mostly

Republicans.



We can control our sinuses better than we can our children.



It gets more detailed and complex, but MH was right when she said



 whether damn has a bad connotation confuses me.





Cheers,

tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu



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



End of ADS-L Digest - 29 Oct 1994 to 30 Oct 1994

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







There are 11 messages totalling 347 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. offensiveness (2)

 2. offending idioms (4)

 3. Relic Idioms

 4. Boulder Dam

 5. OH Language Files

 6. needs+pp

 7. Preferred Terms



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



Date:  Sun, 30 Oct 1994 23:25:00 CST

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

Subject: Re: offensiveness



Dictionaries are historical records, so editors should cover as much of

contemporary language as they can. Even though most people use "Webster's"

as a guide to usage, in the long run each dictionary is a slice-of-time

representation of how people use language. Posterity is not served well

when touchy feelings get in the way of recording facts. As Sali suggested,

rather than omitting offensive terms dictionary editors should include them

and label them appropriately.

               DMLance



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



Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 00:03:34 CST

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

Subject: Re: offending idioms



Charles Juengling claimed that "Neger" has "absolutely no negative connotations

whatsoever." When I was in Germany in 1978-79, I was told (more than once)

of a gaffe committed by a particularly klutzy President of BRD who was

giving a speech in some former German colony in Africa and began his

address with "Meine Damen und Herren, Liebe Neger,...." The teller of this

tale said no more than these words, then rolled his/her eyes and sighed.

Could Herr Juengling be misinformed about the way Germans actually use this

term?

One of the nagging little questions that has occurred to me from time to time

is to wonder about 'Negro' coming from Spanish and 'n---' from the French

form 'neger'. A good research project for someone; I'm frying other fish for

a while.    DMLance



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



Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 00:21:29 -0800

From:  "CAVEMAN -- San Bernardino, Calif. USA"  cjcoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPOMONA.EDU 

Subject: Re: Relic Idioms



In addition to "born in a barn," I also still refer to that thing that keeps

our food cold as an "ice box," although we haven't had one since the sixties.

I buy a "bottle of milk," although I haven't seen a glass milk bottle since

about the same time (are thos plastic jugs considered bottles?). When we

go to the movies and we walk inside the theater, we are going to a "movie

house," according to my vocabulary.



Here's another :-), I have an 8-track tape player in my car (Oh My God!).



Chuck Coker

CJCoker[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CSUPomona.Edu



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



Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 04:11:12 -0800

From:  James Beniger  beniger[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]RCF.USC.EDU 

Subject: Re: Boulder Dam



Both "Boulder Dam" and "Hoover Dam" have become so common in American

culture, as iconic for "dam," that I'd bet much of the

population--possibly a majority--thinks they are two different dams.



I understand that, in the 30's, local Democrats referred to the dam as

"Dam(n) Hoover."



I'd like to hear Thomas Clark clarify/elaborate the sentence "Local media

are careful to make the distinction between Boulder and Hoover" (see below),

which is intriguing but unclear in context, at least to me.



                        -- Jim

*******



On Sun, 30 Oct 1994, THOMAS CLARK wrote:



  On Sun, 30 Oct 1994, Martha Howard wrote:

 

    When it waas first constructed, it was known as Boulder dam and that's

    how I knewit when I wasin grade school (in the 30's).

 

  MH brings up an interesting variant that we are tracking in the Nevada

  Language Survey. By the 40's, school children were being taught "Hoover

  Dam," and probably snickering at the current furor over Clark Gable's

  "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." During construction, the dam

  was called "Boulder Dam" in spite of the fact that it was being built in

  Black Canyon rather than in Boulder Canyon (the original site).

 

  Boulder Highway, leading southeast out of Las Vegas, takes one to Boulder

  City, where I live a few days a week (a welcome respite from Las Vegas).

  The dam was part of the huge WPA machination and thus known to every

  construction worker in the western world, who passed the information onto

  all of his (this is the 1930's) progeny.

 

  When the dam was dedicated, the mood of the country (or at least the

  Congress) had shifted, and the name of the project was changed from

  Boulder to Hoover.

 

  This created local problems. Hoover was not PC, according to local

  Democratic bosses. It appears there may have been a social split --

  Democrats refused to call the damn thing Hoover.

 

  Today, in Nevada, you can take a socio-political reading (we think,

  hypothesis on the way) by whether young people use "Boulder Dam" or

  "Hoover Dam." People from families who have been in Clark County (Las

  Vegas area) for more than 25 years use "Boulder." Newbies use Hoover,

  unless they have been "reached." Local media are careful to make the

  distinction between Boulder and Hoover. Interestingly, when local

  politicians want to make a point with SENIOR CITIZENS, a voting bloc,

  they will carefully refer to Hoover Dam projects. But that sometimes

  backfires. Recently, a refurbishment of the Visitor's Center cost about

  three times what the entire dam project cost.

 

  Factual: About half of native Clark County residents use Boulder to

  refer to the structure.

 

  Anecdotal: My children grew up here. They use Hoover. They are Mostly

  Republicans.

 

  We can control our sinuses better than we can our children.

 

  It gets more detailed and complex, but MH was right when she said

 

   whether damn has a bad connotation confuses me.

 

 

  Cheers,

  tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nevada.edu

 



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



Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 07:50:06 -0500

From:  Ernest Scatton  ESCATTON[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ALBNYVMS.BITNET 

Subject: Re: OH Language Files



I've used OH Language Files with students who hadn't had linguistics before.

It's pretty effective...far better than most of the standard texts, which,

in my opinion, just go into most everything far too deeply for intro course

for students who are unlikely to go on with linguistics. I switched from

LFiles to Finegan this fall for a change; I'll go back to LFiles the next

time I teach introduction to linguistics.

E. Scatton

escatton[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cnsvax.albany.edu



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



Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 08:34:23 EST

From:  David Muschell  dmuschel[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MAIL.GAC.PEACHNET.EDU 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



In response to Gregory D. Waltigney, who wrote:



 Perhaps those out there who feel the need to use this forum as a soapbox

 for determining political correctness could take their drivel elsewhere

 rather than degenerating into a bunch of blathering "offending idiots"!





"Political Correctness" has in itself become an offensive tag, and the

vague reference to "those" using this discussion group takes away from the

uniqueness of the forum as a kind of instantaneous, on-going conference.

For me, the exploration of language has nothing to do with PC. Political

correctness implies that there is some kind of agenda behind the user with

an intention to bleach language of its dirtiness. The discussion on

offending idioms was started innocently enough by Judy Kuster several weeks

ago and has, for me, been extremely interesting. Whether or not a sense of

prescriptivism exists within some of the responses is irrelevant to the

positive use of this new format for interconnectedness. As an admirer of

Priestly, I find the descriptive approach more useful, but in describing,

it's hard to overlook connotative usage and its impact on language.



I have read very little drivel as I've followed (and participated) in this

particular discussion and even less blather. Personally, the suggestion to

take the debate elsewhere is a kind of prescription in itself--one that

would negate the very value of this computer conference. Of course I take

the above suggestion seriously, and at a real conference I'd probably laugh

it off as a small, crotchety response to the more important issue. But

since budgetary constraints probably won't allow me to attend a "real"

conference, this electronic space for analyzing, conversing, and

"listening" to other fine scholars has become a fine way to breach the

isolation of individual institutions. Intuitively, ADS has gotten involved

in a thought-provoking line of discussion that mirrors an issue seen being

explored in the media with the publication of THE BELL CURVE.





          David



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



Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 10:26:32 EST

From:  "Betty S. Phillips"  EJPHILL[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ROOT.INDSTATE.EDU 

Subject: Re: needs+pp



I will add my anecdote about needs + pp. As a graduate student at

UGA, I had a professor point out that needs + V-ing was the Southern

usage, not needs + pp. They both sounded OK to me--a native south

Georgian. So I polled my brother and sister: "The car is dirty. It

needs ______." Both insisted on "washing" and totally rejected

"washed." Then I asked my Wisconsin mother (Platteville, to be

specific). She replied with "washed." I could only conclude that I

must have been more influenced by my mother's dialect than they

had been. A parent's dialect can indeed make a difference.



Betty Phillips

Eng. Dept.

Indiana State U.

Terre Haute, IN 47809



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Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 11:20:53 -0500

From:  Jesse T Sheidlower  jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PANIX.COM 

Subject: Re: offensiveness



 

  Dictionaries are historical records, so editors should cover as much of

  contemporary language as they can. Even though most people use "Webster's"

  as a guide to usage, in the long run each dictionary is a slice-of-time

  representation of how people use language. Posterity is not served well

  when touchy feelings get in the way of recording facts. As Sali suggested,

  rather than omitting offensive terms dictionary editors should include them

  and label them appropriately.



I agree with all of this wholeheartedly. However (and I missed Sali's post

on this), I do want to point out that most people who use dictionaries--

at least, those who bother to write--do not agree. I've done a good amount

of publicity for Random House, and a question that never fails to come up

is "Why do you include bad words in the dictionary?" The response is, of

course, that they are in common use, and an appropriate label indicating

the offensiveness of a word is better than omitting it altogether, and if

by omitting offensive words from the dictionary we could eliminate hatred,

we would gladly do so, but this is not usually accepted.



The single biggest subject that people write about is the word _nigger_.

In fact, we probably get more letters about this word than about all other

subjects combined. Most letters state that the word doesn't belong in

the dictionary no matter what. Some of the letters state, amazingly, that

we're defining it incorrectly: _nigger_ does not mean 'black person', it

means 'stupid person'.



I once got a letter complaining about _jew down_. I responded with the

usual previously mentioned formula, and got back a six-page, single-spaced

rant, saying that if a long history and common use made a word OK, then it

was also OK to burn Jews alive as they worship in temple, since that's

what Christians have typically done, and so forth. It was quite unnerving.



Naturally, I still don't think that offensive words should be omitted

from dictionaries, but arguments that are obvious to us are not necessarily

obvious to dictionary users. I'm sure my colleagues at the other college

dictionaries have similar experiences.



Jesse T Sheidlower

Editor

Random House Reference

 jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]panix.com 



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Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 13:59:27 CST

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

Subject: Re: offending idioms



In Message Mon, 31 Oct 1994 00:03:34 CST,

 "Donald M. Lance"  ENGDL%MIZZOU1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uicvm.uic.edu  writes:



 One of the nagging little questions that has occurred to me from time to time

 is to wonder about 'Negro' coming from Spanish and 'n---' from the French

 form 'neger'. A good research project for someone; I'm frying other fish for

 a while.

 Incidentally, the term "creole" came into English, in apparently 1604,

from Spanish, more or less at the same time the term was being borrowed by

French (1598). In both cases the term was used in translations of Jose Acostas'

HISTORIA NATURAL Y MORAL DES LAS INDIAS (1590), in which the term "criollo"

or "crollo" (?) is used for Spaniards born in the West Indies. The Spaniards

seem to have played an important role in the development/spread of some

colonial terms, another example of which is "mulatto", used also from the

late 16th century. (What I report here does not take into account the less

clear matter of whether the term originated in Spanish or Portuguese. The

historical evidence just shows the term spread from Spanish.)

Sali.

Salikoko S. Mufwene

University of Chicago

Dept. of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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

312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861



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Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 11:16:10 -0800

From:  Birrell Walsh  birrell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]WELL.SF.CA.US 

Subject: Re: offending idioms



On Mon, 31 Oct 1994, David Muschell wrote:



  In response to Gregory D. Waltigney, who wrote:

 

   Perhaps those out there who feel the need to use this forum as a soapbox

   for determining political correctness could take their drivel elsewhere

   rather than degenerating into a bunch of blathering "offending idiots"!

 



[Excision here]



 

  I have read very little drivel as I've followed (and participated) in this

  particular discussion and even less blather. Personally, the suggestion to

  take the debate elsewhere is a kind of prescription in itself--one that

  would negate the very value of this computer conference. Of course I take

  the above suggestion seriously, and at a real conference I'd probably laugh

  it off as a small, crotchety response to the more important issue. But

  since budgetary constraints probably won't allow me to attend a "real"

  conference, this electronic space for analyzing, conversing, and

  "listening" to other fine scholars has become a fine way to breach the

  isolation of individual institutions. Intuitively, ADS has gotten involved

  in a thought-provoking line of discussion that mirrors an issue seen being

  explored in the media with the publication of THE BELL CURVE.

 

 

            David

 



A rare art is here being practiced: gracious praise.



Thank you, David!



Birrell Walsh



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Date:  Mon, 31 Oct 1994 14:21:17 -0600

From:  Michael Linn  mlinn[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]D.UMN.EDU 

Subject: Preferred Terms



We have had a discussion about abusive terms, but I would like to

know more about preferred terms. What is the best way to address

groups one is a member of.  From the above mentioned discussion,

it seems that there are regional differences and maybe

generational ones. In Northern Minnesota, indigenous people

want to be called *American Indian*, not *Native American* and

friends at the Gay Men's Center want to be called *queers* (a

term I have trouble using with my upbringing) and wear such

buttons. Also, most feminists prefer generic terms such as actor

and hero instead of gender specific terms such as actress and

heroine.



What are the preferred terms in other parts of the country?



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End of ADS-L Digest - 30 Oct 1994 to 31 Oct 1994

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