"southernisms"

[Mark.Mandel at LHSL.COM]

>From "Philadelphia Citypaper.net"
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/081497/article008.shtml

August 14?21, 1997
cover story

Phillyspeak

By  Jim Quinn's guide to Philadelphia English ? spoken here like nowhere
else in the world.

     [...]
But, sadly, articles about our weird and wonderful dialect always stick to
old jokes like:

"Jeet yet?"

"No. Jew?"

That's not Philadelphia dialect. That's just plain old American Slur
Colloquial. Philadelphians talk that way when they're in a hurry, sure. But
so does everybody else in the Northern United States. Concentrating on
"Jeet" and"Jew" is like describing the hot dog as Philadelphia food. We do
eat hot dogs. But if you want to know Philly, you have to try that great,
gooey watch-your-shirt midnight dripper, the cheesesteak.
     [...]


                  Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist
 Dragon Systems, a Lernout & Hauspie company : speech recognition
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com