From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Nov 1 01:28:32 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:28:32 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: <20041031205159.78112.qmail@web53909.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:51:59PM -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > > The only explanation I can think of for a putative > decades-long delay in getting an idiom like this into print, > had it really been common in some branch of the military or > elsewhere, would be if it had some obscene > connotations. One thing unaddressed in this note, Jon, is the possibility of a _non_-decades long delay with the same proposed etymology. This most recent thread has focused on the possibility that _whole nine yards_ is a WWII-era term in reference to the length of ammo belts. If the expression really did arise in the Vietnam War, then that would take care of the age issue. It arose, let's say, very early in the war, it made it into a small number of publications (_Doom Pussy_, the AF Academy glossary in _Current Slang_), it didn't spread until after the war when vets returned.... Not that this solves the bigger problem, i.e. of total lack of evidence for ammo being measured in yards. But I'm not sure I buy the 'obscene' explanation. Apart from _snafu_, a better example might be _blivit_, another obscure number-based term from WWII--and this was found, with its obscene explanation, before the end of the 1940s. _whole nine yards_ would have to be _really_ obscene for its obscenity to be the reason for its nonappearance for two decades post-WWII, if it truly had been common then. Jesse Sheidlower OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 1 04:00:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:00:46 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Don't forget that, during WWII, the Air Force was part of the Army, first, as the "U.S. Army Air Corps," later, as the "U.S. Army Air Force." The Air Force didn't become a separate branch of service till after the war. As a consequence, we could logically expect that zoomie slang would leak into other Army units, especially given that the Army, like the Air Force, also uses various calibers of belted ammo. "The whole nine yards" was not G.I. slang when I was in the Army. This brings up another problem, that of uniformity. If all ammo meant for use in belts was meted out so that every round would fit into a standard ammo belt of a uniform length of nine yards, then the number of rounds in each such belt would vary according to the caliber of the ammo that it held. That's not S.O.P. Then there's the problem of logistics. I was the ammunition-bearer for a machine-gun crew. As such, I can testify that it would take Superman to carry with one hand a single ammo cannister containing nine yards of steel belting filled with many pounds of lead-and-brass cartridges, each in turn filled with gunpowder. An ammo-bearer is expected to carry at least two cans of ammo for the machine gun. And that would be in addition to the 300 rounds of unbelted rifle ammo for his own use, his full field pack, grenades, etc. It just couldn't be done, if there was a standard length for an ammo belt of nine yards. Finally, my own introduction to "the whole nine yards" was the Burt Reynolds movie of that name. I had uncles and cousins who served in WWII, some in the Air Corps, friends who served during the Korean-War era and there was my own service during the Vietnam-War era. No one that I know even today uses that phrase and, until this discussion came up, I'd always assumed that it had something to do with football and was to be heard only on sports talk shows. -Wilson Gray On Oct 31, 2004, at 8:28 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence > [addendum] > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:51:59PM -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >> >> The only explanation I can think of for a putative >> decades-long delay in getting an idiom like this into print, >> had it really been common in some branch of the military or >> elsewhere, would be if it had some obscene >> connotations. > > One thing unaddressed in this note, Jon, is the possibility of > a _non_-decades long delay with the same proposed etymology. > This most recent thread has focused on the possibility that > _whole nine yards_ is a WWII-era term in reference to the > length of ammo belts. > > If the expression really did arise in the Vietnam War, then > that would take care of the age issue. It arose, let's say, > very early in the war, it made it into a small number of > publications (_Doom Pussy_, the AF Academy glossary in > _Current Slang_), it didn't spread until after the war when > vets returned.... > > Not that this solves the bigger problem, i.e. of total lack of > evidence for ammo being measured in yards. But I'm not sure I > buy the 'obscene' explanation. Apart from _snafu_, a better > example might be _blivit_, another obscure number-based term > from WWII--and this was found, with its obscene explanation, > before the end of the 1940s. _whole nine yards_ would have to > be _really_ obscene for its obscenity to be the reason for > its nonappearance for two decades post-WWII, if it truly had > been common then. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Nov 1 04:38:45 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:38:45 -0800 Subject: Fwd: I'm done my homework Message-ID: an exchange between a grad student and me: >> Have you heard this? >> >> I'm done my homework. > > no. > >> Made me go "ugggh" but apparently it's pretty popular on the East >> Coast. > > do some googling, and you'll see it's all over: > ------ > Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 21:26:23 -0600 > Reply-To: Constructed Languages List > Sender: Constructed Languages List > From: Scotto Hlad > Subject: Re: bless (adj) > In-Reply-To: <412B94BE.7020408 at wantage.com> > > This all reminds me of a phrase that I hear here in western Canada. > North > American English speaker use 'done' to also mean 'finished' eg. I'm > done > with my homework. Where I live, the 'with' is disappearing. I hear it > everywhere, "When you're done your lunch break..." "Dad, I'm done my > homework" etc. Even the teachers in the schools say it. > ----- have we discussed this already? arnold From dwhause at JOBE.NET Mon Nov 1 04:51:48 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:51:48 -0600 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: I second Wilson's note on the logistics from the perspective of the assistant gunner on a machine gun team from which the ammo bearer had deserted on pre-deployment leave, leaving me with two 200-round cans of 7.62 mm ammo in addition to the other impedimenta. I have three .50 cal ammo cans, two marked as containing 100 rounds of blanks, the third 85 rounds of linked 1/5 tracer; they are about 6 x 8 x 10" and probably weigh 30-40 pounds filled with smaller ammunition (less lead.) Of course, the .50 cal. machine gun wasn't usually carried around by the infantry when I was doing that, so a team could have been significantly larger than the three on a medium machine gun (as I remember, the gun weighs around 110 pounds and the tripod is probably another 50.) Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" ... Then there's the problem of logistics. I was the ammunition-bearer for a machine-gun crew. As such, I can testify that it would take Superman to carry with one hand a single ammo cannister containing nine yards of steel belting filled with many pounds of lead-and-brass cartridges, each in turn filled with gunpowder. An ammo-bearer is expected to carry at least two cans of ammo for the machine gun. And that would be in addition to the 300 rounds of unbelted rifle ammo for his own use, his full field pack, grenades, etc. It just couldn't be done, if there was a standard length for an ammo belt of nine yards. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 1 05:06:12 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 00:06:12 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Oct 31, 2004, at 11:51 PM, Dave Hause wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Dave Hause > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence > [addendum] > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I second Wilson's note on the logistics from the perspective of the > assistant gunner on a machine gun team from which the ammo bearer had > deserted on pre-deployment leave Wish I'd had that kind of smarts! ;-) -Wilson > , leaving me with two 200-round cans of 7.62 > mm ammo in addition to the other impedimenta. I have three .50 cal > ammo > cans, two marked as containing 100 rounds of blanks, the third 85 > rounds of > linked 1/5 tracer; they are about 6 x 8 x 10" and probably weigh 30-40 > pounds filled with smaller ammunition (less lead.) Of course, the .50 > cal. > machine gun wasn't usually carried around by the infantry when I was > doing > that, so a team could have been significantly larger than the three on > a > medium machine gun (as I remember, the gun weighs around 110 pounds > and the > tripod is probably another 50.) > Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net > Ft. Leonard Wood, MO > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wilson Gray" > ... > Then there's the problem of logistics. I was the ammunition-bearer for > a machine-gun crew. As such, I can testify that it would take Superman > to carry with one hand a single ammo cannister containing nine yards of > steel belting filled with many pounds of lead-and-brass cartridges, > each in turn filled with gunpowder. An ammo-bearer is expected to carry > at least two cans of ammo for the machine gun. And that would be in > addition to the 300 rounds of unbelted rifle ammo for his own use, his > full field pack, grenades, etc. It just couldn't be done, if there was > a standard length for an ammo belt of nine yards. > From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Nov 1 05:49:10 2004 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:49:10 -0800 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: <9C1EF7EC-2BBA-11D9-A69D-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Wilson Gray > Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 8:01 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] > > > Don't forget that, during WWII, the Air Force was part of the Army, > first, as the "U.S. Army Air Corps," later, as the "U.S. Army Air > Force." The Air Force didn't become a separate branch of service till > after the war. As a consequence, we could logically expect that zoomie > slang would leak into other Army units, especially given that the Army, > like the Air Force, also uses various calibers of belted ammo. "The > whole nine yards" was not G.I. slang when I was in the Army. This > brings up another problem, that of uniformity. > > If all ammo meant for use in belts was meted out so that every round > would fit into a standard ammo belt of a uniform length of nine yards, > then the number of rounds in each such belt would vary according to the > caliber of the ammo that it held. That's not S.O.P. The Burt Reynolds movie is "The Longest Yard" (1974). There is a movie called "The Whole Nine Yards (2000), but that stars Bruce Willis. And technically, the "US Army Air Force" (as opposed to "Air Corps") was formed in 1941, before US entry into the war. In March 1942, it became the "US Army Air Forces," and while nominally part of the US Army, it in effect operated as an independent service. Gen Henry "Hap" Arnold served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff when it was formed, the equal of Gen. Marshall of the Army and Adm. King of the Navy. There wasn't much contact between units of the ground Army and the Army Air Forces. The training camps and operational bases were different and the opportunities for sharing lingo were minimal. Pre-war Army slang and jargon were certainly inherited by the Army Air Forces, but lingo that arose during the war would be unlikely to make its way into the other component. The machine gun tale of "the whole nine yards" is quite specific and does not, with one exception, refer to infantry machine guns. Instead, it quite specifically refers to fighter plane ammunition. The type of plane varies with the telling, most often the P-51 in Europe, the P-38 in the Pacific, and the Spitfire in the RAF. The infantry variant claims the phrase arose with WWI (yes, the 1914-18 war) .30-cal machine gun crews in the trenches. It's bad enough that we speculate; we shouldn't expand the scope of the folklore as we do so. --Dave Wilton dave at wilton.net http://www.wilton.net From goranson at DUKE.EDU Mon Nov 1 08:52:59 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 03:52:59 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: Perhaps recall that the earliest available uses are not related to machine guns. Nor, really, especially related operations of the Air Force. 1968 (written 1967 in Vietnam) The Doom Pussy: "Most Americans enjoyed getting the full nine yards that is included in the French barber's repertoire."(p.161/140pb) "God. The first thing in the early pearly morning and the last thing at night. Beds all over the gahdam house [of a woman back home]." (p173/150 pb) The same book discusses Montagnards, called yards. And in I Corps area R.L. Mole was teaching GIs about nine tribes of Montagnards. (The full ally compliment: the whole nine yards.) The Current Slang Air Academy issue merely defines as "adv. All the way." No machine gun nor airplane connection indicated. April 1970 Word Watching v. XLV n.4 "A Little Tale With Footnotes" makes use of Air Force Slang James Work gathered. Again, not especially air force embedded usage. "The whole nine yards [note: "the entire thing"] would really be numbah ten if he augered and bought the farm...." 1972 Strawberry Soldier by and about a Special Forces, not USAF, vet, p18, about the decorations on his uniform, several named, altogether, "the whole nine yards." Why focus on machine guns when the earliest book has a special sense of 'yards? Stephen Goranson From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 12:34:12 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 04:34:12 -0800 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: Jesse, I don't believe that "TWNY" was current at all in WWII. I was just trying to cover all bases. Your point about "blivit" is well taken, but every case is different. A '40s "TWNY" cite is always hypothetically possible, with or without an accompanying ribald explanation. There's simply no reason, IMO, to believe such a cite exists. The mid-sixties printed appearance of "TWNY" makes me think the phrase originated effectively within the previous ten years. Another SWAG. JL Jesse Sheidlower wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Jesse Sheidlower Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:51:59PM -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > > The only explanation I can think of for a putative > decades-long delay in getting an idiom like this into print, > had it really been common in some branch of the military or > elsewhere, would be if it had some obscene > connotations. One thing unaddressed in this note, Jon, is the possibility of a _non_-decades long delay with the same proposed etymology. This most recent thread has focused on the possibility that _whole nine yards_ is a WWII-era term in reference to the length of ammo belts. If the expression really did arise in the Vietnam War, then that would take care of the age issue. It arose, let's say, very early in the war, it made it into a small number of publications (_Doom Pussy_, the AF Academy glossary in _Current Slang_), it didn't spread until after the war when vets returned.... Not that this solves the bigger problem, i.e. of total lack of evidence for ammo being measured in yards. But I'm not sure I buy the 'obscene' explanation. Apart from _snafu_, a better example might be _blivit_, another obscure number-based term from WWII--and this was found, with its obscene explanation, before the end of the 1940s. _whole nine yards_ would have to be _really_ obscene for its obscenity to be the reason for its nonappearance for two decades post-WWII, if it truly had been common then. Jesse Sheidlower OED --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 12:36:38 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 04:36:38 -0800 Subject: Fwd: I'm done my homework Message-ID: Weird. JL "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky" Subject: Fwd: I'm done my homework ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- an exchange between a grad student and me: >> Have you heard this? >> >> I'm done my homework. > > no. > >> Made me go "ugggh" but apparently it's pretty popular on the East >> Coast. > > do some googling, and you'll see it's all over: > ------ > Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 21:26:23 -0600 > Reply-To: Constructed Languages List > Sender: Constructed Languages List > From: Scotto Hlad > Subject: Re: bless (adj) > In-Reply-To: <412B94BE.7020408 at wantage.com> > > This all reminds me of a phrase that I hear here in western Canada. > North > American English speaker use 'done' to also mean 'finished' eg. I'm > done > with my homework. Where I live, the 'with' is disappearing. I hear it > everywhere, "When you're done your lunch break..." "Dad, I'm done my > homework" etc. Even the teachers in the schools say it. > ----- have we discussed this already? arnold --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 12:54:24 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 04:54:24 -0800 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: We've been focusing on WWII because the recent "MG belt" theory has become so popular and just interesting enough to warrant exploration. "The whole nine Montagnards"? Surely this is too ingenious. "All nine" would be the natural way to refer to a collection of separate items. "The whole nine" suggests a solid mass of something. (This is another strike against the "MG belt" theory, BTW.) And wouldn't "all nine tribes" be even more idiomatic than "all nine Yards"? I think Yards/yards is a coincidence. JL Stephen Goranson wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Stephen Goranson Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps recall that the earliest available uses are not related to machine guns. Nor, really, especially related operations of the Air Force. 1968 (written 1967 in Vietnam) The Doom Pussy: "Most Americans enjoyed getting the full nine yards that is included in the French barber's repertoire."(p.161/140pb) "God. The first thing in the early pearly morning and the last thing at night. Beds all over the gahdam house [of a woman back home]." (p173/150 pb) The same book discusses Montagnards, called yards. And in I Corps area R.L. Mole was teaching GIs about nine tribes of Montagnards. (The full ally compliment: the whole nine yards.) The Current Slang Air Academy issue merely defines as "adv. All the way." No machine gun nor airplane connection indicated. April 1970 Word Watching v. XLV n.4 "A Little Tale With Footnotes" makes use of Air Force Slang James Work gathered. Again, not especially air force embedded usage. "The whole nine yards [note: "the entire thing"] would really be numbah ten if he augered and bought the farm...." 1972 Strawberry Soldier by and about a Special Forces, not USAF, vet, p18, about the decorations on his uniform, several named, altogether, "the whole nine yards." Why focus on machine guns when the earliest book has a special sense of 'yards? Stephen Goranson --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. From goranson at DUKE.EDU Mon Nov 1 13:14:06 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 08:14:06 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: <200411011254.iA1CsUdN003875@gibson.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: Too ingenious? Must speakers have conceived them (tribes with members) as "items," then use "all"? (Did they know and follow your rules?) I already provided a parallel phrase from a translation of Machiavelli, The Art of War, "the whole ten Companies"? Is that, too, too ingenious, for you, to exist? Coincidence is a possibility to consider. Coincidence, in the sense of meaningful relation in time and space and cause, may also be worth considering. This explanation would help explain how the origin, coining, became obscure, I suggest, when used in contexts removed from that coinciding. Stephen Goranson Quoting Jonathan Lighter : > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > > We've been focusing on WWII because the recent "MG belt" theory has become so > popular and just interesting enough to warrant exploration. > > "The whole nine Montagnards"? Surely this is too ingenious. "All nine" > would be the natural way to refer to a collection of separate items. "The > whole nine" suggests a solid mass of something. (This is another strike > against the "MG belt" theory, BTW.) And wouldn't "all nine tribes" be even > more idiomatic than "all nine Yards"? > > I think Yards/yards is a coincidence. > > JL From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 1 15:48:12 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 09:48:12 -0600 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: I first heard this phrase 10-15 years ago from active-duty military that I work with. Since then I've seen it a few times in civilian / general usage. It shows up here: http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/787868.html?mkey=1483175 (the Nov 1 2004 of the comic strip "Everybody Drunk but Me"). I don't find it in the OED. If you are "good to go", you are prepared, you have done everything you need to do to go to the next step. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 16:12:06 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 08:12:06 -0800 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: I first heard this during TV coverage of Operation Desert Shield in late 1990. It's become very common on TV and in real life. Seems to be a blend of "We're good" (recent colloq. for "we're fine") and "We're ready to go." JL "Mullins, Bill" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Mullins, Bill" Subject: "good to go" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I first heard this phrase 10-15 years ago from active-duty military that I work with. Since then I've seen it a few times in civilian / general usage. It shows up here: http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/787868.html?mkey=1483175 (the Nov 1 2004 of the comic strip "Everybody Drunk but Me"). I don't find it in the OED. If you are "good to go", you are prepared, you have done everything you need to do to go to the next step. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Nov 1 17:43:44 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 09:43:44 -0800 Subject: "good to go" In-Reply-To: <20041101161206.70467.qmail@web53910.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Nov 1, 2004, at 8:12 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > I first heard this during TV coverage of Operation Desert Shield in > late 1990. It's become very common on TV and in real life. > > Seems to be a blend of "We're good" (recent colloq. for "we're fine") > and "We're ready to go." or possibly an extension of the impersonal "It's good (for us) to go" 'It's fine (for us) to go; we're ready to go; we should go' to the personal "We're good to go" (with a similar range of meanings). similar shifts have been taking place in english for centuries. on a related topic: i had the very strong impression that this shift had also taken place (for some speakers) for some second verbs other than "go", in particular "talk". that is, i thought that in addition to "It's good to talk" 'Talking is good' (as in the title of deborah cameron's book Good to Talk?), i'd heard "I'm good to talk" 'I'm ready to talk' and similar things. but a google search on "good to talk" -to (designed to filter out the pretty common "good to talk to") got no hits at all, web or groups. so maybe it was all an illusion. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From lvonschn at WISC.EDU Mon Nov 1 19:13:16 2004 From: lvonschn at WISC.EDU (Luanne von Schneidemesser) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 13:13:16 -0600 Subject: DARE queries Message-ID: Dear all, We have posted another set of queries to our website. Please take a look; see if you can help us. Thanks. Luanne Luanne von Schneidemesser Senior Editor Dictionary of American Regional English University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park St., 6129 H.C. White Hall Madison WI 53706 phone 608 265-0532, 233-3051; fax 608 263-3817 http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 19:10:31 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 11:10:31 -0800 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: Have never noticed "I'm good to talk," but if I had, presumably I'd have interpreted it to mean "I'm ready to talk," under the influence of "good to go," or maybe "I'm (now) able to talk." "Are you good to talk now?" ("Is this a good time for you to talk?") Gee, I can almost drug myself into believing I HAVE heard it. But consciously I haven't. JL "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky" Subject: Re: "good to go" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Nov 1, 2004, at 8:12 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > I first heard this during TV coverage of Operation Desert Shield in > late 1990. It's become very common on TV and in real life. > > Seems to be a blend of "We're good" (recent colloq. for "we're fine") > and "We're ready to go." or possibly an extension of the impersonal "It's good (for us) to go" 'It's fine (for us) to go; we're ready to go; we should go' to the personal "We're good to go" (with a similar range of meanings). similar shifts have been taking place in english for centuries. on a related topic: i had the very strong impression that this shift had also taken place (for some speakers) for some second verbs other than "go", in particular "talk". that is, i thought that in addition to "It's good to talk" 'Talking is good' (as in the title of deborah cameron's book Good to Talk?), i'd heard "I'm good to talk" 'I'm ready to talk' and similar things. but a google search on "good to talk" -to (designed to filter out the pretty common "good to talk to") got no hits at all, web or groups. so maybe it was all an illusion. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. - www.yahoo.com/a From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 1 20:19:26 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 14:19:26 -0600 Subject: snipe Message-ID: A recent usage of the snipe comes from the auction site eBay. To "snipe" there is to place a bid at the very last possible opportunity, such that no one can respond to it before the auction ends. It probably arose there from the sense "to pick off". The component of the word that means "last second" isn't in the OED (don't have any of the other major dictionaries), but it seems to be migrating. See here: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_11_00.shtml#1099323088 where one lecturer has been sniped in that another lecture was concurrently scheduled (at the last minute) in order to divert attendees and attention from his own lecture. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 1 22:38:05 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 16:38:05 -0600 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: There is a 1986 movie titled "Good to Go", but apparently it has something to do with Go-Go music. It also stars Art Garfunkel, so odds are it is a real snoozer. "This Time, 'Good to Go' Is American Battle Cry" By JOHN KIFNER Special to The New York Times New York Times (1857-Current file); Feb 3, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times pg. 15 "Thus far in the Persian Gulf war, the comparable phrase is the far more bouyant "good to go." The phrase means "ready and eager," and to American officers the difference is cause for optimism." From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Nov 1 22:38:32 2004 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 16:38:32 -0600 Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic "Yess!!" ---------------------------------------- The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. ======================================== From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 23:00:09 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 15:00:09 -0800 Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: Am not aware it has a name. I'd call it something like, "that gesture of intense glee where you go [visual demonstration] 'YESS.' " If I've seen it called anything at all (not sure if I have), I suspect it was "a victory gesture" of some kind. It was popularized in sports in the late '80s or early '90s: very vague on dates here, but I know I never knew about it before then, at the earliest. JL "Joyce, Thomas F." wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Joyce, Thomas F." Subject: What is that gesture called? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic "Yess!!" ---------------------------------------- The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. ======================================== __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 1 23:03:32 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 17:03:32 -0600 Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: The earliest hard date I could put on it would be 1990, when the move "Home Alone" came out. > -----Original Message----- > From: Jonathan Lighter [mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM] > Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 5:00 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: What is that gesture called? > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: What is that gesture called? > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Am not aware it has a name. I'd call it something like, > "that gesture of intense glee where you go [visual > demonstration] 'YESS.' " > > If I've seen it called anything at all (not sure if I have), > I suspect it was "a victory gesture" of some kind. > > It was popularized in sports in the late '80s or early '90s: > very vague on dates here, but I know I never knew about it > before then, at the earliest. > > JL From douglas at NB.NET Mon Nov 1 23:09:26 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 18:09:26 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: <20041101230009.41122.qmail@web53904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: "Arm pumping [gesture]", in my limited experience. -- Doug Wilson From gorion at GMAIL.COM Mon Nov 1 23:12:47 2004 From: gorion at GMAIL.COM (Orion Montoya) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 18:12:47 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: <-9218475712950130033@unknownmsgid> Message-ID: I've generally seen it called "pumping one's fist", though I don't know that the phrase necessarily extends to the accompanying exclamation. A google for "pump fist" yields many sales of autographed photographs of fist-pumping athletes. O. > > Am not aware it has a name. I'd call it something like, > > "that gesture of intense glee where you go [visual > > demonstration] 'YESS.' " From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Nov 1 23:53:55 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 18:53:55 EST Subject: Alert: Site of Annual Meeting 2005 Message-ID: To those planning to attend the ADS Annual Meeting in January: There's a hotel strike in San Francisco affecting the LSA hotel, the Hyatt Regency downtown. There's a possibility, therefore, that the meeting may be moved to another location in the San Francisco Bay area. If you have not made your reservations yet (see the LSA website for details), you might want to hold off for just a little while. As soon as LSA lets us know of any possible changes, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, here are some news sites recommended by the people at LSA headquarters for the latest on the strike: www.sfgate.com or www.kcbs.com - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Nov 2 01:40:30 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:40:30 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic >"Yess!!" ~~~~~~~~~~ I don't know what light it might throw on the term for it, but one application of this gesture used to be seen in street demos where there were signs "Honk for ______" ("Choice," as it might be, or "Peace.") Semi drivers operating their air horns apparently with some overhead apparatus made the gesture &/or we would prompt them to with the gesture. The double pump went with the expression "Hubba hubba!" back in the '40s, according to my husband, especially in sports contexts. A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 2 02:15:32 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 21:15:32 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: <29d6fbaf041101151258d72a22@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Maybe "fist pump"? That out-hits "pump fist" by 1000 or so on google, and it seems more in accord with English nominal compounding patterns. Of course, that still doesn't bring in the accompanying "Yesssss", which in turn (although its co-occurrrence with the fist pump is indeed associated with "Home Alone") evokes Marv Albert's calls for baskets on Knicks' and other NBA broadcasts. Larry At 6:12 PM -0500 11/1/04, Orion Montoya wrote: >I've generally seen it called "pumping one's fist", though I don't >know that the phrase necessarily extends to the accompanying >exclamation. > >A google for "pump fist" yields many sales of autographed photographs >of fist-pumping athletes. > >O. > > > > Am not aware it has a name. I'd call it something like, >> > "that gesture of intense glee where you go [visual >> > demonstration] 'YESS.' " From shollis at COMCAST.NET Tue Nov 2 02:12:31 2004 From: shollis at COMCAST.NET (Steve Hollis) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:12:31 -0600 Subject: terminology question Message-ID: Greetings, I subscribed to this list in hopes of finding out some information. I am having a little trouble in some research and I believe it is because I don't know the correct terminology. I am looking for the correct vocabulary to describe people changing dialects due to changing social groups. For example, when I go to visit my parents in rural Alabama, my accent deepens and I speak with a more rural dialect. Is a dialect shift what I am looking for? Any articles that explains this phenomenon would be most helpful. Thank you all in advance for your time. From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Tue Nov 2 02:54:57 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 21:54:57 -0500 Subject: Fw: New revision of report on the word SCRUMP Message-ID: Edward GatesForwarding to ADS-L ----- Original Message ----- From: Edward Gates To: T. Paikeday Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 1:00 PM Subject: New revision of report on the word SCRUMP Tom-- Recently I encountered an unfamiliar word in the cartoon "Fred Basset" (printed on p. E7 of the Springfield, Mass., Republican for 18 October 2004). In the first frame, the dog Fred Basset says or thinks "There's nothing like a scrumped apple." In the second frame, it is polishing off an apple on the ground. The word "scrumped" was completely unfamiliar to me. There is an entry in W3 for "scrump", but it doesn't fit the use in the cartoon. I did Google searches in the Web and News and found two definitions and some uses and discussion of the word. It seems to be British. It is described in one dictionary entry as "UK Old-fashioned. Informal. Steal fruit (as apples) from trees." In one chat room people discuss "scrumping" apples and other fruit from orchards, and also "scrumping" scaffolding signs (I think we would call them billboard signs), and cars. One use in the News search is in Grist Magazine (online) for 5 Oct. 2004. in an article "Norwegian Wood" by Lissa Harris. There it has yet another meaning. The article is about a young man and woman in Norway who exploit sex to raise money for environmental protection: It must be noted that what Fuck the Forest lacks in glitzy production it makes up for its sheer joie de vivre. "The two of them (and the occasional friends from Sweden and Germany and the like) scrump with the energy, enthusiasm, and disregard for social convention that makes being a young twentysomething so much fun," [Jamais] Cascio wrote [in an e-mail to the author]. "They are actually relatively attractive, in a will-fuck-for-spare-pot kind of way." For this meaning, a Web search later turned up the following: UrbanDictionary.com/Scrump ... (v.) Any action of or relating to sexual arousal through physical contact. "So did you two do it?" "No, we just kinda scrumped all night.". ... It scrumped itself! ... www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scrump - 14k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages UrbanDictionary.com/Scrump ... 2. n. l337 RS player that pwns you all on GSA. The girl was hot, so I scrumped her. ... "So did you two do it?" "No, we just kinda scrumped all night.". ... www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scrump&b=1 - 14k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages [ More results from www.urbandictionary.com ] "Scrump" as the name of a music group may relate to this meaning. The cartoon may be British; it is distributed by Atlantic Syndication/Universal Press Syndicate, and on a later day showed a car with the steering wheel on the right. The chat room discussion is British and perhaps Australian. One writer says he or she has heard the word only in Essex. Jamais Cascio has a column in a British newspaper. I haven't discovered the location of the Urban Dictionary. My curiosity led me on quite a chase. Ed From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 2 03:41:21 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:41:21 -0500 Subject: terminology question In-Reply-To: <4186ED0F.8040005@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 08:12:31PM -0600, Steve Hollis wrote: > Greetings, > > I subscribed to this list in hopes of finding out some information. I > am having a little trouble in some research and I believe it is because > I don't know the correct terminology. > > I am looking for the correct vocabulary to describe people changing > dialects due to changing social groups. For example, when I go to visit > my parents in rural Alabama, my accent deepens and I speak with a more > rural dialect. Is a dialect shift what I am looking for? If you're doing this deliberately, based on circumstances, the usual term would be "code-switching". Jesse Sheidlower From shollis at COMCAST.NET Tue Nov 2 04:03:15 2004 From: shollis at COMCAST.NET (Steve Hollis) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:03:15 -0600 Subject: terminology question Message-ID: Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >If you're doing this deliberately, based on circumstances, the >usual term would be "code-switching". > >Jesse Sheidlower > > > I thought that, andIdid try to do some searching for code-shifting, but everything I found was switching two different languages didn't seem to address dialects, I didn't try code-switching, and I will give that a try. Thank you. From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Nov 2 04:13:31 2004 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:13:31 -0600 Subject: terminology question Message-ID: Code-switching can refer to shifts between 2 or more languages or dialects. Style-shifting would be another alternative for intra-dialect variation. You might also look at the literature on dialect accomodation, which usually deals with adopting features of a dialect that is not your native one. -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Steve Hollis Sent: Mon 11/1/2004 10:03 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: terminology question Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >If you're doing this deliberately, based on circumstances, the >usual term would be "code-switching". > >Jesse Sheidlower > > > I thought that, andIdid try to do some searching for code-shifting, but everything I found was switching two different languages didn't seem to address dialects, I didn't try code-switching, and I will give that a try. Thank you. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 2 04:18:00 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 23:18:00 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Goranson" To: Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 3:52 AM Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] > Perhaps recall that the earliest available uses are not related to machine > guns. Nor, really, especially related operations of the Air Force. > > 1968 (written 1967 in Vietnam) The Doom Pussy: > "Most Americans enjoyed getting the full nine yards that is > included in the French barber's repertoire."(p.161/140pb) > "God. The first thing in the early pearly morning and the last thing at night. > Beds all over the gahdam house [of a woman back home]." (p173/150 pb) > The same book discusses Montagnards, called yards. And in I Corps area R.L. > Mole was teaching GIs about nine tribes of Montagnards. (The full ally > compliment: the whole nine yards.) > > The Current Slang Air Academy issue merely defines as "adv. All the way." No > machine gun nor airplane connection indicated. > > April 1970 Word Watching v. XLV n.4 "A Little Tale With Footnotes" makes use of > Air Force Slang James Work gathered. Again, not especially air force embedded > usage. "The whole nine yards [note: "the entire thing"] would really be numbah > ten if he augered and bought the farm...." > > 1972 Strawberry Soldier by and about a Special Forces, not USAF, vet, p18, > about the decorations on his uniform, several named, altogether, "the whole > nine yards." > > Why focus on machine guns when the earliest book has a special sense of 'yards? > > Stephen Goranson > While the earliest use is Doom Pussy(1967), the second earliest cite is from " a 1968 cite in one of the _Current Slang_ volumes, from the U.S. Air Force Academy" (courtesy of a previous post on ADS by Jesse Sheidlower). And the third oldest cite is about apartments in Ft. Walton Beach, FL.--home of Elgin Air Force Base. [1969 _Playground Daily News_ (Fort Walton Beach, Fla.) 25 Apr. 15 (advertisement) This home has the "whole nine yards" in convenience.] courtesey of Fred Shapiro. The Air Force origin is inescapable. Sam Clements From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 2 04:44:38 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 23:44:38 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: <20041101125424.66791.qmail@web53908.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >"All nine" would be the natural way to refer to a collection of separate >items. That's what I think too, but after a little database browsing I'm a little less positive. I find "the whole five men" to be unnatural, for example, but it turns out this type of construction occurs -- although not with great frequency -- here and there in the routine newspapers for example. >"The whole nine" suggests a solid mass of something. (This is another >strike against the "MG belt" theory, BTW.) I disagree with the BTW. I think "the whole nine yards of ammo" is more natural than "all nine yards of ammo" particularly if the yards can be subdivided (which they can). I would prefer "all 400 rounds" rather than "the whole 400 rounds" however. None of these strikes me as grammatically impossible. -- Doug Wilson From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 2 05:33:57 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 00:33:57 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 1, 2004, at 11:44 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence > [addendum] > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> "All nine" would be the natural way to refer to a collection of >> separate >> items. > > That's what I think too, but after a little database browsing I'm a > little > less positive. I find "the whole five men" to be unnatural, for > example, > but it turns out this type of construction occurs -- although not with > great frequency -- here and there in the routine newspapers for > example. > >> "The whole nine" suggests a solid mass of something. (This is another >> strike against the "MG belt" theory, BTW.) > > I disagree with the BTW. I think "the whole nine yards of ammo" is more > natural than "all nine yards of ammo" particularly if the yards can be > subdivided (which they can). I would prefer "all 400 rounds" rather > than > "the whole 400 rounds" however. None of these strikes me as > grammatically > impossible. > > -- Doug Wilson > Has anyone yet shown that ammunition of any given caliber is or was measured in yards of belting, as opposed to its being measured by the number of rounds in a container, whether the container holds loose rounds or belted rounds, regardless of the length of the belt, either officially or unofficially, in any branch of service whatsoever at any time whatsoever? -Wilson Gray From goranson at DUKE.EDU Tue Nov 2 09:24:00 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 04:24:00 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: Some apparently think machine gun belts are still worthy of consideration. Sam Clemens wrote that "The Air Force origin is inescapable" after I wrote: > > Perhaps recall that the earliest available uses are not related to machine > > guns. Nor, really, especially related [to] operations of the Air Force. Though it is true that the earliest two uses were dialogue of a semi-fictionalized Air Force pilot character named Smash [Crandell, really Chandler, now deceased], and that some later uses have Air Force tradents, it remains that all early uses lack association with machine gun belts or any other specifically Air Force operation. Jim Morris, the 1972 Special Forces vet author, had read Doom Pussy. James Work's AF sources flew different planes; the 1970 source includes "...the whole smash..." in note 45, a gloss on our phrase, suggesting another reader of the 1968 book. Basically, later references, so far presented, add little helpful information. So we're back to the book and 1967 Vietnam, where an officer taught about nine tribes of Montagnards, called by some yards. Montagnards are a subject of the book; photographs are included; and the odd or silly, and to some offensive (perhaps source of resistance?), name "yards" is used. This confluence of evidence may not yet constitute proof, but is it curious that some might feature that it does not pass machine gun belts? Stephen Goranson From goranson at DUKE.EDU Tue Nov 2 09:31:10 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 04:31:10 -0500 Subject: typo and PS Re: "Whole nine yards" ... In-Reply-To: <200411020924.iA29O2nR024289@heinlein.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: I typed "Clemens" for Clements; sorry. Stephen Goranson P.S. Though "Smash" was Air Force, Elaine Shepard, the author, after all, was not. From mlee303 at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 2 09:42:04 2004 From: mlee303 at YAHOO.COM (Margaret Lee) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 01:42:04 -0800 Subject: Call for Nominations: Presidential Honorary Memberships In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Allan, When is the deadline for the nominations? Margaret Lee AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: This notice is for members of the American Dialect Society: President Michael Montgomery invites nominations of students for three Presidential Honorary Memberships, to be awarded at our Annual Meeting in January for the 2005-08 term. Presidential Honorary Members are guests at our Annual Luncheon, and more importantly receive complimentary membership in ADS for four years. The aim of the awards is to encourage interest and participation of our best prospects. Any ADS member may nominate a student, graduate or undergraduate, who shows outstanding aptitude for and interest in our field. There is no application form. Instead, send a message detailing the nominee's qualifications, together with supporting materials if you wish, to Montgomery at ullans at yahoo.com. You are welcome to send a preliminary inquiry. His postal address, if you prefer that, is Department of English, University of South Carolina, Columbia SC 29208. - Allan Metcalf, ADS Executive Secretary Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D. Professor of English & Linguistics and University Editor Department of English Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668 757-727-5769(voice);757-727-5084(fax);757-851-5773(home) margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu or mlee303 at yahoo.com --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com/a From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 2 11:52:44 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 06:52:44 -0500 Subject: terminology question In-Reply-To: <20041102034121.GA15117@panix.com> Message-ID: Jesse, Must "code-switching" be deliberate? When my Wisconsin wife listens to me as we drive South, she says I get hillbillier and hillbiller, but I do this un(in?)deliberately. I don't think this is a common requirement for code-switching. The major distinction in the literature has been between 'situational' versus 'metaphoric.' dInIs >On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 08:12:31PM -0600, Steve Hollis wrote: >> Greetings, >> >> I subscribed to this list in hopes of finding out some information. I >> am having a little trouble in some research and I believe it is because >> I don't know the correct terminology. >> >> I am looking for the correct vocabulary to describe people changing >> dialects due to changing social groups. For example, when I go to visit >> my parents in rural Alabama, my accent deepens and I speak with a more >> rural dialect. Is a dialect shift what I am looking for? > >If you're doing this deliberately, based on circumstances, the >usual term would be "code-switching". > >Jesse Sheidlower -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 13:39:00 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 08:39:00 EST Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: In a message dated Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:40:30 -0500, our sage hen writes > >The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic > >"Yess!!" > ~~~~~~~~~~ > I don't know what light it might throw on the term for it, but one > application of this gesture used to be seen in street demos where there > were signs "Honk for ______" ("Choice," as it might be, or "Peace.") Semi > drivers operating their air horns apparently with some overhead apparatus > made the gesture &/or we would prompt them to with the gesture. If the gesture is made with the clenched fist held so that the fingers are horizontal, then it is a friendly request to a semi-trailer driver to honk his horn. I learned this gesture either in 1966 or 1967 from a college friend. The gesture is made gently---it is a friendly gesture, remember---and there is only a single downward pump, as the truck driver is only going to give a single blast on his horn. There is nothing inherently political to this gesture---it can be made to any semi. Sure, someone in a street demo might make this gesture, but the thought of semi-trailers joining a political street demonstration is rather mind-boggling. Anyway, for obvious reasons of safety, a semi-driver finding a demonstration on the street ahead of him will wither make a detour or call for a police escort. I have a suspicion that the gesture originated not in trucking but in railroading, dating back to the days when all locomotives were steam engines. In a steam engine the engineer has nothing resembling a dashboard in front of him. Instead he has a throttle, a Johnson bar, and the air brake controls in front of him, With the exception of Shays and cab-forwards, he has a very narrow workstation, since the boiler restricts him to a very narrow window looking forward. There is not much space for a whistle button to be placed in front of him, so the whistle control was probably a cord hanging down from the roof of the locomotive cab, said cord running over the top of the boiler to the whistle which was mounted somewhere on top of the boiler. Still, many semi tractors must have an overheard control for the air horn, which is frequently mounted on top of the tractor cab. Linguistic note: the horn on a Diesel locomotive is still called the "whistle" even though Diesel locomotives use an air horn. If all engineers are supposed to blow a whistle at a particular point on the tracks, there will be a sign (called a "whistleboard") by the side of the tracks carrying the letter "W". The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is long long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the crossing. Sometimes you will see by the tracks near a grade crossing a sign with the cryptic inscription - - . - This is of course telling the engineer to sound long long short long. While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen Goranson: Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il Principe", a title best translated into English as "The Ruler". "The Art of War" was by Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.) Aside to Wilson Gray: the Britannica (Fifteenth Edition, volume 3 page 361 article on "Clausewitz") reads: In maintaining that "war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with the admixture of differnt means," he denied that war is an end in itself. - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 13:55:12 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 08:55:12 -0500 Subject: Natino; David Shulman Message-ID: Greetings from Darjeeling. The internet connection here really sucks. India is getting computer outsourcing? When I can't even get a line to send a single e-mail? OT: BHUTAN--I found it a disappointment. Long drives on winding roads the entire day. Miserable cuisine of white rice and bad noodles. Almost nothing to see besides a few dzongs, which you get tired of like you do with the churches. If you've been to Nepal or Tibet or Burma, then Bhutan adds just a little...The country prides itself that it has no lawyers...I haven't seen a traffic light on the trip yet! OT: DARJEELING--The Indian food at the Mayfair Resort here has to be some of the best Indian food I've ever tasted...Visited a tea garden today...Also visited a Tibetan refugee center. There's a hunger strike going on today because China killed a Tibetan monk. NATINO/NOTINO--Jon Stewart's THE DAILY SHOW (available on CNN International) had John Kerry and George Bush's Spanish sound bites. Stewart then called them Natinos or Notinos--Not Latinos. Does this have any currency? DARJEELING FEELING--Not used for diarrhea. "Delhi belly" is used here. DRESSED CHICKEN--Seen all over. No "fried" chicken here? No "naked" chicken, either? OUT MEAL AVAILABLE--Seen on a sign. I guess that's takeout. FOODING AVAILABLE HERE--Another sign. MAY (YOU) CLIMB FROM PEAK TO PEAK--Motto of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute here. I don't know if Fred Shapiro is interested in collecting this. BHUTANESE GOLF--Archery. HIMALAYAN RECIPES INNER WHEEL CLUB OF DARJEELING The only local book available for sale here. I'll go through it when I return. DAVID SHULMAN--Before he died, he told me that he has a safety deposit box that has some rare coins. Perhaps Sam Clements can value tham. Before I left, he had a new pacemaker put in. I told him to take it slowly until I return. I knew that he was weak, but I didn't expect him to die on me. David Shulman's contributions are many. He debunked OED's 1909 citation for "jazz." (That citation is from 1919.) He found "hot dog" from 1896, which was the best anyone had found. He did some work on the Great White Way and the Big Apple that I also used. Shulman's donation of his entire collection of cryptography books to the New York Public Library was way too generous. He did a lot for the NYPL--showed up almost every day for fifty years--and got little in return. He noted that Eric Partridge was honored by a chair somewhere in the British National Library. The NYPL should honor Shulman somewhere--if it cares about the people who use its resources at all. There's a space on www.nypl.org where you can "Tell your library story." If anyone wants to honor Dave, mention his name here. He wanted to do a book on daredevil Brooklyn Bridge jumper Steve Brodie. I was approached by a book agent at the party for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. The agent specializes in NYC books. Perhaps I'll finish the book inhis memory. From goranson at DUKE.EDU Tue Nov 2 14:06:56 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:06:56 -0500 Subject: Machiavelli (was Re: What is that gesture called?) In-Reply-To: <200411021339.iA2DdDM4019502@ballard.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: Niccolo Machiavelli published his Arte della guera in his own lifetime, in Florence, in 1521. I quoted from the Ellis Farnewoth translation. Stephen Goranson Quoting "James A. Landau" : > While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen Goranson: > Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il Principe", > a > title best translated into English as "The Ruler". "The Art of War" was by > Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.) From slang at ABECEDARY.NET Tue Nov 2 14:08:37 2004 From: slang at ABECEDARY.NET (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:08:37 -0000 Subject: Natino; David Shulman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Shulman's donation of his entire collection of cryptography books to the > New York Public Library was way too generous. He did a lot for the > NYPL--showed up almost every day for fifty years--and got little in > return. He noted that Eric Partridge was honored by a chair somewhere in > the British National Library. The NYPL should honor Shulman > somewhere--if it cares about the people who use its resources at all. Partridge, another longterm library man, did indeed sit in the same seat, K1, in the British Museum Reading Room (later British Library) for several decades. But he was never honoured and in the revamped Reading Room (the Library as many members will know has departed to a new site on Euston Road) the seat and the row of desks to which it belonged have been removed. Indeed, such existence as Partridge still has is less honour than dishonour. The old shelves are now filled with a supposedly representative selection of the works of well-known Reading Room users. Partridge is there, but represented only by two or three late edition paperbacks of minor works; his magna opera - the dictionaries of slang and of the underworld - are not on offer. Other authors appear to be (mis-)treated in a similar manner. The Reading Room, once a monument of scholarship, now resmbles nothing more than a third-rate second-hand bookstore. Jonathon Green From goranson at DUKE.EDU Tue Nov 2 14:08:47 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:08:47 -0500 Subject: Machiavelli (was Re: What is that gesture called?) In-Reply-To: <200411021406.iA2E6xBI009380@ballard.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: typo: guerra quoting Stephen Goranson : > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Stephen Goranson > Subject: Machiavelli (was Re: What is that gesture called?) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > > Niccolo Machiavelli published his Arte della guera in his own lifetime, in > Florence, in 1521. I quoted from the Ellis Farnewoth translation. > > Stephen Goranson > Quoting "James A. Landau" : > > > > While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen Goranson: > > Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il > Principe", > > a > > title best translated into English as "The Ruler". "The Art of War" was > by > > Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.) > From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 2 14:43:23 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:43:23 -0500 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: Bill Mullins wrote: > There is a 1986 movie titled "Good to Go", but apparently it has something > to do with Go-Go music. It also stars Art Garfunkel, so odds are it is a > real snoozer. > > "This Time, 'Good to Go' Is American Battle Cry" > By JOHN KIFNER Special to The New York Times > New York Times (1857-Current file); Feb 3, 1991; ProQuest Historical > Newspapers The New York Times > pg. 15 > "Thus far in the Persian Gulf war, the comparable phrase is the far more > bouyant "good to go." The phrase means "ready and eager," and to American > officers the difference is cause for optimism." I wouldn't discount the movie title. Despite the presence of Art Garfunkel, the movie was supposed to introduce the country to "go-go" music, which allmusic.com describes as "a bass-heavy, funky variation of hip-hop that was designed for house parties," originating in Washington, DC in the early to mid-'80s. The soundtrack included a song called "Good to Go" by the group Trouble Funk, which was sampled by many hiphop DJs. The phrase "good to go" appeared in a number of rap songs of the mid-'80s. The earliest example I can find is from LL Cool J's 1985 single, "I Can't Live Without My Radio": "I'm good to go on your radio." The Gulf War usage could very well have originated in hiphop/go-go circles. --Ben Zimmer From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 2 15:05:21 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:05:21 -0500 Subject: terminology question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 06:52:44AM -0500, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > Jesse, > > Must "code-switching" be deliberate? When my Wisconsin wife listens > to me as we drive South, she says I get hillbillier and hillbiller, > but I do this un(in?)deliberately. > > I don't think this is a common requirement for code-switching. The > major distinction in the literature has been between 'situational' > versus 'metaphoric.' I think I was using a highly idiomatic meaning of _deliberately_. My apologies, you're right of course. Jesse Sheidlower From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Nov 2 15:25:39 2004 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 07:25:39 -0800 Subject: "good to go" In-Reply-To: <21751.69.142.143.59.1099406603.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: > The phrase "good to go" appeared in a number of rap songs of the mid-'80s. > The earliest example I can find is from LL Cool J's 1985 single, "I Can't > Live Without My Radio": "I'm good to go on your radio." The Gulf War > usage could very well have originated in hiphop/go-go circles. The phrase was extremely common during my pre-Gulf War Army service, 1985-89. There was certainly no conscious connection to the rap song in its military use. --Dave Wilton dave at wilton.net http://www.wilton.net From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 2 16:26:19 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:26:19 -0600 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: > The > soundtrack included a song called "Good to Go" by the group > Trouble Funk, which was sampled by many hiphop DJs. > > The phrase "good to go" appeared in a number of rap songs of > the mid-'80s. > The earliest example I can find is from LL Cool J's 1985 > single, "I Can't Live Without My Radio": "I'm good to go on > your radio." The Gulf War usage could very well have > originated in hiphop/go-go circles. > --Ben Zimmer Amazon has a dozen or so albums with the title "Good to Go"; most all are from the last 6 years and are urban or hip hop music. If you go through the book search, though, the phrase is much more associated recently with instruction books (program your computer, fix your Harley, seduce a woman -- "Do xxxx, and you're Good to Go!"), and as you move back past the mid-1990's, it becomes more associated with military themes. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 2 16:38:05 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:38:05 -0600 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: Another military phrase -- this one is new to me: "day on stay on" "They have eaten MREs day on stay on." " I worked day-on stay-on , which means that I was on call 24 hours a day, " "This type of assignment is day-on stay-on, meaning that the firefighters will work till the flames are out" Do a Google search for the exact phrase, and most of the initial responses are military related. From indigo at WELL.COM Tue Nov 2 17:17:24 2004 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:17:24 -0800 Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: >The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic >"Yess!!" A number of people have mentioned fist pumping. I think there are 2 different gestures going on here. When I read this original post I visualized that gesture where it's a single pull, close to the middle of your body, often accompanied by a slight hunching over of one's back. Your elbow starts out toward the front of you, about half-bent & ends up completely bent somewhere near your waist. The back of your fist faces outward. I don't have a name for this one. When I think of fist pumping, I think of the gesture where your arm is higher up in the air & your fist is higher than your head. Your arm is to the side of you, not in front, & there are multiple pumps. It's like punching the air. Emphasis on the upstroke, not the downstroke as w/ the first one. It's similar to the truck-horn-request thing, but that one has emphasis on the downstroke. -- Indigo Som indigo at well.com http://www.indigosom.com Poets don't have hobbies; they have obsessions --Leonard Nathan From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 18:38:19 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 13:38:19 -0500 Subject: Call for Nominations: Presidential Honorary Memberships Message-ID: <> Well, Margaret, this is a very informal procedure. The deadline is - whenever the president has chosen three nominees. If he has lots of nominations this time, that will be soon. If not, it might be necessary to issue another call. But the sooner the better, if you have a candidate! Best wishes - Allan From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Nov 2 19:17:17 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 13:17:17 -0600 Subject: David Shulman Message-ID: Dear Mr. Martin, I've just been preparing a tribute to David Shulman for Victoria Neufeldt, who editors the DSNA newsletter (Dictionary Society of North America). It's in draft form, but I'll send you a copy. Best. -- Gerald Cohen P.S. You might get a good quote or two from Jesse Sheidlower (editor, Oxford English Dictionary; e-mail address is jester at panix.com) and Barry Popik (bapopik at aol.com). Barry is currently traveling in Asia but checks his e-mail once a day. > ---------- > From: Douglas Martin > Sent: Tuesday, November 2, 2004 11:09 AM > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard > Subject: shulman > > I am a reporter for The New York Times working on our obit of David Shulman. I would be most interested in your views about his significance. > also any enlightening personal material? examples of his finds? If you can, please e-mail me back or call me at 212-556-1950. Thanks much, Doug Martin > > > > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 2 19:31:07 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 11:31:07 -0800 Subject: NOT A WORD! Message-ID: While I was putting Robert Hartwell Fiske's The Dictionary of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar (2005 -- yes, 205, this book is really on the cutting edge of the time line) onto the shelf, it fell open to a page with an entry for TREPIDACIOUS, which caught my eye because i am an occasional (and proud) user of the word TREPIDATIOUS 'tremblingly reluctant' and took TREPIDACIOUS to be a misspelling of this word, which should have a T because TREPIDATION does. (A quick web Google showed ca. 2,150 hits for TREPIDATIOUS, to 658 for TREPIDACIOUS, and Google asked about the latter if I meant the former. The site wordsmith.org notes the latter spelling and suggests that the word should be spelled with a T "if at all" -- on which, see below.) But no. Fiske's entry declares sternly that *trepidatious* is "solecistic for *fearful* (and similar words)"; he offers *uneasy* and *anxious* as well as *fearful*. A bit of thesaurisizing for the noun *trepidation* provided the following alternatives to *trepidatious*: agitated, alarmed, anxious, apprehensive, dismayed, fearful, frightened, hesitant, reluctant, timid, uneasy. But none of these expresses the shade of meaning I want when I use *trepidatious*; I want the sense of trembling reluctance that *trepidation* conveys. *Trepidatious* is simply a more vivid adjective than all the alternatives (though *apprehensive* comes closest to the effect I want), certainly a better choice than the three blander options that Fiske provides. On the general principle that you should use the best word for your purposes, I choose *trepidatious*. Ah, but Fiske doesn't allow me this choice. He asserts, baldly: "*Trepidacious* is not a word", adding that "*Trepidation*, meaning fear or apprehension, is a word, as as *trepid* (the antonym of the more familiar *intrepid*), meaning timid or fearful." (Yeah, like I'm going to use "trepid". Even Fiske doesn't go so far as to advise that I use "trepid" instead of "trepidatious".) I've been hearing this "not a word" bullshit since I was a kid, usually applied to non-standard "ain't" and taboo "fuck" (neither of which Fiske bothers to inveigh against, undoubtedly because they're so far beyond the pale). It mystified me then, and it angers me now. It's (literally) superhyperbolic, two steps of exaggeration beyond reality, and it's insulting. First, reality (and insult): The admonition that people of taste and refinement should not use X. This is an expression of the admonisher's judgment about linguistic usages, couched as an injunction. It's insulting because the admonisher takes himself to be the arbiter of other people's behavior and brooks no objection that people of taste and refinement do in fact use X. The admonisher knows what's right; it's not a matter for discussion. Well, I'm a person of some taste and refinement (in the appropriate circumstances), and I use "trepidatious". Stop telling me I'm a clumsy ignoramus. A side issue here. I assume that Fiske objects to "trepidatious" because it's a recent innovation: "Even though people use it (horrible to hear, ridiculous to read though it is), no major dictionary, remarkably, has yet included *trepidacious* in its listing." Give them time, Fiske, give them time. The word has a lot going for it, beyond the fact that some careful writers -- like me -- use it. It's an instance of a small but significant pattern in English derivational morphology: words in "-atious" meaning 'inclined to "-ation" '. Ostentatious, flirtatious, disputatious, vexatious. "Trepidatious" is transparent, easily understood. It's a good thing to have. ("Trepid", in contrast, is a dead loser.) But back to superhyperbole. We start with the admonition that people of taste and refinement should not use X. This is exaggerated, elevated to the admonition that people, in general, should not use X; what should govern the behavior of the "best" of us (those are genuine sneer quotes) in certain circumstances should govern the behavior of all of us, all of the time, in all contexts, for all purposes. (What a remarkable lack of nuance! What a divorcement from the complex textures of social life!) As if that weren't enough, it ratchets up, hysterically, one more notch, to the bald assertion that X simply isn't available for use; it's just not part of the social repertoire. My dear, it just isn't done. But if it truly isn't done, then there's no need for the admonitions. Don't tell me there's "no such word". Parade your idiosyncratic prejudices, if you wish, and if your mind is open enough we might be able to talk about the bases of your prejudices (and mine). But don't lie to me about the state of the language. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 2 19:44:01 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:44:01 -0500 Subject: Sad news about David Shulman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: David Shulman was a major contributor to the OED and published a number of good pieces in American Speech. Adriana Orr, the Washington researcher for the OED, once told me that David's slips never needed correcting. I also believe David was a major figure in the bibliography of cryptography. I first met David when I was sitting in the New York Public Library with a dozen or so volumes of the OED strewn about me (remember when the OED was used in print form?). He came over and asked me what I was doing. I then became friendly with him, although after I moved to New Haven I failed to keep up communications. My favorite memory of David involved a ridiculously flawed article about "The Words of Scrabble" published in American Speech in the mid-1980s. The author analyzed the words in the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary and concluded that this lexicon was way ahead of the new-word watchers in Springfield and Oxford in picking up novel vocabulary. I discovered that, in addition to the author's failing to realize that this book was compiled by Merriam-Webster, the author had done a terrible job of checking earlier dictionaries and missed the fact that a lot of the supposedly novel words had previously appeared in Webster's Collegiate. David, employing his characteristic methodicalness and driven by his own strong interest in the game of Scrabble, found that in fact all of the words had appeared in earlier dictionaries and the article author had concocted a theory with absolutely no basis in reality. Both my response and David's were published in American Speech; I wanted to call mine "Scrabble Babble" but Ron Butters wouldn't let me. David adopted a more restrained and gentlemanly tone in his piece. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 2 21:00:27 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 16:00:27 -0500 Subject: "good to go" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 2, 2004, at 11:38 AM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: Re: "good to go" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Another military phrase -- this one is new to me: > > "day on stay on" > > "They have eaten MREs day on stay on." > " I worked day-on stay-on , which means that I was on call 24 hours a > day" If the example immediately above is a military usage, it's changed slightly from my day, 1960 (no surprise there, I guess). I was on guard duty when a Europe-wide alert was sounded. The entire post - Badnerhof Kasern in Heilbronn - suited up, putting on, among other articles of clothing, olive-drab "Mickey-Mouse" boots - and moved off to battle stations. Except for those actively on guard duty (as opposed to those in the guardhouse passively waiting their turn to *go* on guard duty). That was "day-on-stay-on" duty: we stayed behind at our posts until the alert was over, however long that was. Normally, guard duty was two hours on and four hours off over a period of 24 hours. That is, you weren't merely on call. Rather, "day-on-stay-on" meant that, if you were actively carrying out a particular duty, then, under certain circumstances, you were stuck with it for the duration, with no possibility of relief. -Wilson Gray > "This type of assignment is day-on stay-on, meaning that the > firefighters > will work till the flames are out" > > Do a Google search for the exact phrase, and most of the initial > responses > are military related. > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 2 19:02:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:02:10 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 2, 2004, at 8:39 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: What is that gesture called? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a message dated Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:40:30 -0500, our sage hen > writes > >>> The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic >>> "Yess!!" >> ~~~~~~~~~~ >> I don't know what light it might throw on the term for it, but one >> application of this gesture used to be seen in street demos where >> there >> were signs "Honk for ______" ("Choice," as it might be, or "Peace.") >> Semi >> drivers operating their air horns apparently with some overhead >> apparatus >> made the gesture &/or we would prompt them to with the gesture. > > If the gesture is made with the clenched fist held so that the fingers > are > horizontal, then it is a friendly request to a semi-trailer driver to > honk his > horn. I learned this gesture either in 1966 or 1967 from a college > friend. > The gesture is made gently---it is a friendly gesture, remember---and > there is > only a single downward pump, as the truck driver is only going to give > a single > blast on his horn. > > There is nothing inherently political to this gesture---it can be made > to any > semi. Sure, someone in a street demo might make this gesture, but the > thought of semi-trailers joining a political street demonstration is > rather > mind-boggling. Anyway, for obvious reasons of safety, a semi-driver > finding a > demonstration on the street ahead of him will wither make a detour or > call for a > police escort. > > I have a suspicion that the gesture originated not in trucking but in > railroading, dating back to the days when all locomotives were steam > engines. In a > steam engine the engineer has nothing resembling a dashboard in front > of him. > Instead he has a throttle, a Johnson bar, and the air brake controls > in front > of him, With the exception of Shays and cab-forwards, he has a very > narrow > workstation, since the boiler restricts him to a very narrow window > looking > forward. There is not much space for a whistle button to be placed in > front of > him, so the whistle control was probably a cord hanging down from the > roof of > the locomotive cab, said cord running over the top of the boiler to > the whistle > which was mounted somewhere on top of the boiler. > > Still, many semi tractors must have an overheard control for the air > horn, > which is frequently mounted on top of the tractor cab. > > Linguistic note: the horn on a Diesel locomotive is still called the > "whistle" even though Diesel locomotives use an air horn. If all > engineers are > supposed to blow a whistle at a particular point on the tracks, there > will be a > sign (called a "whistleboard") by the side of the tracks carrying the > letter "W". > > The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is > long > long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the > crossing. > Sometimes you will see by the tracks near a grade crossing a sign with > the cryptic > inscription > - > - > . > - > This is of course telling the engineer to sound long long short long. > > While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen > Goranson: > Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il > Principe", a > title best translated into English as "The Ruler". "The Art of War" > was by > Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.) > > Aside to Wilson Gray: the Britannica (Fifteenth Edition, volume 3 page > 361 > article on "Clausewitz") reads: > > In maintaining that "war is nothing but a continuation of political > intercourse with the admixture of different means," he denied that war > is an end in > itself. > > > - Jim Landau > Well, okay. That seems to be an interpretation rather than simply a translation. Nevertheless, I find it fully acceptable as the last word on this point. Thank you for caring, Jim. -Wilson Gray From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Tue Nov 2 21:13:41 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 15:13:41 -0600 Subject: "Flash Crowd" -- another science fiction word in real-world use Message-ID: So why am I a happy camper? We survived an unprecedented triple flash crowd and logged it all. As it turns out, two of the faculty members in my Dept., Maarten van Steen and Guillaume Pierre, are doing research on coping with flash crowds. The research issues include how many replicas to set up, where to place them, how fast to deploy them, and how to do it automatically, in real time, and at minimum cost. To simulate proposed algorithms, you need data about real flash crowds and real attacks, preferably at the same time. http://electoral-vote.com Flash Crowd From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (Redirected from Flash crowd) Flash Crowd was the title of a 1973 short story by the science fiction author Larry Niven, one of a series about the consequences of instantaneous, practically free teleportation booths that could take one anywhere on Earth in milliseconds. One consequence, not predicted by the builders of the system, was that with the almost instantaneous reporting of newsworthy events, tens of thousands of people worldwide would flock to the scene of anything interesting -- along with criminals, hoping to exploit the instant disorder and confusion so created. On the World Wide Web, a similar phenomenon can occur, when some web site catches the attention of a large number of people, and gets an unexpected and overloading surge of traffic: a notorious example is the Slashdot effect. Another similar phenomenon is the Flash mob. Other reading: * "Flash Crowd" is on pages 99-164 of the paperback edition of The Flight of the Horse, copyright 1973 by Larry Niven. The story (or parts of it) was originally published as "Flash Crowd" in Three Trips in Time and Space, copyright 1973 by Robert Silverberg, ed. * "The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club" is on pages 41-52 of the paperback edition of A Hole in Space, copyright 1974 by Larry Niven. * Other stories in this series are in these two books, and in All the Myriad Ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Crowd * This page was last modified 07:36, 19 Sep 2004. -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 2 21:33:58 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 15:33:58 -0600 Subject: "Flash Crowd" -- another science fiction word in real-world use Message-ID: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Dan Goodman > Organization: Self > Subject: "Flash Crowd" -- another science fiction word > in real-world use > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > So why am I a happy camper? We survived an unprecedented > triple flash crowd and logged it all. As it turns out, two of > the faculty members in my Dept., Maarten van Steen and > Guillaume Pierre, are doing research on coping with flash > crowds. The research issues include how many replicas to set > up, where to place them, how fast to deploy them, and how to > do it automatically, in real time, and at minimum cost. To > simulate proposed algorithms, you need data about real flash > crowds and real attacks, preferably at the same time. > http://electoral-vote.com > > Flash Crowd [wikipedia entry follows] > > Another similar phenomenon is the Flash mob. > I hope you send this along to Malcolm Farmer M.J.Farmer at bham.ac.uk at the OED Science Fiction Project http://www.jessesword.com/SF/sf_citations.shtml Neither Flash Crowd nor Flash Mob are listed in their collection of Science Fiction terms, for which they are actively looking for antedates. > On the World Wide Web, a similar phenomenon can occur, when > some web site catches the attention of a large number of > people, and gets an unexpected and overloading surge of > traffic: a notorious example is the Slashdot effect. See also the "Instalanch", which is what happens when the blog www.instapundit.com links to your site. From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 22:01:08 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 17:01:08 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20Sad=20news=20about=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?David=20Shulman?= Message-ID: In a message dated 11/2/04 2:47:35 PM, fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU writes: > Both my response and David's were > published in American Speech; I wanted to call mine "Scrabble Babble" but > Ron Butters wouldn't let me.  David adopted a more restrained and > gentlemanly tone in his piece. > Ah, yes, that gentlemanly old Ron Butters--who is honored to be mentioned in the same paraagraph with David S. From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 22:04:33 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 17:04:33 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20NOT=20A=20WORD!?= Message-ID: In a message dated 11/2/04 2:31:25 PM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes: > > Don't tell me there's "no such word".  Parade your idiosyncratic > prejudices, if you wish, and if your mind is open enough we might be > able to talk about the bases of your prejudices (and mine).  But don't > lie to me about the state of the language. > i agree From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Nov 2 22:37:31 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:37:31 -0800 Subject: NOT A WORD! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, November 2, 2004 11:31 AM -0800 "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote: > But if it truly isn't done, then there's no need for the admonitions. And for that very reason, Fiske's book should provide useful material for some doctoral student a couple of hundred years from now doing a dissertation on early 21st century AE usage. A pity Fiske wasn't around when "trepidation" first crept under the tent of the then doubtless more "pure" English language. He could have nipped it in the bud right there, and we would have been spared the misery of hearing and reading "trepidac/tious" today. But wait, maybe I missed something. Is Fiske saying that "trepidacious" is o.k., if only you eschew the dreaded t when writing it? In which case, problem solved! I suppose we must all have had a reaction similar to Arnold's back in childhood upon hearing that something "isn't a word." The first time I ran into this was when I complained to my 5th-grade teacher that "this sure is drudgerous work." Nonplussed when she laughed and said that the word I had just used "isn't in the dictionary," I asked what word should be used instead (to make an adjective out of "drudgery"), and was told that there simply wasn't a way to do it. I see that even today, "drudgerous" still "isn't in the dictionary" if the dictionary is the AHD4. Naturally I banished the word from my vocabulary after my teacher revealed its nonexistence to me lo those many years ago, but I've always kind of missed it. Peter Mc. ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Tue Nov 2 23:49:44 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 17:49:44 -0600 Subject: Sad news about David Shulman (Scrabble dict. story) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tuesday, November 02, 2004 1:44 PM, Fred Shapiro wrote: . . . . > My favorite memory of David involved a ridiculously flawed > article about > "The Words of Scrabble" published in American Speech in the > mid-1980s. > The author analyzed the words in the Official Scrabble > Player's Dictionary > and concluded that this lexicon was way ahead of the > new-word watchers in > Springfield and Oxford in picking up novel vocabulary. I > discovered that, > in addition to the author's failing to realize that this > book was compiled > by Merriam-Webster, the author had done a terrible job of > checking earlier > dictionaries and missed the fact that a lot of the > supposedly novel words > had previously appeared in Webster's Collegiate. David, > employing his > characteristic methodicalness and driven by his own strong > interest in the > game of Scrabble, found that in fact all of the words had > appeared in > earlier dictionaries and the article author had concocted a > theory with > absolutely no basis in reality. Both my response and David's were > published in American Speech; I wanted to call mine > "Scrabble Babble" but > Ron Butters wouldn't let me. David adopted a more restrained and > gentlemanly tone in his piece. An amazing story. I don't remember reading that article. The fact is that not only is the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary published by M-W, but the dictionary's editors (who are not M-W people) have always followed a policy of entering only words that appear in at least one of the four principal U.S. college dictionaries: M-W's Collegiate, Webster's New World, American Heritage, and Random House. I have never checked, but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a statement to that effect somewhere in the introductory matter of the dictionary. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From AAllan at AOL.COM Wed Nov 3 00:05:57 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:05:57 EST Subject: Update on Annual Meeting arrangements Message-ID: Headquarters at the Linguistic Society agrees with the sentiment that, despite the strike, the 2005 annual meeting should be at the previously agreed time and the previously agreed airline destination - i.e. January 6-9 in the San Francisco Bay Area. A hotel in Oakland now seems the most likely alternative, if the strike isn't settled soon. LSA has this announcement: <> Stand by for further developments! - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary PS. In case you're wondering, ADS is involved in advising LSA, but not in making the arrangements for hotels. As guests of LSA, we rely entirely on them. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 3 01:34:32 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 20:34:32 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? Message-ID: Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") -Wilson Gray From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Nov 3 16:49:39 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:49:39 -0500 Subject: Jeepable; No Spit Zone; BRO road signs Message-ID: Greetings from Sikkim. JEEPABLE--A description on a map here for a road. Someone asked me about this word. QUEEN OF THE HILLS--Nickname for Darjeeling. LITTER AND SPIT FREE ZONE--A sign in Sikkim. BRO ROAD SIGNS--The Border Road Organisation has some wacky signs on the rocks around turns in the mountains here. They're so stupid, I had to collect them all. Here's a few: SPEED THRILLS BUT KILLS. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. HURRY MAKES WORRY. DRIVE DON'T FLY. HASTE MAKES WASTE. ALWAYS EXPECT UNEXPECTED. ON THE BEND GO SLOW FRIEND. THREE ENEMIES OF THE ROAD--LIQUOR, SPEED, AND OVERLOAD. DRIVING FASTER CAN CAUSE DISASTER. THIS IS HIGHWAY, NOT RUNWAY. IT IS NOT A RALLY. ENJOY THE VALLEY. IF MARRIED, DIVORCE SPEED. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 3 17:21:33 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:21:33 -0600 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? Message-ID: I bet the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has something to do with it. > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Slay, ?slayed? > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 > > "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." > > This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" > replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? > (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") > > -Wilson Gray > From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 3 17:34:11 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:34:11 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: <20041103050115.02E59B251D@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Jim Landau wrote: >>>>> The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is long long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the crossing. Sometimes you will see by the tracks near a grade crossing a sign with the cryptic inscription - - . - This is of course telling the engineer to sound long long short long. <<<<< I tried to remember what that means in International Morse Code, but before my mind popped up with the answer ("Q") I got a musical hit*: the theme from what I think of as the Death March, which I remember singing as a child to the words "Where will we be in a hundred years from now?" * as in using a search engine -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 3 17:40:43 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:40:43 -0500 Subject: NOT A WORD! In-Reply-To: <20041103050115.02E59B251D@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Arnold writes: >>>>> While I was putting Robert Hartwell Fiske's The Dictionary of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar (2005 -- yes, 205, this book is really on the cutting edge of the time line) onto the shelf, it fell open to a page with an entry for TREPIDACIOUS, which caught my eye because i am an occasional (and proud) user of the word TREPIDATIOUS 'tremblingly reluctant' and took TREPIDACIOUS to be a misspelling of this word, which should have a T because TREPIDATION does. [...] <<<<< Arnold is either having a bad day or having a good day; the latter, I hope. Traditional capitalization! On the point: well said, Arnold! -- Mark [I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is perfect.] From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Nov 3 18:25:08 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:25:08 -0800 Subject: NOT A WORD! In-Reply-To: <20041103123943.H6745@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 3, 2004, at 9:40 AM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > Arnold writes: >>>>>> > > While I was putting Robert Hartwell Fiske's The Dictionary of > Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly > Correct Grammar... > <<<<< > > Arnold is either having a bad day or having a good day; the latter, I > hope. > Traditional capitalization! i was contemplating passing a version of this on to Language Log (and still am), so i took the trouble to use traditional capitalization from the start. next comes html-ization. (and correction of typos.) > On the point: well said, Arnold! thank you, mark. as for the day, i'm tempted to say that it was the best of days, it was the worst of days, but that would be rather over the top. i certainly was *annoyed*. arnold From jparish at SIUE.EDU Wed Nov 3 18:31:30 2004 From: jparish at SIUE.EDU (Jim Parish) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:31:30 -0600 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: <200411031721.iA3HLgZW007063@mx2.isg.siue.edu> Message-ID: To be specific: there is an episode of BtVS in which Buffy is talking to her friends about a vampire which she "slayed - or is it slew?"; Giles, the librarian, passing nearby, replies, "Both are correct." Jim Parish Quoting "Mullins, Bill" : > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > > I bet the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has something to do with it. > > > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Wilson Gray > > Subject: Slay, ?slayed? > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > ----------------- > > > > Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 > > > > "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." > > > > This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" > > replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? > > (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") > > > > -Wilson Gray > > > ------------------------------------------------- SIUE Web Mail From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 3 21:22:34 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 16:22:34 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" - from 1996 and it agrees with Giles, except that it specifies that "slayed" is grammatical only in figurative uses, such as, e.g. "... slayed his rivals [in a rapping contest]" vs., e.g. "... slew his rivals [on the battlefield]." Therefore, Giles is close, but gets no cigar, since Buffy literally slew the vampire. At this point, I'm going to drop back five and punt. -Wilson Gray On Nov 3, 2004, at 1:31 PM, Jim Parish wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jim Parish > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > To be specific: there is an episode of BtVS in which Buffy is talking > to > her friends about a vampire which she "slayed - or is it slew?"; Giles, > the librarian, passing nearby, replies, "Both are correct." > > Jim Parish > > Quoting "Mullins, Bill" : > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >> Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> ------- > -- >> >> I bet the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has something to do with >> it. >> >> >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Wilson Gray >>> Subject: Slay, ?slayed? >>> -------------------------------------------------------------- >>> ----------------- >>> >>> Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 >>> >>> "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." >>> >>> This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" >>> replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? >>> (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") >>> >>> -Wilson Gray >>> >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------- > SIUE Web Mail > From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Nov 3 21:38:19 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 13:38:19 -0800 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? and I'm done my homework Message-ID: When I voted a few days ago, I noticed this odd phrase "... you vote this ballot..." For me, it must be '..vote on this ballot' What I saw would be acceptable only if one meant a round of voting--then I could say 'vote this ballot.'' Otherwise 'on.' Fritz >>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/02/04 05:34PM >>> Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") -Wilson Gray From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Nov 3 21:46:12 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 16:46:12 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: <7A7347E0-2DDE-11D9-801E-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 04:22:34PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" [...] Now, now. We all know that "Webster's" is generic, but of the various versions, New World is by no means an off-brand. It's one of the good ones. Jesse Sheidlower OED From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Nov 3 21:47:33 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 13:47:33 -0800 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? and I'm done my homework Message-ID: >>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/02/04 05:34PM >>> Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 > (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") -Wilson Gray 'Walked onstage" doesn't bother me a bit. I don't think 'Walked onstage' and 'walked onto the stage' necessarily mean the same thing. Fritz From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 3 22:10:01 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:10:01 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? and I'm done my homework In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 3, 2004, at 4:47 PM, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? and I'm done my homework > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >>>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/02/04 05:34PM >>> > Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 >> (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") > -Wilson Gray > > 'Walked onstage" doesn't bother me a bit. I don't think 'Walked > onstage' > and 'walked onto the stage' necessarily mean the same thing. > Fritz > Sorry, Fritz. I ain't messin' wit' dis'un. As I said, I'm ignoring it. Though I am quite tempted to rise to the challenge. However, I know that, as a consequence of having spent years learning "proppa Ang-lish," I tend to be a stickler for locutions that those who grew up *speaking* what they consider to be proper English - and not some random, non-standard dialect - don't waste their time with. -Wilson From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Wed Nov 3 22:14:43 2004 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:14:43 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: <20041103214611.GB24445@panix.com> Message-ID: WNW is very highly regarded here, too. No need whatsoever to apologize for it! Joanne Despres Merriam-Webster On 3 Nov 2004, at 16:46, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 04:22:34PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > > FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" > > [...] > > Now, now. We all know that "Webster's" is generic, but of > the various versions, New World is by no means an off-brand. > It's one of the good ones. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 3 22:19:08 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:19:08 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 3, 2004, at 4:46 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 04:22:34PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: >> FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" > > [...] > > Now, now. We all know that "Webster's" is generic, but of > the various versions, New World is by no means an off-brand. > It's one of the good ones. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > "It's one of the good ones." I know. For a second, there, when I first pulled it off the shelf, even I thought it was the real thing. ;-) -Wilson From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Nov 3 22:19:52 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 16:19:52 -0600 Subject: David Shulman--1999 article about him Message-ID: For anyone interested in material about David Shulman's life and activity, there's an article about him in _The Jerusalem Report_, by Danielle Haas, May 10, 1999. pp. 46-47; title: "The Word Sleuth." The article contains a color photograph of him (p.47), and even though part of it appears on p. 46, there's enough on p. 47 to make for a good picture. If anyone writing an obituary is interested, I could have it scanned at my campus and sent to you; the technology people here assure me this is no problem. Gerald Cohen From MAdams1448 at AOL.COM Wed Nov 3 22:35:32 2004 From: MAdams1448 at AOL.COM (Michael Adams) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:35:32 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? Message-ID: "Slayer Slang" records a few instances of "slayed," not just from episodes of the show (though they're represented) but in other texts, like "Teen People" (though the quotation is Buffy-related). I don't think that the show influenced the use of "slayed" as a term of appreciation, though -- "He slays me" (of a comedian or musician), which I suppose was accompanied by "He slayed me" way back there, somehwere in time. Is jazz the source? In "Buffy," by contrast, "slay" really means "kill" and the extensions are things like "Buffy slayed the football." They aren't related to the (earlier) slang sense. Spears include the term in that sense (1989/1995), so it predates the television show, but by how much I can't tell (Spears gives no dates). If it's in Spears, though, it's probably in DAS3 and dated generally there -- I just can't find my copy under the mounds of books here. Michael Adams From MAdams1448 at AOL.COM Wed Nov 3 22:42:42 2004 From: MAdams1448 at AOL.COM (Michael Adams) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:42:42 -0500 Subject: NOT A WORD! Message-ID: Arnold's comments on "trepidacious" were timely! In History of the English Language today, we started to discuss regulation in the Early Modern period, the inkhorn controversy, etc., Jonson, Lowth, and Campbell, on our way to Johnson's dictionary. I read the entire e-mail to the class -- it very effectively linked the current to the Early Modern and provided that sliver of relevance so useful in teaching history to the young. From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Nov 4 04:23:34 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 22:23:34 -0600 Subject: Webster's New World (was: Slay, ?slayed?) In-Reply-To: <20041103214611.GB24445@panix.com> Message-ID: Thank you, Jesse. I wasn't going to say anything . . . (But of course David Guralnik was one of the finest lexicographers of the 20th century, tops in analysis as well as the writing of definitions.) Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Jesse Sheidlower > Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 3:46 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > > > On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 04:22:34PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > > FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" > > [...] > > Now, now. We all know that "Webster's" is generic, but of > the various versions, New World is by no means an off-brand. > It's one of the good ones. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > > --- > Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 04:36:55 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 23:36:55 -0500 Subject: Webster's New World (was: Slay, ?slayed?) In-Reply-To: <000401c4c226$0ca1e9a0$2e2b0b45@vneufeldt> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 10:23:34PM -0600, Victoria Neufeldt wrote: > Thank you, Jesse. I wasn't going to say anything . . . (But of > course David Guralnik was one of the finest lexicographers of the 20th > century, tops in analysis as well as the writing of definitions.) Well, of course I couldn't let that go by! Best, Jesse From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 4 12:36:26 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 07:36:26 -0500 Subject: Webster's New World (was: Slay, ?slayed?) In-Reply-To: <20041104043655.GA15714@panix.com> Message-ID: >What's more the late Harold Whitehall lent his expertise to what was >for a time the very best historical/etymological info one could get >in a smaller dictionary (and in some cases, I am sorry to say, the >best one could get anywhere). dInIs >On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 10:23:34PM -0600, Victoria Neufeldt wrote: > > Thank you, Jesse. I wasn't going to say anything . . . (But of >> course David Guralnik was one of the finest lexicographers of the 20th >> century, tops in analysis as well as the writing of definitions.) > >Well, of course I couldn't let that go by! > >Best, > >Jesse From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Nov 4 13:04:42 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:04:42 EST Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: In a message dated Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:34:11 -0500, "Mark A. Mandel" and his pet dragon wrote: >> The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is long > > long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the crossing. > > I tried to remember what that means in International Morse Code, but before > my mind popped up with the answer ("Q") I got a musical hit*: the theme from > what I think of as the Death March, which I remember singing as a child to > the words "Where will we be in a hundred years from now?" In railway Morse (which oddly enough never seems to be called "railroad Morse") the Q is short short long short, so it's doubtful that whoever invented the long-long-short-sustained long whistle for a grade crossing was thinking of the letter Q. (ref: http://www.trainweb.org/railwayop/Codes/codes.html} Two suggested reasons for long-long-short-sustained long: 1) anyone randomly blowing a whistle would probably generate either a series of shorts or a series of longs, so long-long-short-sustained long wouldn't be mistaken for somebody casually doing something with a whistle 2) it is rather dramatic (and therefore attention-getting, which is highly desirable), the two longs introducing the signal, then the short providing a buildup to the dramatic sustained long. Compare the limerick, which is long long short short long (with punch line) Actually long-long-short-sustained long goes way back, long before railroads, to the Renaissance at least. In Renaissance music a common ornament, used so often that it is a musical cliche, i is long note, same long note, short note one half tone lower in pitch, then the original note either long or sustained long. I don't know if there is a name for this particular ornament, but it is an example of a mordent which is the opposite of a trill, that is rapid alternating of a note with the note below it. - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Nov 4 13:07:28 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:07:28 -0500 Subject: Himalayan Recipes Message-ID: Greetings from Gangtok, Sikkim. DUST BINS--Garbage cans. The following would be included in a web food dictionary of mine, but I am required by law to do parking tickets ten hours a day in a room with no air. HIMALAYAN RECIPES INNER WHEEL CLUB OF DARJEELING No page numbers, no date MOMO OR TIBETAN DUMPLINGS THUKPA TSU-LA-TSE (Chilli in Oil) JHINGE ACHAR-SUKHA QUASI (Tibetan Cookies) DALO KHORSANI (Round Red Chilli Paste) KWATI (Mixed Pulse and Beans) SIDRA (Small Dry Fish Achar) TOMATO ACHAR SIMI-ACHAR BOILED BUFF MEAT YAMARI POTATO ACHAR ROASTED/GRILLED BUFF OR CHICKEN OR MUTTON BAMBOO FIRST SHOOT KINAMA (Fermented Soya bean) PAKKU CHURPI DIP (Fresh Cottage Cheese Paste) MISS-MASS ALU ACHAR BHUTA KO MASU (Dry Fried Beef/Mutton) BLACK GRAM VADA SEL-ROTI TIBETAN GYAKO SOUP (Chimney Soup) PORK AND SAAG TROTTER ACHAR SEKUWA CHUTNEY OF GUNDRUK GORKHALI ALOODAM DALO KHORSANI (Round Red Chillies in Oil) SKIIKIM, DARJEELING, BHUTAN: A GUIDE AND HANDBOOK by Rajesh Verma New Delhi: NBC Press International 12th edition March 2004 Pages 16-17: Momo Thukpa Sael Roti Niguru with Churpi Gundruk Chang (Thomba) NOW! TRAVELMATE: YOUR GUIDE TO THE SIKKIM EXPERIENCE issue 1 Tadong, East Sikkim Pg. 8: Calling all foodies ...low traditional seatings called "bodens" and stools called "mooras." (...) The "soucha" is a specialty soup brewed from the local nettle plant with a hint of butter. (...) Also try the tender fern-shoot "kicho" or what the Nepalese call "ningro" that is fried with "chu" or local cottage cheese. You will find Sikkimese are fond of eating "rokyu" or fermented bamboo shoot. Another specialty is the rich "phelu" or syrupy yellow cottage cheese that is devoured with rice. (...) ..."momos" and "thukpas"... The "gyakho" is a traditional meat stock enriched with slices of boiled beef, pork, carrots, seaweed, "soru" or meat/veg fried in flour batter, vegetables, mushrooms and "tofu" arranged very meticulously over which the meat soup is periodically refilled. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Nov 4 13:11:36 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:11:36 EST Subject: Slay, ?slayed? Message-ID: Wilson Gray wrote: > Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 > > "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." > > This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" > replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? > (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") What's wrong with "walked onstage"? In stage jargon at least, "onstage" and "offstage" are perfectly legitimate adverbs that also double as adjectives. MWCD11 lists them both as "adv or adj" with surprisingly late dates of 1925 and 1921 respectively. Do you have any trouble with "walked downhill"? About that Clausewitz quote: I should thank you for bringing it to my atttention that Clausewitz's much-quoted maxim is translated badly by the use of the word "politics". - Jim Landau From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 4 13:52:09 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:52:09 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 8:11 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray wrote: > >> Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 >> >> "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." >> >> This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" >> replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? >> (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") > > What's wrong with "walked onstage"? In stage jargon at least, > "onstage" and > "offstage" are perfectly legitimate adverbs that also double as > adjectives. > MWCD11 lists them both as "adv or adj" with surprisingly late dates of > 1925 and > 1921 respectively. Do you have any trouble with "walked downhill"? Well, I prefer "walked downdale." But no, I don't have any trouble with "walked downhill." Hey, wait! Didn't I say that I didn't want to deal with "walked onstage"?! Jim, you slyboots, you! > > About that Clausewitz quote: I should thank you for bringing it to my > atttention that Clausewitz's much-quoted maxim is translated badly by > the use of the > word "politics". > - Jim Landau > You're very welcome. I wish that I could take full credit, but I'm fairly certain that I read it - i.e. that "politics" as the translation of "politik" is a faux ami - somewhere or other. -Wilson Gray From msauciuc at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 4 14:48:07 2004 From: msauciuc at GMAIL.COM (Mircea Sauciuc) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:48:07 -0600 Subject: "borrow me"--again Message-ID: Hi folks-- I'm sorry to be asking this again, but I remember some time back (most likely in the summer) several posts here referring to "borrow me", as in "my mom used to borrow me the car." or "could you borrow me a pencil?" However, I cannot seem to find it in my mail. I could be wrong and it was never posted here, but I feel certain it was. Does anyone remember what was said about "borrow me"? Thanks in advance. --Mircea Sauciuc From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 4 15:03:17 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:03:17 -0500 Subject: "A Hard Man is Good to Find" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm working someplace without ProQuest Historical Newspapers access right now. Can anyone check for me what is the earliest hit on PQHN for the phrase "a hard man is good to find." I find it on Newspaperarchive in 1973 as a porn movie title, but am trying to see if there are earlier attributions to Mae West. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 15:13:25 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:13:25 -0500 Subject: "A Hard Man is Good to Find" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 10:03:17AM -0500, Fred Shapiro wrote: > I'm working someplace without ProQuest Historical Newspapers access right > now. Can anyone check for me what is the earliest hit on PQHN for the > phrase "a hard man is good to find." I find it on Newspaperarchive in > 1973 as a porn movie title, but am trying to see if there are earlier > attributions to Mae West. Different context, but: 1944 Chicago Daily Tribune 22 June 19 Tough umpires are the best thing for baseball. A hard man is good to find....-- Paul Larmer. An ad in the NYT in 1957 uses the phrase--apparently quoted from Time Magazine--in reference to West, but Nathanael, not Mae. Jesse Sheidlower OED From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 4 15:51:40 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 07:51:40 -0800 Subject: the curious grammar of Ohio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Oct 27, 2004, at 8:50 AM, i wrote: > from David Blaustein's review of Keith Banner's The Smallest People > Alive, in the Lambda Book Report, August/September 2004, p. 25: > ----- > Another unifying idea is simply the context of the book: The stories > are all set in Ohio, where Banner lives. Banner uses the curious > grammar of the region to great effect throughout his book... Whether > Banner is comfortable being labeled as a regional writer or not, he > has produced a work that is wholly of a specific place and time. > ----- well, i've now read the book, and blaustein's praise of its regional specificity is much more puzzling than before. the *settings* are (for the most part) clearly regional, though most of them could be translated to hardscrabble areas anywhere in the country -- rural new england, california's central valley, whatever -- without losing anything important in the characterizations or plots. banner has merely set his stories in places like those he knows well. and the *language* his characters use shows barely any regional specificity at all; with a tiny number of exceptions, it's colloquial working-class speech of the sort that you can hear anywhere in the u.s. (and that has been represented well in fiction for a long time). first, general colloquial features, all of them appearing many times in the book's 260 pages: prospective "gonna", obligative "gotta" subject omission, of the "Saw him yesterday" sort initially reduced questions, of the "She okay?" and "When you gonna go?" sorts expletives like "the fuck" and other taboo vocabulary [oddly, banner doesn't use taboo vocabulary for 'penis', instead uniformly employing "thing", as in "his thing" and "my thing"] the tag "and shit" reinforcing reflexives, as in "Edgar and myself go way back" then, general working-class vernacular features, again appearing many times in the book; most of this list of features can be found in mencken: "ain't" "anyways" past tense "done" accusative coordinate subject pronouns: "Him and me had movies" multiple negation determiner "them": "them guys" past form for past participle: "have ran" transparent "type of": "these type of things" "of" with exceptional degree modifiers: "too Adj of a N" invariant singular in existentials": "There was a lot of people there" i found only *four* features that might be described as truly regional, and each occurs only *once* in the book (ok, i might have missed an occurrence, but these features are really really thin on the ground): "dern" for "darn" (what *is* its regional distribution?) "sack" 'bag' the vernacular ethical dative: "I need me a gun" (what *is* the regional distribution of this one?) "want" + past participle: "The main reason Irene wanted divorced..." note: no positive "anymore", and only one "want/need Ved". plus one ethical dative, which might just be another widespread vernacular feature. plus one lexical item ("sack") and one pronunciation ("dern"). that's not a lot of "curious grammar" characteristic of the region. maybe blaustein was hypersensitive to (one or more of) these features, so that a single occurrence was enough to trigger a strong sense of place. but i'm more inclined to think that he was just confounding style and class with region, as people who don't share the class-related features so often do. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Nov 4 16:11:25 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:11:25 -0500 Subject: Sikkim Food Message-ID: "They'll eat anything with legs, except the tables and chairs--and they're working on that." --heard again at dinner, about the Chinese This was the local Sikkim cuisine at the Tashi Delek restaurant here in Gangtok. I won't bother checking OED. SEW CHANG--A traditional Sikkimese drink. Long bamboo containers are filled with millet and soaked with boiled water to be sipped through delicate bamboo straws. The recipe for making 'pho' local yeast, which is used for fermentation, is a fiercely guarded secret. The taste has been compared to "sake". (Kitty litter with hot water, if you ask me--ed.) KHANYOE SUE TSE--This flavorful soup is made from a unique cucumber, originally discovered in Sikkim. One of its aspects is the sheer size, which often reaches lengths of over two feet! KHURI--A delicacy of griddle roasted bread created from buckwheat filled with sauteed greens and cottage cheese. SEU--This land is also known by the ancient name "Demazong"--or Hidden valley. Rice is grown in adbundance on the lush terraced paddy that you see across the verdant hills. GYARI--A succulent dish of prime cuts of pork, pot roasted with herbs and spices--served hot or cold, thinly sliced. GNYA--River fish caught in the wild mountain streams and farms are wrapped in greens and baked in fresh bamboo sleees to impart a flavour so sublime it must be tasted to be believed. (Scrawny, bony things. Someone got a bone in her throat while eating it--ed.) PHYA SHA--Free range chicken flavored with ginger and simmered in butter with a touch of tumeric, believed to have great rejuvenating value--the antidote for coughs and colds! SOUCHA--Hard to gather but delicious to eat is this exotic, seasonal favourite, made from the leaves of stinging nettles and may be sered with or without minced meat. KAYTSEU--A seasonal favourite made from only the most tender tips of young fern which grow abundantly in these mountains are sauteed in butter--fabulous! BARHEY--Sikkim, a land so lush with orchids we even eat them! Rare and exotic, edible orchids hae a very short season but luckily they can be pickled. So delicious, that we often savour them alone with rice. (The orchids were not in season. I said I'd take two rhododendrons, and make it snappy--ed.) DHO--The new shoots of indigenous bamboo, tender and mild--when not in season are pickled in hot mustard oil for use round the year. LAPSE--Wild, sour berries pickled in flavorful spices served as an accouterment to many Sikkimese dishes. JHEKAR--Finely ground sauce made from red or green peppers. The most potent chillies savoured in these mountains are known as "Akbarey" or "Dallay". They can bepickled too! CHUBENDA--Cottage cheese with a subtle flavour is traditionally blended with fresh tomatoes and spices. MOMOS--Steamed dumplings filled with minced chicken, vegetables or cottage cheese and ensconced in a thin flour layer. Served piping hot with a sauce of fresh cottage cheese blended with herbs and chilly. (Great, as usual--ed.) GYAKHO--This delicacy is known to have been made using as many as 108 ingredients and is traditionally served at all weddings and other auspicious occasions. Akin to the Mongolian Hot Pot, this dish is served in an ornate metal vessel kept hot with its own flame, unique to this delicacy. (Fabulous!--ed.) From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 4 16:15:06 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:15:06 -0600 Subject: exit polls Message-ID: >From the blog The Volokh Conspiracy: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_11_00.shtml#1099498083 "Exit Polls" in Daily Life: The apparent inaccuracy of the exit polls yesterday makes me wonder whether the phrase "exit poll" will now enter the American vernacular to mean "a quick impression that is probably wrong." From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Nov 4 17:02:01 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 12:02:01 -0500 Subject: exit polls Message-ID: My impression is that the term has been around in one form or another for 28 years. I don't think that the experience of one election will profoundly change the definition. I am sure that some exit polling has produced inaccuracies in the past, just as has some other polling. But, time will tell. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com American Dialect Society on Thursday, November 04, 2004 at 11:15 AM -0500 wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header >----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >Subject: exit polls >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >>From the blog The Volokh Conspiracy: >http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_11_00.shtml#1099498083 > > > > >"Exit Polls" in Daily Life: The apparent inaccuracy of the exit polls >yesterday makes me wonder whether the phrase "exit poll" will now enter >the >American vernacular to mean "a quick impression that is probably wrong." From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 4 17:06:26 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:06:26 -0600 Subject: exit polls Message-ID: Oh, I'm sure the phrase has been around for a while. I just thought the proposed definition was funny. > -----Original Message----- > From: Barnhart [mailto:barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM] > Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 11:02 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: exit polls > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Barnhart > Subject: Re: exit polls > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > My impression is that the term has been around in one form or > another for > 28 years. I don't think that the experience of one election > will profoundly change the definition. I am sure that some > exit polling has produced inaccuracies in the past, just as > has some other polling. But, time will tell. > > Regards, > David > > barnhart at highlands.com > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 4 17:24:30 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:24:30 -0600 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: From the comic strip Boondocks: http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything would work itself out soon. Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in such a mainstream form. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 4 19:25:55 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 14:25:55 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > From the comic strip Boondocks: > http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ > > Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . > Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything would > work > itself out soon. > Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. > Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. > > > I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in > such a > mainstream form. > Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it were. FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive "s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down (sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. -Wilson Gray From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 4 19:28:34 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 13:28:34 -0600 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: > If this kind of thing interests you(-all), > you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's > the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Chappelle was interviewed on Fresh Air (NPR) recently, and wasn't "on". A completely different persona than the sketch show. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Nov 4 20:02:06 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:02:06 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <5923DBC4-2E97-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) At 02:25 PM 11/4/2004, you wrote: >On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>Subject: CP Time >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >> >>Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything would >>work >>itself out soon. >>Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >> >> >>I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>such a >>mainstream form. > >Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it were. > >FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >"s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >(sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. > >-Wilson Gray From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 4 20:35:05 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:35:05 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <5923DBC4-2E97-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after 'person"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin with the wrong crowd. dInIs PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some lame asked what it meant. >On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>Subject: CP Time >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >> >>Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything would >>work >>itself out soon. >>Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >> >> >>I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>such a >>mainstream form. >> > >Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it were. > >FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >"s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >(sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. > >-Wilson Gray -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 4 21:05:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:02 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," a group that includes college graduates, postal and other civil-service workers, owners of businesses, politicians, etc., especially if they have money (this is America; what can I say?) but excludes entertainers of any kind (unless they are also college graduates), pimps, drug dealers, and other low-lifes, regardless of their income. Though Bill Cosby made his rather enormous fortune as an entertainer, the fact that he graduated from college *before* he made it as an entertainer and then *continued* his education to the point of earning a doctorate places him solidly within the boojie class. On the other hand, Sean "Puffy/Puff Daddy/P. Diddy" Combes will never be boojie, regardless of the fact that he has money to burn. Unless he uses his money to get into politics, to set up scholarships and fellowships at United Negro College Fund schools, or for something else that will "uplift the race." That is, he can buy his way into the boojie class. As Jack Benny once noted, "There's only one thing that money can't buy, and that's poverty." I could go on, but I'm sure that you get the point. -Wilson > > At 02:25 PM 11/4/2004, you wrote: >> On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>> Subject: CP Time >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>> http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >>> >>> Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>> Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything >>> would >>> work >>> itself out soon. >>> Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>> Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >>> >>> >>> I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>> such a >>> mainstream form. >> >> Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >> would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >> Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >> references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >> you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >> the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it >> were. >> >> FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >> "s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >> (sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >> music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >> upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >> Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. >> >> -Wilson Gray > From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Nov 4 21:08:21 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:08:21 -0500 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) and perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the slower pace prevailing on Caribbean islands. John Baker From stevekl at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 21:13:48 2004 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:13:48 -0500 Subject: SF hotel situation LSA/ADS Message-ID: I received this email from Ivan Sag, who passed on the message from LSA president Joan Bybee. Members of the ADS who haven't been to a meeting and therefore aren't members of the LSA this year might not be aware of this. So, I'm passing on the word. -- Steve K ---------- Forwarded message ---------- (forwarded from Joan Bybee, President of the LSA) 3 November 2004 Dear Members, As you may know, the Hyatt Regency San Francisco where we planned to hold the 2005 Annual Meeting is involved in a labor dispute. As we assume that many of our members would not want to cross picket lines, we are seeking alternative sites for the meeting in case the dispute is not settled. The LSA Executive Committee has determined that maintaining the stated dates and finding a suitable location in the San Francisco Bay Area are of the highest priority. The Secretariat is exploring the options in the Bay Area over the 6-9 January dates and will report to the Executive Committee which will then decide if a change is warranted. In order to keep you informed of any changes as promptly as possible, we ask that you please check the LSA site (http://www.lsadc.org) for updates on the situation. While we feel that it relatively safe to make your travel reservations, you may wish to wait a few days before making reservations at the Hyatt. I thank you for your patience and look forward to seeing you in January. Sincerely Joan Bybee President From stevekl at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 21:17:34 2004 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:17:34 -0500 Subject: Oops. My apologies for the redundant message. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm an utter idiot. I wrote that message and then thought I should check my unread headers to see if it had already been mentioned, and I noticed Allan had already done so, and I went to cancel the email and I typed in the command for send instead. (That's twice I've done that today, and I haven't done that in like 10 years, so I don't know what's up with my brain today.) -- Steve From kurtpatt4 at NETSCAPE.NET Thu Nov 4 21:23:19 2004 From: kurtpatt4 at NETSCAPE.NET (Patti J. Kurtz) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:23:19 -0600 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <200411041608.683418a9a4c26e@rly-nc04.mx.aol.com> Message-ID: Or like 'Indian time," which is generally used in the west to refer to the casual attitude towards time that Native Americans tend to have. Patti Kurtz JMB at STRADLEY.COM wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: "Baker, John" >Subject: Re: CP Time >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) and perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the slower pace prevailing on Caribbean islands. > >John Baker > > -- Dr. Patti J. Kurtz Assistant Professor, English Director of the Writing Center Minot State University Minot, ND 58707 Foster: What about our evidence? They've got to take notice of that. Straker: Evidence. What's it going to look like when Henderson claims that we manufactured it, just to get a space clearance program? Foster: But we are RIGHT! Straker: Sometimes, Colonel, that's not quite enough. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 4 21:31:17 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 13:31:17 -0800 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:35 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are > most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after > 'person")... my experience as well. often self-mockingly used. more recently -- i might have told this story here already -- my daughter and i went to the dementia care facility where my partner was housed for six years, right in time for a holiday party. the activities director, a wonderfully outgoing black woman, was a bit frazzled when we arrived. monica explained that things weren't put together yet, laughingly confessing that they were "running on CPT" (my daughter and i took this as a gesture of trust and solidarity). oh, i said, we have GPT. monica dissolved in laughter. Gay People's Time!, she shouted, i love it! of course, monica's a boojie, and she had an overt possessive ending on "People's". arnold From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Nov 4 21:36:11 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:36:11 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 03:35 PM 11/4/2004, you wrote: >Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are >most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after >'person"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin >with the wrong crowd. > >dInIs > >PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some >lame asked what it meant. Uh oh, guess I'm a lame. (And I DO know what that means!) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 4 21:47:02 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:47:02 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <418A9DC7.6070007@netscape.net> Message-ID: At 3:23 PM -0600 11/4/04, Patti J. Kurtz wrote: >Or like 'Indian time," which is generally used in the west to refer to >the casual attitude towards time that Native Americans tend to have. > >Patti Kurtz this must indeed be a very general phenomenon. When I was giving talks in Aix-en-Provence (in the south of France) in 1977 I was informed that I should allow for "le quart d'heure aixois", the Aix Quarter-Hour, encapsulating the idea that everything there can be expected to begin 15 minutes after the officially posted time, or by implication 15 minutes after it would have started in uptight northern places like Paris, London, New York, etc. Larry > >JMB at STRADLEY.COM wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Baker, John" >>Subject: Re: CP Time >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) >>and perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the >>slower pace prevailing on Caribbean islands. >> >>John Baker >> > >-- > >Dr. Patti J. Kurtz > >Assistant Professor, English > >Director of the Writing Center > >Minot State University > >Minot, ND 58707 > > > >Foster: What about our evidence? They've got to take notice of that. > > > >Straker: Evidence. What's it going to look like when Henderson claims >that we manufactured it, just to get a space clearance program? > > > >Foster: But we are RIGHT! > > > >Straker: Sometimes, Colonel, that's not quite enough. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Thu Nov 4 21:50:32 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:50:32 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, November 4, 2004 4:47 PM -0500 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 3:23 PM -0600 11/4/04, Patti J. Kurtz wrote: >> Or like 'Indian time," which is generally used in the west to refer to >> the casual attitude towards time that Native Americans tend to have. >> >> Patti Kurtz > > this must indeed be a very general phenomenon. When I was giving > talks in Aix-en-Provence (in the south of France) in 1977 I was > informed that I should allow for "le quart d'heure aixois", the Aix > Quarter-Hour, encapsulating the idea that everything there can be > expected to begin 15 minutes after the officially posted time, or by > implication 15 minutes after it would have started in uptight > northern places like Paris, London, New York, etc. At one point in my life, friends of mine referred to this as "Jewish time". From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 21:59:10 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:59:10 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <4F9206AFCC62C07F6C79D602@[130.132.95.94]> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 04:50:32PM -0500, Alice Faber wrote: > > At one point in my life, friends of mine referred to this as "Jewish time". DARE has "Jewish time" from 1952. And HDAS has "C.P.T." from Carl van Vechten's _Nigger Heaven_ from 1926. I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. Jesse Sheidlower OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 4 22:16:20 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 17:16:20 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are > most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after > "people"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin > with the wrong crowd. > > dInIs > > PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some > lame asked what it meant. If I wrote anything that implied that I thought that "CP time" was a fresh term, I apologize. It's probably two days older than water. As far as my experience of the living use of the term is concerned, "CP time" is the pretty much the only way that I've ever heard the term used. However, I've never heard "colored people time," only "colored people's time." However, I do not doubt that there are speakers who say the former. As for your moms, you better had listen. Yo momma she tellin you straight. (The "better had" is a St. Louis BE-ism that merely adds emphasis and has no effect on the tense of the main verb.) -Wilson > > > >> On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>> Subject: CP Time >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>> http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >>> >>> Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>> Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything >>> would >>> work >>> itself out soon. >>> Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>> Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >>> >>> >>> I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>> such a >>> mainstream form. >>> >> >> Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >> would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >> Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >> references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >> you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >> the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it >> were. >> >> FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >> "s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >> (sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >> music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >> upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >> Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. >> >> -Wilson Gray > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Nov 4 23:02:50 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:02:50 -0800 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: add 'Mormon Standard Time' Fritz >>> jester at PANIX.COM 11/04/04 01:59PM >>> On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 04:50:32PM -0500, Alice Faber wrote: > > At one point in my life, friends of mine referred to this as "Jewish time". DARE has "Jewish time" from 1952. And HDAS has "C.P.T." from Carl van Vechten's _Nigger Heaven_ from 1926. I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. Jesse Sheidlower OED From gorion at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 4 23:09:03 2004 From: gorion at GMAIL.COM (Orion Montoya) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:09:03 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <-7232643498162320673@unknownmsgid> Message-ID: On the other hand, when I was in Greece someone told me that when Greek people are arranging to meet, they call it an "English appointment" or an "English meeting" if it is important for the conferees to show up at the actual time scheduled. The implication being that otherwise you'll show up an hour or so later. But that is not American dialect, and I can't remember the Greek for "meeting" to verify it now. O. Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 4 23:51:35 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:51:35 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Larry, I think this 15 minutes is, in fact, rather precise. It is often referred to as "Deutsche akademische Rad," the fact that 2:00 lectures begin (precisely) at 2:15. I could be wrong since Aix seems a little bit more laid-back to me, but I'm sill suspicious. dInIs >At 3:23 PM -0600 11/4/04, Patti J. Kurtz wrote: >>Or like 'Indian time," which is generally used in the west to refer to >>the casual attitude towards time that Native Americans tend to have. >> >>Patti Kurtz > >this must indeed be a very general phenomenon. When I was giving >talks in Aix-en-Provence (in the south of France) in 1977 I was >informed that I should allow for "le quart d'heure aixois", the Aix >Quarter-Hour, encapsulating the idea that everything there can be >expected to begin 15 minutes after the officially posted time, or by >implication 15 minutes after it would have started in uptight >northern places like Paris, London, New York, etc. > >Larry > >> >>JMB at STRADLEY.COM wrote: >> >>>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>>----------------------- >>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>Poster: "Baker, John" >>>Subject: Re: CP Time >>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) >>>and perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the >>>slower pace prevailing on Caribbean islands. >>> >>>John Baker >>> >> >>-- >> >>Dr. Patti J. Kurtz >> >>Assistant Professor, English >> >>Director of the Writing Center >> >>Minot State University >> >>Minot, ND 58707 >> >> >> >>Foster: What about our evidence? They've got to take notice of that. >> >> >> >>Straker: Evidence. What's it going to look like when Henderson claims >>that we manufactured it, just to get a space clearance program? >> >> >> >>Foster: But we are RIGHT! >> >> >> >>Straker: Sometimes, Colonel, that's not quite enough. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 4 23:56:11 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:56:11 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <27A8DEB8-2EAF-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: "Better had" go way beyond St.Louis, bro. And you're right; I shoulda listened to my momma more. But, if she hadn't collaborated with my daddy givin me these 5'10" genes, I coulda been a NBA star. dInIs (who once guarded the Big O, to his [i.e.,mine] everlasting basketball shame) >On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>Subject: Re: CP Time >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are >>most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after >>"people"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin >>with the wrong crowd. >> >>dInIs >> >>PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some >>lame asked what it meant. > >If I wrote anything that implied that I thought that "CP time" was a >fresh term, I apologize. It's probably two days older than water. As >far as my experience of the living use of the term is concerned, "CP >time" is the pretty much the only way that I've ever heard the term >used. However, I've never heard "colored people time," only "colored >people's time." However, I do not doubt that there are speakers who say >the former. > > As for your moms, you better had listen. Yo momma she tellin you >straight. (The "better had" is a St. Louis BE-ism that merely adds >emphasis and has no effect on the tense of the main verb.) > >-Wilson > >> >> >> >>>On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: >>> >>>>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>>>----------------------- >>>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>>>Subject: CP Time >>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>-- >>>>-------- >>>> >>>> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>>>http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >>>> >>>>Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>>>Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything >>>>would >>>>work >>>>itself out soon. >>>>Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>>>Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >>>> >>>> >>>>I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>>>such a >>>>mainstream form. >>>> >>> >>>Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >>>would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >>>Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >>>references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >>>you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >>>the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it >>>were. >>> >>>FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >>>"s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >>>(sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >>>music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >>>upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >>>Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. >>> >>>-Wilson Gray >> >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>University Distinguished Professor >>Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian and African Languages >>Wells Hall A-740 >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>Office: (517) 353-0740 >>Fax: (517) 432-2736 -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 01:16:18 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:16:18 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 6:02 PM, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > add 'Mormon Standard Time' > Fritz > >>>> jester at PANIX.COM 11/04/04 01:59PM >>> > On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 04:50:32PM -0500, Alice Faber wrote: >> >> At one point in my life, friends of mine referred to this as "Jewish >> time". > > DARE has "Jewish time" from 1952. And HDAS has "C.P.T." from > Carl van Vechten's _Nigger Heaven_ from 1926. C.P.T., like Bird and Frodo, lives. -Wilson Gray > > I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, > religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 01:23:53 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:23:53 -0500 Subject: New? Message-ID: New to me, anyway. Heard on the TV show, CSI: Shake hands with Shorty (or, perhaps, shorty) : masturbate -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 01:34:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:34:10 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 4:08 PM, Baker, John wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Baker, John" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) and > perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the slower pace > prevailing on Caribbean islands. > > John Baker > FWIW, "C.P. time" has always struck me as more jocular than pejorative. Others' attitudes may, of course, differ. One never knows, do one? -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 01:45:22 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:45:22 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 6:56 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > "Better had" go way beyond St.Louis, bro. And you're right; I shoulda > listened to my momma more. But, if she hadn't collaborated with my > daddy givin me these 5'10" genes, I coulda been a NBA star. > > dInIs (who once guarded the Big O, to his [i.e.,mine] everlasting > basketball shame) The Big O? Really? That's interesting! Though no more so than any of your other posts, of course.;-) -Wilson > > > > >> On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>> Subject: Re: CP Time >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are >>> most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after >>> "people"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin >>> with the wrong crowd. >>> >>> dInIs >>> >>> PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some >>> lame asked what it meant. >> >> If I wrote anything that implied that I thought that "CP time" was a >> fresh term, I apologize. It's probably two days older than water. As >> far as my experience of the living use of the term is concerned, "CP >> time" is the pretty much the only way that I've ever heard the term >> used. However, I've never heard "colored people time," only "colored >> people's time." However, I do not doubt that there are speakers who >> say >> the former. >> >> As for your moms, you better had listen. Yo momma she tellin you >> straight. (The "better had" is a St. Louis BE-ism that merely adds >> emphasis and has no effect on the tense of the main verb.) >> >> -Wilson >> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: >>>> >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>>>> ----------------------- >>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>>>> Subject: CP Time >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> -- >>>>> -- >>>>> -------- >>>>> >>>>> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>>>> http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >>>>> >>>>> Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>>>> Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything >>>>> would >>>>> work >>>>> itself out soon. >>>>> Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>>>> Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>>>> such a >>>>> mainstream form. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other >>>> group" >>>> would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >>>> Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >>>> references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >>>> you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >>>> the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it >>>> were. >>>> >>>> FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the >>>> possessive >>>> "s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >>>> (sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their >>>> rap >>>> music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >>>> upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >>>> Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. >>>> >>>> -Wilson Gray >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Dennis R. Preston >>> University Distinguished Professor >>> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >>> Asian and African Languages >>> Wells Hall A-740 >>> Michigan State University >>> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>> Office: (517) 353-0740 >>> Fax: (517) 432-2736 > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African > Languages > A-740 Wells Hall > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824 > Phone: (517) 432-3099 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > preston at msu.edu > From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 5 02:48:44 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 21:48:44 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <20041104215910.GA23821@panix.com> Message-ID: >I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. I suppose most of the versions are national. On the Web there are plenty of examples of "on X time" = "late" (or sometimes "slow"/"leisurely"): "Chinese time", "Korean time", "Thai time", "Indian time" (referring to India), "Filipino time", "Spanish time", "Brazilian time", "Mexican time", "Italian time", etc., etc. ... also "Asian time", "African time", "South American time", "Latin time". "American time", "British time", "English time", "Japanese time" usually seem to have the opposite sense, referring to punctuality. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 04:12:26 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 23:12:26 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041104212809.03209610@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 9:48 PM -0500 11/4/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >>religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. > >I suppose most of the versions are national. On the Web there are plenty of >examples of "on X time" = "late" (or sometimes "slow"/"leisurely"): >"Chinese time", "Korean time", "Thai time", "Indian time" (referring to >India), "Filipino time", "Spanish time", "Brazilian time", "Mexican time", >"Italian time", etc., etc. ... also "Asian time", "African time", "South >American time", "Latin time". > >"American time", "British time", "English time", "Japanese time" usually >seem to have the opposite sense, referring to punctuality. > >-- Doug Wilson left-hemisphere time vs. right-hemisphere time? From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 04:27:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 23:27:49 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" Message-ID: I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern relatives. The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. Above the magnolias : up North. I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian friend says. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Nov 5 13:20:32 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:20:32 EST Subject: CP Time Message-ID: In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray writes: > > Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) > > A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," I don't recall having heard "boojies" (or if I did, I probably misheard it as "boogie"). I do have a vague recollection of having run across "MCN" ("Middle Class Negro"---this was a print reference and the word "Negro" was used, it is possible that a different term was bowdlerized) as a pejorative, meaning something like "Oreo cookie". Nor do I recall ever having heard "CP time". I do know "Jewish Standard Time". The idea of an in-group categorizing itself as perpetually late goes way back, to at least Aristophanes. In _Lysistrata_, if memory serves, there is a place where Lysistrata says something to the effect of "You are proper Athenians. Always late." - James A. Landau PS to Dennis Preston, about guarding the Big O: Back when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was in high school (and known as "Lew Alcindor"), an opposing coach said "there's no such thing as a one-man basketball team" and ordered his team to let Alcindor do whatever he pleased, just guard the other four players. Alcindor's team lost 63-60, with Alcindor scoring 57 of the 60. From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 5 14:04:26 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:04:26 -0500 Subject: Boojies (was CP Time) In-Reply-To: <1ab.2b3b0c08.2ebcd820@aol.com> Message-ID: Boojies/boogies/bougies (the latter the more common spelling in my experience) is still used enough that just last week I saw it graffitied across an advertisement on the Brooklyn-bound side of the First or Third Avenue stop of the L train in Manhattan. Grant Barrett > In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray > writes: > >>> Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) >> >> A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 14:26:44 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:26:44 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 8:20 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray > writes: > >>> Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) >> >> A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," > > I don't recall having heard "boojies" (or if I did, I probably > misheard it as > "boogie"). I do have a vague recollection of having run across "MCN" > ("Middle Class Negro"---this was a print reference and the word > "Negro" was used, it > is possible that a different term was bowdlerized) as a pejorative, > meaning > something like "Oreo cookie". MCN's, in turn, use the term "typical Negro" - wherein bowdlerization is also possible - against the lower orders. BTW, do you recall the song, "Junk-Food Junkie," which had a line something like, "Twice as good as an Oreo cookie, almost as good as nookie"? I was shocked, shocked to hear "nookie" on ordinary FM radio, with no bleeping, since I've always felt that this word is obscene. I'm just old-school, I guess. -Wilson > > Nor do I recall ever having heard "CP time". I do know "Jewish > Standard > Time". > > The idea of an in-group categorizing itself as perpetually late goes > way > back, to at least Aristophanes. In _Lysistrata_, if memory serves, > there is a > place where Lysistrata says something to the effect of "You are proper > Athenians. > Always late." > > - James A. Landau > > PS to Dennis Preston, about guarding the Big O: Back when Kareem > Abdul-Jabbar > was in high school (and known as "Lew Alcindor"), an opposing coach > said > "there's no such thing as a one-man basketball team" and ordered his > team to let > Alcindor do whatever he pleased, just guard the other four players. > Alcindor's > team lost 63-60, with Alcindor scoring 57 of the 60. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 14:42:41 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:42:41 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <1ab.2b3b0c08.2ebcd820@aol.com> Message-ID: At 8:20 AM -0500 11/5/04, James A. Landau wrote: > >PS to Dennis Preston, about guarding the Big O: Back when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar >was in high school (and known as "Lew Alcindor"), an opposing coach said >"there's no such thing as a one-man basketball team" and ordered his >team to let >Alcindor do whatever he pleased, just guard the other four players. >Alcindor's >team lost 63-60, with Alcindor scoring 57 of the 60. Are you sure that's true? I thought his high school, Power Memorial, went undefeated during Alcindor's years there. But maybe they lost one game. Let's see what I can find. Ah, under the aptly yet ineptly titled SportsCentury web bio at espn.com, "A Dominate Force" (eggcorn alert!), it is noted that Alcindor's teams during his high school and first two college years went 126-1: "The only defeat came when DeMatha snapped Power Memorial's 71-game winning streak in January 1965." So that must have been the game to which Jim alludes. Another site confirms the result but not the details, which are slightly less impressive: the final score was 65-62 and Alcindor scored 38, not 57. --Larry, who never tried guarding Lew Alcindor (or Lewis, as Coach Wooden used to call him) at UCLA but did sit behind him in class once. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 14:44:36 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:44:36 -0500 Subject: Boojies (was CP Time) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:04 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > Subject: Re: Boojies (was CP Time) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Boojies/boogies/bougies (the latter the more common spelling in my > experience) is still used enough that just last week I saw it > graffitied across an advertisement on the Brooklyn-bound side of the > First or Third Avenue stop of the L train in Manhattan. > > Grant Barrett But "boogie" is pronounced the same as the "boogie" in "boogie-woogie" and is not class-specific. For example, a white character in the groundbreaking 1950 movie, "No Way Out," says something like, "I saw a boogie driving a Cadillac a block long!" as the whites of Beaver Canal are firing themselves up to riot against the blacks of Niggertown. -Wilson Gray > >> In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray >> writes: >> >>>> Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) >>> >>> A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," > From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Fri Nov 5 15:37:01 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:37:01 -0500 Subject: Alcindor's only high school loss (was CP Time) Message-ID: A newspaper account of that loss shows that the final score was Dematha 46, Power Memorial 43. Alcindor scored 16 points. The analysis of the game said that Dematha used a "tough zone defense" to contain Power. --Sam Clements, who could dunk a ball with three steps, could play defense brilliantly, but who couldn't hit a basket to save his soul. From: "Laurence Horn" Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 9:42 A > At 8:20 AM -0500 11/5/04, James A. Landau wrote: > > > >PS to Dennis Preston, about guarding the Big O: Back when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar > >was in high school (and known as "Lew Alcindor"), an opposing coach said > >"there's no such thing as a one-man basketball team" and ordered his > >team to let > >Alcindor do whatever he pleased, just guard the other four players. > >Alcindor's > >team lost 63-60, with Alcindor scoring 57 of the 60. > > > Let's see what I can find. Ah, under the aptly yet ineptly titled > SportsCentury web bio at espn.com, "A Dominate Force" (eggcorn > alert!), it is noted that Alcindor's teams during his high school and > first two college years went 126-1: "The only defeat came when > DeMatha snapped Power Memorial's 71-game winning streak in January > 1965." So that must have been the game to which Jim alludes. Another > site confirms the result but not the details, which are slightly less > impressive: the final score was 65-62 and Alcindor scored 38, not 57. > From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 5 15:40:05 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:40:05 -0500 Subject: Boojies (was CP Time) In-Reply-To: <36B9E2E6-2F39-11D9-B2EB-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 09:44, Wilson Gray wrote: > On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:04 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: >> Boojies/boogies/bougies (the latter the more common spelling in my >> experience) is still used enough that just last week I saw it >> graffitied across an advertisement on the Brooklyn-bound side of the >> First or Third Avenue stop of the L train in Manhattan. > But "boogie" is pronounced the same as the "boogie" in "boogie-woogie" > and is not class-specific. For example, a white character in the > groundbreaking 1950 movie, "No Way Out," says something like, "I saw a > boogie driving a Cadillac a block long!" as the whites of Beaver Canal > are firing themselves up to riot against the blacks of Niggertown. You are, of course, absolutely right. Grant Barrett From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 5 15:49:50 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:49:50 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: <0D109100-2EE3-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 23:27, Wilson Gray wrote: > Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go > barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern > relatives. The few current uses I find for this refer to a rural area meaning, I guess, an area Bigfoot is likely to inhabit. Do you have any cites older than, say, 15 years on this? Grant Barrett From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 5 15:52:47 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:52:47 -0600 Subject: nookie Message-ID: > BTW, do you recall the song, "Junk-Food Junkie," which had a > line something like, "Twice as good as an Oreo cookie, almost > as good as nookie"? I was shocked, shocked to hear "nookie" > on ordinary FM radio, with no bleeping, since I've always > felt that this word is obscene. I'm just old-school, I guess. > 1. Agree with your characterization of the word. 2. Here: http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=%22junk+food+junkie&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&u=ww w.ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/j/junk_food_junkie.txt&w=%22junk+food +junkie%22&d=FFB733F788&icp=1&.intl=us are the lyrics of "Junk Food Junkie", as I remember them (amazing how I can sing along in my head with a song I haven't heard in 20-odd years). The lyric you mention isn't in there, and I don't remember it from when the song was current. Maybe a different song? Or did you see Groce perform live, with an "extended" version? From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Fri Nov 5 16:30:13 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:30:13 -0500 Subject: Dust(-)bin In-Reply-To: <200411050506.AAA29429@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Barry Popik's second-latest post from Sikkim (wish I were there) gives the gloss DUST BIN = 'garbage can'. Looks to me like an Indian / Sikkimese recutting of the standard British English DUSTBIN; DUSTBIN is the only term used for that object in any British dialect I know, except for the abbreviation BIN (which also refers to any receptacle for waste, no matter what its size or where it's placed). Anyone else have that? Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From W-Stone at NEIU.EDU Fri Nov 5 16:45:33 2004 From: W-Stone at NEIU.EDU (William Stone) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:45:33 -0600 Subject: Dust(-)bin Message-ID: Yes, dustbin it is, certainly in the parts of Britain that I've lived in (W. Midlands, S.E. & S.W.). And the garbage man is usually the dustman although I have heard dustbin man. William Stone Northeastern Illinois University Damien Hall wrote: > Barry Popik's second-latest post from Sikkim (wish I were there) gives the gloss > DUST BIN = 'garbage can'. Looks to me like an Indian / Sikkimese recutting of > the standard British English DUSTBIN; DUSTBIN is the only term used for that > object in any British dialect I know, except for the abbreviation BIN (which > also refers to any receptacle for waste, no matter what its size or where it's > placed). Anyone else have that? > > Damien Hall > University of Pennsylvania From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Fri Nov 5 16:48:49 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:48:49 -0500 Subject: better had ~ had better: semantics In-Reply-To: <200411050506.AAA29429@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Wilson Gray and dInIs commented yesterday on 'better had', as in "Yo better had listen" = "It would be very advisable for you to listen" It sounds as if this might have the same motivation (pardon me for using such a vague term) as the standard British "You had better [listen, etc]" or "You'd better [listen, etc]" As in "better had", the "had" has no effect on the tense of the main verb, though I hadn't noticed that about my own dialect until Wilson pointed it out about his. Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Fri Nov 5 16:49:09 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:49:09 -0500 Subject: better had ~ had better: syntax In-Reply-To: <200411050506.AAA29429@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Another comment on 'better had', as in "Yo better had listen" = "It would be very advisable for you to listen" Is this difference in word order a reflection of what I think is an American tendency to be able to place adverbs before auxiliary verbs as a default, unemphatic position? In British English, adverbs can usually only be raised that high for purposes of emphasis; the raising will often be motivated by a need for comparison, and will be accompanied by contrastive stress, as in "New York buses are seldom red, but London buses always *have* been." My intuition is that many, if not most, Americans would use the following as a default version of that sentence: "New York buses seldom are red, but London buses *always* have been." A friend is doing some systematic work on this difference and is wondering whether the different tendencies reflect different prescriptions, or simply competing tendencies, where it so happens that one of the possibilities is favoured in American English and the other in British, though both are in fact available to both sets of speakers. Any comments? Thanks - Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 5 16:54:55 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:54:55 -0600 Subject: Navy slang -- Gundeck Message-ID: >From _All Hands_ (Bureau of Naval Personnel magazine), Sept 1968, letters to the editor: "Sir: I have been trying to find some clue as to the origin of the term "gundeck" as used to refer to the doctoring of records, reports and the like. I have asked many old salts about this and checked dictionaries of naval terms buthave been unable to come up with anything specific . . . . [answer] The origin of "gundeck" as a slang expression, meaning the altering or falsifying of records, is obscure ....." >From letters in the May 1968 issue: "SIR: After reading your explanation of the term gundecking in your September 1968 issue (Letters to the Editor, p. 28), and the continuing controversy on the subject since then, I believe a more colorful explanation is one which I ran across some years ago in an old book of naval slang and expressions. It describes how the commodore of an early British squadron received his position reports from his navigator who had a somewhat oversimplified method of determining his fix. By using the reports received from the other ships in company, the navigator obtained his position without so much as taking one celestial. He never had to leave the gundeck, the one below the main deck. As a result, it became known that at fix time, the navigator was below gundecking his position. As an added matter of interest, I ve also learned that gundecking also means pretending to be sober whereas smokestacking describes pretending to be drunk. -G. W. Crowninshield, LCDR, USN. SIR: In your September 1968 LTE section you invited readers to submit explanations for the term gundecking. I so submit. You are correct in assuming that the gundeck was the deck below the upper deck and one upon which no guns were actually mounted. It was the living quarters for the midshipmen. The term gundecking arises from the fact that this was also the place where the midshipmen did their navigation lessons. They would take sun lines at noon and celestial fixes at night, then go below to the gundeck, work out their calculations and show them to the navigation officer who taught the classes. Certain of these young men, however, had a special formula worked out ahead of time which aided them in arriving at a pretty safe and correct conclusion. They would note the noon or last position on the quarterdeck traverse board and determine an approximate current position by dead reckoning plotting, using the quarterdeck log information, such as speedand course changes from the last calculated position. With this dead reckoning position in hand, they would return to the gundeck and proceed to gundeck their navigation homework by simply working backwards from the dead reckoning position. -E. F. Speck, Jr." Also seen: " I maintain that in order to draw advance pay (better known as a dead horse ) ..." (Nov, 1968) From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 5 17:30:34 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:30:34 -0600 Subject: clam Message-ID: From National Review Online: http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_11_05_corner-archive.asp#045364 "In the sitcom business, we call that a clam. No one knows where the term originates, several people claim "clam" as their own, but the term describes any phrase which has had all traces of humor or wit sucked out by constant and careless use. "Houston, we have a problem." "Is that your final answer?" "Who are you are what have you done with Kathryn?" Clams can also be references that have lost what little zing they might have once had. Viagra. Gandhi. White House interns. Milli Vanilli. (You can see that sitcom writers are a rigorous bunch.) " From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 17:45:06 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:45:06 -0500 Subject: Boojies (was CP Time) In-Reply-To: <9A8A2DF2-2F33-11D9-AF26-000393AF7C50@worldnewyork.org> Message-ID: Ah, "bougies" I have seen--and presumably it's pronounced with [Z]? or not necessarily, since your alternate spellings use 'j' or 'g'? At 09:04 AM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >Boojies/boogies/bougies (the latter the more common spelling in my >experience) is still used enough that just last week I saw it >graffitied across an advertisement on the Brooklyn-bound side of the >First or Third Avenue stop of the L train in Manhattan. > >Grant Barrett > >>In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray >> writes: >> >>>>Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) >>> >>> A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 17:39:42 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:39:42 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: <0D109100-2EE3-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: This is totally unrelated to anything, but Wilson's "the point is that" reminded me of two alternate constructions: "the point being that" and "the reason being that." How common are these, and is there any regional siting for them (I doubt it, but--)? At 11:27 PM 11/4/2004, you wrote: >I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. > >Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go >barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >relatives. > >The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. > >Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the >title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two >different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the >English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG >cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the >record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. > >Above the magnolias : up North. > >I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for >AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian >friend says. From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Nov 5 18:13:20 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:13:20 -0800 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" Message-ID: Big-foot Land--the South? Dang, I thought you were talking about ORegon, Washington, and BC. Fritz >>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/04/04 08:27PM >>> I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern relatives. The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. Above the magnolias : up North. I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian friend says. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Nov 5 18:55:13 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:55:13 -0800 Subject: the curious grammar of Ohio In-Reply-To: <6B3D184A-2E79-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 7:51 AM, i wrote: > ... well, i've now read the book, and blaustein's praise of its > regional > specificity is much more puzzling than before... > i found only *four* features that might be described as truly regional, > and each occurs only *once* in the book (ok, i might have missed an > occurrence, but these features are really really thin on the ground): > "dern" for "darn" (what *is* its regional distribution?) DARE has "durn" (variants "dern", "dirn") as chiefly Sth, S Midl (but with only three spots in (southern) ohio -- many more in west virginia, kentucky, etc.). > "sack" 'bag'... further notes on banner's book: the characters are distinguished by their speech, some having many more colloquial or working-class variants than others. banner is *extremely* sparing with spelling "-in'" for an alveolar variant of "-ing" and with auxiliary reduction spellings, though presumably his characters would use these pronunciations very frequently. arnold From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:05:14 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:05:14 -0500 Subject: better had ~ had better: syntax In-Reply-To: <1099673349.418baf0575d13@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: >Another comment on 'better had', as in > >"Yo better had listen" = "It would be very advisable for you to listen" > >Is this difference in word order a reflection of what I think is an American >tendency to be able to place adverbs before auxiliary verbs as a default, >unemphatic position? I don't think so. This American is familiar with "had better"/"'d better" (or of course just plain "better") and not with "better had", so the variants are regionally and/or socially distributed within the U.S. Larry From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Nov 5 19:17:40 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:17:40 -0500 Subject: better had ~ had better: semantics In-Reply-To: <1099673329.418baef1bf182@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: >Wilson Gray and dInIs commented yesterday on 'better had', as in > >"Yo better had listen" = "It would be very advisable for you to listen" > >It sounds as if this might have the same motivation (pardon me for using >such a >vague term) as the standard British > >"You had better [listen, etc]" or "You'd better [listen, etc]" > >As in "better had", the "had" has no effect on the tense of the main verb, >though I hadn't noticed that about my own dialect until Wilson pointed it out >about his. > >Damien Hall >University of Pennsylvania ~~~~~~~~ I've a notion that "had better" is perhaps a sort of back-formation from " would better" passing through " 'd better". "Would" conforms to the real meaning of the expression than "had" does. And both are contracted that way. This explanation is not as clear as it might be, but perhaps you take my meaning. A. Murie ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:25:08 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:25:08 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <20041105050601.B96EDB24E3@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've always heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) Jesse notes: >>>>> I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. <<<<< It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or not such terms are used by the group referenced in them. On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. -- Mark A. Mandel [I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is perfect.] From rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:32:36 2004 From: rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU (Rachel E. Shuttlesworth) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:32:36 -0600 Subject: The reason/point Was: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: <200411051747.iA5HlFJk023997@bama.ua.edu> Message-ID: I've heard several people say (and others lament) the following: "The reason is because..." Rachel Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > This is totally unrelated to anything, but Wilson's "the point is that" > reminded me of two alternate constructions: "the point being that" and > "the reason being that." How common are these, and is there any regional > siting for them (I doubt it, but--)? > -- ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Rachel E. Shuttlesworth CLIR Post-Doctoral Fellow University of Alabama Libraries Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0266 Office: 205.348.4655/ Fax:205.348.8833 rachel.e.shuttlesworth at ua.edu From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:31:20 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:31:20 -0800 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Or is the stress different on the one that means the South? I.e., is the South "Big-FOOT-Land" (where people have big feet), vs. "BIGfoot Land" (the Northwest, where the Sasquatch roams)? Peter Mc. --On Friday, November 5, 2004 10:13 AM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > Big-foot Land--the South? Dang, I thought you were talking about ORegon, > Washington, and BC. Fritz > >>>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/04/04 08:27PM >>> > I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. > > Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go > barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern > relatives. > > The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. > > Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the > title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two > different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the > English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG > cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the > record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. > > Above the magnolias : up North. > > I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for > AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian > friend says. ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 5 19:55:05 2004 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:55:05 -0800 Subject: better had ~ had better: syntax In-Reply-To: <1099673349.418baf0575d13@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: If by comment you mean what would I say, I'd say the first, the second sounding very artificial, unnatural. --- Damien Hall wrote: .... > > "New York buses are seldom red, but London buses > always *have* been." > > My intuition is that many, if not most, Americans > would use the following as a > default version of that sentence: > > "New York buses seldom are red, but London buses > *always* have been." > > A friend is doing some systematic work on this > difference and is wondering > whether the different tendencies reflect different > prescriptions, or simply > competing tendencies, where it so happens that one > of the possibilities is > favoured in American English and the other in > British, though both are in fact > available to both sets of speakers. > > Any comments? > > Thanks - > > Damien Hall > University of Pennsylvania > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:53:45 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:53:45 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <20041105142444.O19992@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation of teaching, research, and service! At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've always >heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) > >Jesse notes: > >>>>> > I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. > <<<<< > >It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or not such >terms are used by the group referenced in them. > >On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon >time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a >Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. > >-- Mark A. Mandel >[I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >perfect.] From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:57:40 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:57:40 -0500 Subject: The reason/point being In-Reply-To: <418BD554.2080407@bama.ua.edu> Message-ID: Yes, this is common, and goes way back, I suspect (my h.s. teacher railed against it too). But the substitution of 'being' for 'is' is what interests me. I had never heard this substitution before coming to southern Ohio, but I suspect it's generational rather than regional, since I get it in student writing as well as in speech. At 02:32 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >I've heard several people say (and others lament) the following: >"The reason is because..." > >Rachel > >Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>This is totally unrelated to anything, but Wilson's "the point is that" >>reminded me of two alternate constructions: "the point being that" and >>"the reason being that." How common are these, and is there any regional >>siting for them (I doubt it, but--)? > >-- >~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ > >Rachel E. Shuttlesworth >CLIR Post-Doctoral Fellow >University of Alabama Libraries >Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0266 >Office: 205.348.4655/ Fax:205.348.8833 >rachel.e.shuttlesworth at ua.edu From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:25:58 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:25:58 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041105145140.0323de00@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might >better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation >of teaching, research, and service! And that was .... ? Bethany From eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:29:44 2004 From: eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (J. Eulenberg) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:29:44 -0800 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <200411051320.iA5DKcU0021156@mxe1.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be from the same hamlet in Kentucky. Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg From davemarc at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 5 17:16:56 2004 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:16:56 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" Message-ID: I thought this item might be of interest: http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/street_slang_update_brain_doesn t_mean_smart.php David From maberry at MYUW.NET Fri Nov 5 20:37:21 2004 From: maberry at MYUW.NET (Allen Maberry) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:37:21 -0800 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <200411052031.iA5KV3oM014957@mxe3.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: There are about 9 posts over the past several years on the history of burgoo in the ADS-L archives. allen maberry at myuw.net On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, J. Eulenberg wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "J. Eulenberg" > Subject: Burgoo > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to > see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our > friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be > from the same hamlet in Kentucky. > > Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg > From Beckymercuri at AOL.COM Fri Nov 5 20:37:14 2004 From: Beckymercuri at AOL.COM (Beckymercuri at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:37:14 EST Subject: Burgoo Message-ID: In a message dated 11/5/2004 3:31:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU writes: I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be from the same hamlet in Kentucky. Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg I think if you do a search under "burgoo" and the author as "bapopik," you'll find some information. From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 5 20:43:51 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:43:51 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <00d501c4c377$138c41a0$2fc654a6@gmsc20b> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: > I thought this item might be of interest: > > http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/street_slang_update_brain_doesn > t_mean_smart.php That's hysterical. I'm surprised no one caught it. Jesse Sheidlower OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 20:43:54 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:43:54 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:49 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Nov 4, 2004, at 23:27, Wilson Gray wrote: >> Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go >> barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >> relatives. > > The few current uses I find for this refer to a rural area meaning, I > guess, an area Bigfoot is likely to inhabit. Do you have any cites > older than, say, 15 years on this? > > Grant Barrett > Unfortunately, I have no cites at all. Most of the stuff that I know that's not already in either DARE and HDAS is pretty close to folkloric: if you grow up black, you hear your grandparents, your parents, men hanging out on the corner or in the barbershop using certain locutions and you learn them. In random cases, I can remember when I first heard a given locution. Mainly, the best that I can do is to remember the circumstances. In this case, I met the teen-aged children of a family that had moved to St. Louis from Cincinnati, or "Cincinnata," as they pronounced it. When they found out that my family had moved up from the South (according to some sources, Marshall, Texas, is the western terminus of the old "Black Belt"), they began to tease me about being from "down in Big-Foot Land." I remember the year as 1952, because I'm hypersensitive to teasing and I was really, really pissed off. But I'm partially blind in one eye and very nearsighted in the other, so it wasn't as though I was in a position to kick ass. So, I just had to take it. FWIW, it's from these same kids that I learned the locution, "cop a squat," a couple of years later. IMO, just about everything that can be found in print and reliably dated is already in DARE and/or HDAS. For example, while I was looking for "Big-Foot Land," I came across "busthead," with uses that I'm familiar with and uses new to me whose accuracy I have no reason to doubt. That simply amazed me. Till that moment, I'd assumed that "busthead" was a local term used only in a couple of the 'hoodz of St. Louis. It's taken me a while, but I've learned to double-check DARE & HDAS *before* I presume to post something "new." -Wilson Gray From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:39:59 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:39:59 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 03:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > >Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might > >better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation > >of teaching, research, and service! > >And that was .... ? > >Bethany Oh gosh, I can't remember. First we looked at him open-mouthed, then we smiled, then someone cracked a joke, and then we tuned him out. (Don't get me wrong; he's a great guy. But most of us just aren't that organized, or time-bound, or neat, or self-regulated. Maybe we should be, but . . . .) From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:48:01 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:48:01 -0500 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'll beat Allan Metcalf in pointing out that 'burgoo' is in his _How We Talk: American Regional English Today_, p. 47: Burgoo is "a spicy stew cooked outdoors in a kettle, which you can also get in central Illinois." That doesn't explain its origin, of course, but I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR people. The varied mix of pork, mutton, and fowl sounded interesting though. . . . At 03:29 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to >see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our >friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be >from the same hamlet in Kentucky. > >Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:50:46 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:50:46 -0500 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Julia, Hardly the same hamlet! It is the state dish. A stew y'all would call it, I reckon. See the recipe on p. 167 of The United State Regional Cookbook, ed. by Ruth Berolzheimer. Chicago: Culinary Arts Institute, 1939. Here is the list of ingredients: 600 lbs lean soup meat 200 lbs fat hens 2000 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced 5 bushels cabbage, chopped 200 lbs onions 60 #10 cans tomatoes 24 #10 cans puree of tomatoes 24 #10 cans of carrots 18 #10 cans of corn Red pepper and salt to taste Season with Worcestershire, Tabasco, or A-1 sauce In season, add one dozen squirrels to each 100 gallons. The beginning of the recipe notes it will make 1200 gallons. It is the recipe of J. T. Looney of Lexington who, we are told, is (was, I reckon, now) Kentucky's most famous burgoo-maker. We are also warned that this is a dish not to be attempted by an amateur. It simmers 15 to 20 hours over outdoor wood fires in big iron pots. dInIs PS: There is an alternative recipe on p. 168 for "small parties." >I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to >see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our >friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be >from the same hamlet in Kentucky. > >Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:53:33 2004 From: eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (J. Eulenberg) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:53:33 -0800 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <200411052050.iA5Koq6l020527@mxe3.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: The recipe you quote certainly does make it sound like the state dish! There's enough to feed at least half the state -- maybe more. Thanks for the response! Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: Burgoo > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Julia, > > Hardly the same hamlet! It is the state dish. A stew y'all would call > it, I reckon. See the recipe on p. 167 of The United State Regional > Cookbook, ed. by Ruth Berolzheimer. Chicago: Culinary Arts Institute, > 1939. Here is the list of ingredients: > > 600 lbs lean soup meat > 200 lbs fat hens > 2000 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced > 5 bushels cabbage, chopped > 200 lbs onions > 60 #10 cans tomatoes > 24 #10 cans puree of tomatoes > 24 #10 cans of carrots > 18 #10 cans of corn > Red pepper and salt to taste > Season with Worcestershire, Tabasco, or A-1 sauce > > In season, add one dozen squirrels to each 100 gallons. > > The beginning of the recipe notes it will make 1200 gallons. It is > the recipe of J. T. Looney of Lexington who, we are told, is (was, I > reckon, now) Kentucky's most famous burgoo-maker. We are also warned > that this is a dish not to be attempted by an amateur. It simmers 15 > to 20 hours over outdoor wood fires in big iron pots. > > dInIs > > PS: There is an alternative recipe on p. 168 for "small parties." > > > > > > > >> I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to >> see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our >> friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be >> from the same hamlet in Kentucky. >> >> Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:53:32 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:53:32 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041105145140.0323de00@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Once when I taught in New York I told a colleague who I was driving to a conference that I wouls pick him up around 7:10 or 7:15. He asked "Which?" Reckon I was usin some kinda time he wasn't used to. Coulda been HP time. dInIs >Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might >better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation >of teaching, research, and service! > >At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >>Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've always >>heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) >> >>Jesse notes: >>>>>>> >> I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >>religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. >> <<<<< >> >>It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or not such >>terms are used by the group referenced in them. >> >>On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon >>time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a >>Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. >> >>-- Mark A. Mandel >>[I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >>perfect.] -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 5 20:55:13 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:55:13 -0500 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041105154201.0326e288@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 03:48:01PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland > term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR > people. It is in DARE, which labels it "esp. KY". Jesse Sheidlower OED From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 21:04:39 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:04:39 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041105153550.03275060@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Friday, November 5, 2004 3:39 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > At 03:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> >> > Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we >> > might better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 >> > evaluation of teaching, research, and service! >> >> And that was .... ? >> >> Bethany > > Oh gosh, I can't remember. First we looked at him open-mouthed, then we > smiled, then someone cracked a joke, and then we tuned him out. (Don't > get > me wrong; he's a great guy. But most of us just aren't that organized, or > time-bound, or neat, or self-regulated. Maybe we should be, but . . . .) When my ex-husband taught intro computer science at a major state university, back in the 70s, a problem arose with over-enrollment relative to terminals in the computer lab (back when virtually no students had their own computers). The lab was open 100 hours a week, and there were still students who couldn't get enough computer time to finish their assignments. One bright bulb on the faculty suggested keeping the lab open 200 hours a week. From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Nov 5 21:05:41 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:05:41 -0800 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: Don't get it. >>> flanigan at OHIOU.EDU 11/05/04 11:53AM >>> Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation of teaching, research, and service! At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've always >heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) > >Jesse notes: > >>>>> > I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. > <<<<< > >It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or not such >terms are used by the group referenced in them. > >On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon >time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a >Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. > >-- Mark A. Mandel >[I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >perfect.] From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Nov 5 21:09:46 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:09:46 -0800 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: No way, Mormon Standard Time definitely means LATE. If one of my fellow believers ever said "I'll be there at 5:06, I wouldn't expect him until 5:25ish." There is even a play on this in the lampoon movie "The Singles Ward." Fritz >>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/05/04 11:25AM >>> On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. -- Mark A. Mandel [I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is perfect.] From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 5 21:13:37 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:13:37 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <20041105204351.GB24122@panix.com> Message-ID: FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's not that common, even on the pornonet. Grant Barrett > On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >> I thought this item might be of interest: >> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >> t_mean_smart.php From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 21:44:37 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:44:37 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:52 AM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: nookie > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> BTW, do you recall the song, "Junk-Food Junkie," which had a >> line something like, "Twice as good as an Oreo cookie, almost >> as good as nookie"? I was shocked, shocked to hear "nookie" >> on ordinary FM radio, with no bleeping, since I've always >> felt that this word is obscene. I'm just old-school, I guess. >> > > 1. Agree with your characterization of the word. > > 2. Here: > http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=%22junk+food+junkie&ei=UTF > -8&fl=0&u=ww > w.ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/j/ > junk_food_junkie.txt&w=%22junk+food > +junkie%22&d=FFB733F788&icp=1&.intl=us > > are the lyrics of "Junk Food Junkie", as I remember them (amazing how > I can > sing along in my head with a song I haven't heard in 20-odd years). > The > lyric you mention isn't in there, and I don't remember it from when > the song > was current. Maybe a different song? Or did you see Groce perform > live, > with an "extended" version? > This is the same song, no doubt. The words don't ring a bell. But I went to AMG and played a sample and it is what I remember. This is the best explanation that I can come up with. I actually heard it on a campus radio station, which is really not quite the same as "ordinary" FM. And I *think* that the relevant line was *spoken* at the end of the song, where Warner could have easily erased it for regular release. -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 22:09:52 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:09:52 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 2:31 PM, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Peter A. McGraw" > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Or is the stress different on the one that means the South? I.e., is > the > South "Big-FOOT-Land" (where people have big feet), vs. "BIGfoot Land" > (the > Northwest, where the Sasquatch roams)? > > Peter Mc. It has the same stress pattern as the Northwest version. When I wrote, I had forgotten about *the* Bigfoot, which is kinda strange, seeing as how I once had a heavy-footed upstairs neighbor that I called "Bigfoot" - behind her back, of course - in honor of the Sasquatch. -Wilson Gray > > --On Friday, November 5, 2004 10:13 AM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING > wrote: > >> Big-foot Land--the South? Dang, I thought you were talking about >> ORegon, >> Washington, and BC. Fritz >> >>>>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/04/04 08:27PM >>> >> I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. >> >> Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go >> barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >> relatives. >> >> The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. >> >> Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the >> title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two >> different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the >> English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG >> cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the >> record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. >> >> Above the magnolias : up North. >> >> I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for >> AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian >> friend says. > > > > ***************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon > ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 22:22:42 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:22:42 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 3:53 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Once when I taught in New York I told a colleague who I was driving > to a conference that I wouls pick him up around 7:10 or 7:15. He > asked "Which?" Reckon I was usin some kinda time he wasn't used to. > Coulda been HP time. > > dInIs You obviously mint inny time 'tween sebm 'n' sebm-thetty, dInIs, seem like t'me, though that is rather early. As Richard Pryor has pointed out, don't nothin be hapnin 'fo' lebm-thetty. -Wilson > >> Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we >> might >> better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 >> evaluation >> of teaching, research, and service! >> >> At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >>> Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've >>> always >>> heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) >>> >>> Jesse notes: >>>>>>>> >>> I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >>> religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. >>> <<<<< >>> >>> It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or >>> not such >>> terms are used by the group referenced in them. >>> >>> On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or >>> "Mormon >>> time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme >>> punctuality: that a >>> Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at >>> 5:06. >>> >>> -- Mark A. Mandel >>> [I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >>> perfect.] > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 22:27:40 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:27:40 -0500 Subject: The reason/point being In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yes, it does go way back. When I was in grade school in the 'Forties, "The reason is because" was right up there with "In the first beginning." Wilson Gray On Nov 5, 2004, at 2:57 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: The reason/point being > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Yes, this is common, and goes way back, I suspect (my h.s. teacher > railed > against it too). But the substitution of 'being' for 'is' is what > interests me. I had never heard this substitution before coming to > southern Ohio, but I suspect it's generational rather than regional, > since > I get it in student writing as well as in speech. > > At 02:32 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >> I've heard several people say (and others lament) the following: >> "The reason is because..." >> >> Rachel >> >> Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>> Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> ---------- >>> >>> This is totally unrelated to anything, but Wilson's "the point is >>> that" >>> reminded me of two alternate constructions: "the point being that" >>> and >>> "the reason being that." How common are these, and is there any >>> regional >>> siting for them (I doubt it, but--)? >> >> -- >> ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ >> >> Rachel E. Shuttlesworth >> CLIR Post-Doctoral Fellow >> University of Alabama Libraries >> Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0266 >> Office: 205.348.4655/ Fax:205.348.8833 >> rachel.e.shuttlesworth at ua.edu > From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 5 22:39:10 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:39:10 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <35AEADC0-2F79-11D9-B2EB-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Wilson, Your stuff is good cept for the r-lessness (e.g., thetty, for me at least). I'm one rhotic sumbitch. Sides, wadn't my fault they start meetings in NY so dang early. dInIs >On Nov 5, 2004, at 3:53 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>Subject: Re: CP Time >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>Once when I taught in New York I told a colleague who I was driving >>to a conference that I wouls pick him up around 7:10 or 7:15. He >>asked "Which?" Reckon I was usin some kinda time he wasn't used to. >>Coulda been HP time. >> >>dInIs > >You obviously mint inny time 'tween sebm 'n' sebm-thetty, dInIs, seem >like t'me, though that is rather early. As Richard Pryor has pointed >out, don't nothin be hapnin 'fo' lebm-thetty. > >-Wilson > >> >>>Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we >>>might >>>better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 >>>evaluation >>>of teaching, research, and service! >>> >>>At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >>>>Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've >>>>always >>>>heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) >>>> >>>>Jesse notes: >>>>>>>>> >>>> I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >>>>religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. >>>> <<<<< >>>> >>>>It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or >>>>not such >>>>terms are used by the group referenced in them. >>>> >>>>On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or >>>>"Mormon >>>>time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme >>>>punctuality: that a >>>>Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at >>>>5:06. >>>> >>>>-- Mark A. Mandel >>>>[I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >>>>perfect.] >> >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>University Distinguished Professor >>Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian and African Languages >>Wells Hall A-740 >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>Office: (517) 353-0740 >>Fax: (517) 432-2736 -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 22:43:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:43:49 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: But why "demeaning to women," especially? Don't they also get brain? Men don't feel demeaned when they give women brain. So I've heard. -Wilson Gray On Nov 5, 2004, at 3:43 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >> I thought this item might be of interest: >> >> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >> t_mean_smart.php > > That's hysterical. I'm surprised no one caught it. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 5 22:48:55 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:48:55 -0600 Subject: numerical acronym Message-ID: Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly formed by a numerical digit(s)? K-9 P2P (peer-to-peer) many vanity license plates "b4" for "before" From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 23:04:55 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 18:04:55 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49737@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: --On Friday, November 5, 2004 4:48 PM -0600 "Mullins, Bill" wrote: > Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly > formed by a numerical digit(s)? > > K-9 > P2P (peer-to-peer) > many vanity license plates > "b4" for "before" I don't know if this is "official" terminology, but aren't these a kind of rebus spelling? From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Nov 5 23:17:38 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:17:38 -0800 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 12:50 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > Hardly the same hamlet! It is the state dish. A stew y'all would call > it, I reckon. See the recipe on p. 167 of The United State Regional > Cookbook, ed. by Ruth Berolzheimer.... > In season, add one dozen squirrels to each 100 gallons. > > The beginning of the recipe notes it will make 1200 gallons... this is such a big project it ought to be called Texas Burgoo. i don't think i ever had kentucky burgoo, but i was told, decades ago, that burgoo could be made without the squirrels, but that they were essential for True Burgoo. arnold, pining for kentucky country hams and beaten biscuits (cheese grits i can make myself) From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Nov 5 23:34:22 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 18:34:22 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49737@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: Bill Mullins asks: > Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly >formed by a numerical digit(s)? > >K-9 >P2P (peer-to-peer) >many vanity license plates >"b4" for "before" ~~~~~~~~~ Probably "rebus" would cover these. They aren't properly acronyms since they don't spell new words in the usual way, as in, e.g., POTUS. A. Murie From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 5 23:47:58 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:47:58 -0800 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" Message-ID: I came across a single printed citation of "Bigfoot Country" (or maybe "Land") in the sense Wilson refers to long, long ago, probably in (or published in) the late '60s. Since it was still a "oncer" after a couple of decades, I dumped it. Maybe it's buried under something somewhere. JL Wilson Gray wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Wilson Gray Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:49 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Nov 4, 2004, at 23:27, Wilson Gray wrote: >> Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go >> barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >> relatives. > > The few current uses I find for this refer to a rural area meaning, I > guess, an area Bigfoot is likely to inhabit. Do you have any cites > older than, say, 15 years on this? > > Grant Barrett > Unfortunately, I have no cites at all. Most of the stuff that I know that's not already in either DARE and HDAS is pretty close to folkloric: if you grow up black, you hear your grandparents, your parents, men hanging out on the corner or in the barbershop using certain locutions and you learn them. In random cases, I can remember when I first heard a given locution. Mainly, the best that I can do is to remember the circumstances. In this case, I met the teen-aged children of a family that had moved to St. Louis from Cincinnati, or "Cincinnata," as they pronounced it. When they found out that my family had moved up from the South (according to some sources, Marshall, Texas, is the western terminus of the old "Black Belt"), they began to tease me about being from "down in Big-Foot Land." I remember the year as 1952, because I'm hypersensitive to teasing and I was really, really pissed off. But I'm partially blind in one eye and very nearsighted in the other, so it wasn't as though I was in a position to kick ass. So, I just had to take it. FWIW, it's from these same kids that I learned the locution, "cop a squat," a couple of years later. IMO, just about everything that can be found in print and reliably dated is already in DARE and/or HDAS. For example, while I was looking for "Big-Foot Land," I came across "busthead," with uses that I'm familiar with and uses new to me whose accuracy I have no reason to doubt. That simply amazed me. Till that moment, I'd assumed that "busthead" was a local term used only in a couple of the 'hoodz of St. Louis. It's taken me a while, but I've learned to double-check DARE & HDAS *before* I presume to post something "new." -Wilson Gray __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Sat Nov 6 00:06:46 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:06:46 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" Message-ID: Wilson Gray posts: > I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. > > Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern > blacks go > barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern > relatives. > This may explain a stereotype of black people that I have encountered in several places in 1820s newspapers: the idea that black people are notable for having a longer heel than white people. Actually, I can find only one citation in my notes, though I think there should be at least one other, somewhere. This is from a strange parody of a soliloquy purportedly delivered by a black actor at The African Theatre: If our heel’s long, and our feet splay are found We take a firmer grip of parent ground; Large are our bladders — copious are our brains; And we can dream — O yes! — of Afric’s plains! St. Tammany’s Magazine, # 4, December 4, 1821, p. 52. I have no idea about the bladder notion, which I haven't encountered elsewhere. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Wilson Gray Date: Thursday, November 4, 2004 11:27 pm Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. > > Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the > title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two > different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the > English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG > cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the > record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. > > Above the magnolias : up North. > > I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for > AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian > friend says. > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Nov 6 00:16:19 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:16:19 -0800 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <00d501c4c377$138c41a0$2fc654a6@gmsc20b> Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:16 AM, davemarc provided a "brain" website. interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes on semantics, language use, and language change. the development seems to be entirely in the expressions "get/give brain", which cover exactly the territory of "get/give head". the motivation for the development is surely concealment, but otherwise it's just metonymy, with the brain part used to refer to the head whole (well, strictly speaking, to the referent of "head" in the expressions denoting oral sex). not unlike, say, the development of the modern russian word for 'head' from a (presumably) slang use of a word for 'skull' (borrowed from latin "calvus"). in fact, "get/give head" is a metonymy too, since what you receive from or provide to your partner in oral sex is not really the whole head, but just the mouth, in particular the lips and tongue. and, finally, there's the shift from the count noun "head", denoting a body part, to a mass noun, denoting an activity saliently involving that body part. another kind of metonymy. arnold, omigod, it's *everywhere* From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 6 00:20:44 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:20:44 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <155D33C4-2F89-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: >interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes >on semantics, language use, and language change. > >the development seems to be entirely in the expressions "get/give >brain", which cover exactly the territory of "get/give head". the >motivation for the development is surely concealment, but otherwise >it's just metonymy, with the brain part used to refer to the head whole >(well, strictly speaking, to the referent of "head" in the expressions >denoting oral sex). not unlike, say, the development of the modern >russian word for 'head' from a (presumably) slang use of a word for >'skull' (borrowed from latin "calvus"). > >in fact, "get/give head" is a metonymy too, since what you receive from >or provide to your partner in oral sex is not really the whole head, >but just the mouth, in particular the lips and tongue. > >and, finally, there's the shift from the count noun "head", denoting a >body part, to a mass noun, denoting an activity saliently involving >that body part. another kind of metonymy. And I suppose everyone's already familiar with "get/give [some] skull" in English in the same sense? -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Nov 6 02:22:06 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:22:06 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym In-Reply-To: <43D13811931876B412E7E726@[130.132.95.94]> Message-ID: At 6:04 PM -0500 11/5/04, Alice Faber wrote: >--On Friday, November 5, 2004 4:48 PM -0600 "Mullins, Bill" > wrote: > >> Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly >>formed by a numerical digit(s)? >> >>K-9 >>P2P (peer-to-peer) >>many vanity license plates >>"b4" for "before" > >I don't know if this is "official" terminology, but aren't these a kind of >rebus spelling? I've always thought of official rebuses as involving pictures too. The former kind I think of as alphanumeric, but I don't know the specific term. As Allen Walker Read relates (see Chapters 10-15 of his collected lexicography in PADS 86), there was a craze for what were then called "laconics" in the 1830s and 1840s, including (but not limited to) the "b4" above, as illustrated by this anonymous poem reprinted in 1832 entitled "To Miss Catherine Jay, of Utica": Oh KTJ is far B4 All other maids IC; Her XLNC I adore As a lovely NTT. As I've suggested here before, the popularity of such "cabalistic" readings in the "O.K." (< "oll korrect") era was evidently not hindered by the fact that communication back then was either by newspapers or F2F, with very little texting or IMing in evidence. In any case, the "B4" in the above poem is the only alphanumeric laconic I've come across in Read's citations or the MoA databases for the antebellum era. I'd be very interested if anyone else could find others from that period. Larry From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 6 02:26:33 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:26:33 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 7:06 PM, George Thompson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: George Thompson > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray posts: > >> I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. >> >> Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern >> blacks go >> barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >> relatives. >> > This may explain a stereotype of black people that I have encountered > in several places in 1820s newspapers: the idea that black people are > notable for having a longer heel than white people. Actually, I can > find only one citation in my notes, though I think there should be at > least one other, somewhere. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that "Big-Foot Land" is an example of black-on-black violence. But, yes, long-heeled-ness is one of those stereotypes partially based on fact that goes way back. All that I have to do is to look at my own bare foot and then to look at the bare foot of any random white person to see that my heel does indeed appear to be longer by comparison. Back in the bad old days, when anthropology still provided the primary underpinning of "scientific" racism, I came across, to my great surprise, what might be termed a "liberal" anthropology text which proposed to debunk various stereotypes regarding black people. One chapter compared and contrasted both blacks and whites to apes. It pointed out that apes have straight hair/fur, not curly or wooly; that they have thick brow ridges; that under their hair/fur, the skin of many apes lacks pigmentation; that apes have extremely thin lips; that apes have no buttocks to speak of; and that the feet of apes have little or no heel. Similar features are more typical of whites than blacks. The accompanying text went on to address the apparent long-heeled-ness, stating that, if one had only the skeleton of a foot to go by, it wouldn't be possible to tell the foot of a black person from the foot of a white person. However, in life, black people have a thick, extra layer of flesh around the heel that causes said heel to appear longer. This book was published some time in the late '50's or the early '60's. I haven't read another anthropological text. I once glanced through one that, on one page, featured what purported to be a chart of all possible Jewish nasal profiles for the discerning anti-Semite and, on another page, stated that the Japanese agreed with the author's contention that blacks have the foulest body odor on earth. This book was published by OUP and had a 1977 imprint. So, I've given up on anthro. -Wilson Gray > > This is from a strange parody of a soliloquy purportedly delivered by > a black actor at The African Theatre: > If our heel’s long, and our feet splay are found > We take a firmer grip of parent ground; > Large are our bladders — copious are our brains; > And we can dream — O yes! — of Afric’s plains! > St. Tammany’s Magazine, # 4, December 4, 1821, p. 52. > > I have no idea about the bladder notion, which I haven't encountered > elsewhere. > > GAT > > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Wilson Gray > Date: Thursday, November 4, 2004 11:27 pm > Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" >> The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. >> >> Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the >> title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two >> different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the >> English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG >> cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the >> record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. >> >> Above the magnolias : up North. >> >> I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for >> AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian >> friend says. >> > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Nov 6 02:42:29 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:42:29 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <155D33C4-2F89-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: At 4:16 PM -0800 11/5/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: >On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:16 AM, davemarc provided a "brain" website. > >interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes >on semantics, language use, and language change. Good idea. I'll try it out this week; we're just up to semantic change, taboo avoidance, and such. > >the development seems to be entirely in the expressions "get/give >brain", which cover exactly the territory of "get/give head". the >motivation for the development is surely concealment, but otherwise >it's just metonymy, with the brain part used to refer to the head whole >(well, strictly speaking, to the referent of "head" in the expressions >denoting oral sex). not unlike, say, the development of the modern >russian word for 'head' from a (presumably) slang use of a word for >'skull' (borrowed from latin "calvus"). cf. also Fr. tête 'head' < Late Latin testa 'skull' < Classical Latin testa 'shell' (metaphor followed by metonymy) > >in fact, "get/give head" is a metonymy too, since what you receive from >or provide to your partner in oral sex is not really the whole head, >but just the mouth, in particular the lips and tongue. Well, I suppose we do have to allow for variant practices... larry From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Nov 6 02:51:08 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:51:08 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <294A87A1-2F7C-11D9-B2EB-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 05:43:49PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > But why "demeaning to women," especially? Don't they also get brain? > Men don't feel demeaned when they give women brain. So I've heard. While _head_ can refer to either fellatio or cunnilingus, I've never seen _brain_ (or _skull_, for that matter) refer to the latter. And I do think the expression is fairly widespread now. Perhaps there's an example of 'cunnilingus' out there, but if it exists, it must be pretty rare. Jesse Sheidlower OED From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Sat Nov 6 03:08:50 2004 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:08:50 -0800 Subject: Snarky In-Reply-To: <200410140314.1ci2CG1Vc3NZFpJ0@mx-a065a32.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I heard snarky again today in a movie review where one movie was not as snarky as another, or something like that. I was driving, so couldn't get an exact citation. Although Grant argues it works for the Bush example below, I wonder if the AHD4 meaning is what the writer or the movie reviewer really intended. Benjamin Barrett Ballard Visualization Complete > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Grant Barrett > Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 2:57 AM > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > > There's a 10,000 to one cite ratio of > snark-as-negative to snark-as-positive. "Sometimes mistaken > for a snotty or arrogant attitude" should be "; a snotty or > arrogant attitude." There's no mistaking about it. > > I also don't see why irascible doesn't work as a def in the > CNN paragraph. > > On Oct 14, 2004, at 04:04, Benjamin J Barrett wrote: > > > The AHD4 online gives: > > "Slang Irritable or short-tempered; irascible." > > > > The Urban Dictionary > > (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snarky) gives: > > "(adjective) describes a witty mannerism, personality, > or behavior > > that is a combination of sarcasm and cynicism. Usually > accepted as a > > complimentary term. Snark is sometimes mistaken for a snotty or > > arrogant attitude." > > > > Here's a citation that doesn't surely doesn't fit in the AHD > > definition, though I'm not 100% sure about the UD > definition (citation > > from > > http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/13/viewer.reax/): > > > > "Tim from Maryland: > > > > "While Kerry sometimes leans too heavily on statistics and arcane > > figures, it is clear he has a command of the issues impacting the > > lives of most Americans, and has a thoughtful plan to address each > > one. Bush is clearly looking past the questions for any > opportunity to > > place a prepared one-liner fed him by a speech writer. If > Bush spent > > his energy studying the issues facing this country, and > spent a little > > less time being snarky, he might just learn about what the > rest of us > > need from our president." From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Sat Nov 6 09:06:56 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 04:06:56 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <155D33C4-2F89-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: Two more data points: "hanging brains" is to dangle one's scrotum through the fly of one's pants and "to brain" someone is to hang one's scrotum next to or on the face or head of a sleeping person, usually so a picture can be taken. Grant Barrett On Nov 5, 2004, at 19:16, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:16 AM, davemarc provided a "brain" website. > > interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes > on semantics, language use, and language change. From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Sat Nov 6 13:39:40 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 08:39:40 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" Message-ID: As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! (though not arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so far on SCRUMP. (forwarded to Ed Gates) t.m.p. www.paikeday.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Barrett" To: Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: > > http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ > > The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's > not that common, even on the pornonet. > > Grant Barrett > >> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>> I thought this item might be of interest: >>> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>> t_mean_smart.php > From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Sat Nov 6 14:11:56 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:11:56 -0500 Subject: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" Message-ID: correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Paikeday" To: Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Thomas Paikeday > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! (though not > arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so far > on > SCRUMP. > (forwarded to Ed Gates) > t.m.p. > www.paikeday.net > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Grant Barrett" > To: > Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail >> header ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Grant Barrett >> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >> >> http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >> >> The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's >> not that common, even on the pornonet. >> >> Grant Barrett >> >>> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>> I thought this item might be of interest: >>>> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>> t_mean_smart.php >> From preston at MSU.EDU Sat Nov 6 14:51:47 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:51:47 -0500 Subject: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <014d01c4c40a$93c27bd0$a6c96395@paikeday> Message-ID: >I was just about to haul off and write in about the loose-penned >failure to distinguish between "ain't had no" and "didn't have no." dInIs PS: Wilson, don't write in and tell us about "ain't have no" = "didn't have no." I'm assuming Thomas Paikeday does not send us messages in AAVE (with preterite "ain't"). >correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Thomas Paikeday" >To: >Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM >Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > >>---------------------- Information from the mail >>header ----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: Thomas Paikeday >>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! (though not >>arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so far >>on >>SCRUMP. >>(forwarded to Ed Gates) >>t.m.p. >>www.paikeday.net >> >>----- Original Message ----- >>From: "Grant Barrett" >>To: >>Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM >>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >> >>>---------------------- Information from the mail >>>header ----------------------- >>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>Poster: Grant Barrett >>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>>FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >>> >>>http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >>> >>>The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's >>>not that common, even on the pornonet. >>> >>>Grant Barrett >>> >>>>On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>>>I thought this item might be of interest: >>>>>http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>>>street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>>>t_mean_smart.php -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From AAllan at AOL.COM Sat Nov 6 18:53:00 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:53:00 EST Subject: Help wanted - History of English - U of Wisconsin - Spring 2005 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 08:54:41 -0600 From: "Cecilia E. Ford" The English department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison is in desperate need of a temporary lecturer next semester for History of English (as we were for phonetics/phonology and dialects last semester). If you have any leads, please let me and Betsy know! (see below). -Ceci We continue to have a gap in our English Linguistics required courses this year, given the retirement of both Marian Bean and Charles Scott. Rebecca Roeder taught English phonology and American dialects this semester, but she must now return to MSU to complete her dissertation. We will be working to get an English phonetics/phonology/dialects hire this year ( that is, working to have the dept. request such a hire -- which, if all goes well, would mean a search next year but no colleague till the year after!). In the meantime our students and our degree programs hobble along without a faculty member to represent the sounds of English! With time passing since any of our grad students have had advanced trianing in these vital areas, the pool of potential qualified lecturers has pretty much evaporated. Most immediately, what all this means is that we desperately need a lecturer for Spring's English 323: The History of English. If you have among your advanced grad students, or in your historical linguistics network in a larger world, scholars who would be ready to teach this course (they could also be advanced scholars in phonology with a solid knowledge of the history of English -where the sound system figures so much), please have them contact Gini Martens in the dept. of English (263-3766/ TTY 263-2437-- email: vmartens at wisc.edu) as soon as possible. It may also be possible for a good candidate to teach 2 courses in order to make what would be closer to a working wage, with the second course being intro to the structure of English - 324 -- a course that many will be ready to take on. One course = 33% of a 9 month appointment; minimum salary= 30, 000 (full time, 9 ms -so not what s/he gets, of course). Degree and area of specialization: PhD preferred, minimum all but dissertation, Applied Linguistics, Linguistics/ English or related field. Minimum number or years and type of work experience: Experience teaching at the university level. Principal duties: Teach one section of English 323, History o the English Language, Linguistic and sociolinguistic change in English from its beginnings to the present. Prepare, administer, and grade exams; hold office hours. Thanks in advance for your help to the English department in finding a qualified lecturer! -Ceci Cecilia E. Ford Professor Department of English and Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 6 19:59:25 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 14:59:25 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 6, 2004, at 9:51 AM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> I was just about to haul off and write in about the loose-penned >> failure to distinguish between "ain't had no" and "didn't have no." > > dInIs > > PS: Wilson, don't write in and tell us about "ain't have no" = > "didn't have no." I'm assuming Thomas Paikeday does not send us > messages in AAVE (with preterite "ain't"). I won't. But, for the record, "ain't have no" is *way* younger than I am. The use of _have_ sounds really "wrong" and "pseudo-learned," compared to "ain't _got_ no," which is, of course, the "correct" form. [No, I don't intend for this comment be taken seriously. I'm jes funnin wit chawl.] -Wilson > > >> correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Thomas Paikeday" >> To: >> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM >> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail >>> header ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Thomas Paikeday >>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> ---------- >>> >>> As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! >>> (though not >>> arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so >>> far >>> on >>> SCRUMP. >>> (forwarded to Ed Gates) >>> t.m.p. >>> www.paikeday.net >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "Grant Barrett" >>> To: >>> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM >>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>> >>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail >>>> header ----------------------- >>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>> Poster: Grant Barrett >>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> ----------- >>>> >>>> FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >>>> >>>> http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >>>> >>>> The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's >>>> not that common, even on the pornonet. >>>> >>>> Grant Barrett >>>> >>>>> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>>>> I thought this item might be of interest: >>>>>> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>>>> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>>>> t_mean_smart.php > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From MAdams1448 at AOL.COM Sat Nov 6 20:38:22 2004 From: MAdams1448 at AOL.COM (Michael Adams) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 15:38:22 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym Message-ID: There really are two classes of word in question here, yes? "b4" is an example of laconic (word-rebus like) forms; K-9 is a shortening that looks like an initialism (or alphabetism) -- NOT an acronym, but with a number (which isn't an initial). So the question is, do we recognize a class of shortening that combines initials and numbers, or do we lump the phenomenon into alphabetism/initialism, faute de mieux? Good question! From preston at MSU.EDU Sat Nov 6 21:54:44 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 16:54:44 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <5BD73AD6-302E-11D9-BAA0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: >Wilson, >Hmmmm. I'm not so sure that "Ain't got no" forces a preterite >interpretation of "ain;t." "Got" is funny. Let's take a clean >example like "go." I ain't gone there = I haven't gone there. I ain't go there = I didn't go there. The second ain't (clearly a preterit) is one of the few forms which appears to be nearly unique to AAVE dInIs PS: Least I know Wilson ain't gon be hasslin me bout "nearly unique." >On Nov 6, 2004, at 9:51 AM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>Subject: Re: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>>I was just about to haul off and write in about the loose-penned >>>failure to distinguish between "ain't had no" and "didn't have no." >> >>dInIs >> >>PS: Wilson, don't write in and tell us about "ain't have no" = >>"didn't have no." I'm assuming Thomas Paikeday does not send us >>messages in AAVE (with preterite "ain't"). > >I won't. But, for the record, "ain't have no" is *way* younger than I >am. The use of _have_ sounds really "wrong" and "pseudo-learned," >compared to "ain't _got_ no," which is, of course, the "correct" form. >[No, I don't intend for this comment be taken seriously. I'm jes funnin >wit chawl.] > >-Wilson > >> >> >>>correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". >>> >>>----- Original Message ----- >>>From: "Thomas Paikeday" >>>To: >>>Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM >>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>> >>>>---------------------- Information from the mail >>>>header ----------------------- >>>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>Poster: Thomas Paikeday >>>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>---------- >>>> >>>>As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! >>>>(though not >>>>arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so >>>>far >>>>on >>>>SCRUMP. >>>>(forwarded to Ed Gates) >>>>t.m.p. >>>>www.paikeday.net >>>> >>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>>From: "Grant Barrett" >>>>To: >>>>Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM >>>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>> >>>>>---------------------- Information from the mail >>>>>header ----------------------- >>>>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>>Poster: Grant Barrett >>>>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>----------- >>>>> >>>>>FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >>>>> >>>>>http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >>>>> >>>>>The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's >>>>>not that common, even on the pornonet. >>>>> >>>>>Grant Barrett >>>>> >>>>>>On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>>>>>I thought this item might be of interest: >>>>>>>http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>>>>>street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>>>>>t_mean_smart.php >> >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>University Distinguished Professor >>Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian and African Languages >>Wells Hall A-740 >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>Office: (517) 353-0740 >>Fax: (517) 432-2736 -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 7 00:24:32 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 19:24:32 -0500 Subject: iPod use? Message-ID: Is anyone using an iPod for recording voice samples? I have just started doing that. Now I want to be able to transfer audio files from hard disk or audio (cassette) tape to the iPod. I think I will be able to do this once the files are on a CD or a hard disk. There is a nifty iPod dock with speakers available for use in class. Bethany From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 7 02:01:09 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:01:09 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <20041106050920.C4632B2503@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Wilson sez: >>> You obviously mint inny time 'tween sebm 'n' sebm-thetty, dInIs, seem like t'me, though that is rather early. As Richard Pryor has pointed out, don't nothin be hapnin 'fo' lebm-thetty. <<<<< That A. or P.? -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] (Mostly.) From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 7 02:05:07 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:05:07 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym In-Reply-To: <20041106050920.C4632B2503@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: "Mullins, Bill" inquires: >>> Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly formed by a numerical digit(s)? K-9 P2P (peer-to-peer) many vanity license plates "b4" for "before" <<<<< I wouldn't call any of those "acronyms". Call me pedantic and retro, but "FBI" is an initialism; "NATO" is an acronym. I go with Alice for "rebus spelling". -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 7 02:18:36 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:18:36 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: <20041106050920.C4632B2503@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: ja' George A. Thompson: >>> This is from a strange parody of a soliloquy purportedly delivered by a black actor at The African Theatre: If our heel's long, and our feet splay are found We take a firmer grip of parent ground; Large are our bladders -- copious are our brains; And we can dream -- O yes! -- of Afric's plains! St. Tammany's Magazine, # 4, December 4, 1821, p. 52. I have no idea about the bladder notion, which I haven't encountered elsewhere. <<< Guesswork time: 1. (I'm guessing about the nonASCII punctuation, which hits my screen as ~R and ~W.) 2. (WAG on the subject matter) I'm guessing it could stem from some white people's excuse for not providing Black people with adequate or sufficient bathrooms or bathroom break time. -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From dwhause at JOBE.NET Sun Nov 7 00:49:33 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 18:49:33 -0600 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: One more, from the medical side is MAFAT, Mandatory Anesthesia Fuck Around Time, spoken only by the other members of the operatory team. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jesse Sheidlower" DARE has "Jewish time" from 1952. And HDAS has "C.P.T." from Carl van Vechten's _Nigger Heaven_ from 1926. I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. Jesse Sheidlower OED From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Sun Nov 7 02:47:16 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 20:47:16 -0600 Subject: iPod use? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Is anyone using an iPod for recording voice samples? I have just started >doing that. Now I want to be able to transfer audio files from hard disk >or audio (cassette) tape to the iPod. I think I will be able to do this >once the files are on a CD or a hard disk. > >There is a nifty iPod dock with speakers available for use in class. > >Bethany To transfer audio files from your hard disk to your iPod as iPod-playable, I believe all you have to do is open them in iTunes. Once iTunes finds them, they can be exported to your iPod. To transfer your cassette recordings (obligatory language lab plaint, why would you want to?) to your iPod, there may be a way to do it directly, but there are also two methods to get your cassettes (or other analog audio) to your hard disk, depending on your computer. Some computers have an audio-in jack (sometimes a microphone jack, sometimes on a sound board). As long as your analog playback has at least a headphone jack out, you can connect the two devices. There is also something called an iMic, Griffin Technologies(?), which connects to your computer via a USB port. Mind you, I am not advocating this, but I know that people want digital audio for reasons other than archival (e.g., playback in class, or for ones* own entertainment). Barbara *I have spaced and in the midst of a move, so my reference books are not handy. Should this be one's or ones? From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 7 03:29:15 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 22:29:15 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 6, 2004, at 4:54 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> Wilson, > >> Hmmmm. I'm not so sure that "Ain't got no" forces a preterite >> interpretation of "ain't." "Got" is funny. Let's take a clean >> example like "go." > > > I ain't gone there = I haven't gone there. > > I ain't go there = I didn't go there. > > The second ain't (clearly a preterit) is one of the few forms which > appears to be nearly unique to AAVE > > dInIs > > PS: Least I know Wilson ain't gon be hasslin me bout "nearly unique." dInIs, I am in complete agreement with you with respect to the example sentences and their interpretation. As for "nearly unique," yes, I can get behind that, too. Now, had you written, let us say, "most unique,"...;-) -Wilson > >> On Nov 6, 2004, at 9:51 AM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>> Subject: Re: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>>> I was just about to haul off and write in about the loose-penned >>>> failure to distinguish between "ain't had no" and "didn't have no." >>> >>> dInIs >>> >>> PS: Wilson, don't write in and tell us about "ain't have no" = >>> "didn't have no." I'm assuming Thomas Paikeday does not send us >>> messages in AAVE (with preterite "ain't"). >> >> I won't. But, for the record, "ain't have no" is *way* younger than I >> am. The use of _have_ sounds really "wrong" and "pseudo-learned," >> compared to "ain't _got_ no," which is, of course, the "correct" form. >> [No, I don't intend for this comment be taken seriously. I'm jes >> funnin >> wit chawl.] >> >> -Wilson >> >>> >>> >>>> correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". >>>> >>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>> From: "Thomas Paikeday" >>>> To: >>>> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM >>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>> >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail >>>>> header ----------------------- >>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>> Poster: Thomas Paikeday >>>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> -- >>>>> ---------- >>>>> >>>>> As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! >>>>> (though not >>>>> arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments >>>>> so >>>>> far >>>>> on >>>>> SCRUMP. >>>>> (forwarded to Ed Gates) >>>>> t.m.p. >>>>> www.paikeday.net >>>>> >>>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>>> From: "Grant Barrett" >>>>> To: >>>>> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM >>>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>> >>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail >>>>>> header ----------------------- >>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>>> Poster: Grant Barrett >>>>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> -- >>>>>> ----------- >>>>>> >>>>>> FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >>>>>> >>>>>> http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >>>>>> >>>>>> The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. >>>>>> It's >>>>>> not that common, even on the pornonet. >>>>>> >>>>>> Grant Barrett >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>>>>>> I thought this item might be of interest: >>>>>>>> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>>>>>> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>>>>>> t_mean_smart.php >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Dennis R. Preston >>> University Distinguished Professor >>> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >>> Asian and African Languages >>> Wells Hall A-740 >>> Michigan State University >>> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>> Office: (517) 353-0740 >>> Fax: (517) 432-2736 > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 7 04:47:43 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 23:47:43 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:51 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 05:43:49PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: >> But why "demeaning to women," especially? Don't they also get brain? >> Men don't feel demeaned when they give women brain. So I've heard. > > While _head_ can refer to either fellatio or cunnilingus, I've > never seen _brain_ (or _skull_, for that matter) refer to the > latter. And I do think the expression is fairly widespread > now. Perhaps there's an example of 'cunnilingus' out there, > but if it exists, it must be pretty rare. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > I agree. But there's nothing to prevent one from using "give brain/skull" in exactly the way that one uses "give head," if one so chooses. It's not obligatorily gender-specific like, e.g. "polish knob." In any case, I had in mind the performance of the act of cunnilingus itself and not the use of "give brain" as a possible term for the performance of that act. I'm sorry that I was less than clear. -Wilson Gray From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 7 05:11:01 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:11:01 -0800 Subject: cat hoarding Message-ID: today's Palo Alto Daily News reported on a flagrant case of "cat hoarding" -- keeping large numbers of cats, especially if they breed, especially if they are confined within a house. the case in question, in san carlos, ca., involved about 80 cats in a fairly small house. someone starts out helping or rescuing cats, and eventually it gets out of hand. "cat hoarding" doesn't come up on searches in recent ADS-L archives. (a google web search gives about 145 hits, not all about this local case.) the expression is partly, but not entirely, transparent. does someone want to record it? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 7 12:49:33 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 07:49:33 -0500 Subject: iPod use? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks for your comments, Barbara. The reason I want to get the recordings transferred from a casette tape to an iPod is so I do not have to carry a boombox to class. Also, once the files are digitized, I can make them available to students in a variety of ways. Bethany From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Sun Nov 7 16:06:54 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 11:06:54 -0500 Subject: cat hoarding In-Reply-To: <6B04E328-307B-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: It's usually "animal hoarding" or "animal collecting," since it's not just cats that are collected. Teresa Nielsen Hayden (a book editor with a very good blog) has some interesting posts about this. Some of this stuff will make you barf your Maypo. http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/002253.html http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005722.html Grant Barrett On Nov 7, 2004, at 00:11, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > today's Palo Alto Daily News reported on a flagrant case of "cat > hoarding" -- keeping large numbers of cats, especially if they breed, > especially if they are confined within a house. the case in question, > in san carlos, ca., involved about 80 cats in a fairly small house. > > someone starts out helping or rescuing cats, and eventually it gets out > of hand. > > "cat hoarding" doesn't come up on searches in recent ADS-L archives. > (a google web search gives about 145 hits, not all about this local > case.) the expression is partly, but not entirely, transparent. does > someone want to record it? > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > From orinkh at CARR.ORG Sun Nov 7 16:34:59 2004 From: orinkh at CARR.ORG (Orin Hargraves) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 11:34:59 -0500 Subject: cat hoarding Message-ID: > >It's usually "animal hoarding" or "animal collecting," since it's not >just cats that are collected. Teresa Nielsen Hayden (a book editor with >a very good blog) has some interesting posts about this. Some of this >stuff will make you barf your Maypo. I heard it as "pet hoarding" for the first time a couple of weeks ago from a NYC friend whose building had a "pet hoarder" (cats in this case) who was causing, literally, a stink. Orin Hargraves From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Nov 7 17:51:47 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 12:51:47 EST Subject: "Napoleon"? Message-ID: There is a type of pastry whose name I always assumed was spelt "Napoleon", perhaps because a certain Emperor had to go to the water-loo after eating too many of them. But in my local grocery today I found for sale "Napolians". Is this the correct spelling? A hypercorrection by somebody who thought they were really Italian? Chauvinism from a Neapolitan in exile from the ice cream department? - Jim Landau (whose only expertise in pastry has to do with pi) From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 7 18:01:10 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 10:01:10 -0800 Subject: "Napoleon"? In-Reply-To: <12e.504b4e23.2ebfbab3@aol.com> Message-ID: On Nov 7, 2004, at 9:51 AM, Jim Landau wrote: > There is a type of pastry whose name I always assumed was spelt > "Napoleon", > perhaps because a certain Emperor had to go to the water-loo after > eating too > many of them. But in my local grocery today I found for sale > "Napolians". Is > this the correct spelling? A hypercorrection by somebody who thought > they > were really Italian? Chauvinism from a Neapolitan in exile from the > ice cream > department? no, it's really "Napoleon". or, as Vol. I of the Gourmet Cookbook has it, "Petites Milles-feuilles / often called Napoleons". but "Napolian" does turn up occasionally as a re- (or mis-)spelling. here's a double delight: "Napolian" *and* a greengrocer's apostrophe: ... Google. Plum and Fig Napolian's. Prepared by: Chef Roberts. Ingredients: 1 pkg. puff pastry dough, found in the freezer section of grocery store; 1 can whole figs ... www.wilx.com/recipes/recipes/159017.html arnold, getting hungry again after being put off by the animal hoarding sites From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 7 18:03:10 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 12:03:10 -0600 Subject: LBJ cake Message-ID: I went to a picnic a couple weeks ago, and someone brought an "LBJ cake". I didn't get to try it or ask her about it --- why is it called an LBJ cake? From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 7 18:09:10 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 10:09:10 -0800 Subject: "Napoleon"? In-Reply-To: <015E08F2-30E7-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 7, 2004, at 10:01 AM, i quoted: > ... Google. Plum and Fig Napolian's. Prepared by: Chef Roberts. > Ingredients: 1 pkg. puff pastry dough, found in the freezer section of > grocery store; 1 can whole figs ... > www.wilx.com/recipes/recipes/159017.html to make things perfectly clear: i am arnold zwicky, and i very much do *not* approve this recipe. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 7 19:09:36 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 11:09:36 -0800 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <35A1E31E-2FD3-11D9-98C6-000393AF7C50@worldnewyork.org> Message-ID: On Nov 6, 2004, at 1:06 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > Two more data points: "hanging brains" is to dangle one's scrotum > through the fly of one's pants and "to brain" someone is to hang one's > scrotum next to or on the face or head of a sleeping person, usually so > a picture can be taken. fascinating. ya learn something new every day around here. what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle and a brain? or what? in any case, i'm interested in the expression, for a rather odd reason. in another part of my life, i'm a collagist, working mostly with images of the male body and of gay love and sex; "They All Laughed When the Hot-Hot Man-Man Sex Started: XXX-rated homoerotic comic collages by Arnold Zwicky" was part of a local group show in may of 2003. (it started years ago as a kind of art therapy. now it's a semi-pro hobby.) i'm currently working on a long-range project on the ways male models and actors (in porn and in the mass media) display their bodies. so i've been collecting images in a large number of categories -- the very common "pits 'n' tits" presentation, with armpits and nipples vulnerably displayed, for example. one of the categories i call "peekaboo"; this is where a guy's equipment sort of spills out of his confining clothing. there are many subtypes of the peekaboo display, among them the through-the-fly escapee (which tends to look really silly, probably because it's the classic flasher pose). but -- yes, i do have a point here -- i have yet to collect a pure "hanging brains" display. plenty of scrota proudly presented, but always with an accompanying penis, which takes center stage, so to speak. probably there's a specialist corner of the sexual world where scrota are celebrated entirely in their own right, but i haven't yet come across it. (lord knows, the variety of sexual tastes and fantasies is astonishing.) arnold, your friendly neighborhood pornographer From jester at PANIX.COM Sun Nov 7 19:23:18 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:23:18 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <90B86AFA-30F0-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 11:09:36AM -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > On Nov 6, 2004, at 1:06 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > > >Two more data points: "hanging brains" is to dangle one's scrotum > >through the fly of one's pants and "to brain" someone is to hang one's > >scrotum next to or on the face or head of a sleeping person, usually so > >a picture can be taken. > > fascinating. ya learn something new every day around here. The first connection I heard between _brain_ and any part of the male anatomy was _showing brain_ 'to inadvertently display the scrotum, as under loose shorts', which I first heard in the mid-1980s (and never heard thereafter). But _hanging brain_ in the sense under discussion seems to be widespread among men in the 30s, based on some completely random polling in the last few days. Most of these hadn't heard _brain_ 'fellatio', though this was universally known among younger people (late 20s or younger) (of both sexes). > what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the > expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's > genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle > and a brain? or what? I'm very sure that _brain_ 'scrotum' is based on the similarity of appearance between the scrotum and the surface of the brain in conventional representations. This is different from _brain_ 'fellatio', which is metonymically from _head_. Jesse Sheidlower OED From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 7 19:25:39 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:25:39 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <90B86AFA-30F0-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: >what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the >expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's >genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle >and a brain? or what? It seems to me highly probable that originally the human scrotum itself (not the testicle) is being likened to a human brain in general external appearance. Both scrotum and brain are (approximately) symmetrically bilobate (with two hemiscrota [each containing a testis] versus two cerebral hemispheres) and corrugated (from dartos muscle contractions versus cortical gyri and sulci). The other member of the set is the walnut, maybe. -- Doug Wilson From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Sun Nov 7 19:38:21 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:38:21 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <90B86AFA-30F0-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 7, 2004, at 14:09, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the > expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's > genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle > and a brain? or what? I wonder if there's a connection to the common belief that men tend to think with their small head more than their larger one. Grant Barrett From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 7 19:45:31 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:45:31 -0500 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times Message-ID: http://nytimes.com/2004/11/07/nyregion/07shulman.html The New York Times November 7, 2004 A Man of Many Words, David Shulman Dies at 91 BY DOUGLAS MARTIN David Shulman, a self-described Sherlock Holmes of Americanisms who dug through obscure, often crumbling publications to hunt down the first use of thousands of words, died on Oct. 30 at Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn. He was 91 and lived in Brooklyn. His friend David Kahn announced the death. Jesse Sheidlower, editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary, said Mr. Shulman contributed uncountable early usages to the 20-volume lexicon. "All very good stuff," Mr. Sheidlower said. "What David did was read through the sort of things most people don't read," he added, mentioning yellowing editions of The National Police Gazette. Mr. Sheidlower said only a few contributors were more prolific and fewer still possessed Mr. Shulman's knack for sending usable material. His name appeared in the front matter to O.E.D.'s epochal second edition, each of the Addition Series volumes, and is currently on the Web. Mr. Shulman avoided excessive modesty, letting it drop that he was at least temporarily the last word on words that included "The Great White Way," "Big Apple," "doozy," "hoochie-coochie." Gerald Cohen, professor of foreign languages at the University of Missouri, Rolla, said Mr. Shulman did indeed contribute to the understanding of all these words and many more. He said Mr. Shulman's most pioneering effort concerned the term "hot dog." He found the word was college slang before it was a sausage, paving the way for deeper investigation. A book on hot dog's glossarial provenance will appear this year under the names of Mr. Shulman, Mr. Cohen and Barry Popick. Dr. Cohen said Mr. Shulman obliterated a big impediment to finding the origins of the word jazz by proving it was on a 1919 record, not the 1909 version of the same disk. (Other scholars traced first use of the term to the baseball columns of Scoop Gleeson in the San Francisco Bulletin in 1913.) Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Shulman was first to challenge that "shyster" derived from a lawyer named Scheuster. Others, particularly Roger Mohovich, then traced the etymology to 1843-1844. "Shyster" turned out to be a Yiddish corruption of a German vulgarism meaning a crooked lawyer. Mr. Shulman considered the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue his real home. He commuted by subway to its rare books room, to which he donated valuable volumes. "David Shulman was the one reader I could count on seeing at the library every day," Paul LeClerc, president of the library, said. "We often spoke about his work, and I never knew anyone who thrilled to bookish discoveries as he did." Every inch of Mr. Shulman, from his sneakers to his plastic bag crammed with scrawled notes to his soiled baseball cap, suggested the classic New York eccentric. He recorded his finds on index cards, sending them to the O.E.D. when he got 100. His obsessions included trying to prove that Steve Brodie jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge on July 23, 1886, not faking it as many reports claimed. He once wrote a sonnet, "Washington Crossing the Delaware" in which each line is an anagram of the title. But in 70 years at the library, he allowed as how he had seen, well, odder folks. There was the well-dressed chap who wandered about for years carrying his hat and never touching a book. Or the man who tracked down burial places of 60,000 New Jersey soldiers. Mr. Shulman finally asked why. "I might as well be plain with you," the man replied, according to an interview with Mr. Shulman in The New York Times in 1990. "I'm a nut." David Shulman was born on Nov. 12, 1912, and grew up on the Lower East Side speaking Yiddish, according to an interview in The Jerusalem Report in 1999. His first library was a branch in the Bronx. After City College, he devised puzzles and puzzle contests for newspapers. During World War II, he cracked Japanese secret codes for the Army, then returned to puzzles. He was a founder of the American Cryptogram Association, and in 1976 published "An Annotated Bibliography of Cryptography," still used by experts. He was a champion scrabble player, and wrote a scholarly article about the game's lexicography. After a heart attack in his early 80's, Mr. Shulman gave beloved possessions to the New York Public Library. Gifts included a primer from Colonial America, 20,000 century-old postcards and Bowery Boys novels the library did not have. He earlier donated his cryptography collection, including a book about secret writing from 1518. His mentor at the library was Norbert Pearlroth, famed researcher for "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" Mr. Shulman came to view him as less than rigorous. "Instead of believing it," he said in an interview with The Times in 1999. "I believed it not." Mr. Shulman never married, and made it clear he had scant time for his only relatives, two nieces who tried to stop him from giving his treasures to the library. "I hate to say it, but your relatives can be predators," he said to The Times in 1999. Mr. Shulman always insisted that the persnickety pickiness he exemplified rates among the supreme virtues. "What difference does it make?" he sputtered in an interview with The Times in 1989. "Why, the same difference as being literate or illiterate, accurate or inaccurate, telling the truth or spreading yarns." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company From jester at PANIX.COM Sun Nov 7 19:51:27 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:51:27 -0500 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times In-Reply-To: <41657.24.149.144.160.1099856731.squirrel@24.149.144.160> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 02:45:31PM -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: > http://nytimes.com/2004/11/07/nyregion/07shulman.html > > The New York Times > November 7, 2004 > A Man of Many Words, David Shulman Dies at 91 > BY DOUGLAS MARTIN [...] > A book on hot dog's glossarial provenance will appear this > year under the names of Mr. Shulman, Mr. Cohen and Barry > Popick. Poor Barry. It never ends. Jesse Sheidlower OED From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Nov 7 21:05:12 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 15:05:12 -0600 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) Message-ID: First, my deep thanks to Douglas Martin (NY Times) and Steve Miller (NY Sun) for their interest in David Shulman and their recent obituaries about him. Douglas Martin had already written two articles about Shulman (1989; 1999?), and IMHO both obituaries captured the essence of what Shulman was all about. As for mistakes, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. I'm not sure what it is about Barry Popik's last name, but it was misspelled not only in the two obituaries but a while back in Dear Abby (concerning "The Big Apple"; Abby wrote "Popick.") It's a minor error unless your name happens to be Popik. Both Steve Miller and Douglas Martin made an effort to obtain an accurate picture of Shulman's etymological work, but mistakes are an intergral part of anything to do with etymology (I speak here from experience). Steve Miller was probably misled by the 1989 NY Times article--which represented the state of the art at that time concerning "The Big Apple" but was superseded by better insight into what had happened. (The 1909 attestation of "the big apple" almost certainly meant "overweening bigshot" and only happened to refer to NYC. It was *not* NYC's nickname at that time. Mariam Touba of The NY Historical Society had drawn the 1909 attestation to my attention, I put it in my Comments on Etymology, someone (probably Shulman himself ) drew it to the attention of Douglas Martin, and Martin then interviewed Shulman about the nickname and related matters.) Meanwhile, I'd like to make a few small corrections to Douglas Martin's comment on "shyster." The full quote is: "Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Shulman was first to challenge that "shyster" derived from a lawyer named Scheuster. Others, particularly Roger Mohovich, then traced the etymology to 1843-1844. "Shyster" turned out to > be a Yiddish corruption of a German vulgarism meaning a crooked lawyer." "Shyster" has nothing to do with Yiddish. It derives from German Sheisser, which is indeed vulgar (from scheissen) and highly derogatory as in "ein alter Scheisser", cf. "alter Kacker." Scheisser entered British cant as "shiser" (well attested), meaning "someone totally worthless." (The original reference in German was to someone who couldn't control his bowels.) The lawyer (albeit not bona fide) Cornelius Terhune used this term "shiser" in his conversation with NYC editor Mike Walsh, and in the context of the conversation Walsh interepreted the term to refer to the worthless, corrupt lawyers (not bona fide!) who were scamming the prisoners in the NYC prison known as The Tombs. Walsh inveighed against that practice. Also, "Others, particularly Roger Mohovich" is a bit vague. Roger Mohovich deserves sole credit for discovering the 1843-1844 _Subterranean_ material on "shyster."and I then developed it. Unless something is slipping my mind, no one else besides the two of us was involved. But again, my thanks to Steve Miller and Douglas Martin for their work on David Shulman. In both cases it is much appreciated. Gerald Cohen From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 7 21:56:00 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 16:56:00 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041107141316.031f6cc0@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 2:25 PM -0500 11/7/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the >>expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's >>genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle >>and a brain? or what? > >It seems to me highly probable that originally the human scrotum itself >(not the testicle) is being likened to a human brain in general external >appearance. Both scrotum and brain are (approximately) symmetrically >bilobate (with two hemiscrota [each containing a testis] versus two >cerebral hemispheres) and corrugated (from dartos muscle contractions >versus cortical gyri and sulci). The other member of the set is the walnut, >maybe. > >-- Doug Wilson Interestingly, transitivity doesn't work here: (kick someone in the) nuts = balls [I have indeed always assumed walnuts here] balls/scrotum = brain (as we've seen), but nuts =/= brain. Unless when we say someone is nuts we're really saying their brain has reverted to its primitive walnuttian state. larry From preston at MSU.EDU Sun Nov 7 22:15:31 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:15:31 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please note that in the world's languages, eggs overwhelms nuts 135 to 1 (roughly) for balls, uh, I mean testicles. dInIs >At 2:25 PM -0500 11/7/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the >>>expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's >>>genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle >>>and a brain? or what? >> >>It seems to me highly probable that originally the human scrotum itself >>(not the testicle) is being likened to a human brain in general external >>appearance. Both scrotum and brain are (approximately) symmetrically >>bilobate (with two hemiscrota [each containing a testis] versus two >>cerebral hemispheres) and corrugated (from dartos muscle contractions >>versus cortical gyri and sulci). The other member of the set is the walnut, >>maybe. >> >>-- Doug Wilson > >Interestingly, transitivity doesn't work here: > >(kick someone in the) nuts = balls [I have indeed always assumed walnuts here] >balls/scrotum = brain (as we've seen), but >nuts =/= brain. >Unless when we say someone is nuts we're really saying their brain >has reverted to its primitive walnuttian state. > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 7 23:46:14 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:46:14 -0600 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) Message-ID: >From the NY Sun David Shulman, 92, Prolific 'Big Apple' Lexicographer BY STEPHEN MILLER - Staff Reporter of the Sun November 4, 2004 David Shulman, who died October 27 at age 92, was a word detective, prolific contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary, cryptographer and cryptologist, anagrammic poet, and general expert on all things lexicographical. Among the longest-resident denizens of the rare book room at the New York Public Library, Shulman's absence in recent weeks was noted by increasingly apprehensive staffers. He discovered the library at age 12 and basically never left - except when it was closed. His death was first announced on the American Dialect Society Web site, where etymologists of many stripes eulogized Shulman as a language maven. Thanks to Shulman, the 3rd edition of the OED has more accurate and, in many cases, older citations for hundreds of words, among them jazz; doozy (not from the Dusenberg automobile, as previously had been cited); snowman, and Big Apple, which he traced to an anti-New York screed published in 1909. A contributor to etymological journals as well, Shulman theorized that the word Manhattan was Delaware Indian for "the place where we all get drunk," although this was not verified. A 300-page scholarly tome he co-authored about the history of the term hot dog is in press at the University of Missouri. Shulman was also blessed with an enthusiasm for New York history, especially the kind that can be pursued through musty stacks of newspapers and issues of the Police Gazette. He told friends that he had recently completed a manuscript contending that Bowery celebrity saloonkeeper Steve Brodie really did jump off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. Many sources in intervening years - including the New York Times in Brodie's 1901 obituary - have denied it. Shulman was born in 1912 to Eastern European Jewish immigrants and grew up speaking Yiddish at Henry Street on the Lower East Side. Years later in a letter in the Times, he complimented author Tom Wolfe for using the phrase "big makher" correctly. (Shulman must have mailed hundreds of letters to the editor, because at least 50 were published, and he groused about how few got in.) Shulman told The Jerusalem Report that he fell in love with lexicography while hanging around his local library in the Bronx, where the family had moved. He graduated from City College in 1937 and found a job writing a column called "Can You...?" for the World Telegram and other newspapers that consisted of word puzzles and trivia. (Example: "Can You ... Take two letters from five to leave four? Yes. Take F and E from FIVE and you leave IV. Catch a Glasgow magistrate in a fish net? Yes. Glasgow magistrate is a nickname for a kind of herring." Shulman served for a time as president of the New York unit of the American Cryptogram Association. A report on a convention of the group in 1952 disclosed that members addressed one another by proxy names. Shulman's was Ab Struse. Other members chose anagrams of their real names. Shulman, meanwhile, showed himself a virtuoso at anagramming in his sonnet "Washington Crossing the Delaware," in which each of the poem's 14 lines is an anagram of its title. (A hard, howling, tossing water scene:/Strong tide was washing hero clean./"How cold!" Weather stings as in anger./O Silent night shows war ace danger!) The poem was often reprinted as a curiosity. In recent years he had moved to an assisted-living facility in Bay Ridge, from which he commuted daily more than an hour each way to the library at Times Square. He was a familiar sight on the library stairs in his ragged windbreaker, carrying a large plastic bag filled with papers and dog-eared index cards in one hand. A librarian who knew Shulman, Robert Scott, said he had produced drawings to go along with a book of poems Shulman was trying to get published. "He was more excited about the poems than even he was about the hot dog book," recalled his co-author of that book, Gerald Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla. Mr. Cohen credited Shulman with "pointing the way" toward college humor as being the source of the phrase, rather than Coney Island vendors or a cartoonist who'd been served a frankfurter by stadium food pioneer Harry Stevens, as some had posited. Another independent word researcher, Barry Popkin -the third co-author of the book - made the actual discovery, in a Yale humor magazine, in 1895. The phrase was a tasteless college jape referring to the common belief - apparently with a basis in fact - that sausages frequently contained dog meat. Shulman never married, but had many friends and correspondents, including H.L. Mencken, A.J. Liebling, Heywood Broun, and the magician Ricky Jay. Late in life he told friends that the only family he had was two nieces, from whom he was completely estranged after they tried to prevent him from donating his extensive collections of cryptographic materials and ephemera to the library. Among these were an unused ticket to the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, the first printed book on ephemera, from 1518, and 20,000 19th-century postcards. During World War II, Shulman joined the Army 2nd Signal Corps Battalion, where he worked decoding Japanese intercepts, then went back to working for newspapers. He went into "semi-retirement" in the mid-1950s and apparently rarely earned money after that, except for some small payments for his citation work for the OED. The American editor of the OED, Jesse Sheidlower, credited Shulman with sending in literally tens of thousands of citations, making him one of the dictionary's most prolific contributors. "He would read unusual sources - sensationalistic novels and trade magazines - the language in them is very interesting, closer to the colloquial," said Mr. Sheidlower. Shulman was particularly proud of his dictionary citations, seeing them as contributions to the English language. When the OED accepted his early citation for Big Apple in 1989 - and shortly after the mayor had bestowed an award on a rival etymologist whose citation was more than a decade later - a gleeful Shulman told the Times, "Mayor Koch, William Safire, Merriam-Webster, and other wordmongers, take heed!" Correction from November 5, 2004 October 30 is the date David Shulman died. An obituary on Page 17 of yesterday's New York Sun misstated the date. Barry Popik co-authored a book with Shulman. His name was misspelled. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 7 23:51:22 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:51:22 -0600 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy Message-ID: >what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the >expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's >genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle >and a brain? or what? Does this mean that the left testicle is the artistic one, and the right testicle is the logical one? >one of the categories i call "peekaboo"; this is where a guy's >equipment sort of spills out of his confining clothing. there are many >subtypes of the peekaboo display, among them the through-the-fly >escapee (which tends to look really silly, probably because it's the >classic flasher pose). I recently saw a frame grab from an episode of "Three's Company" in which you could definitely see some of John Ritter's equipment, peeking out of a pair of athletic shorts he was wearing. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Mon Nov 8 00:04:23 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 19:04:23 -0500 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" To: Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 6:46 PM Subject: Re: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) > Another independent > word researcher, Barry Popkin -the third co-author of >the book - made the > actual discovery, in a Yale humor magazine, in 1895. About the only thing they haven't called him is "Barry Poppins." ....................yet Sam Clements From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 00:14:05 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 19:14:05 -0500 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: Greetings from the Singapore Airport. I have a 16-hour layover until my 23-hour-55-minute flight to New York. BARRY POPICK/POPKIN--Happens every single time, every single thing I do, over my entire life. It's not just the NY Times (write to corrections for me!). It's not just the NY Sun. It's not just "Dear Abby." The 1996 NY Times piece on me about my research on model Audrey Munson called me "Barry Popick." It was corrected--four years later! After six years of struggle, www.hot-dog.org finally surrendered (in 2001) and admitted the TAD story was an origination myth. I'm "Barry Popick" on that web page to this day. This is not trivial--people do search for your name. THAT'S GOTTAT HURT--12,300 Google hits, 12,800 Google Groups hits I just heard this Fred Shapiro-worthy phrase on an action video. I don't know what he has for it (if anything). It appears to come from professional wrestling. (GOOGLE GROUPS) Summit of E-Wrestling Day 2 ... That's gotta hurt!' Coward: 'Morganna the Kissing Bandit is eliminated.' Vince: 'Well that's one down and six to go, and there's the buzzer again.' Coward ... rec.games.pbm - 28 Dec 1991 by Francois LARAMEE - View Thread (1 article) Conclusion of Re: A Simple Question ... set on a rock. . . **BANG!!>>> Oooh, that's gotta hurt! What happened? The kid had reliable book knowledge. But no matter ... alt.magick - 13 Oct 1991 by Michael Smith - View Thread (1 article) Re: Most Inhibitionless ... UTexas Austin | out there in the starlight, one soul burns tmca at astro.as.utexas.edu | brighter than a thousand suns." - Simple Minds ^ That's *gotta* hurt, too ... alt.sex - 18 Sep 1990 by Jabberwokky - View Thread (13 articles) Re: WWF Theory ... the way. I remember the table was trashed pretty good and I thought to myself, "Damn, real or not, that's gotta hurt". Anyways, Heenan ... rec.sport.pro-wrestling - 29 Apr 1990 by horr at ecs.umass.edu - View Thread (20 articles) Re: Safety Of Scrotum Rings ... (God, that's gotta hurt!) -- -alex | alex at Atherton.COM | Caution! ... alt.sex - 18 Apr 1990 by Alex Leavens - View Thread (5 articles) Re: MIRACLE MILE ... In Miracle Mile, you DON'T CARE. At least I didn't. Secondly, In another action movie when a cop or someone dies, you say to yourself, "Gee, that's gotta hurt. ... rec.arts.movies - 20 Jun 1989 by operator at compsys.mu.edu - View Thread (31 articles) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 00:28:48 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 19:28:48 -0500 Subject: Karmapa (1955) Message-ID: KARMAPA--65,600 Google hits, 7,300 Google Groups hits While in Kalimpong (Sikkim), I had the pivilege of meeting the 17th incarnation of the "karmapa" of Tibet. "Karmapa" is not in OED. Oy. (GOOGLE) Karmapa the Black Hat Lama of Tibet This is the site of HH the 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje, the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. ... The 17th Karmapa Thaye Dorje, ... www.karmapa.org/ - 40k - 6 Nov 2004 - Cached - Similar pages Kagyu Office: the Home of the Karmapa The official website of His Holiness the Gyalwang Karmapa, maintained by the Kagyu Office. ... here. Karmapa's Birthday Celebrated. On ... www.kagyuoffice.org/ - 52k - 6 Nov 2004 - Cached - Similar pages (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) 1. Books of The Times By ORVILLE PRESCOTT. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jun 21, 1955. p. 29 (1 page) 2. Dalai Lama Reaches Bomdila, Ends Trek; Lowell Thomas Opens Tibet Refugee Fund The Washington Post and Times Herald (1954-1959). Washington, D.C.: Apr 13, 1959. p. A24 (1 page) 3. Hope's Baby Was Easy Stork Special; Royalty Carries On And The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973). Washington, D.C.: Mar 2, 1964. p. B3 (1 page) 4. She's Rubber-Stamped for Heaven By Carolyn Lewis Washington Post Staff Writer. The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973). Washington, D.C.: Jul 13, 1967. p. F7 (1 page) 5. Buddhist Rite Is Performed Here By GEORGE DUGAN. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Sep 22, 1974. p. 42 (1 page) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 01:46:34 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 20:46:34 -0500 Subject: Weasel Coffee; Asia Pacific Food Expo (Cat Whiskers Tea) Message-ID: ASIA PACIFIC FOOD EXPO Greetings from Singapore. My stopover time here will be well spent. I had no idea, but there's the first annual Asia Pacific Food Expo going on! (GOOGLE) Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry | Activities ... ACTIVITIES. Asia Pacific Food Expo 2004. A Dedicated Regional Food Event Organised by the Industry for the Industry. Organiser: The ... english.sccci.org.sg/index.cfm?GPID=523 - 41k - Cached - Similar pages Welcome to Asia Pacific Food Expo 2004 Participating Companies APFE Events News Update Contact Info. Exhibition Info Conference Events and Schedule Travel and Accomodation Press Releases, ... www.orient-explorer.com/APFC/index.asp - 18k - Cached - Similar pages Singapore Expo - What's Coming Up ... panoramic views. « back. Asia Pacific Food Expo Public Hall 5 04-Nov-04 to 08-Nov-04 Start Time: 11:00; End Time : 22:00. Show Profile ... www.singapore-expo.com.sg/ events_more.asp?EventID_in=202 - 18k - 6 Nov 2004 - Cached - Similar pages AsiaCuisine: News November ... Asia Pacific Food Expo 2004, Singapore 2004-11-01 Mark your calendar for 4 to 8 November 2004 as the Asia Pacific Food Expo 2004 will be held at the Singapore ... www.asiacuisine.com.sg/eventsnews.php3 - 18k - 6 Nov 2004 - Cached - Similar pages Some products include (from the November 7th SUNDAY TIMES, pg. 6): . Misai Kuching (cat whiskers) Organic Herbal Tea . Skylight Premium Buddha Jump Over The Wall . Las Sevillana Goat's Milk Candy -------------------------------------------------------------- WEASEL COFFEE Also from the November 7th SUNDAY TIMES (Singapore), pg. L30: Called "weasel coffee", it originates from Vietnam where legend has it that the country's most expensive coffee variant is made from beans extracted from weasel droppings. (...) Trung Nguyen Chon (Weasel) (O.T. Now, for a quick Google to see what's legal for me to do here in Singapore. Gotta go.) From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 8 03:53:41 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 22:53:41 -0500 Subject: "Dred" Scott Message-ID: Years ago, I read somewhere or other that Dred Scott's name was actually "Great" Scott. The spelling "Dred" merely reflected the pronunciation of "great" as was the norm in the BE of that time and place. Whether this be true, I have no idea. But anyone who listens to the song, Grinder Man, by John Lee Hooker (available in album form at nearly any record shop) can hear for himself that the blues man clearly pronounces "grinder man" as mutatis mutandis "drinder man." -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 8 04:30:37 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 23:30:37 -0500 Subject: Not in DARE? Message-ID: See in(to) = "look in(to)" Long Way From Texas, recorded 1950, by Sam "lightnin'" Hopkins on Mainstream record 311 I come all the way from Texas just to shake gladhands with you I come all the way from Texas just to shake gladhands with you Yes, but when I SEED IN your smiling face, I didn't know just what to do I ought to been knowing these things for a great long time I ought to been knowing these things for a great long time You know it take me for quite a while 'fore I made it up in my mind -Wilson Gray From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 8 07:04:52 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 02:04:52 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <20041108050023.E4222B2564@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: This may or may not have anything to do with the topic: http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20041107 "Unshelved" is a web comic strip set in a library. Yesterday's (Sunday's) strip is a single long panel. - teenage male patron #1, looking offstage (to reader's left): Man, did you see the size of her brain? - teenage male patron #2, ditto: She's too smart for me. I'm going to go study! - librarian #1, in background at information desk: Did I fall through a hole in space time? - librarian #2, ditto: Welcome to Earth Two. Well, *I* like the strip. mark by hand From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 10:02:50 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 05:02:50 -0500 Subject: "Boogieman" and "Bugis" (from Singapore's shopping mall) Message-ID: Greetings from a computer place just outside the Bugis Junction here in Singapore. I'll soon leave those Thai massages behind for endless, mindless hours of parking tickets, as is my New York City destiny. The food court at Bugis Junction is just amazing; one of the best treats I've seen. Maybe I'll get to it later. The late David Shulman did some work on "Colonel Bogey" and golf. This is from a historical marker at the Bugis Junction: ONE IN A SERIES OF BUGIS HERITAGE DISCOVERY POINTS In the mid-seventtenth century, the Bugis were spreading out from Sulawesi to set up trading centres throught the region. Often they had to sail to distant lands and fight indigenous tribes. They rarely lost, which is how they received their reputation as fierce warriors. This is how the first Europeans saw them, and why the name of the Bugis entered into the English langtuage as the dreaded "Boogieman." (GOOGLE) VirtualTourist.com - Ekahau's Singapore Must See Activity Tips ... So feared were the Bugis that the expression, "Beware of the Bugis-man" was coined, later becoming the "Boogieman" of our childhood nightmares. ... www.virtualtourist.com/m/28be5/84b/4/?o=2 - 89k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages GOODNITES Kids Site - Help FAQs - bedwetting site for kids ... ... Whatever you call him, word has it that the tall tale of the Boogie Man probably came from the "bugis" pirates from old-world Indonesia and Malaysia. ... www.goodnites.com/na/kids/help/help_faqs.asp - 30k - Cached - Similar pages languagehat.com: SAFIRE'S BOGEYMAN. ... there might be another level of etymology (real or imputed) to booger/boogieman? ... to South Sulawesi will tell you that 'Bogeyman' comes from Bugis, because they ... www.languagehat.com/archives/001124.php - 19k - Cached - Similar pages (...) Every tourist guide to South Sulawesi will tell you that 'Bogeyman' comes from Bugis, because they were so fearsome and piratical. I always thought this sounded like a crock, but actually looking at the OED it doesn't seem so farfetched (the first reference for the 'goblin' type meaning is 1857 S. OSBORN Quedah ii. 17 Malay pirates..those bogies of the Archipelago.) I should add though, that I have always found Bugis people to be perfectly honourable, and certainly they have never hidden under my bed with the intention of frightening me. Posted by: Anthony at February 5, 2004 07:34 AM (OED) bogey, bogie [Found in literature only recently; old people vouched (1887) for its use in the nursery as early as 1825, but only as proper name (sense 1). Possibly a southern nursery form of bogle, boggle, and boggard, or going back like them to a simpler form which, as mentioned under BOG and BOGLE, may be a variant of bugge, BUG ‘terror, bugbear, scarecrow’. But in the absence of evidence, positive statements concerning its relation to these words cannot be made. (That they are connected with the Slavonic bog ‘god’, is a mere fancy from the similarity of form, without any evidence.)] 1. As quasi-proper name: The evil one, the devil. 1836-40 BARHAM Ingol. Leg., Witches' Frolic, But hears the words ‘Scratch’ and ‘Old Bogey’ and ‘Nick’. Ibid. (1840) 322 Then Boguey'd have you sure as eggs is eggs. 1840 GEN. P. THOMPSON Exerc. (1842) V. 88 To admit to evidence such as avow their credence in ‘old Bogie’. 1851 THACKERAY Eng. Hum. v. (1858) 239 The people are all naughty and Bogey carries them all off. 1865 E. C. CLAYTON Cruel Fort. III. 85 I'll put out the light and go away, and leave you all by yourself with Bogie. 1879 M. CONWAY Demonol. I. I. iii. 16. 2. A bogle or goblin; a person much dreaded. 1857 S. OSBORN Quedah ii. 17 Malay pirates..those bogies of the Archipelago. 1863 KINGSLEY Water Bab. (1878) 19 On the top of each gate post a most dreadful bogy. 1863 BARING-GOULD Iceland 118 The sheepwalks have got a bad name for bogies. 3. fig. An object of terror or dread; a bugbear. 1865 Daily Tel. 27 Nov. 2/3 Reform is not a bogy to cheat, but a blessing to recognise and regulate. 1878 N. Amer. Rev. 135 Men..who discover bogies in every measure. 4. Criminals' slang. A detective; a policeman. 1924 S. SCOTT Human Side i. 23 Men will listen to the vilest epithets, but call them ‘bogey’, ‘brassey’, ‘copper’, or ‘policeman’, and they will be at your throat. 1931 W. F. BROWN in Police Jrnl. Oct. 501 She told a detective (bogey) she knew that Jack was in the brothel (case). 1936 J. CURTIS Gilt Kid 17 One of the bogies from Vine Street reckernizes me. 1960 Observer 24 Jan. 7/2 Suppose..a bogy did get it up for a villain now and again by making sure that some gear was found in his flat? 5. A piece of dried nasal mucus. colloq. 1937 in PARTRIDGE Dict. Slang 853/1 s.v. sweep. 1955 K. AMIS That Uncertain Feeling xii. 158 ‘You've got a bogey on your nose. Improves your looks no end.’ I was near the mirror... I peeped in and saw the bogey. It was large and vermiform and clung to the wing of my right nostril. Ibid. xiii. 176, I felt my nostrils carefully, testing for bogeys. 1967 D. PINNER Ritual xv. 148 He..removed wax from ears, bogeys from nose, blackheads from chin. 6. An unidentified aircraft; an enemy aeroplane. slang. 1943 WARD-JACKSON Piece of Cake 16 Bogey, a friendly aircraft [corrected in ed. 1945 to:] a suspect aircraft. 1944 Life 17 July 20 Before supper was over this evening, several ‘bogeys’as unidentified planes are called under such circumstanceswere seen approaching from different directions. 7. attrib. and Comb., as bogy-man, -word, etc. 1863 KINGSLEY Water Bab. iv. 146 The old German bogy-painters. c1890 Bogey man [see note s.v. BOGEY]. 1912 G. B. SHAW in Christian Globe 22 Feb. 433/4 It was manlier than clinging to Britannia's skirts for protection against the Bogey Man with the triple tiara. 1919 J. L. GARVIN Econ. Found. Peace 112 To confuse or weaken the Allies by using ‘Bolshevism’ as a bogey-word. 1926 FOWLER Mod. Eng. Usage 559/1 Bogy-haunted creatures who for fear of splitting an infinitive abstain from doing something quite different. 1954 J. R. R. TOLKIEN Fellowship of Ring I. vi. 121 The old bogey-stories Fatty's nurses used to tell him. 1959 Listener 16 Apr. 657/2 Black children were brought up to believe that if they were naughty the white bogy-man would come and gobble them up. Hence bogydom, the domain of Old Bogy. bogyism, the recognition of bogies. bogyphobia, dread of bogies. 1880 Daily Tel. 2 Dec., A sulphurous odour..suggestive of bogeydom. 1876 Athenæum 14 Oct. 495/3 The author seems to be a spiritualist, or, at least, to have a leaning to banshees and bogyism. 1872 LIVINGSTONE in Daily News 29 July, I am not liable to fits of bogiephobia. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 12:53:35 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 07:53:35 -0500 Subject: "Mur/Rum" at Asia Pacific Food Expo Message-ID: Greetings again from Singapore. I leave at about midnight for my 24-hour flight home. The Asia Pacific Food Expo at the Expo Centre (near this airport) was a big success. Products were there to be bought, but most booths gave away free samples. The food was surprisingly normal--no testicles were to be found. I didn't see Indian food or Korean food represented, however. Most of the food was Chinese and Indonesian and Malaysian and Thai. The people attending the Food Expo were of normal weight, with very few fatties. The Food Expo is a good example of what other convention centers can do--notably the Javits Center in New York. MUR/RUM--Polar puffs and cakes (www.polarpuffs-cakes.com) sold "MUR." I was told that, under Islamic standards, "rum" can't be used, so the cake was named "mur." Is that true? B.H.S.--Banana & Honey & Soy Milk smoothie. DRAGON BALL--A puff with ham in it. FLOSS--Duck Floss and Pork Floss and Chicken Floss and Fish Floss were sold all over. You don't get cavities if you floss with duck? TU-TU CAKE--I haven't Googled it yet. HONG KONG CUP CAKE--"A world renowned Hong Kong sponge cake in the shape of a cup." COFFEE ZERACCINO--Ice blended coffee drink. Seen at only one place, so maybe "zerraccino" is a trade name. WIFE BISCUITS/HUSBAND BISCUITS--Seen at one shop. Again, I don't know how standard this is. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 8 14:28:13 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 06:28:13 -0800 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: This is older than 1989, though I can't say by how much. Ten years? Maybe. Twenty? Maybe not. I associate it with baseball and football announcers. JL Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings from the Singapore Airport. I have a 16-hour layover until my 23-hour-55-minute flight to New York. BARRY POPICK/POPKIN--Happens every single time, every single thing I do, over my entire life. It's not just the NY Times (write to corrections for me!). It's not just the NY Sun. It's not just "Dear Abby." The 1996 NY Times piece on me about my research on model Audrey Munson called me "Barry Popick." It was corrected--four years later! After six years of struggle, www.hot-dog.org finally surrendered (in 2001) and admitted the TAD story was an origination myth. I'm "Barry Popick" on that web page to this day. This is not trivial--people do search for your name. THAT'S GOTTAT HURT--12,300 Google hits, 12,800 Google Groups hits I just heard this Fred Shapiro-worthy phrase on an action video. I don't know what he has for it (if anything). It appears to come from professional wrestling. (GOOGLE GROUPS) Summit of E-Wrestling Day 2 ... That's gotta hurt!' Coward: 'Morganna the Kissing Bandit is eliminated.' Vince: 'Well that's one down and six to go, and there's the buzzer again.' Coward ... rec.games.pbm - 28 Dec 1991 by Francois LARAMEE - View Thread (1 article) Conclusion of Re: A Simple Question ... set on a rock. . . **BANG!!>>> Oooh, that's gotta hurt! What happened? The kid had reliable book knowledge. But no matter ... alt.magick - 13 Oct 1991 by Michael Smith - View Thread (1 article) Re: Most Inhibitionless ... UTexas Austin | out there in the starlight, one soul burns tmca at astro.as.utexas.edu | brighter than a thousand suns." - Simple Minds ^ That's *gotta* hurt, too ... alt.sex - 18 Sep 1990 by Jabberwokky - View Thread (13 articles) Re: WWF Theory ... the way. I remember the table was trashed pretty good and I thought to myself, "Damn, real or not, that's gotta hurt". Anyways, Heenan ... rec.sport.pro-wrestling - 29 Apr 1990 by horr at ecs.umass.edu - View Thread (20 articles) Re: Safety Of Scrotum Rings ... (God, that's gotta hurt!) -- -alex | alex at Atherton.COM | Caution! ... alt.sex - 18 Apr 1990 by Alex Leavens - View Thread (5 articles) Re: MIRACLE MILE ... In Miracle Mile, you DON'T CARE. At least I didn't. Secondly, In another action movie when a cop or someone dies, you say to yourself, "Gee, that's gotta hurt. ... rec.arts.movies - 20 Jun 1989 by operator at compsys.mu.edu - View Thread (31 articles) --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 15:05:10 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:05:10 -0500 Subject: LA Times, Chicago Tribune digitization by ProQuest Message-ID: The LA Times seems to have halted completely and the Chicago Tribune doesn't go before 1890, so I asked ProQuest about the digitization progress. 2005 seems late. I was hoping that both would be done by the end of December 2004. Barry Popik/Popick/Popkin Hello, Barry, Quick updates: The LA Times isn't exactly stuck (we had planned on finishing the year with 1960 so we're way ahead of schedule); but we have shifted to digitizing the Chicago Tribune more heavily through the rest of this year. LA Times digitization will continue but at a slower pace through the rest of 2004. The pre-1890 Chicago Tribune is being refilmed directly from hardcopy archives held at various repositories. Once filmed, we'll digitize those years. Both papers will be completely digited through 1984 (ASCII for both starts at 1985) in 2005 (probably by July/August). Hope this information helps. Happy hunting! Chris Chris Cowan Vice President, Publishing ProQuest Information & Learning 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 Ph: 800-521-0600, ext. 6204 Ph: 734-975-6204 Fax: 734-975-6271 From lesa.dill at WKU.EDU Mon Nov 8 16:08:35 2004 From: lesa.dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:08:35 -0600 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <20041105205513.GA10390@panix.com> Message-ID: What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another barbecue battle might be too much to handle. Lesa Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 03:48:01PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > >>I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland >>term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR >>people. >> >> > >It is in DARE, which labels it "esp. KY". > >Jesse Sheidlower >OED > > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 8 17:10:13 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:10:13 -0600 Subject: IMDb as a verb Message-ID: http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1344653,00.html next to last paragraph "IMDb's founder, Col Needham, said he'd heard nothing of the new application his site was finding in LA. "We're very familiar with the term 'IMDb me' as a business term," he said." From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 8 18:25:12 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:25:12 -0500 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 8, 2004, at 9:28 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > This is older than 1989, though I can't say by how much. Ten years? > Maybe. Twenty? Maybe not. > > JL > I agree, though, unfortunately, I can't come up with any kind of real date, either, despite the fact that it once had catchphrase status. You used to hear it on SNL, ca.1982. Joe Piscopo and Billy Crystal had a series of show-opening sketches in which they discussed various ways of inflicting pain on themselves. One would ask something like, "Have you ever used a hacksaw blade to slice the webs of your toes and then sprinkled Tabasco into the cuts?" At some point in the discussion, one of them would comment something like, "Whoa! That's gotta hurt!" But it seems to me that the phrase was already out there. Piscopo and Crystal merely incorporated it into their skits. -Wilson Gray > Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Greetings from the Singapore Airport. I have a 16-hour layover until > my 23-hour-55-minute flight to New York. > > BARRY POPICK/POPKIN--Happens every single time, every single thing I > do, over my entire life. It's not just the NY Times (write to > corrections for me!). It's not just the NY Sun. It's not just "Dear > Abby." The 1996 NY Times piece on me about my research on model Audrey > Munson called me "Barry Popick." It was corrected--four years later! > After six years of struggle, www.hot-dog.org finally surrendered (in > 2001) and admitted the TAD story was an origination myth. I'm "Barry > Popick" on that web page to this day. This is not trivial--people do > search for your name. > > THAT'S GOTTAT HURT--12,300 Google hits, 12,800 Google Groups hits > > I just heard this Fred Shapiro-worthy phrase on an action video. I > don't know what he has for it (if anything). It appears to come from > professional wrestling. > > > (GOOGLE GROUPS) > Summit of E-Wrestling Day 2 > ... That's gotta hurt!' Coward: 'Morganna the Kissing Bandit is > eliminated.' Vince: > 'Well that's one down and six to go, and there's the buzzer again.' > Coward ... > rec.games.pbm - 28 Dec 1991 by Francois LARAMEE - View Thread (1 > article) > > Conclusion of Re: A Simple Question > ... set on a rock. . . **BANG!!>>> Oooh, that's gotta hurt! What > happened? The kid had reliable book knowledge. But no matter ... > alt.magick - 13 Oct 1991 by Michael Smith - View Thread (1 article) > > Re: Most Inhibitionless > ... UTexas Austin | out there in the starlight, one soul burns > tmca at astro.as.utexas.edu > | brighter than a thousand suns." - Simple Minds ^ That's *gotta* > hurt, too ... > alt.sex - 18 Sep 1990 by Jabberwokky - View Thread (13 articles) > > Re: WWF Theory > ... the way. I remember the table was trashed pretty good and I > thought to > myself, "Damn, real or not, that's gotta hurt". Anyways, Heenan ... > rec.sport.pro-wrestling - 29 Apr 1990 by horr at ecs.umass.edu - View > Thread (20 articles) > > Re: Safety Of Scrotum Rings > ... (God, that's gotta hurt!) -- -alex > | alex at Atherton.COM | Caution! ... > alt.sex - 18 Apr 1990 by Alex Leavens - View Thread (5 articles) > > Re: MIRACLE MILE > ... In Miracle Mile, you DON'T CARE. At least I didn't. Secondly, In > another action movie > when a cop or someone dies, you say to yourself, "Gee, that's gotta > hurt. ... > rec.arts.movies - 20 Jun 1989 by operator at compsys.mu.edu - View Thread > (31 articles) > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com > From blemay0 at MCHSI.COM Mon Nov 8 18:54:03 2004 From: blemay0 at MCHSI.COM (Bill Lemay) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 18:54:03 +0000 Subject: Burgoo Message-ID: While not a linguistic source, The Joy of Cooking mentioned in its burgoo recipe that the first syllable receives emphasis. > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Lesa Dill > Subject: Re: Burgoo > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and > Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as > alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another > barbecue battle might be too much to handle. > Lesa > > Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > > >On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 03:48:01PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > > >>I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland > >>term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR > >>people. > >> > >> > > > >It is in DARE, which labels it "esp. KY". > > > >Jesse Sheidlower > >OED > > > > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 8 19:59:57 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:59:57 -0600 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: > > I agree, though, unfortunately, I can't come up with any kind > of real date, either, despite the fact that it once had > catchphrase status. You used to hear it on SNL, ca.1982. Joe > Piscopo and Billy Crystal had a series of show-opening > sketches in which they discussed various ways of inflicting > pain on themselves. One would ask something like, "Have you > ever used a hacksaw blade to slice the webs of your toes and > then sprinkled Tabasco into the cuts?" At some point in the > discussion, one of them would comment something like, "Whoa! > That's gotta hurt!" But it seems to me that the phrase was > already out there. Piscopo and Crystal merely incorporated it > into their skits. > > -Wilson Gray > Willie and Frankie were played by Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest (respectively), during the 1984-85 season of SNL. A transcript of one of their dialogues is here: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84ewillie.phtml This is the only one of their sketches transcribed on the site, and "that's gotta hurt" doesn't appear in it. I remember their catch phrase as being more along the lines of "I hate it when that happens". The phrase "That's gotta hurt" does appear in this skit from 2/10/1990: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/89/89lwaltman.phtml From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 8 21:00:09 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:00:09 -0600 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 8 21:30:01 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:30:01 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49744@rdec-exch8.ds.amr dec.army.mil> Message-ID: Nah, that was Li'l Abner. At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: > http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 > >Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. From preston at MSU.EDU Mon Nov 8 21:54:27 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:54:27 -0500 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <110820041854.5715.5ef5@mchsi.com> Message-ID: >What does The Joy of Cooking say about "police"? dInIs >While not a linguistic source, The Joy of Cooking mentioned in its burgoo >recipe that the first syllable receives emphasis. >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Lesa Dill >> Subject: Re: Burgoo >> >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and >> Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as >> alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another >> barbecue battle might be too much to handle. >> Lesa >> >> Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> >> >On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 03:48:01PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> > >> > >> >>I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland >> >>term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR >> >>people. >> >> >> >> >> > >> >It is in DARE, which labels it "esp. KY". >> > >> >Jesse Sheidlower >> >OED >> > >> > -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Mon Nov 8 22:26:44 2004 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:26:44 -0600 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) In-Reply-To: <002d01c4c526$812e97c0$0c21a618@sam> Message-ID: I've put David Shulman's 1976 article, "Antedate Dictionary Citations", up on the VERBATIM web site for those that might be interested in seeing it. http://www.verbatimmag.com. It's the top link. Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 9 00:12:59 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:12:59 -0800 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: My best guess is that I first heard it during the 1977 or 1978 AL pennant race. I'd paid little attention to baseball for many years, but watched a lot of Yankee games on WPIX during those truly dramatic seasons. JL Wilson Gray wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Wilson Gray Subject: Re: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Nov 8, 2004, at 9:28 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > This is older than 1989, though I can't say by how much. Ten years? > Maybe. Twenty? Maybe not. > > JL > I agree, though, unfortunately, I can't come up with any kind of real date, either, despite the fact that it once had catchphrase status. You used to hear it on SNL, ca.1982. Joe Piscopo and Billy Crystal had a series of show-opening sketches in which they discussed various ways of inflicting pain on themselves. One would ask something like, "Have you ever used a hacksaw blade to slice the webs of your toes and then sprinkled Tabasco into the cuts?" At some point in the discussion, one of them would comment something like, "Whoa! That's gotta hurt!" But it seems to me that the phrase was already out there. Piscopo and Crystal merely incorporated it into their skits. -Wilson Gray > Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Greetings from the Singapore Airport. I have a 16-hour layover until > my 23-hour-55-minute flight to New York. > > BARRY POPICK/POPKIN--Happens every single time, every single thing I > do, over my entire life. It's not just the NY Times (write to > corrections for me!). It's not just the NY Sun. It's not just "Dear > Abby." The 1996 NY Times piece on me about my research on model Audrey > Munson called me "Barry Popick." It was corrected--four years later! > After six years of struggle, www.hot-dog.org finally surrendered (in > 2001) and admitted the TAD story was an origination myth. I'm "Barry > Popick" on that web page to this day. This is not trivial--people do > search for your name. > > THAT'S GOTTAT HURT--12,300 Google hits, 12,800 Google Groups hits > > I just heard this Fred Shapiro-worthy phrase on an action video. I > don't know what he has for it (if anything). It appears to come from > professional wrestling. > > > (GOOGLE GROUPS) > Summit of E-Wrestling Day 2 > ... That's gotta hurt!' Coward: 'Morganna the Kissing Bandit is > eliminated.' Vince: > 'Well that's one down and six to go, and there's the buzzer again.' > Coward ... > rec.games.pbm - 28 Dec 1991 by Francois LARAMEE - View Thread (1 > article) > > Conclusion of Re: A Simple Question > ... set on a rock. . . **BANG!!>>> Oooh, that's gotta hurt! What > happened? The kid had reliable book knowledge. But no matter ... > alt.magick - 13 Oct 1991 by Michael Smith - View Thread (1 article) > > Re: Most Inhibitionless > ... UTexas Austin | out there in the starlight, one soul burns > tmca at astro.as.utexas.edu > | brighter than a thousand suns." - Simple Minds ^ That's *gotta* > hurt, too ... > alt.sex - 18 Sep 1990 by Jabberwokky - View Thread (13 articles) > > Re: WWF Theory > ... the way. I remember the table was trashed pretty good and I > thought to > myself, "Damn, real or not, that's gotta hurt". Anyways, Heenan ... > rec.sport.pro-wrestling - 29 Apr 1990 by horr at ecs.umass.edu - View > Thread (20 articles) > > Re: Safety Of Scrotum Rings > ... (God, that's gotta hurt!) -- -alex > | alex at Atherton.COM | Caution! ... > alt.sex - 18 Apr 1990 by Alex Leavens - View Thread (5 articles) > > Re: MIRACLE MILE > ... In Miracle Mile, you DON'T CARE. At least I didn't. Secondly, In > another action movie > when a cop or someone dies, you say to yourself, "Gee, that's gotta > hurt. ... > rec.arts.movies - 20 Jun 1989 by operator at compsys.mu.edu - View Thread > (31 articles) > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 01:31:01 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:31:01 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: Message-ID: But wasn't Dogpatch, home of the skonk works, the Little Wonder Specialty Co., and the Sadie Hawkins Day race and dance a hamlet in Kentucky? -Wilson Gray On Nov 8, 2004, at 4:30 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Nah, that was Li'l Abner. > > At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: >> http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 >> >> Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. > > From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 9 01:38:25 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:38:25 -0500 Subject: Burgoo Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lesa Dill" To: Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 11:08 AM Subject: Re: Burgoo > What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and > Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as > alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another > barbecue battle might be too much to handle. > Lesa I can't see any connection etymologically. As for the difference in recipes, I'm from Virginia originally, and I cook a mean Brunswick stew. Most Burgoo recipes I've seen have the following additional ingredients that are missing from the Virginia/Georgia Brunswick Stew: Carrots, celery, beef, cabbage, and perhaps a bit of spice from something such as cayenne. If I read you correctly Lesa, you think that all BBQ has the same taste? We'd need a few months on the road together. I'd take you from the vinegar/red pepper of Eastern NC, my personal favorite, to the more tomato based Western NC, to the three varieties of SC BBQ, including the mustard sauce. Kentucky/Tenn. have an even more tomato based product, and then you can get into the OK/TX sauces. Sam Clements From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 9 02:04:58 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:04:58 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" To: Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 4:00 PM Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 > > Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. > Big problem. According to everything I can find, the current artist, the third to draw the strip, is only that--an artist. The script for the strip is done by a consortium of writers, any one of which could have contributed the term "pop."' SC From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 9 02:21:48 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:21:48 -0500 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:59:57 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: > >Willie and Frankie were played by Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest >(respectively), during the 1984-85 season of SNL. A transcript of one of >their dialogues is here: >http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84ewillie.phtml > >This is the only one of their sketches transcribed on the site, and "that's >gotta hurt" doesn't appear in it. I remember their catch phrase as being >more along the lines of "I hate it when that happens". > >The phrase "That's gotta hurt" does appear in this skit from 2/10/1990: >http://snltranscripts.jt.org/89/89lwaltman.phtml I vaguely recall "That's gotta hurt" being popularized in the mid- to late '80s by sportscaster Marv Albert in his appearances on "Late Night with David Letterman". Marv would always bring a reel of sports bloopers that he would narrate in his inimitable style. --Ben Zimmer From pds at VISI.COM Tue Nov 9 03:27:52 2004 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:27:52 -0600 Subject: Flop -- Telco Lingo Message-ID: After the area's telephone junction box was taken out by a drunk driver, Qwest employees have spent the last two days putting the pieces together. We have eight lines where I work, and they got most of them right. However, two were not. I wrote this down... Dialed Received xxx-xxxx yyy-yyyy yyy-yyyy ??? and took the note to the crew chief. He handed it to an assistant and said, "You've got a flop here." He repeated this in the course of explaining. He did not say, "flip-flop," which I believe has a specific meaning in that world, ie a circuit governed by a toggle switch or having some other way of achieving either of two states. I don't know if he would have said "flip-flop" if the lines had been completely reversed. I was not about about to ask a man up to his knees in tangled wired. --Tom Kysilko, who wishes that all this recent talk about flip-flops had been a flop. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 9 04:07:22 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 23:07:22 -0500 Subject: Pauline Kael quote about Nixon Message-ID: I'm assuming Fred knows the StraightDope on this. A poster over at the Straight Dope Board tonight said that Pauline Kael was supposed to have said "I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." True/False? Sam Clements From jprucher at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 9 04:33:59 2004 From: jprucher at YAHOO.COM (Jeff Prucher) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:33:59 -0800 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: That's my recollection, too. Although I think the related themepark -- Dogpatch, U.S.A. -- was in Arkansas. Sure is confoozin'. Jeff --- Wilson Gray wrote: > > But wasn't Dogpatch, home of the skonk works, the Little Wonder > Specialty Co., and the Sadie Hawkins Day race and dance a hamlet in > Kentucky? > > -Wilson Gray > > On Nov 8, 2004, at 4:30 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------- > > > > Nah, that was Li'l Abner. > > > > At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: > >> http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 > >> > >> Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. > > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 9 06:23:58 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 01:23:58 -0500 Subject: Nine-yard shroud? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I just picked up a copy of Dave Wilton's new book "Word Myths". I see a section on the good old "nine yards" including (p. 35) a quotation from Manly Wade Wellman (1958) -- the same quotation which appears in HDAS (v. 2, p. 667) -- based on the idea of nine yards being a traditional quantity of cloth required for a shroud (in Appalachian folklore and/or practice). HDAS refers to "the fact that nine yards is a customary length for a burial shroud", and Wilton refers to "the traditional length of a burial shroud in Appalachian custom". I've been looking through regional folklore books a little bit, and so far I'm unable to find any documentation of this traditional nine-yard shroud. This notion is mentioned in the story in question, all right, but it is after all a fantasy story. I believe Wellman included some real folklore in his stories, but I believe he also made up some of his 'folklore' out of, uh, whole cloth. [One of Wellman's strengths as a writer, I think, is his ability to make such inventions seem authentic. In at least one case, he stated that he had invented a myth for a story and had subsequently received letters from persons who had heard of this myth previously (not a unique event, of course).] Does anyone here have any knowledge or documentation which would distinguish a real tradition from an invention by Wellman himself in this case? Can anyone suggest a widely-available reference book or other work to consult? Incidentally, in the story, the reference is not explicitly to the length of a winding-cloth; rather it is said that the only type of suit which requires nine yards of cloth is a shroud. "Shroud" here apparently means a burial garment, and it's not clear whether it's a regular suit of clothes, something resembling a regular suit, or some other kind of cloth wrapper (all of these have been widely used). -- Doug Wilson From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Tue Nov 9 07:19:32 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 01:19:32 -0600 Subject: Burgoo Message-ID: Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:08:35 -0600 From: Lesa Dill Subject: Re: Burgoo What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another barbecue battle might be too much to handle. A quick look at http://onelook.com suggests that the name might have been transferred from an entirely different food. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=burgoo Main Entry: bur·goo Pronunciation: 'b&r-"gü, (")b&r-' Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural burgoos Etymology: origin unknown 1 : oatmeal gruel 2 : hardtack and molasses cooked together 3 a : a stew or thick soup of meat and vegetables orig. served at outdoor gatherings b : a picnic at which burgoo is served -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 9 11:28:27 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 06:28:27 -0500 Subject: Pauline Kael quote about Nixon In-Reply-To: <007e01c4c611$9d8a5990$0c21a618@sam> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Sam Clements wrote: > I'm assuming Fred knows the StraightDope on this. > > A poster over at the Straight Dope Board tonight said that Pauline Kael was > supposed to have said > > "I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." I don't have anything in my files on this, although I am familiar with it and believe it to be authentic. I'll see what I can come up with. There is another and more interesting Nixon-era quote about whose source I have no idea. It was something to the effect that a few years after the 1972 election no one would admit to having voted for Nixon. I predict much the same phenomenon will now happen with regard to Bush. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From einstein at FROGNET.NET Tue Nov 9 11:47:44 2004 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 06:47:44 -0500 Subject: Pauline Kael quote about Nixon Message-ID: I think the quote is more apt abt Truman, i.e. "I don't know how Truman won since everyone I knew voted for Dewey." I remember hearing this as a kid in 4th grade! From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 9 14:11:33 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 09:11:33 EST Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: In a digest dated 11/9/04 12:03:35 AM Eastern Standard Time, LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU quotes: > Nah, that was Li'l Abner. > > At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: > > http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 > > > >Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. If memory serves, Al Capp was careful NEVER to identify the location of Dogpatch. Presumably he felt that Li'l Abner would have a more universal appeal if Dogpatch were never identified with one geographical area. Note that Lockheed's secret aircraft development facility, which acquired the name "Skunk Works", was in Los Angeles, not an area usually identified with backwoods folks. One possible slip on Al Capp's part: in the statue which regularly showed up in the strip, General Jubilation T. Cornpone is wearing a uniform that, if memory serves, was that of the Confederate Army. There was a "Senator Phogbound" who was a regular character in the Li'l Abner strip. Was he the Senator from Dogpatch? If so, Dogpatch was a state (but where was the other Senator?) Anyway, "us" Kentuckians liked to claim that Dogpatch was in Kentucky. I went to Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky, and the school's logo was a drawing of Lonesome Polecat from the Li'l Abner strip that Mr. Capp gave permission to use (and I do not doubt personally drew). The school's athletic teams were the "Redskins". Ah, those pre-Politically Correct days, when a goofy drawing of what was not yet called a "Native American" could be prominently posted on the outside wall of the school. In case anyone is interested, the name "Seneca" comes not from the Roman philosopher but from nearby Seneca Park, one of a number of municipal parks designed by Frederic Law Olmstead and named after Indian tribes. Olmstead, as well as being a landscape architect, was a journalist who before the Civil War wrote a well-known book about the South (with much discussion of slavery), so our Politically Incorrect school name had a very tenuous connection with Emancipation and therefore with the civil rights and PC movements. A related Al Capp-ism "Skunk Works", where Lonesome Polecat and a Caucasian character whose name escapes me brewed up "Kickapoo joy juice." MWCD10 says (page 1101 column 2) "fr. the _Skonk Works_, illicit distilery in the comic strip _Li'l Abner_ by Al Capp (ca. 1974)". That the Skonk Works is a distillery is a deduction on Merriam-Webster's part, since the Skonk Works as drawn in the strip consisted of a large kettle over a fire, with no sign of a still. If I can find a certain book which is hiding from me, I will challenge that date. Oddly, MWCD11 merely lists "Skunk Works" as a "service mark". - Jim Landau Aside to Wilson Gray: I believe I said earlier that my copy of Clausewitz's "On War" was AWOL. Sunday I attended a talk by a chaplain who is stationed with the troops in Iraq. In a list of items to send to the troops, he listed non-fiction books, particularly on military history (he said they are swamped with paperback fiction.) So I went through my library looking for military history books that I haven't read and, lo and behold, that copy of Clausewitz patriotically showed up and volunteered. Anyway, this is an abridged version of the 1908 Colonel J. J. Graham translation, reprinted by Penguin (Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044427-0, edited by Anatol Rapoport). Page 119 "War is a mere continuation of policy by other means." (Question: Am I correct that a leading zero in an ISBN means a book published in the United States? This book, according to the reverse of the title page, was "set, printed, and bound in Great Britain"). From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 15:16:28 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 10:16:28 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 9, 2004, at 9:11 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a digest dated 11/9/04 12:03:35 AM Eastern Standard Time, > LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU quotes: > >> Nah, that was Li'l Abner. >> >> At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: >>> http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 >>> >>> Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. > > If memory serves, Al Capp was careful NEVER to identify the location of > Dogpatch. Presumably he felt that Li'l Abner would have a more > universal appeal if > Dogpatch were never identified with one geographical area. Note that > Lockheed's secret aircraft development facility, which acquired the > name "Skunk > Works", was in Los Angeles, not an area usually identified with > backwoods folks. > > One possible slip on Al Capp's part: in the statue which regularly > showed up > in the strip, General Jubilation T. Cornpone is wearing a uniform > that, if > memory serves, was that of the Confederate Army. > > There was a "Senator Phogbound" who was a regular character in the > Li'l Abner > strip. Was he the Senator from Dogpatch? If so, Dogpatch was a state > (but > where was the other Senator?) > > Anyway, "us" Kentuckians liked to claim that Dogpatch was in Kentucky. > I > went to Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky, and the school's > logo was a > drawing of Lonesome Polecat from the Li'l Abner strip that Mr. Capp > gave > permission to use (and I do not doubt personally drew). The school's > athletic teams > were the "Redskins". Ah, those pre-Politically Correct days, when a > goofy > drawing of what was not yet called a "Native American" could be > prominently > posted on the outside wall of the school. > > In case anyone is interested, the name "Seneca" comes not from the > Roman > philosopher but from nearby Seneca Park, one of a number of municipal > parks > designed by Frederic Law Olmstead and named after Indian tribes. > Olmstead, as well > as being a landscape architect, was a journalist who before the Civil > War > wrote a well-known book about the South (with much discussion of > slavery), so our > Politically Incorrect school name had a very tenuous connection with > Emancipation and therefore with the civil rights and PC movements. > > A related Al Capp-ism "Skunk Works", where Lonesome Polecat and a > Caucasian > character whose name escapes me brewed up "Kickapoo joy juice." > MWCD10 says > (page 1101 column 2) "fr. the _Skonk Works_, illicit distilery in the > comic > strip _Li'l Abner_ by Al Capp (ca. 1974)". That the Skonk Works is a > distillery > is a deduction on Merriam-Webster's part, since the Skonk Works as > drawn in > the strip consisted of a large kettle over a fire, with no sign of a > still. If > I can find a certain book which is hiding from me, I will challenge > that date. > Oddly, MWCD11 merely lists "Skunk Works" as a "service mark". > > - Jim Landau > > Aside to Wilson Gray: I believe I said earlier that my copy of > Clausewitz's > "On War" was AWOL. Sunday I attended a talk by a chaplain who is > stationed > with the troops in Iraq. In a list of items to send to the troops, he > listed > non-fiction books, particularly on military history (he said they are > swamped > with paperback fiction.) So I went through my library looking for > military > history books that I haven't read and, lo and behold, that copy of > Clausewitz > patriotically showed up and volunteered. > > Anyway, this is an abridged version of the 1908 Colonel J. J. Graham > translation, reprinted by Penguin (Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: > Penguin Books > Ltd, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044427-0, edited by Anatol Rapoport). Page 119 > "War is a > mere continuation of policy by other means." > > (Question: Am I correct that a leading zero in an ISBN means a book > published in the United States? This book, according to the reverse > of the title > page, was "set, printed, and bound in Great Britain"). > The white guy's name was/is? (I've been under the impression that the strip died with Al Capp, but that's merely an assumption on my part; I don't know f' sho') "Big Barnsmell." I agree that the general wore Confederate grey. But isn't the term "skonk works" way, way, way older than 1974? Or does the date refer to the term "*Skunk* Works"? Do you remember Bashington T. Bullmoose? "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for the U.S.A." Wolfbane? The Wolf Girl? What was the name of the guy who always wore a zoot suit with the drape shape and the reet pleat and had the power of the whammy? And Olmsted was really quite a good writer as well as the king of American landscape architecture. -Wilson Gray From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Tue Nov 9 15:36:11 2004 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 10:36:11 -0500 Subject: latest college slang Message-ID: I'm looking for examples of recent college slang for an upcoming On Language column. Any recommendations? (If so, please send them to me at phille at nytimes.com.) Thanks very much, Elizabeth From gorion at GMAIL.COM Tue Nov 9 16:31:06 2004 From: gorion at GMAIL.COM (Orion Montoya) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 11:31:06 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: <-881533190721893796@unknownmsgid> Message-ID: > (Question: Am I correct that a leading zero in an ISBN means a book > published in the United States? This book, according to the reverse of the title > page, was "set, printed, and bound in Great Britain"). The first number indicates the language spoken in the country of publication -- though it happens that both 0 and 1 apply to English-speaking countries. The Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed., section 1.31) has a pretty good discussion of ISBNs in general, though I have yet to find a comprehensive list of the language codes used. I don't want to pay 40 CHF for a PDF of ISO 2801 (the ISBN standard), which I assume will have it. O. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 9 16:23:32 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 11:23:32 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: <038A220F-31EF-11D9-89EC-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Could well be--I was just funnin'! At 08:31 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: >But wasn't Dogpatch, home of the skonk works, the Little Wonder >Specialty Co., and the Sadie Hawkins Day race and dance a hamlet in >Kentucky? > >-Wilson Gray > >On Nov 8, 2004, at 4:30 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>Nah, that was Li'l Abner. >> >>At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: >>> http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 >>> >>>Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. >> From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Nov 9 17:07:10 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:07:10 EST Subject: Speaking the date in Charleston, SC Message-ID: Anyone have any information about this? I'm intrigued. -------------------------------- Mr. Butters, My name is Mark Strazzabosco. Would you please elaborate on a curious way of saying the Date by older white woman in Charleston? They would say today's date as: The one the one, the eight, the 2 the 0 the four. Where do you suppose this originated from. Is it Gulah? Any info on this would be greatly appreciated.   From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 9 17:09:55 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:09:55 -0500 Subject: Pauline Kael quote about Nixon In-Reply-To: <007e01c4c611$9d8a5990$0c21a618@sam> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Sam Clements wrote: > A poster over at the Straight Dope Board tonight said that Pauline Kael was > supposed to have said > > "I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." Here's a definitive answer. Pauline Kael spoke at the MLA conference in 1972. The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1972, p. 33, quotes her as follows: "'I live in a rather special world,' Miss Kael said, continuing: 'I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.'" Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 19:17:20 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 13:17:20 -0600 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: What was the > name of the guy who always wore a zoot suit with the drape > shape and the reet pleat and had the power of the whammy? > Eagle Eye McFleegle? From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 20:18:08 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:18:08 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yes! Evil-Eye Fleagle! Thanks! Now, what about the square-jawed Dick Tracy parody who always got his arse shot off, but was never even wounded, let alone killed. (When I was in the War, we used to sing a British anti-war song whose only line I can remember is, "I don't want to get me arse shot off." The line, "I don't want to go war," may have preceded or followed it.) -Wilson On Nov 9, 2004, at 2:17 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > What was the >> name of the guy who always wore a zoot suit with the drape >> shape and the reet pleat and had the power of the whammy? >> > > Eagle Eye McFleegle? > From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 9 20:24:21 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:24:21 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: <788F0594-328C-11D9-A12F-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Fearless Fosdick of course. Capp had a way with names. My favorite was the Russian Sabre dancer Lopya Headoff. dInIs >Yes! Evil-Eye Fleagle! Thanks! Now, what about the square-jawed Dick >Tracy parody who always got his arse shot off, but was never even >wounded, let alone killed. (When I was in the War, we used to sing a >British anti-war song whose only line I can remember is, "I don't want >to get me arse shot off." The line, "I don't want to go war," may have >preceded or followed it.) > >-Wilson > >On Nov 9, 2004, at 2:17 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >> What was the >>>name of the guy who always wore a zoot suit with the drape >>>shape and the reet pleat and had the power of the whammy? >>> >> >>Eagle Eye McFleegle? From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 20:20:11 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 14:20:11 -0600 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: That would be Fearless Fosdick. > -----Original Message----- > From: Wilson Gray [mailto:wilson.gray at RCN.COM] > Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 2:18 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Yes! Evil-Eye Fleagle! Thanks! Now, what about the > square-jawed Dick Tracy parody who always got his arse shot > off, but was never even wounded, let alone killed. (When I > was in the War, we used to sing a British anti-war song whose > only line I can remember is, "I don't want to get me arse > shot off." The line, "I don't want to go war," may have > preceded or followed it.) > > -Wilson > > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 20:47:58 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:47:58 -0500 Subject: Al Capp Message-ID: Thanks, guys! Anybody recall the name of the punch, based on her innate goodness, that allowed Mammy Yokum to defeat Evil-Eye's "Double Whammy"? Was it the "Good Night, Irene!"? A little more on topic, was it Capp who invented or popularized the word "whammy" or does it predate him? -Wilson From eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Nov 9 20:59:26 2004 From: eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (J. Eulenberg) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:59:26 -0800 Subject: Al Capp In-Reply-To: <200411092048.iA9Km2CA008898@mxe3.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: What was the Kick-a-Poo Joy Juice for? Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Al Capp > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Thanks, guys! Anybody recall the name of the punch, based on her innate > goodness, that allowed Mammy Yokum to defeat Evil-Eye's "Double > Whammy"? Was it the "Good Night, Irene!"? > > A little more on topic, was it Capp who invented or popularized the > word "whammy" or does it predate him? > > -Wilson > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 21:08:07 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:08:07 -0600 Subject: Al Capp Message-ID: Mammy did have a "Good Night Irene" punch, I don't know how effective it was against Evil Eye. All these questions and more are answered at http://www.dogpatchusa.com/ 1st OED cite for Whammy is 1940, from a book J. R. TUNIS Kid from Tomkinsville. 2nd cite is 1951, from Lil Abner. "An evil influence or hex . From the 1950s, often with reference to the comic strip Li'l Abner (see quot. 1951), esp. in phr. a double whammy and varr. Hence, an intense or powerful look, etc.; something effective, upsetting, problematic, etc. " Fantasy artist Frank Frazetta did Sunday strip artwork throughout the 1950s on Lil Abner. These have been collected into three books: Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Sundays, 1954-55; vol. 2 1956-57; vol 3 1958 - 59. > -----Original Message----- > From: Wilson Gray [mailto:wilson.gray at RCN.COM] > Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 2:48 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Al Capp > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Al Capp > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Thanks, guys! Anybody recall the name of the punch, based on > her innate goodness, that allowed Mammy Yokum to defeat > Evil-Eye's "Double Whammy"? Was it the "Good Night, Irene!"? > > A little more on topic, was it Capp who invented or > popularized the word "whammy" or does it predate him? > > -Wilson > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 21:17:35 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:17:35 -0600 Subject: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) Message-ID: > 1st OED cite for Whammy is 1940, from a book J. R. TUNIS Kid > from Tomkinsville. 2nd cite is 1951, from Lil Abner. "An > evil influence or hex . From the 1950s, often with reference > to the comic strip Li'l Abner (see quot. 1951), esp. in phr. > a double whammy and varr. Hence, an intense or powerful look, > etc.; something effective, upsetting, problematic, etc. " > Sporting News, 8/10/1939, p. 1 col 2: "By playing only .333 ball the past week, losing four and winning two of the games they played August 1 to August 6, includsive, the Reds lost four and a half games from their first-place margin, causing many superstitious fans to wonder if President Powel Crosley, Jr., and General Manager Warren Giles put the whammy on their team by getting ready to increase the Crosley Field seating capacity." Is their an email address to which antedatings and other citations can be sent to the OED? Or is their web page the only electronic way to submit? (I only ask because the web page is more cumbersome than an email, plus I have a record copy of an email if I send it that way). From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 9 21:22:18 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:22:18 -0500 Subject: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B4974F@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 09, 2004 at 03:17:35PM -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: > > Is their an email address to which antedatings and other citations can be > sent to the OED? oed3 at oup.com But in general, I pick up most of the antedatings that people post here. Still, if you're willing, better to copy in the above address. Jesse Sheidlower OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 21:24:42 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:24:42 -0500 Subject: Al Capp In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 9, 2004, at 3:59 PM, J. Eulenberg wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "J. Eulenberg" > Subject: Re: Al Capp > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > What was the Kick-a-Poo Joy Juice for? > > Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg > Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that anybody ever did anything with it. The skonk works simply provided Big Barnsmell and Lonesome Polecat with jobs and accounted for their stunning B.O. The "joy" in the name implied that drinking it would "take you higher." But I can't recall with certainty whether anyone ever drank it. -Wilson Gray > On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Wilson Gray >> Subject: Al Capp >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> --------- >> >> Thanks, guys! Anybody recall the name of the punch, based on her >> innate >> goodness, that allowed Mammy Yokum to defeat Evil-Eye's "Double >> Whammy"? Was it the "Good Night, Irene!"? >> >> A little more on topic, was it Capp who invented or popularized the >> word "whammy" or does it predate him? >> >> -Wilson >> > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 9 21:34:01 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 13:34:01 -0800 Subject: The curious grammar of Ohio: revised version Message-ID: a revised and expanded version of this material has now been posted to the Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001633.html From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Nov 9 22:12:41 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:12:41 -0600 Subject: Al Capp's way with names Message-ID: Yes, he did. And not to forget: the student group whose name was the acronym SWINE (Students Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything). And then there was "Joanie Phonie"--which could only have referred to folk-singer Joan Baez. Ms. Baez was so sure the reference was to her that she went to court to obtain a cease-and-desist order (or something to that effect). But the judge ruled that free speech works both ways and refused to tell Al Capp to stop. Gerald Cohen > ---------- > From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Dennis R. Preston > Sent: Tuesday, November 9, 2004 2:24 PM > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > > dInIs > From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Nov 9 22:39:04 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 14:39:04 -0800 Subject: Al Capp's way with names In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And don't forget the Little Orphan Annie sendup Sweet Fanny Goony, a comic strip-within-a-comic-strip that alternated with Fearless Fosdick, in the days before Capp became a rabid right-winger. I'll never forget the "quote" in the title panel of one episode: Whether you're rich Or whether you're poor It's always nice to have money. (Old proverb) Peter Mc. --On Tuesday, November 9, 2004 4:12 PM -0600 "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" wrote: > Yes, he did. And not to forget: the student group whose name was the > acronym SWINE (Students Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything). And > then there was "Joanie Phonie"--which could only have referred to > folk-singer Joan Baez. Ms. Baez was so sure the reference was to her that > she went to court to obtain a cease-and-desist order (or something to > that effect). But the judge ruled that free speech works both ways and > refused to tell Al Capp to stop. > > Gerald Cohen > >> ---------- >> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Dennis R. Preston >> Sent: Tuesday, November 9, 2004 2:24 PM >> Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect >> > > >> dInIs >> ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 9 23:19:29 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 18:19:29 -0500 Subject: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B4974F@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Mullins, Bill wrote: > Sporting News, 8/10/1939, p. 1 col 2: > "By playing only .333 ball the past week, losing four and winning two of the > games they played August 1 to August 6, includsive, the Reds lost four and a > half games from their first-place margin, causing many superstitious fans to > wonder if President Powel Crosley, Jr., and General Manager Warren Giles put > the whammy on their team by getting ready to increase the Crosley Field > seating capacity." Nice antedating. I hope pointing out an earlier occurrence doesn't discourage the fine research you are doing: 1936 _N.Y. Times_ 5 July S2 There is only one team of the Dodger variety. "That's one too many," said Mr. Brannick gloomily. "They put the whammy on us." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 23:23:47 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 17:23:47 -0600 Subject: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) Message-ID: I wish I'd found yours, if only because it was less typing!! > -----Original Message----- > From: Fred Shapiro [mailto:fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU] > Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 5:19 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) > > On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Mullins, Bill wrote: > > > Sporting News, 8/10/1939, p. 1 col 2: > > "By playing only .333 ball the past week, losing four and > winning two > > of the games they played August 1 to August 6, includsive, the Reds > > lost four and a half games from their first-place margin, > causing many > > superstitious fans to wonder if President Powel Crosley, Jr., and > > General Manager Warren Giles put the whammy on their team > by getting > > ready to increase the Crosley Field seating capacity." > > Nice antedating. I hope pointing out an earlier occurrence > doesn't discourage the fine research you are doing: > > 1936 _N.Y. Times_ 5 July S2 There is only one team of the > Dodger variety. > "That's one too many," said Mr. Brannick gloomily. "They put > the whammy on us." > > Fred Shapiro > From lesa.dill at WKU.EDU Tue Nov 9 23:51:19 2004 From: lesa.dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 17:51:19 -0600 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <005c01c4c5fc$ce861260$0c21a618@sam> Message-ID: Never would I think all barbecues taste the same although I'm partial to the variety from West Tennessee--hickory smoked and pulled with or without coleslaw piled on the sandwich and with a sauce that is vinegary and peppery with a bit of tomato base. What I meant to imply was that I think there are as many Brunswick Stew and Burgoo recipes as there are barbecue recipes and the argument that might follow would involve who has the best or first or correct or whatever Brunswick Stew/ Burgoo recipe. I've had Brunswick stew with ground beef/ground meat in it as well as a bunch of veggies although not cabbage or celery that I remember. I've also seen Burgoo without ground meat. Hey, any chance you'd be willing to share that Virginia Brunswick Stew recipe? I've been looking for a good one for years! And as far as going on the road for months to sample BBQ, I'm game--no pun intended. Lesa On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:38:25 -0500 Sam Clements wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Lesa Dill" > To: > Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 11:08 AM > Subject: Re: Burgoo > > > > What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and > > Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as > > alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another > > barbecue battle might be too much to handle. > > Lesa > > I can't see any connection etymologically. > > As for the difference in recipes, I'm from Virginia originally, and I cook a > mean Brunswick stew. > > Most Burgoo recipes I've seen have the following additional ingredients that > are missing from the Virginia/Georgia Brunswick Stew: > > Carrots, celery, beef, cabbage, and perhaps a bit of spice from something > such as cayenne. > > If I read you correctly Lesa, you think that all BBQ has the same taste? > > We'd need a few months on the road together. I'd take you from the > vinegar/red pepper of Eastern NC, my personal favorite, to the more tomato > based Western NC, to the three varieties of SC BBQ, including the mustard > sauce. > > Kentucky/Tenn. have an even more tomato based product, and then you can get > into the OK/TX sauces. > > Sam Clements From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Nov 10 00:50:54 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 19:50:54 -0500 Subject: Flop -- Telco Lingo In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.1.20041108205651.0255d478@pop.visi.com> Message-ID: > He handed it to an assistant and >said, "You've got a flop here." He repeated this in the course of >explaining. He did not say, "flip-flop," which I believe has a specific >meaning in that world, ie a circuit governed by a toggle switch or having >some other way of achieving either of two states. I don't know if he would >have said "flip-flop" if the lines had been completely reversed. I was not >about about to ask a man up to his knees in tangled wired. >--Tom Kysilko ~~~~~~~ I forwarded this post to a tech who has been working for the past 5 years for Ameritech (now SBC). This was the reply: "Understand the phenomenon, but haven't heard the term. Nor do I know of any special meaning for the term "flip-flop, though I can guess at one that would make sense. Within my tenure I have noticed that some terms seem older, i.e., are in use by techs who've been around longer. I've only known one tech who transfered from a different telco, and he was known for using a term that the Springfield techs considered foreign (and of course mocked him for)." A. Murie From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 10 03:46:18 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 22:46:18 -0500 Subject: Double whammy (1946) In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041109004623.03203090@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: From N'archive: ---------- _The Landmark_ (Statesville NC), 21 Nov. 1946: p. 2, col. 7: <> ---------- -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 10 04:49:43 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 23:49:43 -0500 Subject: Double whammy (1945) In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041109223636.031f7df0@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: From Paper of Record: ---------- _The Sporting News_ (St. Louis MO), 27 Sep. 1945: p. 6, col. 2: <> ---------- -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 10 07:09:35 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 02:09:35 -0500 Subject: Leslie Howard and the "gay doorman" Message-ID: I see from the archives that there has been extensive discussion on the shifting senses of the term "gay" in the first half of the 20th century. Quoting a 1999 post from Ron Butters: I have found that most such uses of GAY before the earlier 1940s mean 'homosexual' only to latter-day viewers but did not mean 'homosexual' to the person using the term at the time (though in the late 1930s GAY probably did have a queer-subculture meaning as 'homosexual' for a coterie in New York and perhaps other big cities in the US). So I was surprised to see the following in a recent Entertainment Weekly review of the new _Gone With the Wind_ DVD: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/dvd/0,6115,767420_2_0_,00.html Also included are historian Rudy Behlmer's exhaustive commentary track and the 1989 doc "The Making of a Legend," which showcases hilarious Scarlett wannabe screen tests (pip-squeaky Jean Arthur was a finalist?) and costume fittings for miserable costars Gable and Leslie Howard — at one point Howard supposedly bemoaned looking like a "gay doorman up at the Beverly Wilshire." I'd imagine that the documentary is quoting the reminiscences of a costume designer well after the fact, so this isn't the most reliable source. But could Leslie Howard have been familiar with the subcultural sense of "gay" in the late '30s? Or is it possible that Howard simply meant that the doorman in question was 'decadent and fashion-conscious', as "gay" was often construed to mean in the '20s and '30s? --Ben Zimmer From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 10 07:15:59 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 01:15:59 -0600 Subject: tremblor -- antedating Message-ID: tremblor: An earthquake or earth tremor. (OED 1913) from the front cover of _Popular Mechanics_, June 1906 online at: http://popularmechanics.com/albums/index.phtml?mode=view&album=1906&pic=1906 06.jpg&dispsize=400&start=0 "seismograph record of the tremblor" [re: the San Francisco earthquake] From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Nov 10 08:14:32 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 03:14:32 EST Subject: Imported from Brooklyn; Gerald Cohen on NPR Message-ID: Just got back. Everything's a mess in this tiny apartment. No time to clean--more parking tickets in a few hours. IMPORTED FROM BROOKLYN--I just bought at the local supermarket some eggplant parmigiana from "JOHN'S GOURMET Good Food with a Twist." Don't know what the twist is. The package has: "CHEF PREPARED IMPORTED FROM BROOKLYN." Can they say this? Can they even joke about this? "Imported" is a legal term about the product, meaning that it does not come from the United States. Nothing else about the package is jokey. NPR yesterday: Remembrances Remembering Word Sleuth David Shulman All Things Considered, November 8, 2004 · David Shulman, known as the Sherlock Holmes of American language, dies in Brooklyn at the age of 91. He found the origins of thousands of words for the Oxford English Dictionary, including "The Great White Way," "Big Apple," "doozy," "hoochie-coochie," and "hot dog." NPR's Michele Norris talks with Gerald Cohen, professor of foreign languages at University of Missouri. http://www.npr.org/lightningcast/index.html?audioURL=http://www.npr.org/dmg/dm g.php?prgCode=ATC&showDate=08-Nov-2004&segNum=19&NPRMediaPref=WM&getAd=1& ext=.asx I answered my phone messages. Victory Memorial Hospital didn't call me back. DAVID KAHN ("The Codebreakers"). (516) 487-7181. His answering machine says that he's in Poland until the end of the week. MARTY REISMAN ("The Money Player"). (212) 758-6768. Marty said that Shulman's obituaries failed to mention that David was a champion table tennis player, going to the Nationals in the 1930s. Marty had no burial/legal information.. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Nov 10 09:31:51 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 04:31:51 EST Subject: Singapore cuisine (top ten dishes) Message-ID: OT: MORE "BARRY POPICK"--In a review of THE BANANA SCULPTOR, THE PURPLE LADY AND THE ALL NIGHT SWIMMER: HOBBIES, COLLECTING AND OTHER PASSIONATE PURSUITS (2002), the Wall Street Journal found the story of "Barry Popick" to be poignant. I wrote in to say that this sounded to me like the story the Wall Street Journal wrote about "Barry Popik" in 2001. My letter was not printed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- SINGAPORE CUISINE This would normally be on my food web site, but I can't find anyone to pay (for any price) to help me set it up. I'm not even going to bother checking with OED. EAT! had a display at the Asia Food Expo on Sunday. EAT! (Singapore), August 2004, cover: WHAT MAKES A DISH SINGAPOREAN? Pg. 10: In fact, we are so spoilt for choice that the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) ca,e up with not one but 10 must-try dishes. In no particular order of importance, they are: Crab--Chilli Crab and Black Pepper Crab, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Fish Head Curry, Satay, Bak Kut Teh, Roti Prata, Laksa, Char Kway Teow, Fried Carrot Cake, and Rojak.If the smattering array does not get your mouth watering, maybe you will prefer Nasi Lemak, Mee Rebus (For you math fans out there--ed.), Nasi Briyani, Curry puff, Fried Hokkien Mee or Popiah? The list goes on. UNIQUELY SINGAPORE: YOUR ESSENTIAL SINGAPORE GUIDE www.visitsingapore.com Singapore Tourism Board February 2004 edition Pg. 36: BREAKFAST SPECIALS _Kaya toast with a cup of local coffee_ _Kaya_ is a sweet egg-and-coconut jam that is spread geneoursly over toasted bread. Eat the toast with hard-boiled eggs and add a dash of black soya sauce for extra taste! _Roti prata_ and _teh tarik_ _Roti prata) is a crispy, crusty South Indian pancake, made with or without eggs, and served with a bowl of thick curry gravy. Pg. 37: _Teh tarik_ ("tarik" is a Malay word for "pull") is tea mixed with both evaporated and sweet condensed milk where it is "pulled" from one mug to another to create a perfect blend of tea and milk with a wonderful light creamy froth. _Bak kut teh_ and rice This is a Chinese dish--pork ribs cooked with five spices, garlic and pepper in a tasty soup that is served with a choice of rice or fried dough fritters. _Bak kut teh_ can be accompanied by Chinese tea to heighten its flavour. _Nasi lemak_ _Nasi lemak_ is a hearty meal comprising coconut-flavored rice, a slice of omelette, anchoviesm a slice of cucumber and some chilli paste, often uniquely packed in brown paper or banana leaf. 10 LOCAL FAVOURITES 1. Hainanese chicken rice--Steamed chicken served with fragrant rice cooked in chicken stock. 2. _Laksa_--Rice noodles in coconut curry gravy with shrimp, egg, chicken and cockles as garnishing. 3. _Char kway teow_--Broad white noodles fried with dark sweet sauce, bean sprouts, fish cake, clams and Chinese sausage. 4. Hokkien prawn _mee_--Vermicelli andf yellow noodles fried with prawns, sliced cuttlefish and pork bits. 5. _Murtabak_--a local version of pizza stuffed with minced mutton or chicken away inside and served with curry. Pg. 38: 6. Fish head curry--a huge fish head and vegetables cooked in curry and served with rice. Have a glass of "calamansi" or local lime juice to go with it. 7. _Satay_--meat kababs served with rice cake, cucumber and peanut gravy. 8. _Rojak_--a local salad comprising a mixture of fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers, bean sprouts, pineapple, white radish, fried crullers, dried bean curd, sometimes even mango and cuttlefish, which are all tossed into a bowl and stirred in a prawn paste, topped off with peanuts. 9. _Nonya kueh_--a local dessert born out of a fusion of Chinese and Malay cultures which comes in an assortment of shapes, flavours and colours! Common ingredients include glutinous rice, tapioca, pandari, and tropical fruits like banana, durian and coconut! 10. Chilli crab--Hard-shell crabs cooked in thick gravy with a tomato and chilli base. Best eaten with bread soaked in the gravy. Don't be afraid to use your hands! This dish is usually ordered wuth other seafood dishes. Down your food with a glass of fresh fruit juice or fresh coconut water. On a hot day, you should also end your meal with a local cold dessert like _ice kacang_ or _chendol_. _Ice kacang_ is a mound of grated ice, smothered with different sweet syrups with a base made of jelly, red beans, corn and attap seeds. _Chendol_ is a coconut milk drink mixed with brown sugar (_gula melaka_), green starch strips and red beans. From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Nov 10 14:07:57 2004 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 06:07:57 -0800 Subject: tremblor -- antedating In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49755@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: Is this an antedating of a misspelling of temblor, does it indicate how the word was originaly spelled - temblor being a later modification, or did the two spellings peacefully coexist? --- "Mullins, Bill" wrote: > tremblor: An earthquake or earth tremor. (OED 1913) > > from the front cover of _Popular Mechanics_, June > 1906 online at: > http://popularmechanics.com/albums/index.phtml?mode=view&album=1906&pic=1906 > 06.jpg&dispsize=400&start=0 > > "seismograph record of the tremblor" [re: the San > Francisco earthquake] > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Wed Nov 10 14:09:09 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:09:09 -0500 Subject: Singapore cuisine (top ten dishes) Message-ID: Barry's menus are sometimes very mouth-watering, at least for me. I've never been to Singapore, but having lived in or visited South India till the Fifties, I can relate to some of the items on the menu. However, here's a linguistic comment to take the edge off the curry. "Prata" is better known as "parata," esp. in N. India. The second "a" is the longest (or the accented one if you like), so the word gets syncopated into two syllables, like "creer" for "career" in rapid conversational style. Keep watering mouths, Barry! TOM www.paikeday.net ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 4:31 AM Subject: Singapore cuisine (top ten dishes) > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: Singapore cuisine (top ten dishes) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > OT: MORE "BARRY POPICK"--In a review of THE BANANA SCULPTOR, THE PURPLE > LADY > AND THE ALL NIGHT SWIMMER: HOBBIES, COLLECTING AND OTHER PASSIONATE > PURSUITS > (2002), the Wall Street Journal found the story of "Barry Popick" to be > poignant. I wrote in to say that this sounded to me like the story the > Wall Street > Journal wrote about "Barry Popik" in 2001. My letter was not printed. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > -------------------------------------------- > SINGAPORE CUISINE > > This would normally be on my food web site, but I can't find anyone to pay > (for any price) to help me set it up. > > I'm not even going to bother checking with OED. > > EAT! had a display at the Asia Food Expo on Sunday. > > > EAT! (Singapore), August 2004, cover: > WHAT MAKES A DISH SINGAPOREAN? > Pg. 10: > In fact, we are so spoilt for choice that the Singapore Tourism Board > (STB) > ca,e up with not one but 10 must-try dishes. In no particular order of > importance, they are: Crab--Chilli Crab and Black Pepper Crab, Hainanese > Chicken Rice, > Fish Head Curry, Satay, Bak Kut Teh, Roti Prata, Laksa, Char Kway Teow, > Fried > Carrot Cake, and Rojak.If the smattering array does not get your mouth > watering, maybe you will prefer Nasi Lemak, Mee Rebus (For you math fans > out > there--ed.), Nasi Briyani, Curry puff, Fried Hokkien Mee or Popiah? The > list goes on. > > > UNIQUELY SINGAPORE: > YOUR ESSENTIAL SINGAPORE GUIDE > www.visitsingapore.com > Singapore Tourism Board > February 2004 edition > > Pg. 36: > BREAKFAST SPECIALS > _Kaya toast with a cup of local coffee_ > _Kaya_ is a sweet egg-and-coconut jam that is spread geneoursly over > toasted > bread. Eat the toast with hard-boiled eggs and add a dash of black soya > sauce > for extra taste! > > _Roti prata_ and _teh tarik_ > _Roti prata) is a crispy, crusty South Indian pancake, made with or > without > eggs, and served with a bowl of thick curry gravy. > Pg. 37: > _Teh tarik_ ("tarik" is a Malay word for "pull") is tea mixed with both > evaporated and sweet condensed milk where it is "pulled" from one mug to > another to > create a perfect blend of tea and milk with a wonderful light creamy > froth. > > _Bak kut teh_ and rice > This is a Chinese dish--pork ribs cooked with five spices, garlic and > pepper > in a tasty soup that is served with a choice of rice or fried dough > fritters. > _Bak kut teh_ can be accompanied by Chinese tea to heighten its flavour. > > _Nasi lemak_ > _Nasi lemak_ is a hearty meal comprising coconut-flavored rice, a slice of > omelette, anchoviesm a slice of cucumber and some chilli paste, often > uniquely > packed in brown paper or banana leaf. > > 10 LOCAL FAVOURITES > > 1. Hainanese chicken rice--Steamed chicken served with fragrant rice > cooked > in chicken stock. > > 2. _Laksa_--Rice noodles in coconut curry gravy with shrimp, egg, chicken > and > cockles as garnishing. > > 3. _Char kway teow_--Broad white noodles fried with dark sweet sauce, bean > sprouts, fish cake, clams and Chinese sausage. > > 4. Hokkien prawn _mee_--Vermicelli andf yellow noodles fried with prawns, > sliced cuttlefish and pork bits. > > 5. _Murtabak_--a local version of pizza stuffed with minced mutton or > chicken > away inside and served with curry. > > Pg. 38: > 6. Fish head curry--a huge fish head and vegetables cooked in curry and > served with rice. Have a glass of "calamansi" or local lime juice to go > with it. > > 7. _Satay_--meat kababs served with rice cake, cucumber and peanut gravy. > > 8. _Rojak_--a local salad comprising a mixture of fruits and vegetables > such > as cucumbers, bean sprouts, pineapple, white radish, fried crullers, dried > bean curd, sometimes even mango and cuttlefish, which are all tossed into > a bowl > and stirred in a prawn paste, topped off with peanuts. > > 9. _Nonya kueh_--a local dessert born out of a fusion of Chinese and Malay > cultures which comes in an assortment of shapes, flavours and colours! > Common > ingredients include glutinous rice, tapioca, pandari, and tropical fruits > like > banana, durian and coconut! > > 10. Chilli crab--Hard-shell crabs cooked in thick gravy with a tomato and > chilli base. Best eaten with bread soaked in the gravy. Don't be afraid to > use > your hands! This dish is usually ordered wuth other seafood dishes. > > Down your food with a glass of fresh fruit juice or fresh coconut water. > On a > hot day, you should also end your meal with a local cold dessert like _ice > kacang_ or _chendol_. _Ice kacang_ is a mound of grated ice, smothered > with > different sweet syrups with a base made of jelly, red beans, corn and > attap seeds. > > _Chendol_ is a coconut milk drink mixed with brown sugar (_gula melaka_), > green starch strips and red beans. > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Nov 10 14:42:42 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:42:42 EST Subject: Al Capp Message-ID: Lonesome Polecat's partner at making Kickapoo Joy Juice was Hairless Joe. See for example http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/g1epc/tov/2419100719/p1/article.jhtml which says "Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat (brewers of Kickapoo Joy Juice)". This source deduces (M-W please note) that the Skunk Works was a brewery, not a distillery. The sight gag about the name "Hairless Joe" was that Joe had considerable hair (and if I remember correctly a big blond beard). Big Barnsmell (and I seem to recall a relative of his, called something Barnsmell) was a different character in the Li'l Abner strip. The whammy character was Evil Eye Fleagle. Like many Capp characters, he was a parody of a real person. The version I have heard (and I cannot give references) is that there was a sleazy gym hanger-on in or around the Jazz Age who purported to put the evil eye on various persons. This man went by the pseudonym of "Evil Eye Floogle" or something like that. A famous sportswriter, I canot recall who, took this person and gave him national prominence, so much prominence that Al Capp considered him fodder for an oft-used parody. I once read a short interview of the real Evil Eye, in which he explained how he pulled one of his whammies (waiting until the victim had eaten a dinner of his favorite food, oysters or something like that, which always gave him indigestion) and then Evil Eye post facto claimed to have cursed the victim. This interview, if I remember correctly, was in John Scarne's autobiography. A Google search fails to turn up any trace of the original Evil Eye, showing that yes it is possible to be a famous person and still not appear in Google. Yes, it makes sense that General Jubilation T. Cornpone would be shown in a Confederate uniform, as he was a caricature of the Southern glorification of Confederate generals. (Aside: the Confederacy produced a number of great generals, but Jefferson Davis in his entire administration had only two civilians worth the powder to blow them to Gehenna: Judah P. Benjamin and the lesser-known Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory.) Al Capp stopped drawing the Li'l Abner strip in 1977, two years before his death. - Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 10 15:09:56 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:09:56 -0500 Subject: Leslie Howard and the "gay doorman" In-Reply-To: <4688.69.142.143.59.1100070575.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: At 2:09 AM -0500 11/10/04, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >I see from the archives that there has been extensive discussion on the >shifting senses of the term "gay" in the first half of the 20th century. >Quoting a 1999 post from Ron Butters: > > I have found that most such uses of GAY before the > earlier 1940s mean 'homosexual' only to latter-day > viewers but did not mean 'homosexual' to the person > using the term at the time (though in the late 1930s > GAY probably did have a queer-subculture meaning as > 'homosexual' for a coterie in New York and perhaps > other big cities in the US). > >So I was surprised to see the following in a recent Entertainment Weekly >review of the new _Gone With the Wind_ DVD: > > http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/dvd/0,6115,767420_2_0_,00.html > Also included are historian Rudy Behlmer's exhaustive > commentary track and the 1989 doc "The Making of a > Legend," which showcases hilarious Scarlett wannabe > screen tests (pip-squeaky Jean Arthur was a finalist?) > and costume fittings for miserable costars Gable and > Leslie Howard — at one point Howard supposedly bemoaned > looking like a "gay doorman up at the Beverly Wilshire." > >I'd imagine that the documentary is quoting the reminiscences of a costume >designer well after the fact, so this isn't the most reliable source. But >could Leslie Howard have been familiar with the subcultural sense of "gay" >in the late '30s? Or is it possible that Howard simply meant that the >doorman in question was 'decadent and fashion-conscious', as "gay" was >often construed to mean in the '20s and '30s? > My money would be on Leslie Howard having bemoaned the possibility of looking like "a [gay] doorman up at the Beverly Wilshire", with some other adjective actually used--the occurrence of "gay" in the quote being transparent or de re rather than verbatim. Larry From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 10 16:00:28 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:00:28 -0600 Subject: Imported from Brooklyn; Gerald Cohen on NPR Message-ID: NPR transcript: HEADLINE: Gerald Cohen remembers David Shulman, his friend and co-researcher on the origin of the word `hot dog' ANCHORS: MICHELE NORRIS MICHELE NORRIS, host: David Shulman was described as the Sherlock Holmes of American language. His sleuthing unearthed the first use of thousands of words and phrases, including the origins of `The Big Apple,' `hoochie-coochie' and `The Great White Way.' David Shulman died last week in New York City at the age of 91. Gerald Cohen is a professor of foreign languages at the University of Missouri in Rolla. He knew David Shulman for 25 years and collaborated with him on determining the origin of the term `hot dog.' Professor Cohen, thanks for being with us. Professor GERALD COHEN (University of Missouri): Oh, happy to. NORRIS: David Shulman contributed more than 5,000 words and phrases to the Oxford English Dictionary, and he was something of a self-taught etymologist. But that title seems almost too precise, too sterile to describe the passion and the eccentricity that fueled his pursuit of language. Prof. COHEN: Well, yes, I would agree with that. There's an enormous amount of material, information, culture and so forth wrapped up in words. And when you deal with a word, you're dealing with the building blocks of all of that. NORRIS: You know, it's one thing to love language, to love the way it sounds, as it rolls off your tongue, to love to listen to it. But to actually search for the origins of a word or a phrase--it's a certain kind of person who's willing to roll up their sleeves and do that kind of work. Prof. COHEN: Well, it's a combination of a certain investigative spirit, plus an appreciation for history. What we have isn't simply here. It developed. It came from somewhere. And anybody who is involved in history I think could understand why somebody might be interested in the history of language. NORRIS: You worked with him in trying to determine the origins of the word `hot dog.' Prof. COHEN: Yes, that is correct. Well, first of all, David Shulman insisted that it had to come from college slang, and in so doing, he was disagreeing with two other interpretations out there. He was able to trace back the term `hot dog' to Yale 1895. It was part of the irreverent humor that college students have mixed in with a little bit of bad taste, which college students sometimes have, so they came up with the term `hot dog.' It referred to the 19th century belief that dog meat could turn up in sausages, and as a matter of fact, that belief has a basis in fact. So this was back in 1895. Within five years the term had spread to at least 30 other universities, so it was solidly rooted in college slang. And from there it gradually spread and became accepted. NORRIS: Can you tell us a little bit about how he worked? Prof. COHEN: Yes, in detail. You get out the old magazines, you get out the old books, you find something which is interesting, you get a lead and you follow through and you spend five, six hours sitting in the library. And you do this day after day, year after year, and gradually you have quite a volume of work accomplished. NORRIS: What was his greatest accomplishment? What did he see as his greatest accomplishment? Prof. COHEN: I'm sure that he would want to be remembered for the antedatings. He loved it. And the--you may say Miller time for him was when he would come up with an earlier attestation than had been noticed before in the dictionary. NORRIS: Thanks so much for talking to us, Professor. Prof. COHEN: OK. Happy to. NORRIS: Professor Gerald Cohen of the University of Missouri speaking to us about his friend, the wordsmith David Shulman. He'll soon publish a book about the origins of the term `hot dog' that credits David Shulman and another word hunter, Barry Popik, as authors. (Soundbite of music) ROBERT SIEGEL (Host): You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Wed Nov 10 16:59:50 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:59:50 -0500 Subject: Al Capp's way with names Message-ID: Dennis Preston writes: "Capp had a way with names. My favorite was the Russian Sabre dancer Lopya Headoff." This may be a traditional joke or a variant on one. When I was a freshman in college (Boston University, 1959) I was standing at the counter of a campus eatery behind a singularly vacuous looking co-ed. The counterman asked her where she was from. Philadelphia. Oh, I know a rabbi in Philadelphia, Rabbi Kutcherkokoff -- do you know him? No. I got it, at least, and the counterman tipped me a wink. And as a parallel, I cite the radio comedian of the 1930s who played a Greek (I think) character named Parkykarkas (viz., park your carcass). This actor was so identified with this role that he officially changed his name to Parkykarkas. (Details on demand -- I know where I can look this guy up, the correct spelling of his radio name and his original name, but it's not handy right now.) GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Wed Nov 10 16:56:12 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 08:56:12 -0800 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: Can anyone tell me when the expression "Right on!" entered American speech? I'm a journalist and author wondering if it would be appropriate to use that expression in dialog taking place in April, 1968. Thanks, Kathy Seal KATHY SEAL 310-452-2769 Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) www.Kathyseal.net From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Nov 10 17:14:27 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:14:27 -0500 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: <007701c4c746$2f7cc240$6a00a8c0@DJLFPF41> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 08:56:12AM -0800, Kathy Seal wrote: > > Can anyone tell me when the expression "Right on!" entered >American speech? I'm a journalist and author wondering if it >would be appropriate to use that expression in dialog taking >place in April, 1968. It would probably not be appropriate, unless one of the interlocutors happens to be Bobby Seale or someone like that. If you can't move the scene to mid-1970 or later, I wouldn't use this expression if you're concerned with historical accuracy. Jesse Sheidlower Oxford English Dictionary From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Nov 10 17:15:18 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:15:18 -0800 Subject: "On the ground" redux Message-ID: Awhile ago there was a discussion of the figurative use of "on the ground." For any of you who missed it, there was a great example this morning on NPR. In a report on a new agreement over the Darfur region of Sudan, the news reader (female, I forget who), said, "The no-fly zone will be a significant element on the ground." This ALMOST works literally, but with the word "element," it seems to me, not quite. Peter Mc. ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From slang at ABECEDARY.NET Wed Nov 10 17:42:09 2004 From: slang at ABECEDARY.NET (Jonathon Green) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:42:09 -0000 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It's certainly in the 1968 edition of _Current Slang_ III:2, subtitled 'The Slang of Watts'. I think Jesse might be being a trifle restrictive; I definitely recall being very well aware of the term in mid-late 1969, certainly in the context of working on the London 'underground press', albeit at that stage for the short-lived UK edition of a still relatively radical Rolling Stone. In other words, we were far, both lit. and fig., from the Black Panthers. We probably picked it up through the old UPS (the Underground Press Syndicate, via which all such papers circulated material). Jonathon Green From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 10 19:27:22 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:27:22 -0500 Subject: John Simpson on David Shulman Message-ID: To add to the tributes to David Shulman, let me post to the list (with John's permission) a comment made in an e-mail to me from John Simpson, chief editor of the OED, after I had forwarded to him the New York Times obituary on David. It is interesting to see that David was sending contributions to the OED up to the very end. Fred Shapiro ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Fred, Thanks very much for this (I'm just back from a conference). It's very sad - he'll never receive the letter I wrote to him the day before he died, thanking him for his latest batch of contributions. With best wishes, John From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Wed Nov 10 21:42:07 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:42:07 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as "Dogpatch, Kentucky." I don't recall the state being mentioned in the later years of the strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement park was in Arkansas. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Wilson Gray Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 8:31 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect But wasn't Dogpatch, home of the skonk works, the Little Wonder Specialty Co., and the Sadie Hawkins Day race and dance a hamlet in Kentucky? -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 10 22:35:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:35:46 -0500 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 10, 2004, at 12:42 PM, Jonathon Green wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathon Green > Subject: Re: "Right on" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > It's certainly in the 1968 edition of _Current Slang_ III:2, subtitled > 'The Slang of Watts'. I think Jesse might be being a trifle > restrictive; I > definitely recall being very well aware of the term in mid-late 1969, > certainly in the context of working on the London 'underground press', > albeit at that stage for the short-lived UK edition of a still > relatively > radical Rolling Stone. In other words, we were far, both lit. and fig., > from the Black Panthers. We probably picked it up through the old UPS > (the Underground Press Syndicate, via which all such papers circulated > material). > > Jonathon Green > I'm with Jonathon on this one. The phrase, "right on," occurs in the play (there was a musical version starring Muhammad Ali and staged in San Francisco; I'm talking about the original play, which was staged in Los Angeles), "Big-Time Buck White," starring nobody that anybody ever heard of. I'm not sure when the play was written - I saw it in 1968 - but it was definitely in print by 1969 (published by Black Cat Books, a subsidiary of Grove Press). And, given that the author is Joseph Dolan Tuotti, judging by his name, it's also rather unlikely that he was a Panther. Historical note. For the record, the Black Panthers did not have a serious presence in Watts or in any other section of Los Angeles. The greater Los Angeles area was the territory of the US(A) - the United Slaves (of America). "Whe'evuh we *ah*, US *is*!" [I've always loved this slogan for the way that it puns on the grammar of "Negro dialect."] Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of California, Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. -Wilson Gray From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Wed Nov 10 22:41:57 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:41:57 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: John Baker wrote: >A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as >"Dogpatch, >Kentucky." I don't recall the state being mentioned in the >later years of the >strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement >park was in Arkansas. Coming in late to this discussion, please forgive this intrusion: Based on a fairly careful reading (some years ago) of the first three years of Li'l Abner dailies, I don't remember seeing any mention of Kentucky as the site of Dogpatch. Capp seems to go to great pains to generalize 'the mountains of the South' in various forms, rather than being specific. In many ways, Capp deliberately sought to control public reaction/beliefs concerning Li'l Abner. Course, I could have missed it, or it could have occurred in a Sunday strip (I haven't seen many Sundays; don't even know when Sundays began for this strip). If you have a citation for a specific date for this (or a secondary source), John, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd post it. (I have the first three years of dailies handy, so I can quickly check such a reference for those years.) For years, I've believed that Capp deliberately did not specify a state, and everything I seen supported that, but I'm happy to be corrected by appropriate documentation. Thanks, Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Wed Nov 10 22:57:58 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:57:58 -0800 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: These are fascinating answers. So if "right on" existed in 1968 in dialect, is there any way of finding out whether white students would have used it yet? Clearly they did later on. Kathy KATHY SEAL 310-452-2769 Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) www.Kathyseal.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 2:35 PM Subject: Re: "Right on" > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: "Right on" > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > On Nov 10, 2004, at 12:42 PM, Jonathon Green wrote: > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Jonathon Green > > Subject: Re: "Right on" > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------- > > > > It's certainly in the 1968 edition of _Current Slang_ III:2, subtitled > > 'The Slang of Watts'. I think Jesse might be being a trifle > > restrictive; I > > definitely recall being very well aware of the term in mid-late 1969, > > certainly in the context of working on the London 'underground press', > > albeit at that stage for the short-lived UK edition of a still > > relatively > > radical Rolling Stone. In other words, we were far, both lit. and fig., > > from the Black Panthers. We probably picked it up through the old UPS > > (the Underground Press Syndicate, via which all such papers circulated > > material). > > > > Jonathon Green > > > > I'm with Jonathon on this one. The phrase, "right on," occurs in the > play (there was a musical version starring Muhammad Ali and staged in > San Francisco; I'm talking about the original play, which was staged in > Los Angeles), "Big-Time Buck White," starring nobody that anybody ever > heard of. I'm not sure when the play was written - I saw it in 1968 - > but it was definitely in print by 1969 (published by Black Cat Books, a > subsidiary of Grove Press). And, given that the author is Joseph Dolan > Tuotti, judging by his name, it's also rather unlikely that he was a > Panther. > > Historical note. For the record, the Black Panthers did not have a > serious presence in Watts or in any other section of Los Angeles. The > greater Los Angeles area was the territory of the US(A) - the United > Slaves (of America). "Whe'evuh we *ah*, US *is*!" [I've always loved > this slogan for the way that it puns on the grammar of "Negro > dialect."] Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I > heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of California, > Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. > > -Wilson Gray From preston at MSU.EDU Wed Nov 10 23:06:28 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:06:28 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If it ain't Kaintucky, I shore gone lose some of my my HPQ (Hillbilly Pretense Quotient), and I may even have to retitle some articles I done published. dInIs >John Baker wrote: > >>A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as >>"Dogpatch, >Kentucky." I don't recall the state being mentioned in the >>later years of the >strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement >>park was in Arkansas. > >Coming in late to this discussion, please forgive this intrusion: Based on >a fairly careful reading (some years ago) of the first three years of Li'l >Abner dailies, I don't remember seeing any mention of Kentucky as the site >of Dogpatch. Capp seems to go to great pains to generalize 'the mountains >of the South' in various forms, rather than being specific. In many ways, >Capp deliberately sought to control public reaction/beliefs concerning Li'l >Abner. > >Course, I could have missed it, or it could have occurred in a Sunday strip >(I haven't seen many Sundays; don't even know when Sundays began for this >strip). > >If you have a citation for a specific date for this (or a secondary >source), John, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd post it. (I have the >first three years of dailies handy, so I can quickly check such a reference >for those years.) > >For years, I've believed that Capp deliberately did not specify a state, >and everything I seen supported that, but I'm happy to be corrected by >appropriate documentation. > >Thanks, > >Michael McKernan, Ph.D. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Wed Nov 10 23:52:39 2004 From: t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU (Terry Irons) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:52:39 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: Dennis, your HPQ is fine. Even though Capp may not mention Kentucky, he does more than once refer to members of the Tolliver family in Lil' Abner strips. For those who may not know, the Martin-Tolliver feud, not as well known as the Hatfield-McCoy feud but certainly bloodier and longer, took place after the War of Northern Aggression in Rowan County, Kentucky. -- Virtually, Terry (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons at morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Thu Nov 11 00:02:04 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:02:04 -0500 Subject: "On the ground" redux In-Reply-To: <2147483647.1100078118@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Peter A. McGraw writes: >Awhile ago there was a discussion of the figurative use of "on the ground." >For any of you who missed it, there was a great example this morning on >NPR. In a report on a new agreement over the Darfur region of Sudan, the >news reader (female, I forget who), said, "The no-fly zone will be a >significant element on the ground." This ALMOST works literally, but with >the word "element," it seems to me, not quite. ~~~~~~~ Speaking of NPR, Carl Castle this morning said "Yasir Arafat lays (seriously ill, in a coma, or sthg sim)." I do from time to time hear oddities or (er, harrumph) non-standard usages from some of the other newsreaders on NPR, I can't remember hearing such a one from Castle before. A. Murie ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 00:14:12 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:14:12 -0500 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:42:09 -0000, Jonathon Green wrote: >It's certainly in the 1968 edition of _Current Slang_ III:2, subtitled >'The Slang of Watts'. I think Jesse might be being a trifle restrictive; I >definitely recall being very well aware of the term in mid-late 1969, >certainly in the context of working on the London 'underground press', >albeit at that stage for the short-lived UK edition of a still relatively >radical Rolling Stone. In other words, we were far, both lit. and fig., > from the Black Panthers. We probably picked it up through the old UPS >(the Underground Press Syndicate, via which all such papers circulated >material). Another way that many people might have become familiar with "Right on", by early 1969 at least, is through James Brown songs. The single "Give It Up Or Turn It Loose" (released in January 1969, peaking at #15 on the pop charts and #1 on the R&B charts) has James Brown exhorting, "Get it together, right on, right on." --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 11 00:45:11 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:45:11 -0800 Subject: "On the ground" redux In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 10, 2004, at 4:02 PM, Alison Murie wrote: > Speaking of NPR, Carl Castle this morning said "Yasir Arafat lays > (seriously ill, in a coma, or sthg sim)." ... believe it or not, the man's last name is Kasell. see geoff pullum's april foolishness on the spelling of this reporter's name: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001020.html From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 11 01:57:35 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 20:57:35 -0500 Subject: tremblor -- antedating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The OED gives Spanish "temblor" (1876) as the original form and gives the origin of "tremblor" as a cross of "temblor" with English "trembler." I had to look it up, if no one else was going to. I was completely unaware of the existence of "tremblor" until now. -Wilson Gray On Nov 10, 2004, at 9:07 AM, James Smith wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: James Smith > Subject: Re: tremblor -- antedating > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Is this an antedating of a misspelling of temblor, > does it indicate how the word was originaly spelled - > temblor being a later modification, or did the two > spellings peacefully coexist? > > > > --- "Mullins, Bill" wrote: > >> tremblor: An earthquake or earth tremor. (OED 1913) >> >> from the front cover of _Popular Mechanics_, June >> 1906 online at: >> > http://popularmechanics.com/albums/index.phtml? > mode=view&album=1906&pic=1906 >> 06.jpg&dispsize=400&start=0 >> >> "seismograph record of the tremblor" [re: the San >> Francisco earthquake] >> > > > ===== > James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything > South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued > jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively > |or slowly and cautiously. > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. > www.yahoo.com > From dwhause at JOBE.NET Thu Nov 11 01:47:08 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:47:08 -0600 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: I don't remember use of this expression, but in 64-5, at least in Ann Arbor when I was flirting with them, the left white radicals seemed to have cordial relations with the black radicals. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathy Seal" These are fascinating answers. So if "right on" existed in 1968 in dialect, is there any way of finding out whether white students would have used it yet? Clearly they did later on. Kathy From my.cache at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 11 02:34:43 2004 From: my.cache at GMAIL.COM (Towse) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:34:43 -0800 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:35:46 -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I > heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of California, > Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. Karenga is more widely known as the guy who invented Kwanzaa. Sal -- Ye olde swarm of links: thousands of links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From jprucher at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 03:21:53 2004 From: jprucher at YAHOO.COM (Jeff Prucher) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:21:53 -0800 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: --- Michael McKernan wrote: > > John Baker wrote: > > >A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as > >"Dogpatch, >Kentucky." I don't recall the state being mentioned in the > >later years of the >strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement > >park was in Arkansas. > > Coming in late to this discussion, please forgive this intrusion: Based on > a fairly careful reading (some years ago) of the first three years of Li'l > Abner dailies, I don't remember seeing any mention of Kentucky as the site > of Dogpatch. Capp seems to go to great pains to generalize 'the mountains > of the South' in various forms, rather than being specific. In many ways, > Capp deliberately sought to control public reaction/beliefs concerning Li'l > Abner. > > Course, I could have missed it, or it could have occurred in a Sunday strip > (I haven't seen many Sundays; don't even know when Sundays began for this > strip). > > If you have a citation for a specific date for this (or a secondary > source), John, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd post it. (I have the > first three years of dailies handy, so I can quickly check such a reference > for those years.) This may not be much to go on, but Denis Kitchen, the publisher of the Li'l Abner reprints, says: "Very early in the continuity Capp once referred to Dogpatch being in Kentucky, but he was careful afterwards to keep its location generic, probably to avoid cancellations from offended subscribing newspapers in Kentucky." (Website here: http://www.deniskitchen.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=S&Category_Code=bios.dogpatch) Natcherly, we might still want to see some hard evidence of this. Jeff Prucher __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Thu Nov 11 03:49:45 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 22:49:45 -0500 Subject: Kentucky it was! Message-ID: Jeff Prucher wrote: >This may not be much to go on, but Denis Kitchen, the publisher of the Li'l >Abner reprints, says: "Very early in the continuity Capp once referred to >Dogpatch being in Kentucky, but he was careful afterwards to keep its location >generic, probably to avoid cancellations from offended subscribing newspapers >in Kentucky." Thanks to everyone who's chimed in on this, I stand corrected. Capp did refer to 'Dogpatch, Kentucky', in a dialogue box at the beginning of day '9' in 1934 (the strip began running in August, but I'm not sure if this represents August 9, since the numbers seem to be consecutive--i.e., no breaks for Sundays). This strip can be found on the top of page 17 of Vol. 1 of Kitchen's reprints (1934-5). Also, in 1937, Capp did a promotional book through his United Features Syndicate, which offered a comic strip format 'origin story' for Li'l Abner, which shows himself as an unhandsome prototype of Li'l Abner, hitchhiking on a 'walking trip through the Kentucky Mountains' and he then depicts the 'hillbilly people there, the prototypes of Li'l Abner...' This trip is supposedly at least a partially-true story; it happened when he was 15, rather than the paunchy, roughly unshaven hobo-like adult as he portrays himself in this comic strip version. The actual Li'l Abner strip drawings weren't begun until years later, when he was in NYC. I have to agree with what Kitchen says about being generic afterward (for whatever reasons). Capp's original circulation was something like just 8 newspapers, so he probably figured he'd not get caught in that early slip-up of specifying KY. Thanks again. I'm glad I've finally gotten that straight! Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Thu Nov 11 04:01:20 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 23:01:20 -0500 Subject: Kentucky it was! Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael McKernan" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 10:49 PM Subject: Kentucky it was! >> Thanks to everyone who's chimed in on this, I stand corrected. > > Capp did refer to 'Dogpatch, Kentucky', in a dialogue box at the beginning > of day '9' in 1934 (the strip began running in August, but I'm not sure if > this represents August 9, since the numbers seem to be consecutive--i.e., > no breaks for Sundays). > > This strip can be found on the top of page 17 of Vol. 1 of Kitchen's > reprints (1934-5). > > > Also, in 1937, Capp did a promotional book through his United Features > Syndicate, which offered a comic strip format 'origin story' for Li'l > Abner, which shows himself as an unhandsome prototype of Li'l Abner, > hitchhiking on a 'walking trip through the Kentucky Mountains' and he then > depicts the 'hillbilly people there, the prototypes of Li'l Abner...' > > This trip is supposedly at least a partially-true story; it happened when > he was 15, rather than the paunchy, roughly unshaven hobo-like adult as he > portrays himself in this comic strip version. The actual Li'l Abner strip > drawings weren't begun until years later, when he was in NYC. > > I have to agree with what Kitchen says about being generic afterward (for > whatever reasons). Capp's original circulation was something like just 8 > newspapers, so he probably figured he'd not get caught in that early > slip-up of specifying KY. > > Thanks again. I'm glad I've finally gotten that straight! > > Michael McKernan, Ph.D. > In a June, 1936 strip, Capp has a character pull a "county directory" at random, and it is titled "Dogpatch County, Kentucky" Sam Clements From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Nov 11 04:45:53 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 23:45:53 -0500 Subject: Kentucky it was! Message-ID: The early strips, at least, seem to make Dogpatch's Kentucky location clear. In addition to the initial reference to "Dogpatch, Kentucky" in the 9th strip, in August 1934, there is a similar reference on December 4, 1934; a newspaper story about Daisy Mae on February 12, 1936, is entitled "Perfect American Beauty Found in Kentucky Hills"; and Li'l Abner buys a train ticket to "Dogpatch, Kaintucky" on February 14, 1936. There may be other references; these are just what I noticed with a quick look through the first two volumes of the collected daily strips. John Baker From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Thu Nov 11 05:03:21 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:03:21 -0500 Subject: Kentucky it was! Again! Message-ID: Sam Clements wrote: > >In a June, 1936 strip, Capp has a character pull a "county directory" at >random, and it is titled "Dogpatch County, Kentucky" Right again, and it turns out that this reference to 'Dogpatch County, Kentucky' or simply, 'Dogpatch, Kentucky' occurs on several days in the continuity, 06/26/1936, 06/27/1936 (p.88 in Kitchen's Vol. 2); 07/01/1936 (p.89); and 07/03/1936 (p,90) So I stand four-times corrected, and again, my thanks! Anymore? (Where were all of you eagle-eyes when I could have used this information eight years ago? Oh, well, better late than never.) I do appreciate it. Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 11 06:13:08 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:13:08 -0600 Subject: "On the ground" redux Message-ID: >Awhile ago there was a discussion of the figurative use of "on the ground." >For any of you who missed it, there was a great example this morning on >NPR. In a report on a new agreement over the Darfur region of Sudan, the >news reader (female, I forget who), said, "The no-fly zone will be a >significant element on the ground." This ALMOST works literally, but with >the word "element," it seems to me, not quite. > >Peter Mc. To me the incongruous part is comparing "on the ground" to a "no-fly zone". One is several thousand feet above the other. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 06:24:33 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:24:33 -0500 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:47:08 -0600, Dave Hause wrote: >I don't remember use of this expression, but in 64-5, at least in Ann Arbor >when I was flirting with them, the left white radicals seemed to have >cordial relations with the black radicals. And the white radicals clearly borrowed many of their slogans and catchphrases from the black radicals. The question is, when did "Right on" cross over? Some indication might be given by Garry Trudeau's comic strip "Bull Tales", the precursor to "Doonesbury" that appeared in the Yale Daily News from Autumn 1968 to Spring 1970. The strips are available online, and "Right on" appears in two of them (alongside "All power to the people" and other Black Pantherisms): http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/retro/yale/yale68.html http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/retro/yale/yale79.html These strips aren't dated on the website, but it's safe to say that they appeared during the 1969-70 academic year, when the trial of Bobby Seale and other Black Panthers in New Haven led to the massive May Day campus protests. (Both strips feature campus radical "Megaphone Mark" Slackmeyer.) --Ben Zimmer From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 11 06:52:05 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:52:05 -0600 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: Harvard Crimson November 08, 1969 "They discussed the war, United Fruit, General Motors, and Bobby Seale, and handed out copies of Right On, a radical high school newspaper published by the Massachusetts Liberation Front." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Nov 11 07:02:57 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 02:02:57 EST Subject: Roti John Message-ID: O.T., MISC. So I wake up, take a shower, and I'm about to go to work when the phone rings. It's Victory Memorial Hospital getting back to me. And I say to them, a man is 91 years old, he lives in a nursing home, he's been to this hospital six times, and nobody figures out that he might die and have to be buried? He left no instructions to anyone? The hospital had no information at all, just my phone number. He spent all this time on poetry, and he couldn't have helped me out here? This will have to go to the courts for six months just to bury him? So I go to work. The clock on the wall has the wrong time. Fall back. Over a week ago. No one changes the clocks. Then, I use the date/time stamp. It says November 9th. I get that changed. The time was off and didn't move, but that can't be changed. I usually get assigned to the coffin room, a small, illegal area without windows or emergency exits or fresh air. There is a fan. I notice that it's now broken. The room is sweltering from the heat system. You wouldn't want a dog to sit in a place like this for ten minutes. "There's no other fan," I'm told. "You don't need a fan. Welcome back!" The computer asks me to change three passwords. The city's awful computer system (parking tickets is about as simple as things come) breaks down. I re-boot the system. It breaks down again. I re-boot the system. It breaks down again. This happens all day. "Volume has picked up since after the election," I'm told. "We're getting out of here after 7 p.m. again." Which means 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m., with a half-hour lunch. "It's good you didn't quit. Your mother would want to see you do this. Did you have a nice vacation?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- ROTI JOHN--1,280 Google hits, 53 Google Groups hits (not in OED) (GOOGLE) Roti John... Roti John. ... John! So my father named this dish Roti John!" explained Norhayati, daughter of Shukor, who created Roti John in the 1970s. ... www.chennaionline.com/food/recipes/recipes14.asp - 29k - Cached - Similar pages The foreigners would always ask him to fry up an onion omelette, which they would eat with a side order of bread. They ate so much of it, and so often, that Shunkor decided to create a "two-in-one" dish for them. He added the bread as the omelette was cooking, and the result was a delicious omelette-topped slab of French bread, which came with a special-chilli sauce. It went down well with the foreign clientele, and the locals, and Shukor needed a name for it. Since it had been created for foreigners, it was named after them too. "In those days, we addressed all ang mohs (foreigners) as John! John! So my father named this dish Roti John!" explained Norhayati, daughter of Shukor, who created Roti John in the 1970s.And the rest, as they say, is history. MALAY FOOD ... On the other hand, Roti John (John’s Bread) was said to have been inspired by a homesick tourist named John who, so the story goes, was in search of a ... library.thinkquest.org/11518/food/malay.htm - 5k - Cached - Similar pages In Singapore, the highlight of Malay cuisine is Satay, thought by some to have been derived from the Arab ‘kebah’ but with a character all its own. Satay has even spawned two Chinese versions: Satay Chelop and Nonya Pork Satay as well as the hawker dish Satay Bee Hoon. On the other hand, Roti John (John’s Bread) was said to have been inspired by a homesick tourist named John who, so the story goes, was in search of a sandwich. a helpful hawker sliced up a loaf of French bread, clapped in a mixture of minced mutton and onion and dipped the whole in beaten egg which he fried until crisp. If the tourist named John was bemused, locals took to Roti John and it is now a staple at Muslim food stalls. It is more likely, however, that Roti John is an adaptation of Murtabak, an Indian Muslim dish which is the Asian answer to Italian pizza. Loca Favourities ... Roti John A local Malay delight, Roti John is made by halving long bread then spreading eggs and cooked delectable minced mutton over the two halves before ... www.newasia-singapore.gen.in/food/local.html - 5k - Cached - Similar pages [PDF] Food in Malaysia File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat Your browser may not have a PDF reader available. Google recommends visiting our text version of this document. ... Food in Malacca Page 5 of 5 http://www.hotelreservation.com.my/food.htm 7/4/04 OTHER GOOD FOOD Roti John Putri Erra Roti John, Food court next to the old ... www.tourism-melaka.com/MelakaFoodGuide.pdf - Similar pages BruDirect - Tourist Info ... They're as delicious as those you'll find in established fast food outlets. Or try out 'Roti John'-the Malay version of the Big Mac. ... www.brudirect.com/BruneiInfo/ info/brudirect__TourInfo.htm - 27k - Cached - Similar pages A City for the Senses ... Rumor had it that the adjoining Taman Serasi Food Center, a collection of stalls famous for roti john (crisp egg, onion and minced lamb omelets with chile sauce ... www.latimes.com/la-031702singapore,0,574355.story - Similar pages Singapore unofficial food ...Mee Goreng ... Now if anyone has a good recipe for Roti John or 'John Bread' please send that to me, its my next big craving! Good Luck Jay. Contributed by - Jay ... www.makantime.com/others1.htm - 5k - Cached - Similar pages Best Food in Singapore ... Prawn Noodle: Yi Sheng at Hawker Center next to Safra Bukit Merah behind IKEA. Roti John: Shukor stall No. 9 Taman Serasi Food Center. ... www.geocities.com/Tokyo/ Courtyard/9049/singapore/food.htm - 7k - Cached - Similar pages Catcha Singapore - Maps ... to both tourists and locals. Other types of food worth trying are Mee Goreng, Roti John and Murtabak. Open on Mondays to Fridays ... www1.catcha.com.sg/content. phtml?15&010&&eatsatay1.txt - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Sprinting through Singapore ... You’d be spoilt for choice from the satay (barbequed skewered meat on sticks) and mee goreng (fried noodles) to roti John (pan-fried baguette with egg and ... www.expatsingapore.com/sprinting.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages Get For Me Singapore A LAST LOOK AT TAMAN SERASI HAWKER CENTRE ... ... This means that the hawker centre where the island's best roti-john is to be found will exist no more, except in print in our history books and here on the ... www.getforme.com/previous220801_ ALastLookAtTamanSerasiHawkerCentre.htm - 86k - Cached - Similar pages Singapore Hotels - Short stopover for those who have only one or ... ... This sprawling food centre will allow you to sample some unique dishes such as Indian roti john and murtabak, Hokkien popiah, spicy sambal stingray and Malay ... www-singapore.com/shortstopover/culturevulture.html - 39k - Cached - Similar pages Asia : Southeast Asia : Singapore : In Depth : Food & Drink ... peanut sauce. Another popular dish is roti john, minced mutton and onion in French bread that’s dipped in egg and fried. Nasi ... www.frommers.com/destinations/singapore/0077020880.html - 40k - Cached - Similar pages (GOOGLE GROUPS) From: Sandra (alexsandra28 at Yyahoo.com) Subject: Roti John .. minced meat on bread This is the only article in this thread View: Original Format Newsgroups: uk.food+drink.indian Date: 2002-01-15 03:27:21 PST Good day to all, I searched for this recipe, found it in malay and translated it. It'scalled Roti John. There are many stories behind the name of this dish,basically how a westerner named John missed his bread with burgers andtrying to adapt to an asian country, created Roti John. Roti John existedway before MacDonalds and other fast food centres came into existence in ourcountry.This simple bread and minced meat is normally made in Indian stalls makingRoti Prata or in malay stalls. Roti John (minced meat on french loaf) Ingredients 500 gm. minced meat 2 eggs, beaten 1 french loaf, divide into 2, sliced thru salt to taste curry powder chilli powder turmeric powder 1 big onion, chopped finely (Note: IMO, 500 gm minced meat is a bit too much). Method: In a heated wok, add minced meat, chopped onion, curry, chilly and tumericpowder. Cook it dry. Add salt to taste. Onto the bread, on the white of the bread, spread beaten egg, then place thecooked minced meat mixture. Place the bread face down on to a flat pan or griddle. Press the bread downso every area is touching the griddle. 2 or 3 minutes later check whetherit's cooked. If so, slide a flate spatula under the bread and transfer toplate, minced meat side facing up. Garnish with salads and cucumber and a dash of tomato or chilli sauce. Other variations: Some people mix the cooked minced meat mixture, after it has cooled down,with the egg mixture. Spreading it on sliced french loaf, then onto hotgriddle. Garnishing is the same. I am a bit tired of cooking, so I hope to make Roti John on of these nites.Hope you will enjoy this too, Sandra Re: Which is the Best Bicycle Shop Here ? I heard a version of the Roti John story: It was invented by a Malay foodstall in Sembawang many years ago. In those good old days ... soc.culture.singapore - Mar 5, 2001 by Vince - View Thread (13 articles) Re: 100 best foods in Singapore ... Open till around 3am b.. Yes! Adam Road Hawker center is very much alive and kicking. It also serves one of the best ROTI JOHN in town! ... sg.marketplace - Oct 16, 2000 by ShiYing - View Thread (2 articles) From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 14:45:37 2004 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 06:45:37 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? 1) She's the one than whom I am better. It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a preposition and a conjunction in her November column. Ed __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Thu Nov 11 15:30:27 2004 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (Vida J Morkunas) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 07:30:27 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111144537.91987.qmail@web20428.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? >1) She's the one than whom I am better. No, I don't - and I've never heard anyone express themselves that way. >It sounds like ass to me. The above doesn't sound good, either ;) >But Barbara Wallraff at the The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a preposition and a conjunction in her November column. I look forward to what others have to say about this. From dave at WILTON.NET Thu Nov 11 16:02:34 2004 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:02:34 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111144537.91987.qmail@web20428.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Ed Keer > Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 6:46 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Than > > > Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > > 1) She's the one than whom I am better. > > It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the > The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. > She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a > preposition and a conjunction in her November column. This is a near perfect example of the prescriptivist fallacy, that rules govern language rather than describe it. A sentence is not grammatical because it comports to a set of rules set down in a manual or logically derived from other rules (as opposed to derived directly from examples). Rather a sentence is grammatical because it comports with the way that people use the language. You would never hear someone use this construction and it takes a native English speaker a minute or two to parse it and determine what the intended meaning is. It is a most unnatural construction. A real English speaker would say "She is the one who I am better than." Or better, albeit with a slight change in emphasis, "I'm better than her." --Dave Wilton dave at wilton.net http://www.wilton.net From cdtsociety at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 16:30:18 2004 From: cdtsociety at YAHOO.COM (jim wolf) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:30:18 -0800 Subject: Continental Divide Message-ID: I am interested in discovering very early uses of the term "Continental Divide." "Divide" as a designation for the separation of watersheds goes back at least to the first part of the nineteenth century. There were also many other terms in use for the Continental Divide, such as "backbone of the continent" or "dividing ridge." And there was even a reference to "where the waters divide" in an overland journal of the 1840s. So far, the earliest mention of the precise term "Continental Divide" is in Government documents of 1866 and 1867. And it doesn't show up on maps until at least 1873. Can anyone locate any "Continental Divide" reference, on documents or maps, earlier than these? Jim Wolf (James R. Wolf, cdtsociety at yahoo.com) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Thu Nov 11 16:57:41 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 10:57:41 -0600 Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <20041108020427.H26427@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: I did not see the entire news report, but apparently Chicago buses are showing ads with the headline: Read Books! Get Brain! and if I saw it correctly, the illustration shows a shapely female from behind, bending over a pile of books! Barbara >This may or may not have anything to do with the topic: >http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20041107 > >"Unshelved" is a web comic strip set in a library. Yesterday's (Sunday's) >strip is a single long panel. > > - teenage male patron #1, looking offstage (to reader's left): Man, did you >see the size of her brain? > - teenage male patron #2, ditto: She's too smart for me. I'm going to go >study! > - librarian #1, in background at information desk: Did I fall through a >hole in space time? > - librarian #2, ditto: Welcome to Earth Two. > >Well, *I* like the strip. > >mark by hand From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Nov 11 17:13:19 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:13:19 EST Subject: Otah; Shulman burial Message-ID: SHULMAN BURIAL I just got a call from the St. Nicholas Home that it's 10 a.m. tomorrow, at the Baronhurst Cemetery on Staten Island (718) 698-0162. I was also given (718) 377-8610 Ian. I'll skip work. Hopefully, they'll fire me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- OTAH OTAH + SINGAPORE--1,090 Google hits, 44 Google Groups hits "Otah" is not in the revised OED. The editors must not get out much. (GOOGLE) Otah Singapore Recipes. Otah. Imagine fresh, de-boned mackerel marinated with coconut milk, freshly ground chilli, onions, lemon grass, blue ginger and turmeric... ... www.chennaionline.com/hotelsandtours/ recipes/recipes/recipes16.asp - 51k - Cached - Similar pages Singapore on a Full Stomach ... Among these are otah-otah, (a fish paste flavored with chili and wrapped in a ... touch, with a pungent smell so potent it is forbidden in Singapore's subway system ... www.voxunity.com/feyemine/ magazine/articles/singapore.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages eBizAsiaLink.com - My big fat Singapore otah ... Wednesday, May 07, 2003. My big fat Singapore otah. By Sheila Wan For the uninitiated, otah is a stick of mackerel that has been mixed ... www.ebizasialink.com/tbuzz. asp?ArticleID=2256&SID=152 - 50k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages Fish Otah Outlets - Nam San Mackerel Otah - Nam San Food ... Order Singapore No. 1 Mackerel Fish Banana Leaf Otah Now ! ... Nam San Otah has many outlets throughout Singapore to serve you. Look for the Nam San Otah Logo. ... www.namsan-otah.com/outlets.html - 10k - Cached - Similar pages Welcome to Singapore Food Expo 2004 ... Nam San’s ‘Otah Otah’ is a regular feature in the menus of international hotels, restaurants and café chains in Singapore. ... www.singaporefoodexpo.org.sg/ html/merchant-namsanmark.html - 14k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages (GOOGLE GROUPS) NY Times : Snacker's Paradise: Devouring Singapore's Endless ... ... occasionally) their male counterparts, the Babas, is unique to Singapore, Malacca and ... Three of them shot our lights out: otah-otah, spicy sticks of mackerel ... soc.culture.malaysia - Sep 11, 2003 by Yap Yok Foo - View Thread (1 article) From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 11 18:18:25 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:18:25 -0500 Subject: Otah; Shulman burial In-Reply-To: <45.1b08c7cd.2ec4f7af@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 12:13:19PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > SHULMAN BURIAL > > I just got a call from the St. Nicholas Home that it's 10 a.m. tomorrow, at > the Baronhurst Cemetery on Staten Island (718) 698-0162. I was also given (718) > 377-8610 Ian. Unfortunately I'm out of town and won't be able to attend. Jesse Sheidlower OED From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 18:20:24 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:20:24 -0500 Subject: Otah; Shulman burial Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:13:19 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >SHULMAN BURIAL > >I just got a call from the St. Nicholas Home that it's 10 a.m. tomorrow, >at the Baronhurst Cemetery on Staten Island (718) 698-0162. I was also >given (718) 377-8610 Ian. Just to clarify, the name and address of the cemetery is: Baron Hirsch Cemetery 1126 Richmond Ave Staten Island, NY 10314 Here's a link to Mapquest: . --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 18:39:41 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:39:41 -0500 Subject: Otah Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:13:19 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >OTAH > >OTAH + SINGAPORE--1,090 Google hits, 44 Google Groups hits > >"Otah" is not in the revised OED. The editors must not get out much. > >(GOOGLE) >Otah >Singapore Recipes. Otah. Imagine fresh, de-boned mackerel marinated with >coconut milk, freshly ground chilli, onions, lemon grass, blue ginger and >turmeric... This is more commonly known in Malay/Indonesian as (pronounced /ota? ota?/), a reduplicated form of 'brain'. (The mushy quality of the fish paste resembles beef brain, I presume.) --Ben Zimmer From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Thu Nov 11 18:14:47 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:14:47 -0500 Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Whatever works. . . . At 10:57 AM 11/11/2004 -0600, you wrote: >I did not see the entire news report, but apparently Chicago buses >are showing ads with the headline: Read Books! Get Brain! and if I >saw it correctly, the illustration shows a shapely female from >behind, bending over a pile of books! > >Barbara > >>This may or may not have anything to do with the topic: >>http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20041107 >> >>"Unshelved" is a web comic strip set in a library. Yesterday's (Sunday's) >>strip is a single long panel. >> >> - teenage male patron #1, looking offstage (to reader's left): Man, did you >>see the size of her brain? >> - teenage male patron #2, ditto: She's too smart for me. I'm going to go >>study! >> - librarian #1, in background at information desk: Did I fall through a >>hole in space time? >> - librarian #2, ditto: Welcome to Earth Two. >> >>Well, *I* like the strip. >> >>mark by hand From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Nov 11 18:50:55 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 10:50:55 -0800 Subject: "On the ground" redux In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B4975E@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: --On Thursday, November 11, 2004 12:13 AM -0600 "Mullins, Bill" wrote: >> Awhile ago there was a discussion of the figurative use of "on the >> ground." For any of you who missed it, there was a great example this >> morning on NPR. In a report on a new agreement over the Darfur region >> of Sudan, the news reader (female, I forget who), said, "The no-fly zone >> will be a significant element on the ground." This ALMOST works >> literally, but with the word "element," it seems to me, not quite. >> >> Peter Mc. > > To me the incongruous part is comparing "on the ground" to a "no-fly > zone". One is several thousand feet above the other. Exactly. That's why it was amusing, and why it could only have been intended figuratively (i.e., on site, where the real action is, etc.). ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 11 18:58:56 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:58:56 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2004, at 9:45 AM, Ed Keer wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Ed Keer > Subject: Than > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > > 1) She's the one than whom I am better. This appears to be the kind of construction up with which Winston Churchill would not have put. -Wilson Gray > > It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the > The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. > She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a > preposition and a conjunction in her November column. > > Ed > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. > www.yahoo.com > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 11 19:18:19 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:18:19 -0500 Subject: Otah In-Reply-To: <42550.69.142.143.59.1100198381.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: At 1:39 PM -0500 11/11/04, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:13:19 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >>OTAH >> >>OTAH + SINGAPORE--1,090 Google hits, 44 Google Groups hits >> >>"Otah" is not in the revised OED. The editors must not get out much. >> >>(GOOGLE) >>Otah >>Singapore Recipes. Otah. Imagine fresh, de-boned mackerel marinated with >>coconut milk, freshly ground chilli, onions, lemon grass, blue ginger and >>turmeric... > >This is more commonly known in Malay/Indonesian as (pronounced >/ota? ota?/), a reduplicated form of 'brain'. (The mushy quality >of the fish paste resembles beef brain, I presume.) > ...suggesting a revised version of those NYC bus ads: Read books. Get otak. L From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 19:21:05 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:21:05 -0800 Subject: Than Message-ID: I do. But it is awkward. St. Anselm was famous for saying (in translation) something like "God is He than Whom nothing can be greater." JL Ed Keer wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Ed Keer Subject: Than ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? 1) She's the one than whom I am better. It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a preposition and a conjunction in her November column. Ed __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 11 19:40:50 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:40:50 -0500 Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2004, at 11:57 AM, Barbara Need wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Barbara Need > Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with > metonymy > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I did not see the entire news report, but apparently Chicago buses > are showing ads with the headline: Read Books! Get Brain! and if I > saw it correctly, the illustration shows a shapely female from > behind, bending over a pile of books! > > Barbara Shapely female? From behind, you say? And bending over? Perhaps it was meant to attract the attention of those of us whose patron is Aphrodite Kallipyge, the goddess of the fine behind. -Wilson "Baby Got Back That Azz Up" Gray > >> This may or may not have anything to do with the topic: >> http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20041107 >> >> "Unshelved" is a web comic strip set in a library. Yesterday's >> (Sunday's) >> strip is a single long panel. >> >> - teenage male patron #1, looking offstage (to reader's left): Man, >> did you >> see the size of her brain? >> - teenage male patron #2, ditto: She's too smart for me. I'm going >> to go >> study! >> - librarian #1, in background at information desk: Did I fall >> through a >> hole in space time? >> - librarian #2, ditto: Welcome to Earth Two. >> >> Well, *I* like the strip. >> >> mark by hand > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 11 19:47:37 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:47:37 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111144537.91987.qmail@web20428.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2004, at 6:45 AM, Ed Keer wrote: > Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > > 1) She's the one than whom I am better. > > It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the The Atlantic > Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. She uses it as evidence that > "than" is both a preposition and a conjunction in her November > column. there are two issues here, both of long standing in the usage literature. the first is whether "than" can be used as a preposition as well as a conjunction; this pretty much comes down to whether the manuals require nominative case for pronouns understood as subjects ("years older than I" -- "than" as conjunction) or allow accusative case ("years older than me" -- "than" as preposition). MWDEU notes that the conjunction/preposition dispute has been going on for more than two centuries and observes that both usages can be found in speech and writing of all sorts, Garner's Modern American Usage accepts preposition "than" only in the most relaxed, informal contexts, requiring conjunction syntax everywhere else. (me, i think this is nutty advice, but the point is that even garner grudgingly admits some prepositional uses.) against this background, you'd expect the sticklers to insist on "than who". but fronted "than" + NP looks an *awful* lot like PP fronting, and (probably as a result of this fact) even the stickliest sticklers require "whom" in this case. MWDEU notes that Lowth 1762 insisted that "than" was always a conjunction, *except in this one context*, where it had to be a preposition (and govern the accusative) -- a systematic exception that MWDEU suggests arose from the authority of Milton in Paradise Lost ("Beelzebub... than whom, Satan except, none higher sat"). Garner quotes the OED as stating that "than whom" "is universally recognized instead of _than who_". in a fit of common sense, however, he labels "than whom" awkward, "essentially a literary idiom". what we're supposed to use instead, he does not say. surely not "the one than who I am better". and if "than" is always supposed to be a conjunction in formal writing, then "the one who I am better than" would be utterly impossible there; english has stranded prepositions (even garner concedes this), but not stranded *conjunctions*. the implied advice is to reword so as to avoid the problem entirely. i have no problem with "the one who I am better than", but then i'm happy with prepositional "than", stranded prepositions, *and* fronted nominative "who". your mileage might vary. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 11 20:35:19 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:35:19 -0600 Subject: Continental Divide Message-ID: This doesn't beat your govt documents, but is early . . . _Rocky Mountain News_, (Denver, CO), Sept 15 1869, p.2 "First, it is eveident that this pest spreads over a large extent of territory, being found in an east and west direction from the summit of the continental divide to the Missouri river, and north and sout from central New Mexico to the Black Hills." > -----Original Message----- > From: jim wolf [mailto:cdtsociety at YAHOO.COM] > Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 10:30 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Continental Divide > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: jim wolf > Subject: Continental Divide > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > I am interested in discovering very early uses of the term > "Continental Divide." > > "Divide" as a designation for the separation of watersheds > goes back at least to the first part of the nineteenth > century. There were also many other terms in use for the > Continental Divide, such as "backbone of the continent" or > "dividing ridge." And there was even a reference to "where > the waters divide" in an overland journal of the 1840s. > > So far, the earliest mention of the precise term "Continental Divide" > is in Government documents of 1866 and 1867. And it doesn't > show up on maps until at least 1873. > > Can anyone locate any "Continental Divide" reference, on > documents or maps, earlier than these? > > Jim Wolf > > (James R. Wolf, cdtsociety at yahoo.com) > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. > www.yahoo.com > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:17:18 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:17:18 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <8A6271CE-341A-11D9-97C8-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: At 11:47 AM -0800 11/11/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: >against this background, you'd expect the sticklers to insist on "than >who". but fronted "than" + NP looks an *awful* lot like PP fronting, >and (probably as a result of this fact) even the stickliest sticklers >require "whom" in this case. MWDEU notes that Lowth 1762 insisted that >"than" was always a conjunction, *except in this one context*, where it >had to be a preposition (and govern the accusative) -- a systematic >exception that MWDEU suggests arose from the authority of Milton in >Paradise Lost ("Beelzebub... than whom, Satan except, none higher >sat"). > >Garner quotes the OED as stating that "than whom" "is universally >recognized instead of _than who_". in a fit of common sense, however, >he labels "than whom" awkward, "essentially a literary idiom". what >we're supposed to use instead, he does not say. surely not "the one >than who I am better". and if "than" is always supposed to be a >conjunction in formal writing, then "the one who I am better than" >would be utterly impossible there; english has stranded prepositions >(even garner concedes this), but not stranded *conjunctions*. the >implied advice is to reword so as to avoid the problem entirely. > I suspect that what makes the Milton-type example somewhat more natural than the one Ed opened this thread with, She's the one than whom I am better. is precisely the emptiness of the comparison clause. So compare the Beelzebub example with Beelzebub...than whom Satan sat higher. --somewhat worse, right? Milton's original is "about" Beelzebub, and is essentially equivalent to the proposition that Beelzebub sat the highest of all (except Satan), while Milton-Prime's example is largely about Satan, just as the Atlantic's example is about me (rather than, or in addition to, about her). This seems to be a factor in the comparative acceptability of these admittedly somewhat stilted (but some more stilted than others) examples. I'm reminded of Kuno's observation about the differential acceptability of *That's a child who I know {a/the} family who's willing to adopt (?)That's a child who I know nobody who's willing to adopt [= that's an unadoptable child] Checking out my speculation on google, I find a couple dozen naturalish-sounding examples for "than whom nobody", e.g. Executive producer Tom Fontana, than whom nobody on television is more pomo-intertextual, includes so many inside jokes that I'm sure I missed half of... Rush Limbaugh, than whom nobody has a larger radio audience, It was, of course, Jean, than whom nobody could invest a sniff with a deeper or richer range of meaning. Paul Bocuse, than whom nobody could be finer, From this distinguished kin came Richard, who later succeeded him, than whom nobody was braver or more generous Checking under "than whom I...", a quick glance suggests that most are of the related form "than whom I know nobody better"--if we eliminate the irrelevant ones (e.g. those with a sentence break before "I"). Not surprisingly, the first two hits are for the example from The Atlantic cited by Ed. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:20:44 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:20:44 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111192105.62829.qmail@web53901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 11:21 AM -0800 11/11/04, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >I do. But it is awkward. > >St. Anselm was famous for saying (in translation) something like >"God is He than Whom nothing can be greater." > >JL > but less awkward than e.g. "The Yankees are one of the 29 teams than which the Red Sox are greater": "is He than Whom nothing is Xer" = "is the Xest". From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 21:20:45 2004 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:20:45 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <8A6271CE-341A-11D9-97C8-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: --- "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote: > i have no problem with "the one who I am better > than", but then i'm > happy with prepositional "than", stranded > prepositions, *and* fronted > nominative "who". your mileage might vary. > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > Thanks Arnold, I figured you would have the skinny on this. I too am happy with "the one who I am better than". I was entertaining an idea that you could analyze "than" as always a conjunction, with the accusative case of bare "subjects" accounted for by default case along the lines of what I guess you have to say about: Who wants ice cream? Me But as you point out the stranding pretty much knocks that down. Still, the pie-piped version sounds ungrammatical to me, not merely "literary". Maybe I'm just too illiterate. Ed __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:52:07 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:52:07 -0500 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: <83c876b104111018341d805027@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: At 6:34 PM -0800 11/10/04, Towse wrote: >On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:35:46 -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > >> Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I >> heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of California, >> Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. > >Karenga is more widely known as the guy who invented Kwanzaa. > > School pride* forces me to add that when Ron Karenga (as he was then known) invented Kwanzaa (which, given Swahili penultimate stress principles, "should" be stressed on the second of the three /a/s), it was during his days (and mine) at UCLA around 1966-68. (*School pride hasn't yet forced me to get around to making alumni contributions, so they'll have to settle for what they can get.) larry From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:53:37 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:53:37 -0800 Subject: "laud" as a dative alternation verb Message-ID: Jennifer Ludden, on NPR's Morning Edition, 11/11/04, of Yasser Arafat: "...but Palestinians lauded him a hero". this moves "laud" into one of the subtypes of dative alternation verbs (Levin, English Verb Classes and Alternations, section 2.1), specifically the "non-alternating double object" subtype (Levin, (119) on p. 47), lacking a prepositional alternative. by its semantics, "laud" seems to straddle three of levin's subsubtypes: Appoint verbs: designate, ordain, proclaim, elect,... Dub verbs: call, decree, pronounce, term,... Declare verbs: adjudge, declare, judge,... but syntactically it looks like an Appoint verb, which can take an "as" complement: designate/ordain/proclaim/elect him (as) a representative compare: laud/praise/celebrate/honor him as a hero. a google search on "lauded him" -as -for pulls up no examples parallel to the Arafat example. i judge the other praise verbs to be even worse than "laud" in the double-object construction, but then what do i know? anyone have similar examples? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:54:13 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:54:13 -0500 Subject: Otah Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:35:19 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: >This doesn't beat your govt documents, but is early . . . > >_Rocky Mountain News_, (Denver, CO), Sept 15 1869, p.2 >"First, it is eveident that this pest spreads over a large extent of >territory, being found in an east and west direction from the summit of the >continental divide to the Missouri river, and north and sout from central >New Mexico to the Black Hills." The Making of America database has citations from around the same time: Report of J. Ross Browne on the mineral resources of the states and territories west of the Rocky Mountains. [1867] Washington, Gov't print. off., 1868. Then follows the Snowy range, or the range with its system of parks - the crest or sierra of the mountain mass - while "over the range" includes all west of the continental divide. Preliminary field report of the United States Geological survey of Colorado and New Mexico. Washington, Gov't print. off., 1869. In a belt, of which it would be difficult to define the limits, but which may be generally stated as lying east and west of the great continental divide as far as the gneiss or granite extends, and reaching north and south as far as investigation has made the Rocky Mountain chain known to us, lie the ores of the precious, and some of the baser, metals. --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:58:07 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:58:07 -0500 Subject: Continental Divide Message-ID: [Sorry-- ignore posting with the wrong subject line.] On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:35:19 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: >This doesn't beat your govt documents, but is early . . . > >_Rocky Mountain News_, (Denver, CO), Sept 15 1869, p.2 >"First, it is eveident that this pest spreads over a large extent of territory, being found in an east and west direction from the summit of the continental divide to the Missouri river, and north and sout from central New Mexico to the Black Hills." The Making of America database has citations from around the same time: Report of J. Ross Browne on the mineral resources of the states and territories west of the Rocky Mountains. [1867] Washington, Gov't print. off., 1868. Then follows the Snowy range, or the range with its system of parks - the crest or sierra of the mountain mass - while "over the range" includes all west of the continental divide. Preliminary field report of the United States Geological survey of Colorado and New Mexico. Washington, Gov't print. off., 1869. In a belt, of which it would be difficult to define the limits, but which may be generally stated as lying east and west of the great continental divide as far as the gneiss or granite extends, and reaching north and south as far as investigation has made the Rocky Mountain chain known to us, lie the ores of the precious, and some of the baser, metals. --Ben Zimmer From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 12 01:06:43 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:06:43 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111144537.91987.qmail@web20428.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > >1) She's the one than whom I am better. I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly recommend it. [But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.] -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Fri Nov 12 01:05:43 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:05:43 -0500 Subject: "laud" as a dative alternation verb Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:53:37 -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: >Jennifer Ludden, on NPR's Morning Edition, 11/11/04, of Yasser Arafat: >"...but Palestinians lauded him a hero". > >this moves "laud" into one of the subtypes of dative alternation verbs >(Levin, English Verb Classes and Alternations, section 2.1), >specifically the "non-alternating double object" subtype (Levin, (119) >on p. 47), lacking a prepositional alternative. by its semantics, >"laud" seems to straddle three of levin's subsubtypes: > Appoint verbs: designate, ordain, proclaim, elect,... > Dub verbs: call, decree, pronounce, term,... > Declare verbs: adjudge, declare, judge,... >but syntactically it looks like an Appoint verb, which can take an "as" >complement: > designate/ordain/proclaim/elect him (as) a representative >compare: > laud/praise/celebrate/honor him as a hero. > >a google search on > "lauded him" -as -for >pulls up no examples parallel to the Arafat example. i judge the other >praise verbs to be even worse than "laud" in the double-object >construction, but then what do i know? anyone have similar examples? I coaxed these examples out of Google: ----------- Some call for the conductor’s job; others laud him a hero. http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/iraq_conflict/article/0,1406,KNS_9217_1838406,00.html Chris Tarrant: while I'm not ready to laud him a superstar... http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/archives/2003season/outsidethebox02.html The man gets a couple grand for waking up in the morning, and we need to laud him a hero for auctioning off some of his signed gear for a donation? http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=wkCt7.15562$c8.2130064 at news1.rdc1.nj.home.com And a heart-throb to boot: magazine polls lauded him the 'next big thing'. http://www.joemcfadden.net/pressroom/press17.html So the actor and the director praised Tim on his doughnut-gettingness and lauded him the best doughnut-getter. http://www.mcafy.com/leaf/j041702.htm The Japanese Government lauded her the Best Artist of the Year in 1988. http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/199812/14/1214155.htm This situation is reminiscent of the whole Jessica Lynch case, where some lauded her a hero... http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=WKidnbb5Np3F6aLdRVn-vg at texas.net This book is getting a poor response, to the dismay of those who laud Clinton a hero. http://www.redrightandblue.com/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=94 It's been a roller coaster ride for the Fame Academy champion with some lauding him a top-notch song writer... http://www.davidfans.co.uk/newsblog/index.php?cat=3 Rall summed up Tillman as both an "idiot" and a "sap" while newspaper editors across the country are foolishly lauding him a "hero." http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1675&dept_id=18168&newsid=11452247&PAG=461&rfi=9 Are people right for lauding him a genius? http://therazer.mindsay.com/2003/ ----------- In addition, there are 38 hits on Google for "lauded a hero" (e.g., "John Kennedy was lauded a hero for his actions on PT-109"). This suggests that the passive construction is more acceptable to some, perhaps because the two objects of the verb do not appear consecutively. --Ben Zimmer From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Nov 12 02:16:39 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:16:39 -0500 Subject: Pico de Gallo (1962) Message-ID: I've discussed "pico de gallo" before, but I didn't post this citation at that time. The revised OED should add this, but I don't know what date OED currently has. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Other 55 -- No Title Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 7, 1962. p. H17 (1 page): _MY BEST RECIPE_ _Salad Relish_ _Cools Off_ _Fiery Latin_ "Following our marriage," writes Mrs. Robert Merpado of San Marino, "my Mexican husband's gentle complaints concerning the American meat-and-potato diet led to the inevitable why-don't-you go-back-to-your-mother's-cooking attitude of a wife." "However, upon each visit to his parents' home, I gained a new appreciation for an unending list of delightful Latin dishes mingled with American variations. "Of these, my favorite salad is this very simple one which lends zest to tamales, frijoles and any number of Mexican main dishes." PICO DE GALLO (Comb of the Rooster) 2 medium-size tomatoes 1 large avocado 1 medium-size cucumber, pared 1 teaspoon garlic salt 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice Dice tomatoes, avocado and cucumber; toss together lightly and refrigerate until just before serving. At table, add garlic salt, oil and lemon juice. Mix carefully to avoid mashing. Serves 8. Our children always come back for seconds--and we adults are not far behind! Served icy-cold, this salad-relish provides a crunchy accent to a menu of enchiladas, sour dough rolls, and Mexican hot chocolate that is appealing to the most Anglo gourmet. MRS. ROBERT MERCADO 1535 Rubio Dr., San Marino From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 12 02:42:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:42:49 -0500 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2004, at 4:52 PM, Laurence Horn wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Laurence Horn > Subject: Re: "Right on" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > At 6:34 PM -0800 11/10/04, Towse wrote: >> On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:35:46 -0500, Wilson Gray >> wrote: >> >>> Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I >>> heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of >>> California, >>> Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. >> >> Karenga is more widely known as the guy who invented Kwanzaa. >> >> > > School pride* forces me to add that when Ron Karenga (as he was then > known) invented Kwanzaa (which, given Swahili penultimate stress > principles, "should" be stressed on the second of the three /a/s), it > was during his days (and mine) at UCLA around 1966-68. > > (*School pride hasn't yet forced me to get around to making alumni > contributions, so they'll have to settle for what they can get.) > > larry > Were you there for the big campus shoot-out between the Panthers and US that ended the battle for hegemony over the LA area? I was taking an evening course in Zen Buddhism that day. Needless to say, I learned more about the battle from the Times than I did from having been there. Better safe than sorry. And you're right. He was just plain "Ron Karenga" for years. If I had to guess, I'd say that he didn't give himself the title of "maulana" till he got hired at Long Beach. -Wilson From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 12 02:49:20 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:49:20 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041111200142.032029a0@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: What does 'grammatical' mean? dInIs >>Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? >> >>1) She's the one than whom I am better. > >I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly >recommend it. > >[But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.] > >-- Doug Wilson -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 12 04:30:38 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:30:38 -0800 Subject: Than Message-ID: It means if you mark it on a student paper, the student will bitch about it till you're forced to admit he was right all along.. JL "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: Than ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What does 'grammatical' mean? dInIs >>Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? >> >>1) She's the one than whom I am better. > >I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly >recommend it. > >[But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.] > >-- Doug Wilson -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 12 04:47:30 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 23:47:30 -0500 Subject: "laud" as a dative alternation verb In-Reply-To: <6124.69.142.143.59.1100221543.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: > >Jennifer Ludden, on NPR's Morning Edition, 11/11/04, of Yasser Arafat: > >"...but Palestinians lauded him a hero". > > > >this moves "laud" into one of the subtypes of dative alternation verbs > >(Levin, English Verb Classes and Alternations, section 2.1), > >specifically the "non-alternating double object" subtype (Levin, (119) > >on p. 47), lacking a prepositional alternative. by its semantics, > >"laud" seems to straddle three of levin's subsubtypes: > > Appoint verbs: designate, ordain, proclaim, elect,... > > Dub verbs: call, decree, pronounce, term,... > > Declare verbs: adjudge, declare, judge,... > >but syntactically it looks like an Appoint verb, which can take an "as" > >complement: > > designate/ordain/proclaim/elect him (as) a representative > >compare: > > laud/praise/celebrate/honor him as a hero. > > > >a google search on > > "lauded him" -as -for > >pulls up no examples parallel to the Arafat example. i judge the other > >praise verbs to be even worse than "laud" in the double-object > >construction, but then what do i know? anyone have similar examples? > >I coaxed these examples out of Google: .... It's perfectly logical. First, "hail" means about the same as "call" (e.g., "hail a cab", or "Lt. Uhura, open a hailing frequency"). We are familiar with "hail him as a hero" in the tired English of the past ... but the "as" is clearly superfluous in the vibrant post-literate English of the New Millennium: if we can "call him a hero" we can "hail him a hero", right? And there are 45 unique Google hits for <<"hailed him a hero">> for example. Then since "laud" means about the same as "hail" in this context we can also "laud him a hero", right? Soon there will be many Google hits for this too. -- Doug Wilson From db.list at PMPKN.NET Fri Nov 12 14:33:21 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:33:21 -0500 Subject: Continental Divide Message-ID: From: Benjamin Zimmer : [Sorry-- ignore posting with the wrong subject line.] 'T'sokay--i just figured you must have been looking up early spelling variants for Utah. FWIW, i've seen Ootah before for it. David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From mailinglist at JIMMYMULLAN.COM Fri Nov 12 14:34:42 2004 From: mailinglist at JIMMYMULLAN.COM (James Mullan) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:34:42 -0500 Subject: "....that for a game of soldiers": Origin, please? Message-ID: On moving to England several decades ago, I encountered the somewhat quaint expression, seemingly used there only: "[insert preferred expletive] that for a game of soldiers", such as in the following example: Q. "Are you going to (say) Coventry to watch the football match?" A. "[insert preferred expletive] that for a game of soldiers, Coventry's a dump, and their team are a bunch of wankers". I've since wondered about the origin of the term, and ask for earliest references, original usages, pointers, please, if such be available. TIA Jimmy From jancarsho at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 12 14:52:21 2004 From: jancarsho at YAHOO.COM (J C) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 06:52:21 -0800 Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy Message-ID: I have been told that smart girls give good brain! --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Fri Nov 12 16:51:20 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 11:51:20 -0500 Subject: "....that for a game of soldiers": Origin, please? Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:34:42 -0500, James Mullan wrote: >On moving to England several decades ago, I encountered the somewhat quaint >expression, seemingly used there only: > >"[insert preferred expletive] that for a game of soldiers", such as in the >following example: > >Q. "Are you going to (say) Coventry to watch the football match?" >A. "[insert preferred expletive] that for a game of soldiers, Coventry's a >dump, and their team are a bunch of wankers". > >I've since wondered about the origin of the term, and ask for earliest >references, original usages, pointers, please, if such be available. No idea about the origin, but the expression is mentioned in a recent article by Alan Dundes, "Much Ado About 'Sweet Bugger All': Getting to the Bottom of a Puzzle in British Folk Speech" _Folklore_ 113(1):35-49 (April 2002). Dundes glosses "Bugger this (Stuff that) for a game of soldiers" as "I'm fed up and not happy with the plans for the further conduct of this operation, reminiscent of a futile military exercise." Another variation on the theme mentioned by Dundes is "Bugger this/that for a lark." Google also turns up "...for a joke", "...for a laugh", and even "...for a bunch of bananas" (used in the movie _Notting Hill_). --Ben Zimmer From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Nov 12 19:03:35 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:03:35 EST Subject: Than Message-ID: In a message dated > Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:06:43 -0500, > From: "Douglas G. Wilson" prescriptivizes or perhaps > prosciptivizes: > > >Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > > > >1) She's the one than whom I am better. > > I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly > recommend it. > > [But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.] In 10th grade English we were given the following sentence to diagarm: "Artists than whom the world has never seen better, men endowed with the spirit's best gift, found their natural method of expression in the simplicity and clarity which are the gift of the unclouded reason." (from Edith Hamilton _The Greek Way_) As I recall, the correct solution was to consider "than...better" to be a prepositional phrase modifying "Artists", with "than" as the preposition and "whom the world has never seen better" as a noun clause functioning as the object of the preposition. The noun clause has a transitive verb "has seen" with "whom" as the direct object and "better" as an adjective modifying "whom". This explains why it is "than whom..." instead of "than who..." because "whom" is a direct object and therefore the accusative form of who/whom should be used. By this analysis Douglas WIlson should have said "I'm one than WHOM most persons have better grammar". Not only is "whose" an adjective, or adjectival preposition, which lacks an object, but he is implying a comparison between "grammar" (an impersonal noun) and "whose" (which refers to a person, or sometimes an animal. Also "person's" should have been "persons'". If we get prescriptivist, we should go whole hog. I miss diagramming sentences. It made for clear explanations of a lot of complicated grammatical situations. Specifically, for me diagramming made the entire who-whom business clear. Granted it is a prescriptivist tool, but it was a nice tool. Diagramming, unfortunately in my opinion, has gone out of fashion. My kids were never taught it. Their middle school English teacher agrees with me that it is a loss, but he can't change fashion all by himself. - Jim Landau From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Fri Nov 12 19:33:56 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:33:56 -0500 Subject: Than Message-ID: Actually, I miss diagramming sentences too, but it was my observation that it was only a partially effective pedagogical tool, because a significant portion of the students had trouble making an intuitive connection between written language and schematic diagrams. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of James A. Landau Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 2:04 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Than I miss diagramming sentences. It made for clear explanations of a lot of complicated grammatical situations. Specifically, for me diagramming made the entire who-whom business clear. Granted it is a prescriptivist tool, but it was a nice tool. Diagramming, unfortunately in my opinion, has gone out of fashion. My kids were never taught it. Their middle school English teacher agrees with me that it is a loss, but he can't change fashion all by himself. - Jim Landau From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Nov 12 22:48:34 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:48:34 -0800 Subject: Than Message-ID: Interestingly, German requires nominative after 'als' (than), e.g. Er ist grosser als ICH, but Norwegian requires objective "Han er storer enn MEG. (diacritics ignored). I have wondered for some time whether English was influenced by Norwegian, but objective use would have to be about a 1000 years old. Doesn't sound like it is. I don't find the sentence in the original query grammatical and I had never heard of 'than' being a preposition. I have trouble accepting it as such. Does the use of the objective case after 'than' mean that 'than' must be a preposition? I don't think so. If so, what about '...between you and I"? Is 'between' no longer a preposition because a nominative follows? I don't miss diagramming sentences. It seemed useless to me as a kid and now that I have a PHD in Philology, I still can't see much use in it. The only thing I ever learned was how to plan so that I could get the whole tree on the paper. Ironically, I was very good at it. That's just my personal take. I was shocked two days ago in German class when one student said "We should diagram sentences." I'm not sure what she wants from it. Fritz Juengling >I miss diagramming sentences. It made for clear explanations of a lot of >complicated grammatical situations. Specifically, for me diagramming >made the >entire who-whom business clear. Granted it is a prescriptivist tool, but it was a nice tool. Diagramming, unfortunately in my opinion, has gone out of fashion. My kids were never taught it. Their middle school English teacher agrees with me that it is a loss, but he can't change fashion all by himself. - Jim Landau From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 13 02:58:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:58:10 -0500 Subject: Remember this thread? Message-ID: Found on this site: Clitoris • Little/bald man in the boat. • Sugared almond • Remote control (can never find it when you need it) • Pearltongue (Chiefly black term) -Wilson Gray From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sat Nov 13 07:19:48 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 01:19:48 -0600 Subject: Remember this thread? Message-ID: During the credits to the movie "Grumpy Old Men," Burgess Meredith goes through a litany of such sayings. The one I remember best is "riding the skin boat to tuna town." > -----Original Message----- > From: Wilson Gray [mailto:wilson.gray at RCN.COM] > Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 8:58 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Remember this thread? > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Remember this thread? > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Found on this site: > > > > Clitoris > Little/bald man in the boat. > Sugared almond > Remote control (can never find it when you need it) > Pearltongue (Chiefly black term) > > -Wilson Gray > From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Sat Nov 13 16:28:53 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 11:28:53 -0500 Subject: IE root of Skt. "udaya"? Message-ID: Could some Indo-Europeanist or Sanskrit scholar among us tell me what is the IE root of the Sanskrit word "udaya" (a going up; rising, as in Monier-Williams Dictionary). The shortened "Uday" is a common given name among Indians (cf. Uday Shankar) and maybe even other area languages, as in "Uday," the late Saddam's son. I would also like to know if there are cognates in English. The IE root must be in AHD4's Appendix. My problem is locating it! Trying to help an Uday from Poone, India. Thanks. TOM PAIKEDAY From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Nov 13 20:25:37 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 14:25:37 -0600 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") Message-ID: I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, "Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not only geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he came across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting signs. One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in language? Gerald Cohen University of Missouri-Rolla > ---------- > From: American Name Society on behalf of Marc Picard > Reply To: American Name Society > Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 > To: ANS-L at LISTSERV.BINGHAMTON.EDU > Subject: Re: Redundancy > > On 04-11-13, at 10:08 am, Christopher K. Starr wrote: > > Dear Friends: > Perhaps one of the real linguists out there (my credentials say I'm an entomologist) would care to confirm or refute my idle suspicion that the place name East Timor is redundant, as in (imaginary examples, as far as I know) South Yugoslavia, North Beijing or East Tokyo. > > From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Sat Nov 13 20:31:28 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 12:31:28 -0800 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") Message-ID: I"m a writer and not a linguist and I don't know about the Law of Least Effort but I've observed that doubling up on meaning (as in (shudder) "very unique") is a common way for people to add emphasis -- because it lengthens the expression -- express themselves forcefully, and provide color and adornment. I like "ink pen" for example because it summons up the image of the ink flowing from the pen, especially the extra "nk" sound it provides. Pen all by itself is kind of lonely and short, much less poetic. KATHY SEAL 310-452-2769 Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) www.Kathyseal.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" To: Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 12:25 PM Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, "Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. > > But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not only geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he came across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting signs. One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." > I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in language? > > Gerald Cohen > University of Missouri-Rolla > > > ---------- > > From: American Name Society on behalf of Marc Picard > > Reply To: American Name Society > > Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 > > To: ANS-L at LISTSERV.BINGHAMTON.EDU > > Subject: Re: Redundancy > > > > On 04-11-13, at 10:08 am, Christopher K. Starr wrote: > > > > Dear Friends: > > Perhaps one of the real linguists out there (my credentials say I'm an entomologist) would care to confirm or refute my idle suspicion that the place name East Timor is redundant, as in (imaginary examples, as far as I know) South Yugoslavia, North Beijing or East Tokyo. > > > > From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Nov 13 21:11:52 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 15:11:52 -0600 Subject: ink-pen Message-ID: My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share with ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing with an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. Gerald Cohen > ---------- > From: Michael McKernan > Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 2:58 PM > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard > Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > > Gerald Cohen wrote: > > >Another of his favorite redundancies was "an ink pen." > > Well, in a rural area, someone might occasionally feel a need to distinguish this item from a 'hog pen' or a 'sheep pen', etc., and urbanites might even know of that very human form of pen, the still common 'play pen'. > > Michael McKernan, Ph.D. > > > > > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 13 21:17:21 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 16:17:21 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 13, 2004, at 3:25 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, > "Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, > one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. > > But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much > beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now > deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not only > geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he came > across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting signs. > One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female > waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." I think that, in this case, Prof. Beveridge misheard "ink pin," once used by speakers of certain dialects, including those of Outstate Missouri, to prevent confusion with "straight pin," "bowling pin," "clothes pin," "safety pin," etc. With the introduction of the ballpoint "pin," "ink pin" has fallen out of use. How sayest thou, dInIs? -Wilson Gray > I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do > these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in language? > > Gerald Cohen > University of Missouri-Rolla > >> ---------- >> From: American Name Society on behalf of Marc Picard >> Reply To: American Name Society >> Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 >> To: ANS-L at LISTSERV.BINGHAMTON.EDU >> Subject: Re: Redundancy >> >> On 04-11-13, at 10:08 am, Christopher K. Starr wrote: >> >> Dear Friends: >> Perhaps one of the real linguists out there (my credentials say >> I'm an entomologist) would care to confirm or refute my idle >> suspicion that the place name East Timor is redundant, as in >> (imaginary examples, as far as I know) South Yugoslavia, North >> Beijing or East Tokyo. >> >> > From preston at MSU.EDU Sat Nov 13 21:34:01 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 16:34:01 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: <67F04472-35B9-11D9-8835-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Wison, Of course you're right; since 'pen' and 'pin' are homophones in much of the country (pert nigh all of the red states), ink pen (pronounced [pIn] is not redundant. It keeps is straight from 'straight pin,' also commonly said. It also wouldn't be redundant, by the way, even in [E] pronouncing areas if redundant is strictly interpreted (although the pragmatic separation from pig pen etc... is apparently sufficient keep some of those who write to this list from shuddering. I jest love it when y'all shudder at the normal practices of human language in some speech community other than your own. Lets us sociolinguistic know we've got work for a long, long time. dInIs >On Nov 13, 2004, at 3:25 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" >>Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >> I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, >>"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, >>one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. >> >> But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much >>beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now >>deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not only >>geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he came >>across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting signs. >>One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female >>waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." > >I think that, in this case, Prof. Beveridge misheard "ink pin," once >used by speakers of certain dialects, including those of Outstate >Missouri, to prevent confusion with "straight pin," "bowling pin," >"clothes pin," "safety pin," etc. With the introduction of the >ballpoint "pin," "ink pin" has fallen out of use. > >How sayest thou, dInIs? > >-Wilson Gray > >>I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do >>these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in language? >> >> Gerald Cohen >> University of Missouri-Rolla >> >>>---------- >>>From: American Name Society on behalf of Marc Picard >>>Reply To: American Name Society >>>Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 >>>To: ANS-L at LISTSERV.BINGHAMTON.EDU >>>Subject: Re: Redundancy >>> >>>On 04-11-13, at 10:08 am, Christopher K. Starr wrote: >>> >>>Dear Friends: >>> Perhaps one of the real linguists out there (my credentials say >>>I'm an entomologist) would care to confirm or refute my idle >>>suspicion that the place name East Timor is redundant, as in >>>(imaginary examples, as far as I know) South Yugoslavia, North >>>Beijing or East Tokyo. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Nov 13 22:11:56 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 17:11:56 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Saturday, November 13, 2004 3:11 PM -0600 "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" wrote: > My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share with > ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing with > an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. > I associate "ink pen" with the pin/pen merger region, so that the actual contrast isn't with "pig pen" but with "hair pin". From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 13 22:18:42 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 17:18:42 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The first time I heard someone say "ink pen" was here in Knoxville, shortly after I came to UT (Fall 1974). The moment was memorable, for I was in Glocker, which housed the computer center - back in the days when if one wanted to use a computer one went to a computer center or a special laboratory. I asked for something at the and was told that I would have to sign for it - then told that there was an "ink pen" I could use. Now that we have moved bayond that stage and are often signing on a screen instead of a piece of paper, some campus offices - and the UT Federal Credit Union - have signs asking that one using "the inkless pen." I assume that that term - inkless pen - is standard everywhere, but I have not yet seen it anywhere except on the UT campus. Bethany From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Sat Nov 13 23:22:32 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 18:22:32 -0500 Subject: ink-pen Message-ID: Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >The first time I heard someone say "ink pen" was here in Knoxville, >shortly after I came to UT (Fall 1974). The moment was memorable, for I >was in Glocker, which housed the computer center - back in the days when >if one wanted to use a computer one went to a computer center or a special >laboratory. I asked for something at the and was told that >I would have to sign for it - then told that there was an "ink pen" I >could use. After some thought, I've realized that my own familiarity with the term 'ink pen' comes from my early elementary school education in a Catholic parochial school (1957-62), where the nuns required us to write most assignments using what we commonly called an 'ink pen' (rather than ballpoint). We had two alternatives: the (then) old-fashioned 'fountain pen,' which had a mechanism for taking up ink refills from an ink bottle; or the new-fangled (and more popular with us) 'catridge pen', which was refilled by using small, plastic, ink cartridges. (Both of these qualified as 'ink pens', while the forbidden 'ballpoint' pen did not, even though we might argue that it also contained ink.) The nuns never felt a need to explain God's abhorrence of ballpoints, to my knowledge. (We were allowed--perhaps required, I can't remember--to use pencil for mathmatics and perhaps some other writing activities). I doubt that this strictly-enforced code was specific to that particular school (in Washington, D.C.), but rather, expect that nuns everywhere (or at least the Sisters of St. Joseph) required it. If it proves otherwise, my belief system will need yet another adjustment... I could go on to discuss how only certain colors of ink were acceptable, while others, such as the 'peacock blue' which we much prefered, were forbidden shortly after their introduction, but that's another story. Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 00:03:18 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 19:03:18 EST Subject: High five Message-ID: So help me, I found a metaphorical use of that expression. A manager was trying to explain his company's policy on sexual harrassment. After a little stumbling, he summed it up in one metaphor: "High fives are fine, but you have to watch out for the low fives!" - James A. Landau From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 14 00:15:20 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 19:15:20 -0500 Subject: IE root of Skt. "udaya"? In-Reply-To: <007901c4c99d$ddfe1040$9fc56395@paikeday> Message-ID: >Could some Indo-Europeanist or Sanskrit scholar among us tell me what is the >IE root of the Sanskrit word "udaya" (a going up; rising, as in >Monier-Williams Dictionary). The shortened "Uday" is a common given name >among Indians (cf. Uday Shankar) and maybe even other area languages, as in >"Uday," the late Saddam's son. > >I would also like to know if there are cognates in English. The IE root must >be in AHD4's Appendix. My problem is locating it! In case no scholar replies, I will make my naive guess FWIW. I think the AH Dictionary of IE Roots (AHDIER) is about the same as the AHD4 appendix. "Udaya" looks like "ud-" + "aya". "Aya" = "going" (this appears in the Apte Sanskrit dictionary on-line for example). This presumably is from the IE root given as *ei-(1) = "to go" in the AHDIER (p. 22), in the extended form (#4) *ya [with a-macron]. "Ud-" is presumably from IE *ud-, = "up, out" in the AHDIER (p. 94). Each of these parts has plenty of English cognates, but I don't see an English cognate for the combination right away. Possibly the Russian verb "vyyti" = "go out" [perfective] is a 'full' cognate? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 00:15:31 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 19:15:31 EST Subject: Sunday Gravy Message-ID: SUNDAY GRAVY--3,410 Google hits, 158 Google Groups hits Will "Sunday gravy" be in the next DARE? I was browsing through ARTHUR SCHWARTZ'S NEW YORK CITY FOOD (2004) at the local bookstore. It's $45. Didn't buy it. There's not anything new in the entire book. The food entries on my web site (which is, of course, free) are better than his entire book of re-hashed stories. I read on Amazon.com that he's "the official Big Apple foodie." Official? Nevertheless, Schwartz does, briefly, mention "Sunday gravy." It's an Italian term, but is it also regional to the Northeast? (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) 23 June 1942, WASHINGTON POST, pg. 8: And the fact that artists of this caliber, who came with Gene Ford's excellent company from the Capitol Theater, were willing to give up their Sunday gravy and chicken and jump out to Walter Reed during their well-earned lunchtime, is proof that the theater is going its bit in the wide open camps,... 26 December 1946, WASHINGTON POST, pg. 6: I don't know why, but invariably I'm not wearing a white shirt when I foul off a forkful of mashed potatoes, which reminds me that I might ask the maid to try to make the Sunday gravy match my pearl-buttoned brown shirt. 3 November 1999, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. F6: Mr.Ruggerio grew up in Brooklyn, where pork neck bones are considered essential to the sauce, or the Sunday gravy, as it is known. "In an Italian-American household, most people don't know a ragu," he said. "They call it a gravy or a sauce." (GOOGLE) Sicilian Culture: Food: Sunday Gravy ... Please support this site by shopping at . The Food: Sunday Gravy ... About The Sunday Gravy: This, believe it or not, is actually an authentic SiciIian dish. ... www.sicilianculture.com/food/gravy.htm - 14k - Cached - Similar pages The Food: Sunday Gravy INGREDIENTS 1 small 6-ounce of Tomato Paste 1 28-ounce can of Tomatoes (save can to fill with cold water) Oregano 3-5 Fresh Basil Leaves Salt & Pepper Served over Spaghetti or other pasta of your choice > About The Sunday Gravy: This, believe it or not, is actually an authentic > SiciIian dish. And I am almost sure everyone is familiar with the most > common Sicilian/Italian tradition of Sunday Gravy. While most call it sauce, to > us it was always called gravy, and it was red, never the brown stuff you put > on turkey. (GOOGLE GROUPS) Re: Sunday Gravy I'm looking for a great old-time "Sunday Gravy" recipe - the kind that grandma used to make back when she lived in Italy. Please post. ... rec.food.cooking - Jun 27, 2003 by Nexis - View Thread (5 articles) The Sopranos Sunday Gravy The Sopranos Sunday Gravy A recipe from The Sopranos Family Cookbook: Makes about 8 cups For the sauce 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 pound meaty pork neck bones or ... rec.food.recipes - Oct 12, 2003 by A1 WBarfieldsr - View Thread (1 article) Ruggerio Meatballs and Tomato Gravy ... Brown he meatballs in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and proceed with the recipe for the famous Sunday gravy or simply submerge them in your favorite tomato sauce ... rec.food.recipes - Dec 9, 1999 by Betty E. Kohler - View Thread (1 article) Re: Sauce or Gravy ... For some it's just "gravy," for others it's "red gravy," and for others, it's a special sauce served on sundays, so it's "sunday gravy." One can find dozens ... ne.food - Sep 18, 2000 by Peter Cohen - View Thread (27 articles) Meraviglioso! ... If you've tasted better meatballs than these.... you're a shitty cook. Next lesson: Homemade Sunday Gravy (or "sauce", for those of you not in the Northeast). rec.sport.football.fantasy - Jun 5, 2003 by Dave - View Thread (32 articles) War of the Cuisines (was Waitrons) ... or uniquely American ethnic cuisine that the US offers: New England clam chowder Manhattan clam chowder Chili Fajitas She-crab soup Sunday gravy Alder-planked ... alt.gothic - Jun 2, 2004 by Bob - View Thread (82 articles) Re: traditional Sunday lunch ... for most of the US New England states: Sunday = Roast Beef ...>> For many Italian-American families, the Sunday mid-day meal was "Sunday Gravy," an elaborate ... rec.food.historic - Feb 20, 2002 by Combat Lit - View Thread (26 articles) From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 14 00:22:13 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 19:22:13 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 13, 2004, at 4:11 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: ink-pen > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share > with > ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing > with an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. > > Gerald Cohen "Ink" would be needed for clarification, if someone had asked the writer whether he was using an ink-pen or a ballpoint-pen. -Wilson Gray >> ---------- >> From: Michael McKernan >> Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 2:58 PM >> To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard >> Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") >> >> Gerald Cohen wrote: >> >>> Another of his favorite redundancies was "an ink pen." >> >> Well, in a rural area, someone might occasionally feel a need to >> distinguish this item from a 'hog pen' or a 'sheep pen', etc., and >> urbanites might even know of that very human form of pen, the still >> common 'play pen'. >> >> Michael McKernan, Ph.D. >> >> >> >> >> > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Nov 14 01:18:24 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 20:18:24 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > >>The first time I heard someone say "ink pen" was here in Knoxville, >>shortly after I came to UT (Fall 1974). The moment was memorable, for I >>was in Glocker, which housed the computer center - back in the days when >>if one wanted to use a computer one went to a computer center or a special >>laboratory. I asked for something at the and was told that >>I would have to sign for it - then told that there was an "ink pen" I >>could use. > >After some thought, I've realized that my own familiarity with the term >'ink pen' comes from my early elementary school education in a Catholic >parochial school (1957-62), where the nuns required us to write most >assignments using what we commonly called an 'ink pen' (rather than >ballpoint). We had two alternatives: the (then) old-fashioned 'fountain >pen,' which had a mechanism for taking up ink refills from an ink bottle; >or the new-fangled (and more popular with us) 'catridge pen', which was >refilled by using small, plastic, ink cartridges. (Both of these qualified >as 'ink pens', while the forbidden 'ballpoint' pen did not, even though we >might argue that it also contained ink.) The nuns never felt a need to >explain God's abhorrence of ballpoints, to my knowledge. (We were >allowed--perhaps required, I can't remember--to use pencil for mathmatics >and perhaps some other writing activities). I doubt that this >strictly-enforced code was specific to that particular school (in >Washington, D.C.), but rather, expect that nuns everywhere (or at least the >Sisters of St. Joseph) required it. If it proves otherwise, my belief >system will need yet another adjustment... > >I could go on to discuss how only certain colors of ink were acceptable, >while others, such as the 'peacock blue' which we much prefered, were >forbidden shortly after their introduction, but that's another story. > >Michael McKernan, Ph.D. ~~~~~~~~ I don't remember that we used "ink pen" in public grade school (1937-42), but we did have "ink paper" on which we wrote (to distinguish it from the "pencil paper," rather like newsprint). The pens we used, supplied, as everything else was, by the school, were straight dip pens with very fine points which we dipped into the inkwells on our desks and conveyed, dripping, to the paper to scratch a few more words, before repeating the exercise. We had regular penmanship drills with these instruments of frustration. Inkwells typically collected bits of fuzz picked up by the scratchy nibs and deposited in the well on the next dip. Most of us probably owned regular fountain pens (in those days with rubber ink bladders inside which were refilled by a lever mechanismin the pen barrel), but were not allowed to use them in school. I think I saw my first ballpoint pen in 1946. A. Murie ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 01:44:31 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 20:44:31 EST Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) Message-ID: I ran across this (perhaps Fred Shapiro-worthy): http://www.livejournal.com/users/teegerthelemur/friends Random sayings I found on a website...... "I'm off like a bride's nightgown" "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawn mower" "Busier than a one legged cat tryin' to bury shit on a marble floor." "Well cut off my legs and call me shorty!" "Sounds like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples." http://www.barrypopik.com/ I've done some of these, but not all. MANURE SALESMAN + SAMPLES--71 Google hits, 63 Google Groups hits LEGS + CALL ME SHORTY--787 Google hits, 330 Google Groups hits (GOOGLE GROUPS)("manure salesman") Re: Barker and sex ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of samples!" - Joel (MST3K) * --- alt.horror - Aug 21, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (10 articles) MST'ing "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" ... Robin C. Kwong ("er) "Hey, can you speak up? You sound like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples." --Joel, "Rocket Attack USA" alt.tv.mst3k - Jul 8, 1992 by roberta chi-woon kwong - View Thread (4 articles) Re: SMEG, not smegma ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of samples!" - Joel (MST3K) * --- I'm ... alt.tv.red-dwarf - Jun 16, 1992 by D N Crow - View Thread (23 articles) Re: puma ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of samples!" - Joel (MST3K) * --- By ... alt.tv.mst3k - May 5, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (6 articles (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) Mountain Democrat Friday, April 16, 1999 Placerville, California ...The reasoning reminds me of a MANURE SALESMAN with a mouthful of the.. (GOOGLE GROUPS) ("call me shorty") Re: That Hotel in the Keys that's underwater...You know the one. ... Well cut off my legs, and call me shorty!!!! : Key Largo, even. I will be less hasty abt poking fun at the idea. I have to ask... ... alt.fishing - Mar 8, 1991 by Alan Barrow - View Thread (3 articles) Re: Return values in pipelines echo "Cut off mee legs an' call me shorty if it ain't wrong! Lessee:" I see the Dutch have been trying to internationalise their error messages... ... comp.unix.questions - Aug 24, 1990 by Richard Tobin - View Thread (5 articles) (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) Helena Independent Friday, August 04, 1939 Helena, Montana ...bucks you ran cut off my legs and CALL ME SHORTY William Powell. back fit work.....BfcUCVR 1M MOW WOUI.U YOU KNOW RUALJZE ME MAY THAY HOW CAM AP6HSON WlTW ANY.. Pg. 10, col. 1 (HARRISON IN HOLLYWOOD by Paul Harrison): Hollywood, Aug. 3.--Short takes: When the standing of the Ritz Brothers were offered $50 each for some stunt doubling, Sam Canter, one of the three, said, "For 50 bucks you can cut off my legs and call me Shorty!" Reno Evening Gazette Saturday, June 22, 1940 Reno, Nevada ...endorsing "Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY." cases, the songs the.....human being among all the millions who CALL this water-girt island their hoME .. Lime Springs Herald Thursday, November 07, 1940 Lime Springs, Iowa ...Hegland. Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY Harold Munkel. Night. Send ME .....for hones and cows with good hides. CALL as for yoar small nlfiiiila too.. Daily Gleaner Thursday, December 01, 1949 Kingston, Kingston ...Players LaMEnt Cut Off My Lew And CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop a m You've Got ME.....Be a Lesson To You SoMEthing Tells ME Jubilee MExican Swing Satchel Mouth.. Daily Gleaner Monday, December 05, 1949 Kingston, Kingston ...LaMEnt Cut Off.My Lew And-CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop You've Got ME .....Family Solitude Thanks a Million ME And ME Brother Bill Savoy Blues LoVe.. Daily Times News Thursday, November 02, 1967 Burlington, North Carolina ...In Free Well, Cut Off My Legs And CALL ME SHORTY This may appear to be a chorus.....coach should have a chauffeur he can CALL his own. Paul Dietzel, recuperating.. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) 1. 'You Are What You Eat' Adage Is the Long and Short of It By Ida Jean Kain. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Jun 16, 1947. p. B5 (1 page) : _CUT OFF MY BREAD AND CALL ME SHORTY_ 2. Actor With Guitar HOWARD THOMPSON.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 4, 1958. p. 15 (1 page): AS the lad himself might say, cut my legs off and call me Shorty! Elvis Presley can act. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 02:02:25 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 21:02:25 EST Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating" Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/magazine/14ONLANGUAGE.html?pagewanted=2 ON LANGUAGE Lexicographer By ERIN McKEAN Published: November 14, 2004 I've wanted to be a lexicographer since I was 8. (...) I polled, in a highly unscientific manner, my colleagues in the Dictionary Society of North America, and I found that lexicographers in this country do have a common qualification for the jobs they hold or have held: they have all been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Several lexicographers, including Wendalyn Nichols and Enid Pearsons (both formerly of Random House), Orin Hargraves (a freelance lexicographer who has worked for Oxford and other houses) and Debbie Sawczak (formerly of the Canadian Gage dictionaries) answered newspaper ads that in essence said, "Lexicographers Wanted: Will Train." Joanne Despres (senior editor at Merriam-Webster), Ed Gates (who also worked at Merriam on the Third International), Daniel Barron (late of Longman) and Peter Gilliver (of the O.E.D.) also responded to job postings, some literally put up on bulletin boards. The late, much-missed Rima McKinzey (a freelance "pronster," also known as a pronunciation editor, or orthoepist) was recommended for a job at Random House by one of her professors, Arthur Bronstein; Steve Kleinedler (senior editor at American Heritage) took a class from Richard Spears (a slang lexicographer) at Northwestern University, which led to freelance work. Robert Parks (of Wordsmyth) taught a Politics and Language class and was called in as a consultant for a company making electronic dictionaries in Japan while there on a Fulbright; Robert Wachal (who has edited a dictionary of abbreviations and acronyms for American Heritage) taught linguistics and was "scouted" by a publisher while giving a paper at a Dictionary Society meeting. Grant Barrett, a journalist, volunteered to be the Web master for the American Dialect Society, which led indirectly to his becoming the project editor for the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. (...) However accidental the beginning of their careers as lexicographers, once well dug in, most never want to do anything else. They find, as Thomas Paikeday (editor of The User's Webster dictionary) put it, that "lexicography suits my scholarship, skills and even my temperament." In the dozen years that I have been working on dictionaries, the suspicions of my 8-year-old self have only been confirmed: it's the best job in the world, and well worth trying for. Erin McKean is the editor in chief, U.S. dictionaries, for Oxford University Press, and the editor of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly. Last week, William Safire says he was ''electionating.'' From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 14 02:44:14 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 21:44:14 -0500 Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) In-Reply-To: <3jv1nd$fur59@mx14.mrf.mail.rcn.net> Message-ID: On Nov 13, 2004, at 8:44 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I ran across this (perhaps Fred Shapiro-worthy): > > > http://www.livejournal.com/users/teegerthelemur/friends > Random sayings I found on a website...... > > "I'm off like a bride's nightgown" > "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawn mower" In the Army in the '50's, "Your ass is grass, etc." was a common saying (still?) used by Basic-Training cadre. > "Busier than a one legged cat tryin' to bury shit on a marble floor." > "Well cut off my legs and call me shorty!" As a child in Texas, I used to hear a variant: "Lordy, Lordy, nineteen-forty! Cut my legs and call me 'Shorty'!" Sheriff Mike Shaw, a character on the old "Tom Mix" radio show, used to say, "Well, bow my legs and call me "Bandy!" -Wilson Gray > "Sounds like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples." > http://www.barrypopik.com/ > > > I've done some of these, but not all. > > MANURE SALESMAN + SAMPLES--71 Google hits, 63 Google Groups hits > LEGS + CALL ME SHORTY--787 Google hits, 330 Google Groups hits > > > (GOOGLE GROUPS)("manure salesman") > Re: Barker and sex > ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of > samples!" - > Joel (MST3K) * --- > alt.horror - Aug 21, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (10 > articles) > > MST'ing "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" > ... Robin C. Kwong ("er) "Hey, can you speak up? You sound like a > manure > salesman with a mouthful of samples." --Joel, "Rocket Attack USA" > alt.tv.mst3k - Jul 8, 1992 by roberta chi-woon kwong - View Thread (4 > articles) > > Re: SMEG, not smegma > ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of > samples!" - > Joel (MST3K) * --- I'm ... > alt.tv.red-dwarf - Jun 16, 1992 by D N Crow - View Thread (23 articles) > > Re: puma > ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of > samples!" - > Joel (MST3K) * --- By ... > alt.tv.mst3k - May 5, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (6 > articles > > > (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) > Mountain Democrat Friday, April 16, 1999 Placerville, California > ...The reasoning reminds me of a MANURE SALESMAN with a mouthful of > the.. > > > > (GOOGLE GROUPS) ("call me shorty") > Re: That Hotel in the Keys that's underwater...You know the one. ... > Well cut off my legs, and call me shorty!!!! : Key Largo, even. I > will be less hasty abt poking fun at the idea. I have to ask... ... > alt.fishing - Mar 8, 1991 by Alan Barrow - View Thread (3 articles) > > Re: Return values in pipelines > echo "Cut off mee legs an' call me shorty if it ain't wrong! Lessee:" > I see > the Dutch have been trying to internationalise their error messages... > ... > comp.unix.questions - Aug 24, 1990 by Richard Tobin - View Thread (5 > articles) > > > (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) > Helena Independent Friday, August 04, 1939 Helena, Montana > ...bucks you ran cut off my legs and CALL ME SHORTY William Powell. > back fit > work.....BfcUCVR 1M MOW WOUI.U YOU KNOW RUALJZE ME MAY THAY HOW CAM > AP6HSON > WlTW ANY.. > Pg. 10, col. 1 (HARRISON IN HOLLYWOOD by Paul Harrison): > Hollywood, Aug. 3.--Short takes: When the standing of the Ritz > Brothers were > offered $50 each for some stunt doubling, Sam Canter, one of the > three, said, > "For 50 bucks you can cut off my legs and call me Shorty!" > > Reno Evening Gazette Saturday, June 22, 1940 Reno, Nevada > ...endorsing "Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY." cases, the songs > the.....human being among all the millions who CALL this water-girt > island their hoME > .. > > Lime Springs Herald Thursday, November 07, 1940 Lime Springs, Iowa > ...Hegland. Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY Harold Munkel. Night. > Send ME > .....for hones and cows with good hides. CALL as for yoar small > nlfiiiila > too.. > > Daily Gleaner Thursday, December 01, 1949 Kingston, Kingston > ...Players LaMEnt Cut Off My Lew And CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop a m > You've > Got ME.....Be a Lesson To You SoMEthing Tells ME Jubilee MExican Swing > Satchel > Mouth.. > > Daily Gleaner Monday, December 05, 1949 Kingston, Kingston > ...LaMEnt Cut Off.My Lew And-CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop You've Got ME > .....Family Solitude Thanks a Million ME And ME Brother Bill Savoy > Blues LoVe.. > > Daily Times News Thursday, November 02, 1967 Burlington, North > Carolina > ...In Free Well, Cut Off My Legs And CALL ME SHORTY This may appear to > be a > chorus.....coach should have a chauffeur he can CALL his own. Paul > Dietzel, > recuperating.. > > > (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) > 1. 'You Are What You Eat' Adage Is the Long and Short of It > By Ida Jean Kain. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: > Jun 16, > 1947. p. B5 (1 page) : > _CUT OFF MY BREAD AND CALL ME SHORTY_ > > 2. Actor With Guitar > HOWARD THOMPSON.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: > Jul 4, > 1958. p. 15 (1 page): > AS the lad himself might say, cut my legs off and call me Shorty! Elvis > Presley can act. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 14 05:04:09 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 00:04:09 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:25 PM -0600 11/13/04, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, >"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia >arose, one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that >country. > > But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much >beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now >deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not >only geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he >came across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting >signs. One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female >waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." >I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do >these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in >language? > As a frequent defender (and exploiter) of the Law of Least Effort I was going to point out that "ink pen" is likely to occur in areas where "pen" and "pin" are neutralized, and thus the avoidance of redundancy (and of synonymy) is going to be constrained by the avoidance of homonymy when the context doesn't disambiguate. (Cf. Bloomfield and Bolinger on e.g. "light-colored" vs. "lightweight".) The most extreme defenders of least effort-based principles in language use and language change--Zipf, Martinet, etc.--were always quite explicit about the fact that least effort does not operate unchecked, or communication would consist of one word, presumably pronounced [@], with infinitely many meanings. "female waitress" does seem pretty redundant, but less so if you don't parse -ess as [+ female]. Cf. German "Prinzessin", "Hindin" [lit., 'female princess', 'female doe'], or of course Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three different plural markers. larry From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 14 06:15:04 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 01:15:04 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >different plural markers. I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from "cild"? -- Doug Wilson From hpst at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Nov 14 10:24:19 2004 From: hpst at EARTHLINK.NET (Page Stephens) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 05:24:19 -0500 Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) Message-ID: Wilson's reply brings to mind Moe Bandy's song "Bandy the Rodeo Clown". Page Stephens ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" To: Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 9:44 PM Subject: Re: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > On Nov 13, 2004, at 8:44 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM >> Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- >> -------- >> >> I ran across this (perhaps Fred Shapiro-worthy): >> >> >> http://www.livejournal.com/users/teegerthelemur/friends >> Random sayings I found on a website...... >> >> "I'm off like a bride's nightgown" >> "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawn mower" > > In the Army in the '50's, "Your ass is grass, etc." was a common saying > (still?) used by Basic-Training cadre. > >> "Busier than a one legged cat tryin' to bury shit on a marble floor." >> "Well cut off my legs and call me shorty!" > > As a child in Texas, I used to hear a variant: "Lordy, Lordy, > nineteen-forty! Cut my legs and call me 'Shorty'!" > Sheriff Mike Shaw, a character on the old "Tom Mix" radio show, used to > say, "Well, bow my legs and call me "Bandy!" > > -Wilson Gray > >> "Sounds like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples." >> http://www.barrypopik.com/ >> >> >> I've done some of these, but not all. >> >> MANURE SALESMAN + SAMPLES--71 Google hits, 63 Google Groups hits >> LEGS + CALL ME SHORTY--787 Google hits, 330 Google Groups hits >> >> >> (GOOGLE GROUPS)("manure salesman") >> Re: Barker and sex >> ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of >> samples!" - >> Joel (MST3K) * --- >> alt.horror - Aug 21, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (10 >> articles) >> >> MST'ing "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" >> ... Robin C. Kwong ("er) "Hey, can you speak up? You sound like a >> manure >> salesman with a mouthful of samples." --Joel, "Rocket Attack USA" >> alt.tv.mst3k - Jul 8, 1992 by roberta chi-woon kwong - View Thread (4 >> articles) >> >> Re: SMEG, not smegma >> ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of >> samples!" - >> Joel (MST3K) * --- I'm ... >> alt.tv.red-dwarf - Jun 16, 1992 by D N Crow - View Thread (23 articles) >> >> Re: puma >> ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of >> samples!" - >> Joel (MST3K) * --- By ... >> alt.tv.mst3k - May 5, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (6 >> articles >> >> >> (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) >> Mountain Democrat Friday, April 16, 1999 Placerville, California >> ...The reasoning reminds me of a MANURE SALESMAN with a mouthful of >> the.. >> >> >> >> (GOOGLE GROUPS) ("call me shorty") >> Re: That Hotel in the Keys that's underwater...You know the one. ... >> Well cut off my legs, and call me shorty!!!! : Key Largo, even. I >> will be less hasty abt poking fun at the idea. I have to ask... ... >> alt.fishing - Mar 8, 1991 by Alan Barrow - View Thread (3 articles) >> >> Re: Return values in pipelines >> echo "Cut off mee legs an' call me shorty if it ain't wrong! Lessee:" >> I see >> the Dutch have been trying to internationalise their error messages... >> ... >> comp.unix.questions - Aug 24, 1990 by Richard Tobin - View Thread (5 >> articles) >> >> >> (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) >> Helena Independent Friday, August 04, 1939 Helena, Montana >> ...bucks you ran cut off my legs and CALL ME SHORTY William Powell. >> back fit >> work.....BfcUCVR 1M MOW WOUI.U YOU KNOW RUALJZE ME MAY THAY HOW CAM >> AP6HSON >> WlTW ANY.. >> Pg. 10, col. 1 (HARRISON IN HOLLYWOOD by Paul Harrison): >> Hollywood, Aug. 3.--Short takes: When the standing of the Ritz >> Brothers were >> offered $50 each for some stunt doubling, Sam Canter, one of the >> three, said, >> "For 50 bucks you can cut off my legs and call me Shorty!" >> >> Reno Evening Gazette Saturday, June 22, 1940 Reno, Nevada >> ...endorsing "Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY." cases, the songs >> the.....human being among all the millions who CALL this water-girt >> island their hoME >> .. >> >> Lime Springs Herald Thursday, November 07, 1940 Lime Springs, Iowa >> ...Hegland. Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY Harold Munkel. Night. >> Send ME >> .....for hones and cows with good hides. CALL as for yoar small >> nlfiiiila >> too.. >> >> Daily Gleaner Thursday, December 01, 1949 Kingston, Kingston >> ...Players LaMEnt Cut Off My Lew And CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop a m >> You've >> Got ME.....Be a Lesson To You SoMEthing Tells ME Jubilee MExican Swing >> Satchel >> Mouth.. >> >> Daily Gleaner Monday, December 05, 1949 Kingston, Kingston >> ...LaMEnt Cut Off.My Lew And-CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop You've Got ME >> .....Family Solitude Thanks a Million ME And ME Brother Bill Savoy >> Blues LoVe.. >> >> Daily Times News Thursday, November 02, 1967 Burlington, North >> Carolina >> ...In Free Well, Cut Off My Legs And CALL ME SHORTY This may appear to >> be a >> chorus.....coach should have a chauffeur he can CALL his own. Paul >> Dietzel, >> recuperating.. >> >> >> (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) >> 1. 'You Are What You Eat' Adage Is the Long and Short of It >> By Ida Jean Kain. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: >> Jun 16, >> 1947. p. B5 (1 page) : >> _CUT OFF MY BREAD AND CALL ME SHORTY_ >> >> 2. Actor With Guitar >> HOWARD THOMPSON.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: >> Jul 4, >> 1958. p. 15 (1 page): >> AS the lad himself might say, cut my legs off and call me Shorty! Elvis >> Presley can act. >> From hpst at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Nov 14 12:25:47 2004 From: hpst at EARTHLINK.NET (Page Stephens) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 07:25:47 -0500 Subject: ink-pen Message-ID: Does anyone except myself remember the records by The Two Black Crows (Moran and Mack) who had a farm in Africka. One of them had a pig whom he called Ink because he was always running out of the pen. Page Stephens ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" To: Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 7:22 PM Subject: Re: ink-pen > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: ink-pen > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > On Nov 13, 2004, at 4:11 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" >> Subject: Re: ink-pen >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- >> -------- >> >> My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share >> with >> ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing >> with an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. >> >> Gerald Cohen > > "Ink" would be needed for clarification, if someone had asked the > writer whether he was using an ink-pen or a ballpoint-pen. > > -Wilson Gray > >>> ---------- >>> From: Michael McKernan >>> Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 2:58 PM >>> To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard >>> Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") >>> >>> Gerald Cohen wrote: >>> >>>> Another of his favorite redundancies was "an ink pen." >>> >>> Well, in a rural area, someone might occasionally feel a need to >>> distinguish this item from a 'hog pen' or a 'sheep pen', etc., and >>> urbanites might even know of that very human form of pen, the still >>> common 'play pen'. >>> >>> Michael McKernan, Ph.D. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 14:44:02 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 09:44:02 EST Subject: NY Times bastardizes "Ol' Dirty Bastard" Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/arts/music/14ODB.html?oref=login O.D.B., Controversial Rap Artist, Dies at 35 By THOMAS J. LUECK Published: November 14, 2004 Russell T. Jones, the rap artist known as O.D.B., collapsed and died yesterday at a recording studio in Manhattan, the police said. Mr. Jones, a 35-year-old native of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, was a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan and made a large imprint on rap music in the 1990's. (GOOGLE NEWS) DEAD 'DIRTY BASTARD' New York Post, NY - 6 hours ago November 14, 2004 -- Revered, troubled and often outlandish rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard mysteriously collapsed and died yesterday at a Manhattan recording studio ... Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard dies suddenly Reuters Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard Dead in New York Reuters Ol' Dirty Bastard dies in recording studio CBC News Billboard - MTV.com - all 305 related » Oh come on, New York Times! Jon Stewart has said the name. Saturday Night Live has said the name. It's met television's standards. A quick check of the New York Times since 1996 shows that the word "bastard" has been used. There are 329 hits. This is the first page of results: Also heard: Pierce my ears and call me drafty. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 14 19:38:28 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 14:38:28 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041114005950.03206260@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 1:15 AM -0500 11/14/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >>different plural markers. > >I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? >Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from "cild"? > No, I was thinking of OE, in which "childe" occurs as a plural along with "childer" and the slightly later "child(e)ren". Larry From suzanne at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 14 19:56:52 2004 From: suzanne at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Suzanne Evans Wagner) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 14:56:52 -0500 Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) In-Reply-To: <200411141907.OAA09819@babel.ling.upenn.edu> from "Mullins, Bill" at Nov 14, 2004 01:07:50 pm Message-ID: My family in the UK say "Slap my thigh and call me Mildred." From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 14 22:01:45 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 17:01:45 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >At 1:15 AM -0500 11/14/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >>>different plural markers. >> >>I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? >>Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from "cild"? >No, I was thinking of OE, in which "childe" occurs as a plural along >with "childer" and the slightly later "child(e)ren". However many plural markers "children" has, the dialectal/nonstandard form "childrens" (shown in DARE for example) has one more, I think. -- Doug Wilson From preston at MSU.EDU Sun Nov 14 23:06:15 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 18:06:15 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041114165812.031f5060@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: Ain't DARE got "childrenses"? (Not a possessive.) One more. dInIs >>At 1:15 AM -0500 11/14/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>>Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >>>>different plural markers. >>> >>>I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? >>>Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from "cild"? >>No, I was thinking of OE, in which "childe" occurs as a plural along >>with "childer" and the slightly later "child(e)ren". > >However many plural markers "children" has, the dialectal/nonstandard form >"childrens" (shown in DARE for example) has one more, I think. > >-- Doug Wilson -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 15 00:13:24 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 18:13:24 -0600 Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) Message-ID: Also heard: "Slap my ass and call me Sally". From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Nov 15 00:43:22 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:43:22 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Ain't DARE got "childrenses"? (Not a possessive.) One more. > >dInIs > > > >>>At 1:15 AM -0500 11/14/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>>>Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >>>>>different plural markers. >>>> >>>>I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? >>>>Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from >>>>"cild"? >>>No, I was thinking of OE, in which "childe" occurs as a plural along >>>with "childer" and the slightly later "child(e)ren". >> >>However many plural markers "children" has, the dialectal/nonstandard form >>"childrens" (shown in DARE for example) has one more, I think. >> >>-- Doug Wilson ~~~~~~~~~ I wonder where "chirdren" fits into all this....? I hear it often enough that I don't think it's just idiosyncratic. AM From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Mon Nov 15 01:14:58 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 20:14:58 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") Message-ID: Someone wrote: >>> I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, >>>"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, >>>one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. I live in a place known as 'Westminster West, Vermont.' This cumbersome place name denotes the west parish (or west village) of the Town of Westminster, VT, a town along the Connecticut River, in Windham CO (southeastern VT). Some 19th century sources refer to this place as 'West Westminster,' and some (recently arrived) residents nowadays say 'West West.' Most of the population of the Town of Westminster (3,210 in 2000 census) live in the central village, 'Westminster', which has the Town Hall, Post Office, central school, etc.). Another Town of Westminster population center is 'North Westminster', which geographically and socially is connected more closely to the community/village of Bellows Falls, VT (which is a population center within the Town of Rockingham, VT). There is some audible tension between old-timers and newcomers, based on pronunciation of 'Westminster,' since the old-timers invariably pronounce an additional vowel sound, something like Wes-min-iss-tuh', while recent arrivals tend to pronounce 'as spelled': West'-min-ster (or West-min'-ster). (This holds true for Westminster West and North Westminster, as well.) FAIR WARNING: increasingly extraneous comments follow. Please feel free to trash this without reading it! Of course, the original choice of name for Westminster town(ship) was not based on it being the site of a western church building, but merely an importation of a long-established place name from England. But when a clear geographic and demographic distinction developed between the western part of this town, which consists of high, hilly terrain, separated by a very steep ridge line from the bottom-lands of the main riverside community, and with this western area's population somewhat centered on its own parish Congregational church, the Westminster West (or West Westminster) label was chosen, despite its high degre of audible redundancy. One might wonder why the west didn't develop an independent place name. (The adjacent Town of Rockingham, VT, (total population 5,309), mentioned above, includes the villages of Bellows Falls, VT (population 3,165), Saxtons River (519), and a smaller population center simply called Rockingham (no census data available). These three communities could reasonably have been named 'East Rockingham' (Bellows Falls); 'West Rockingham (Saxtons River); and North Rockingham (Rockingham). Instead, with Bellows Falls taking its name from a falls or rapids of the Connecticut River, and Saxtons River taking its name from a river (which joins the Connecticut just south of Bellows Falls), the awkwardness of East/West/North compound forms was avoided. Westminster did develop an alternative name for its 'North Westminster' community: 'Gageville,' which was named for a small mill/manufacturing area along the Saxtons River, (but in the Town of Westminster). The official name, however,is North Westminster, used for such institutions as water and sewer systems, and a fire district. Complicating all of this, for Westminster West residents, the US Postal Service delivers mail to this part of town through the Putney, VT (town immediately south of Westminster) Post Office, rather than through the Westminster Post Office, so Westminster West uses the Putney zip code (05346) rather than Westminster's (05158) Many pieces of mail are misdirected due to this, and package delivery services such as UPS or FEDEX are often confused (or pretend to be) by the 05346 zip code coexisting in Putney, Westminster West (and also Dummerston, VT). Not only that, but Westminster West telephones use the 'Putney' prefix (387-XXXX) rather than the Westminster prefix. Until deregulation, the phone company actually charged toll rates for calls from Westminster West to Westminster (or North Westminster), and vice versa. Further complicating all of this, for some people, is the location of the regional high school, (officially, Windham [County] Northeast Supervisory Union High School] which brings together students from Rockingham, Westminster, and the several other towns in this northeast quadrant of the county. This school is physically located in the Town of Westminster (closer to North Westminster than to the main village, Westminster), but it is generally referred to as 'Bellows Falls High School', (i.e., its sports teams and other groups are known as the 'Bellows Falls Terriers', etc.) This is because Bellows Falls (and its immediate neighbor, North Westminster) constitute a locally-significant urbanized area, with stores, banks, and a broad range of services (and employment opportunities) compared to the surrounding villages which lack most or all of such facilities. While Bellows Falls is, by U.S.A. standards, a small village, it locally functions as the central 'town' of the area, somewhat in conjuction with North Walpole, New Hampshire, which is just across the Connecticut River. (But I won't go THERE, this is far enough!) Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Mon Nov 15 02:50:34 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 20:50:34 -0600 Subject: New York Brand Texas Toast Message-ID: I'm not sure where New York Brand Texas Toast is made, but the company's headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio. If I recall correctly, Texas Style Hawaiian Bread comes from Chicago. -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Mon Nov 15 03:33:56 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:33:56 -0500 Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating" Message-ID: Since even Google asks, Did you mean "electional", "electioning", etc., I think Safire's assistant may want to answer the question about "electionating". I for one don't get it, but am curious to learn more. Perhaps Safire meant to say "electioneering"? t.m.p. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 9:02 PM Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating" > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating" > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/magazine/14ONLANGUAGE.html?pagewanted=2 > > ON LANGUAGE > > Lexicographer > > By ERIN McKEAN > > Published: November 14, 2004 > > I've wanted to be a lexicographer since I was 8. > > (...) > > I polled, in a highly unscientific manner, my colleagues in the Dictionary > Society of North America, and I found that lexicographers in this country > do > have a common qualification for the jobs they hold or have held: they have > all > been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Several > lexicographers, including Wendalyn Nichols and Enid Pearsons (both > formerly of Random > House), Orin Hargraves (a freelance lexicographer who has worked for > Oxford and > other houses) and Debbie Sawczak (formerly of the Canadian Gage > dictionaries) > answered newspaper ads that in essence said, "Lexicographers Wanted: Will > Train." Joanne Despres (senior editor at Merriam-Webster), Ed Gates (who > also > worked at Merriam on the Third International), Daniel Barron (late of > Longman) and > Peter Gilliver (of the O.E.D.) also responded to job postings, some > literally > put up on bulletin boards. The late, much-missed Rima McKinzey (a > freelance > "pronster," also known as a pronunciation editor, or orthoepist) was > recommended for a job at Random House by one of her professors, Arthur > Bronstein; Steve > Kleinedler (senior editor at American Heritage) took a class from Richard > Spears (a slang lexicographer) at Northwestern University, which led to > freelance > work. Robert Parks (of Wordsmyth) taught a Politics and Language class and > was > called in as a consultant for a company making electronic dictionaries in > Japan while there on a Fulbright; Robert Wachal (who has edited a > dictionary of > abbreviations and acronyms for American Heritage) taught linguistics and > was > "scouted" by a publisher while giving a paper at a Dictionary Society > meeting. > Grant Barrett, a journalist, volunteered to be the Web master for the > American > Dialect Society, which led indirectly to his becoming the project editor > for > the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. > > (...) > > However accidental the beginning of their careers as lexicographers, once > well dug in, most never want to do anything else. They find, as Thomas > Paikeday > (editor of The User's Webster dictionary) put it, that "lexicography suits > my > scholarship, skills and even my temperament." In the dozen years that I > have > been working on dictionaries, the suspicions of my 8-year-old self have > only > been confirmed: it's the best job in the world, and well worth trying for. > > Erin McKean is the editor in chief, U.S. dictionaries, for Oxford > University > Press, and the editor of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly. Last week, > William > Safire says he was ''electionating.'' > From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 03:57:14 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:57:14 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: A question from a friend in Boston: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty feet away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t or d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have come from? ===================== -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 15 05:31:21 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Until ca.1961, I never heard the glottal stop used by anyone, black or white, except in British movies. But, in 1961, when I was in the Army, I buddied up with a bruthuh from Fuquay Springs, NC, which is somewhere in the Raleigh-Durham area. He used a glottal stop in seemingly as many environments as any Cockney. When I tried to question him about it, he would become defensive and reply, "Man, I don? use no glo?al stop!" I concluded that this was probably a speech defect of some kind, since he seemed to be utterly unaware of it. If I had known then what I know now, I would spoken to him using glottal stops myself to see what his reaction was. In any case, the use of glottal stops by BE speakers didn't come to my attention again until rap music became popular. I've since heard the glottal stop used by many, many rappers. Then I noticed that on trash TV - Jerry, Maury, et al. - not only BE speakers but also Latino-English speakers, whose speech patterns appear to be based on those of BE rather than those of standard English, and even some white speakers who talked black were all using the glottal stop. However the glottal stop came to be used by rappers - I doubt that they all come from North Carolina - IMO, the glottal stop seems to have become an in-group marker of the rap culture and, unfortunately, seems to be spreading like wildfire. I first noted its use by kids in Roxbury (the Harlem of Boston, as it were) about ten years ago. I haven't noticed its use by West-Coast blacks, yet, but I figure that it's only a matter of time. Many years ago, I read an article by Labov in which he claimed that "I'ma" for "I'm going to" was spreading among BE speakers. I don't use that form myself and I'd never heard any other black person use it, either. So, I dismissed this claim as just more bullshit from The Man. You can imagine my surprise, shock, and chagrin when I finally did hear a black person say "I'ma" and that person turned out to be none other than one of my own brothers, a Federal judge in California. What I'm getting at here as that my opinion WRT the BE glottal stop may be as worthy of respect as my opinion WRT "I'ma." -Wilson Gray On Nov 14, 2004, at 10:57 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" > Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > A question from a friend in Boston: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American > teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty > feet > away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). > > And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic > artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or > younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t > or > d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have > come > from? > > ===================== > > -- Mark > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Nov 15 05:38:43 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:38:43 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <20041114225557.Y75484@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: --On Sunday, November 14, 2004 10:57 PM -0500 "Mark A. Mandel" wrote: > A question from a friend in Boston: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American > teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty feet > away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). > > And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic > artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or > younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t or > d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have come > from? > > ===================== > > -- Mark > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] I've heard this often from callers to NY sports talk radio who have no overt AAVE phonology (other than this, if it *is* AAVE). -- Alice Faber afaber at panix.com From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Mon Nov 15 06:24:08 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 01:24:08 -0500 Subject: OUT OF SIGHT Message-ID: Having done my best to search the ADS-L archives for previous discusion of the expression 'out of sight,' and coming up with nothing useful, I, a newcomer to the list, but brash enought to already have chimed in on numerous occasions (and to have been corrected on several, thanks!) post the following query: Can anyone tell me the earliest use of the expression 'out of sight' in its non-literal meaning of 'extraordinary' or 'particularly special'? I ask because I have been working on an 1890s personal diary from small-town Missouri, USA, which contains an interesting amount of slang and ideomatic expressions, including several uses of this 'out of sight' expression as a positive descriptor of various items or events which the diarist felt were particularly remarkable. NB: this is not the 'out of sight, out of mind' aphoristic formulation which I have typically encountered when searching for 'out of sight.' Nor is it a usage which means anything like the literal 'unseeable' meaning. Here is one example from the diary: >Fri., Nov. 26, 1897 >It was chocolate bonbon, some of her own make, and it was just out of sight! My own reaction to this phrase is too colored by my memories of it as what seemed to be a proprietary expression of youth/counterculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s to be very objective... Thanks in advance for your help. Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Mon Nov 15 11:51:16 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 06:51:16 -0500 Subject: OUT OF SIGHT Message-ID: 1876, in HDAS. If you don't have the two volumes of HDAS, you need to get them. Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael McKernan" To: Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 1:24 AM Subject: OUT OF SIGHT > Having done my best to search the ADS-L archives for previous discusion of > the expression 'out of sight,' and coming up with nothing useful, I, a > newcomer to the list, but brash enought to already have chimed in on > numerous occasions (and to have been corrected on several, thanks!) post > the following query: > > Can anyone tell me the earliest use of the expression 'out of sight' in its > non-literal meaning of 'extraordinary' or 'particularly special'? > > I ask because I have been working on an 1890s personal diary from > small-town Missouri, USA, which contains an interesting amount of slang and > ideomatic expressions, including several uses of this 'out of sight' > expression as a positive descriptor of various items or events which the > diarist felt were particularly remarkable. > > NB: this is not the 'out of sight, out of mind' aphoristic formulation > which I have typically encountered when searching for 'out of sight.' Nor > is it a usage which means anything like the literal 'unseeable' meaning. > > Here is one example from the diary: > > >Fri., Nov. 26, 1897 > >It was chocolate bonbon, some of her own make, and it was just out of sight! > > My own reaction to this phrase is too colored by my memories of it as what > seemed to be a proprietary expression of youth/counterculture in the late > 1960s and early 1970s to be very objective... > > Thanks in advance for your help. > > > > Michael McKernan, Ph.D. > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 15 14:15:19 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:15:19 EST Subject: Bronx Indian (1934?) Message-ID: I found this for "Bronx Indian" (="Brooklyn Indian"=Jew). It's earlier than the HDAS. However, Newspaperarchive won't open up the page. What gives? (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) Indiana Evening Gazette Friday, October 05, 1934 Indiana, Pennsylvania ...to me he adds: "Say, don't let those BRONX INDIANS know that I went up five.. WWW.BARRYPOPIK.COM-- I've added about twenty more items over the weekend, such as songs, "Polar Bears," "Swing Street," "Irish Riviera," "Beefsteak," "Manicotti," "Reuben Sandwich," "Vichyssoise," "Tiffany Network," "Twofer," "Vaudeville," "Manhattan Silver," "NYPD & FDNY," "Coney Island whitefish," and "Saturday Night Live." I'd like to add the above. From db.list at PMPKN.NET Mon Nov 15 14:46:43 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:46:43 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: From: "Mark A. Mandel" : A question from a friend in Boston: : ---------- Forwarded message ---------- : I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American : teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty : feet away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). : And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic : artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or : younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of : t or d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have : come from? : ===================== No idea where it comes from, but it's not limited to African-Americans--my white self does it, too. David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From fitzke at MICHCOM.NET Mon Nov 15 14:57:14 2004 From: fitzke at MICHCOM.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:57:14 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") Message-ID: Mr. Mac: I have an old friend from Bellows Falls. On the off chance you may know her I'm writing to ask for her address. Her name is now Shirley Minarchan. She was originally Shirley Grey. Her hometown is BF but I knew her and her late husband when they lived in Lansing, MI. Thanks Bob Fitzke You do not reason a man out of something he was not reasoned into --- Jonathon Swift People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts---Sen. Dan Moynihan An atheist is a person with no invisible means of support---John Buchan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael McKernan" To: Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 8:14 PM Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > Someone wrote: > >>>> I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, >>>>"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, >>>>one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. > > I live in a place known as 'Westminster West, Vermont.' This cumbersome > place name denotes the west parish (or west village) of the Town of > Westminster, VT, a town along the Connecticut River, in Windham CO > (southeastern VT). > > Some 19th century sources refer to this place as 'West Westminster,' and > some (recently arrived) residents nowadays say 'West West.' Most of the > population of the Town of Westminster (3,210 in 2000 census) live in the > central village, 'Westminster', which has the Town Hall, Post Office, > central school, etc.). Another Town of Westminster population center is > 'North Westminster', which geographically and socially is connected more > closely to the community/village of Bellows Falls, VT (which is a > population center within the Town of Rockingham, VT). > > There is some audible tension between old-timers and newcomers, based on > pronunciation of 'Westminster,' since the old-timers invariably pronounce > an additional vowel sound, something like Wes-min-iss-tuh', while recent > arrivals tend to pronounce 'as spelled': West'-min-ster (or > West-min'-ster). (This holds true for Westminster West and North > Westminster, as well.) > > FAIR WARNING: increasingly extraneous comments follow. Please feel free > to > trash this without reading it! > > Of course, the original choice of name for Westminster town(ship) was not > based on it being the site of a western church building, but merely an > importation of a long-established place name from England. But when a > clear geographic and demographic distinction developed between the western > part of this town, which consists of high, hilly terrain, separated by a > very steep ridge line from the bottom-lands of the main riverside > community, and with this western area's population somewhat centered on > its > own parish Congregational church, the Westminster West (or West > Westminster) label was chosen, despite its high degre of audible > redundancy. One might wonder why the west didn't develop an independent > place name. > > (The adjacent Town of Rockingham, VT, (total population 5,309), mentioned > above, includes the villages of Bellows Falls, VT (population 3,165), > Saxtons River (519), and a smaller population center simply called > Rockingham (no census data available). These three communities could > reasonably have been named 'East Rockingham' (Bellows Falls); 'West > Rockingham (Saxtons River); and North Rockingham (Rockingham). Instead, > with Bellows Falls taking its name from a falls or rapids of the > Connecticut River, and Saxtons River taking its name from a river (which > joins the Connecticut just south of Bellows Falls), the awkwardness of > East/West/North compound forms was avoided. > > Westminster did develop an alternative name for its 'North Westminster' > community: 'Gageville,' which was named for a small mill/manufacturing > area > along the Saxtons River, (but in the Town of Westminster). The official > name, however,is North Westminster, used for such institutions as water > and sewer systems, and a fire district. > > Complicating all of this, for Westminster West residents, the US Postal > Service delivers mail to this part of town through the Putney, VT (town > immediately south of Westminster) Post Office, rather than through the > Westminster Post Office, so Westminster West uses the Putney zip code > (05346) rather than Westminster's (05158) Many pieces of mail are > misdirected due to this, and package delivery services such as UPS or > FEDEX > are often confused (or pretend to be) by the 05346 zip code coexisting in > Putney, Westminster West (and also Dummerston, VT). Not only that, but > Westminster West telephones use the 'Putney' prefix (387-XXXX) rather than > the Westminster prefix. Until deregulation, the phone company actually > charged toll rates for calls from Westminster West to Westminster (or > North > Westminster), and vice versa. > > Further complicating all of this, for some people, is the location of the > regional high school, (officially, Windham [County] Northeast Supervisory > Union High School] which brings together students from Rockingham, > Westminster, and the several other towns in this northeast quadrant of the > county. This school is physically located in the Town of Westminster > (closer to North Westminster than to the main village, Westminster), but > it > is generally referred to as 'Bellows Falls High School', (i.e., its sports > teams and other groups are known as the 'Bellows Falls Terriers', etc.) > This is because Bellows Falls (and its immediate neighbor, North > Westminster) constitute a locally-significant urbanized area, with stores, > banks, and a broad range of services (and employment opportunities) > compared to the surrounding villages which lack most or all of such > facilities. While Bellows Falls is, by U.S.A. standards, a small village, > it locally functions as the central 'town' of the area, somewhat in > conjuction with North Walpole, New Hampshire, which is just across the > Connecticut River. (But I won't go THERE, this is far enough!) > > Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 16:26:05 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:26:05 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: <20041114050148.64BB6B2478@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Gerald Cohen says: >>>>> My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share with ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing with an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. <<<<< That's assuming that every time someone says "ink pen", he's constructing the phrase analytically. But if it has become lexicalized, it's just going to roll off his tongue as automatically as "PIN number" or "ATM machine". -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 16:30:27 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:30:27 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: <20041114050148.64BB6B2478@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Michael McKernan says: >>>>> After some thought, I've realized that my own familiarity with the term 'ink pen' comes from my early elementary school education in a Catholic parochial school (1957-62), where the nuns required us to write most assignments using what we commonly called an 'ink pen' (rather than ballpoint). We had two alternatives: the (then) old-fashioned 'fountain pen,' which had a mechanism for taking up ink refills from an ink bottle; or the new-fangled (and more popular with us) 'catridge pen', which was refilled by using small, plastic, ink cartridges. (Both of these qualified as 'ink pens', while the forbidden 'ballpoint' pen did not, even though we might argue that it also contained ink.) <<<<< Where I heard the term "ink pen", Harlan County, Kentucky, Summer 1965, I am pretty sure that it referred to any pens, including ballpoint pens. -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 16:36:07 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:36:07 -0500 Subject: wag 'carry/lug/haul' Message-ID: A friend from, I think, North Carolina, uses the verb "wag" in a way I've never seen before and can't find in OED or Merriam-Webster. She puts it in scare quotes, suggesting that she considers it a slang or dialect usage. It occurs to me (as a WAG :-)) that it could be a back formation from "wagon". Note that she uses the verb twice in this paragraph, scare-quoted only the first time. > I was thinking about asking you about the parking situation at your house. > I can fly, but I'd rather drive. If you have parking space at your house, > I could leave my car there and then "wag" my stuff via the trolley/subway > to your house. The cost to park at the hotel is outrageous. Now if Mark > could come and meet us to wag our stuff on occasion, especially at the end > of convention, that would be wonderful!!! -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 16:56:49 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:56:49 -0500 Subject: NY Times bastardizes "Ol' Dirty Bastard" In-Reply-To: <20041115050009.10B3FB25CF@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Barry, don't you mean "bowdlerizes"? -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From preston at MSU.EDU Mon Nov 15 17:03:14 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:03:14 -0500 Subject: NY Times bastardizes "Ol' Dirty Bastard" In-Reply-To: <20041115115628.R2083@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: >Mark, Wadn't it a joke? dInIs >Barry, don't you mean "bowdlerizes"? > >-- Mark >[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From Vocabula at AOL.COM Mon Nov 15 17:24:21 2004 From: Vocabula at AOL.COM (Robert Hartwell Fiske) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:24:21 EST Subject: Arnold Zwicky et al. aside ... Message-ID: However curmudgeonly, Mr. Fiske betrays a bluff humanitarian spirit. ... [Fiske] wants to save [the English language]. And he knows that he can count on little help. Dictionaries "have virtually no standards, offer scant guidance, and advance only misunderstanding." His own flogging of Merriam-Webster's is one of the many pleasures of this lovely, sour, virtuous book. -- Erich Eichman in Wall Street Journal (Nov. 12) The Dictionary of Disagreeable English -- it's an annoying, amusing book. Robert Hartwell Fiske Editor and Publisher The Vocabula Review http://www.vocabula.com/ The Vocabula Review 10 Grant Place Lexington, MA 02420 _________________________ Buy a book from Vocabula and receive a free subscription to Vocabula: http://www.vocabula.com/specialoffer/ Now Available: "Vocabula Bound": http://www.vocabula.com/VRebooksBound.asp and "The Dictionary of Disagreeable English": http://www.vocabula.com/VRebooksDisagree.asp New in Vocabula: Cacolloquium (http://www.vocabula.com/popups/VRCacolloquium.aspx) and The Vocabula Quizzes (http://www.vocabula.com/VRquizzes.asp) From jeb4c4 at MIZZOU.EDU Mon Nov 15 18:14:19 2004 From: jeb4c4 at MIZZOU.EDU (Beckman, Jennifer Elizabeth (UMC-Student)) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:14:19 -0600 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Glottal stops in contractions are *very* common in eastern Missouri but were unknown to me before I started college at the University of Missouri-Columbia in '95. (I had lived in the "Quad Cities" [Iowa], Chicago, Madison, WI, and Omaha, NE before moving to a small town in western Missouri [1.5 hours southeast of KC] in '87, where the feature does *not* occur. Very interestingly [to me, at least], other [primarily South Midlands] features of eastern and western [rural] Missouri English seem to be shared--the glottal stop in contractions is a glaring exception.) From: "Mark A. Mandel" : A question from a friend in Boston: : ---------- Forwarded message ---------- : I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American : teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty : feet away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). : And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic : artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or : younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of : t or d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have : come from? : ===================== No idea where it comes from, but it's not limited to African-Americans--my white self does it, too. David Bowie From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 15 18:48:06 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:48:06 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:38 AM -0500 11/15/04, Alice Faber wrote: >--On Sunday, November 14, 2004 10:57 PM -0500 "Mark A. Mandel" > wrote: > >>A question from a friend in Boston: >> >>---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> >>I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American >>teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty feet >>away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). >> >>And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic >>artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or >>younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t or >>d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have come >>from? >> >>===================== >> >>-- Mark >>[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > >I've heard this often from callers to NY sports talk radio who have no >overt AAVE phonology (other than this, if it *is* AAVE). > Indeed. And I've also heard it in Connecticut, as the counterpart of the phenomenon we discussed a couple of months ago in voiceless examples, as in "kitten", "mitten", "New Britain", etc. But this is perhaps restricted to this particular voiced context; I don't think I've heard it with "hidden", where "a [hI?In] message" would be perceived as the implausible "hittin' message". Arnold can probably explain all this (if anyone can). larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 15 19:44:06 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:44:06 -0500 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls Message-ID: 1) Watch (perhaps) for next weekend's "On Language" column in the NYT Magazine. 2) Following our discussion of the metonymy of "get brain" (and the metaphor of "hanging brains") in class today, one student volunteered "get dome" as a related expression from rap songs. (Well, another student brought up "get medulla", but he confessed he was just jivin'.) I just checked google and sure enough, while there aren't a huge number of relevant hits, there was one supporting his datum. (As against the "skull" version, this involves metaphor rather than second-order metonymy I take it--and do we know whether the dome is associated with the shape of brains or of other body parts?) I assume that "give dome" is also possible, but I didn't locate any instances. larry P.S. I infer from this and other posting that "-cc" for "-ck" is part of the conventionalized orthography in this genre (along with the -z plural and "u" for the second person); lots of instances of "dicc", for example. =============================== http://www.raptalk.net/bb/showthread.php?t=4805&page=3 01-20-2003, 10:18 AM MistaDrawmuh Mr. Arrogant ------------------------------------------------------------------------ i use to never go down town........ but now, i graduated with a 4.0 from TWATLICC ACADAMY...... im puerto rican, i got big lips n a big tongue, i cant help but use em... i use to always get dome ..... andthen go str8 to fuccn..... but now, i licc it first..... liccin it first gets u better dome, she wana give u what u gave her...... From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Nov 15 19:59:02 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:59:02 -0500 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 02:44:06PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote: > > I assume that "give dome" is also possible, but I didn't locate any > instances. Larry, Larry. You need to extend your searches based on other aspects of this orthography. Arnold would certainly criticize you if you looked for "givin_g_ dome". So, if you try "givin dome": * Givin dome to fags * U da greatest a[t] givin dome * More inspiring than your mother givin dome * u ridin ya dads BRONCO she givin DOME down south * you in the street givin dome fo crack Actually, even "giving dome" turns up a few examples: * I have run into some girls who like giving dome for a little while but very very few like to give it til the end * how to satisfy a man, whom we think is worth satisfying....this includes giving dome, head, and love below the belt * they say vancouver is gay friendly, i saw Ohm giving dome in back of his sugar daddy's bently Jesse "I'm going back to work now" Sheidlower OED From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 15 20:08:05 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:08:05 -0500 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls In-Reply-To: <20041115195902.GA10895@panix.com> Message-ID: At 2:59 PM -0500 11/15/04, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: Good point, Jesse, I guess I quit prematurely after my search on "give dome" turned up such (I assume) irrelevant hits on the first page as "London urged to give Dome to New York" UK Muppets give Dome a hand I'll never give Dome Wars up. You can take my copy of Giants, Black and White or Baldur's Gate II before I'll let you erase this 2 MB folder. etc. I wonder if the penultimate posting below suggests that giving dome =/= giving head. larry >On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 02:44:06PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote: >> >> I assume that "give dome" is also possible, but I didn't locate any >> instances. > >Larry, Larry. You need to extend your searches based on other aspects >of this orthography. Arnold would certainly criticize you if you >looked for "givin_g_ dome". So, if you try "givin dome": > >* Givin dome to fags > >* U da greatest a[t] givin dome > >* More inspiring than your mother givin dome > >* u ridin ya dads BRONCO she givin DOME down south > >* you in the street givin dome fo crack > > >Actually, even "giving dome" turns up a few examples: > >* I have run into some girls who like giving dome for a little >while but very very few like to give it til the end > >* how to satisfy a man, whom we think is worth >satisfying....this includes giving dome, head, and love below >the belt > >* they say vancouver is gay friendly, i saw Ohm giving dome in >back of his sugar daddy's bently > >Jesse "I'm going back to work now" Sheidlower >OED From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Nov 15 20:17:09 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:17:09 -0500 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 03:08:05PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote: > At 2:59 PM -0500 11/15/04, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > > I wonder if the penultimate posting below suggests that giving dome > =/= giving head. (i.e. "how to satisfy a man, whom we think is worth satisfying....this includes giving dome, head, and love below the belt") I take it to be a list of synonymies. This is almost the complete post from a message board, the topic under discussion being whether black women like to perform fellatio. There's nothing in the post or the rest of the thread to suggest that there is a distinction. I enjoyed the "whom". Jesse Sheidlower From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 15 20:58:21 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:58:21 -0500 Subject: wag 'carry/lug/haul' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Damn, Mark! I've been meaning to submit this word, myself! I've known it my whole life. But, since I have no documentation for it and I've been raked over the coals for submitting stuff that only I knew about, I kept putting it off. In any case, I definitely have your back on this one! Among black [I hate to have to keep specifying the speaker's race, but those who are old enough remember the really bad old days, when merely being in the presence of a white person, male or female, with the wrong expression on his face could cost a black man his ass] women in East Texas, it pretty much replaces "tote," which is guy-talk. A man _totes_ , whereas a woman _wags_ a load of groceries home, _wags_ a child in her arms, _wags_ a bag of laundry on her back, etc. I can't swear that women didn't also use "tote," but I can say that males didn't/don't? use "wag" with the meaning of "bear, carry, tote," etc. Your friend may be using quotes because "wag" is chick-talk. Probably not, but wouldn't it be far out if that was the case?! -Wilson Gray On Nov 15, 2004, at 11:36 AM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" > Subject: wag 'carry/lug/haul' > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > A friend from, I think, North Carolina, uses the verb "wag" in a way > I've > never seen before and can't find in OED or Merriam-Webster. She puts > it in > scare quotes, suggesting that she considers it a slang or dialect > usage. It > occurs to me (as a WAG :-)) that it could be a back formation from > "wagon". > > Note that she uses the verb twice in this paragraph, scare-quoted only > the > first time. > >> I was thinking about asking you about the parking situation at your >> house. >> I can fly, but I'd rather drive. If you have parking space at your >> house, >> I could leave my car there and then "wag" my stuff via the >> trolley/subway >> to your house. The cost to park at the hotel is outrageous. Now if >> Mark >> could come and meet us to wag our stuff on occasion, especially at >> the end >> of convention, that would be wonderful!!! > > > > -- Mark A. Mandel > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Nov 15 22:15:04 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:15:04 -0800 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 15, 2004, at 10:48 AM, Laurence Horn wrote: > At 12:38 AM -0500 11/15/04, Alice Faber wrote: >> --On Sunday, November 14, 2004 10:57 PM -0500 "Mark A. Mandel" >> wrote: >> >>> A question from a friend in Boston: >>> >>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >>> >>> I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American >>> teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty >>> feet >>> away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). >>> >>> And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic >>> artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or >>> younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of >>> t or >>> d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have >>> come >>> from? >>> >>> ===================== >> >> I've heard this often from callers to NY sports talk radio who have no >> overt AAVE phonology (other than this, if it *is* AAVE). >> > Indeed. And I've also heard it in Connecticut, as the counterpart of > the phenomenon we discussed a couple of months ago in voiceless > examples, as in "kitten", "mitten", "New Britain", etc. But this is > perhaps restricted to this particular voiced context; I don't think > I've heard it with "hidden", where "a [hI?In] message" would be > perceived as the implausible "hittin' message". Arnold can probably > explain all this (if anyone can). background: most (though not all) u.s. speakers have a glottalish (glottalized in some way, or just a glottal stop) variant of /t/ after an accented syllable and before syllabic n (mitten, cotton,...), and also in syllable-final position (hat, hothead, fitness,...). these two phenomena are probably related: /t/ in an accented syllable before syllabic n is syllabified with the preceding syllable, and so gets syllable-final allophony. (in contrast, /t/ after an accented syllable and before other syllabics is [depending on your religion] ambisyllabic or syllabified entirely with the following syllable, and so gets a voiced allophone, [d] or a voiced tap or whatever.) meanwhile, syllable-final /d/ in american dialects is weakly voiced. in some dialects -- notably african-american, but also some southern and south midlands varieties (i don't understand the geographical/social pattern, but the variant does seem to be spreading) -- syllable-final /d/ is in fact glottalized, in one way or another, and as a result is fully devoiced. (this is a subtle racial indicator, largely unrecognized by everybody involved, in the speech of african americans who are otherwise fluently bidialectal.) now to negative inflection for bases ending in /d/ (didn't, couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't, hadn't). while there are good arguments (due to geoff pullum and me) that these are single inflected words, they are nonetheless transparently analyzable into two meaningful parts, an auxiliary verb ending in /d/ and a negative element /nt/, and so can be seen as subject to a syllable division reflecting this analysis, with syllable-final glottalization in the first part as a result. other occurrences of /d/ followed by syllabic n, even in "wooden" and "hidden", are not so clearly analyzable. that's an account of the historical origin of a medial glottalish element in "didn't" etc. i suspect, however, that once the glottalish variants were produced, they became lexicalized: in effect, "did" in "didn't" etc. were interpreted as having an alternant ending in /t/ rather than /d/. (this would allow, by the way, for different developments for different auxiliaries, and even for some modest extension to other analyzable words, like "wooden".) lexicalization is suggested by the fact that the correlation between syllable-final glottalization (in general) and medial glottalization in contracted negatives looks very poor to me. a medial glottalish element in "didn't" is widespread (but not universal) in AAVE, or at least the AAVE of the last forty years or so, and is attested in lots of places (mostly deep south, but now south midlands and elsewhere) for white speakers; my impression is that for southern speakers, black and white, it is at best very modestly related to social class. but surely this one has been studied... and probably discussed in the pages of American Speech. does anyone remember, or is anyone able to figure out how to search for it? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), once again ignorant From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 16 00:29:36 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 19:29:36 -0500 Subject: Getting an extra syllable? Message-ID: Is it just me? Or are pronunciations like winter-y single-ly jungle-y babble-ing snuggle-ly bundle-ing double-ing bungle-ing etc. becoming more common? -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 16 01:15:27 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 20:15:27 -0500 Subject: New day, old topic Message-ID: Jesse Sheidlower wrote that: "[T]he topic under discussion [is] whether black women like to perform fellatio." This was also a much-discussed topic 'mongst the bruz & cuz in 1954 and probably in 1904. too. In my day, in the '50's, we didn't even have any slang terms for it, since all such terms in the local BE were gay-specific. We borrowed the terms used by our white contemporaries. We had "dome" in those days, but it meant "head" only in the literal sense, as in "get one's dome combed" = get a haircut. [Damn! Just heard the band's name pronounced "Led Zepple-in" on the History Channel!] -Wilson Gray From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 16 02:31:25 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:31:25 -0800 Subject: New day, old topic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 15, 2004, at 5:15 PM, Wilson Gray wrote: > ... [Damn! Just heard > the band's name pronounced "Led Zepple-in" on the History Channel!] this is just *so* wrong. arnold From abaragona at SPRYNET.COM Tue Nov 16 02:44:51 2004 From: abaragona at SPRYNET.COM (Alan Baragona) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 21:44:51 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: I have always used this glottal stop pronunciation, not only in "didn't" but in "isn't" in place of the [z]. I'm white, born and brought up in urban North Carolina, but the rest of my family is from New Jersey. I remember a childhood friend, an Air Force brat who had lived abroad, remarking that he had never heard anyone pronounce [i?nt]. It is not particularly a North Carolina feature, so I think I got it from my family. Alan Baragona ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alice Faber" To: Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 12:38 AM Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Alice Faber > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > --On Sunday, November 14, 2004 10:57 PM -0500 "Mark A. Mandel" > wrote: > > > A question from a friend in Boston: > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > > > I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American > > teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty feet > > away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). > > > > And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic > > artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or > > younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t or > > d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have come > > from? > > > > ===================== > > > > -- Mark > > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > > I've heard this often from callers to NY sports talk radio who have no > overt AAVE phonology (other than this, if it *is* AAVE). > > -- > Alice Faber > afaber at panix.com From dwhause at JOBE.NET Tue Nov 16 02:58:04 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 20:58:04 -0600 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls Message-ID: >>From an anatomic viewpoint, the skull, the diaphragm, and the bladder are spoken of as having domes. Certainly the brain has that upper shape, but it is usually spoken of as 'the convexity' and I don't think I've ever heard 'dome' applied here. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" (As against the "skull" version, this involves metaphor rather than second-order metonymy I take it--and do we know whether the dome is associated with the shape of brains or of other body parts?) I assume that "give dome" is also possible, but I didn't locate any instances. larry From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 16 03:01:09 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 19:01:09 -0800 Subject: Fwd: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > From: Arnold M. Zwicky > Date: November 15, 2004 6:51:20 PM PST > To: Alan Baragona > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > > On Nov 15, 2004, at 6:44 PM, Alan Baragona wrote: > >> I have always used this glottal stop pronunciation, not only in >> "didn't" but >> in "isn't" in place of the [z]. I'm white, born and brought up in >> urban >> North Carolina, but the rest of my family is from New Jersey. >> I remember a childhood friend, an Air Force brat who had lived abroad, >> remarking that he had never heard anyone pronounce [i?nt]. >> It is >> not particularly a North Carolina feature, so I think I got it from my >> family. > > i was pretty sure this was out there, but didn't want to risk > predicting it. wonderful, in any case, it's just a combination of the > /d/ for /z/ in "isn't" (and "wasn't"), which *has* been studied for > sure, with the glottalish realization of syllable-final /d/ that i > mentioned in my earlier posting. cool. > > arnold > From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 16 03:25:40 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:25:40 -0500 Subject: Yiddish with Dick and Jane Message-ID: While this link is an advertisment for a book, I found it amusing, and I don't think anyone will be put out. http://www.vidlit.com/yidlit/yidlit.html Sam Clements From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 16 05:46:50 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 00:46:50 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > >In any case, the use of glottal stops by BE speakers didn't come to my >attention again until rap music became popular. I've since heard the >glottal stop used by many, many rappers. Then I noticed that on trash >TV - Jerry, Maury, et al. - not only BE speakers but also >Latino-English speakers, whose speech patterns appear to be based on >those of BE rather than those of standard English, and even some white >speakers who talked black were all using the glottal stop. However the >glottal stop came to be used by rappers - I doubt that they all come >from North Carolina - IMO, the glottal stop seems to have become an >in-group marker of the rap culture and, unfortunately, seems to be >spreading like wildfire. I first noted its use by kids in Roxbury (the >Harlem of Boston, as it were) about ten years ago. I haven't noticed >its use by West-Coast blacks, yet, but I figure that it's only a matter >of time. In recent years the exaggeratedly glottalized "Oh no you/he/she di[?]n't" (as a response of outrage, or mock outrage) has become a hackneyed catchphrase. My sense is that the expression had its origin in hiphop and then started turning up on those "trash TV" shows in the late '90s (with appropriate hand gestures and head-bobbing). From there it became a source of mockery for white Americans, as in this bit from Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" (April 2002): ------------- http://snltranscripts.jt.org/01/01pupdate.phtml Tina Fey: (nods head) Bill Clinton - Bill Clinton revealed in Newsweek that he is getting a new chocolate lab to replace his dog, Buddy. Bill says, with Hillary away in D.C., he just needs another bitch in the house. Jimmy Fallon: Oh, snap! Oh, yes, you did! Tina Fey: (gets up from her chair and starts flapping arms) Oh, no! Oh, no, you didn't! Oh, snap! OKAYYYYY! [etc.] ------------- There are examples of "oh no you didn't" on the Usenet newsgroups alt.rap and rec.music.hip-hop about ten years back: ------------- Date: 1994/04/20 Message-ID: <94110.191901SCW112 at psuvm.psu.edu> Newsgroup: alt.rap In article <1994Apr20.214045.27522 at random.ccs.northeastern.edu>, nickman at ccs.neu.edu (Jeff Nicolai) says: > >- Chuck D. from Public Enemy is from a middle class family in >Long Island. As an 'oppressed' rapper from the ghetto........ >he ain't Shit!!!! oh no you didn't... ------------- Date: 1995/08/03 Message-ID: <030895.10035334596.n at frontier.canrem.com> Newsgroup: rec.music.hip-hop >Da Brat and Latifah are lesbians. Please don't deny it... UH, oh no you DIDN'T! Latifah I ain't care aboutm but, but tha Brat? That's cold man, that's cold. ------------- Of course, we can't know how these examples were meant to be pronounced, but this example from 1993 has a pronunciation spelling indicating glottalization: ------------- From: Enuma Olanrewaju Ogunyemi Subject: Re: Black labels Date: 1993/09/07 Message-ID: <26irmb$gu9 at senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> Newsgroup: alt.rap Again you are being unnecessarily rude. BTW a lot of English folk don't think Americans speak proper English, so using statements like "Webster and the rest of reasonable (no you di'int!!) society" doesn't mean much outside the U.S. ------------- Such glottalized pronunciation spellings became more common in the late '90s: ------------- Date: 1998/11/13 Message-ID: <19981113002102.07786.00000858 at ng-fq1.aol.com> Newsgroup: alt.music.ska >abba or erasure > >blech!! my ears are already starting to bleed just thinking about >it!! get a mop, quick! oh NO he di-ent!! ------------- Date: 1999/10/19 Message-ID: <380D2CA4.51F0F7B at pacbell.net> Newsgroup: alt.music.prince 3 chains o' gold oh no he DI'INT! ------------- Date: 1999/10/24 Message-ID: <38137c26.490249861 at news-server> Newsgroups: rec.arts.mystery >And what do sluices, which are used in placer gold mining have >to do with books? Is this another weird Americanism? OH NO HE DI'NT ------------- By now, of course, the catchphrase is well and truly played out. --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 16 06:14:46 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:14:46 -0800 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <30365.69.142.143.59.1100584010.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: On Nov 15, 2004, at 9:46 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: > In recent years the exaggeratedly glottalized "Oh no you/he/she > di[?]n't" > (as a response of outrage, or mock outrage) has become a hackneyed > catchphrase. My sense is that the expression had its origin in hiphop > and > then started turning up on those "trash TV" shows in the late '90s > (with > appropriate hand gestures and head-bobbing). From there it became a > source of mockery for white Americans... just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an intervocalic glottalish bit. i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a catchphrase. arnold From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 16 06:29:53 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 01:29:53 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >intervocalic glottalish bit. I'm sure that's right for , , . I suppose that , , tend to refer to pronunciations with more or less of a glottal stop ... probably still not reliably though. -- Doug Wilson From db.list at PMPKN.NET Tue Nov 16 14:29:22 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:29:22 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" : background: most (though not all) u.s. speakers have a glottalish : (glottalized in some way, or just a glottal stop) variant of /t/ after : an accented syllable and before syllabic n (mitten, cotton,...), and : also in syllable-final position (hat, hothead, fitness,...). these : two phenomena are probably related: /t/ in an accented syllable before : syllabic n is syllabified with the preceding syllable, and so gets : syllable-final allophony. (in contrast, /t/ after an accented : syllable and before other syllabics is [depending on your religion] . ^^^^^^^^ : ambisyllabic or syllabified entirely with the following syllable, and : so gets a voiced allophone, [d] or a voiced tap or whatever.) Is it too much of an admission of cluelessness to say that i can't tell whether this is a typo for "region" or a non-typo? (FWIW, i'm cheering for non-typo--watching linguists argue about syllabification certainly *is* similar to watching people argue about points of religious dogma, after all. Not to mention that the idea of Buddhists and Taoists having different syllabification rules is nothing if not smile-at-able.) David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 16 16:28:57 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 11:28:57 EST Subject: ink-pen Message-ID: In a message dated Sat, 13 Nov 2004 18:22:32 -0500, Michael McKernan complained > After some thought, I've realized that my own familiarity with the term > 'ink pen' comes from my early elementary school education in a Catholic > parochial school (1957-62), where the nuns required us to write most > assignments using what we commonly called an 'ink pen' (rather than > ballpoint). We had two alternatives: the (then) old-fashioned 'fountain > pen,' which had a mechanism for taking up ink refills from an ink bottle; > or the new-fangled (and more popular with us) 'catridge pen', which was > refilled by using small, plastic, ink cartridges. (Both of these qualified > as 'ink pens', while the forbidden 'ballpoint' pen did not, even though we > might argue that it also contained ink.) The nuns never felt a need to > explain God's abhorrence of ballpoints, to my knowledge. (We were > allowed--perhaps required, I can't remember--to use pencil for mathmatics > and perhaps some other writing activities). I doubt that this > strictly-enforced code was specific to that particular school (in > Washington, D.C.), but rather, expect that nuns everywhere (or at least the > Sisters of St. Joseph) required it. If it proves otherwise, my belief > system will need yet another adjustment... In the sixth grade, in public school in Louisville KY, we were required to have and use fountain pens. There is a reason. A ball-point pen can only write a line of a single width. On the other hand (bad saying. Few people are ambidextrous) a fountain pen, in the hands (well, writing hand) of a moderately skilled penman ("penperson"?) can write lines of varying width and even fill in solid areas. That's why fountain pens survive in this era of ballpoints---writing done in a fountain pen looks better, and you can do calligraphy with a fountain pen (or with any pen that has a nib). Of course, few people nowadays care about calligraphy (except for things like weddings, for which they hire professional calligraphers). As for the term "ink pen", some people might use that term to distinguish a fountain pen (or even a ballpoint!) from a Magic Marker, which is sometimes (and accurately) called a "felt pen". Granted, a felt pen, like a ballpoint, uses ink. "Inkless pen" is a term I have never met. The thing you poke at a touch-sensitive computer screen (e.g. with a Palm-Pilot) is in my experience called a "stylus". - James A. Landau PS. The only SSJ I have ever met was Sr. Barbara Anne Foos, whom I fondly remember as a superb math teacher. She never said anything about what writing utensils to use in her class. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 16 16:45:00 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 11:45:00 EST Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: In a message dated Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500, Wilson Gray writes: > Until ca.1961, I never heard the glottal stop used by anyone, black or > white, except in British movies. Di?nt you ever hear anyone say "uh-oh" when something went wrong or use "uh-uh" (sometimes spelt "unh-uh") as a negative mumble? MWCD10 has "uh-oh" dated with a surprisingly late 1971 as pronounced "usu with strong glottal stops before the vowels) and "uh-uh" dated as "ca. 1924" as pronounced "two [nasal] m's or two [nasal] n's preceded by glottal stops". English, the only Indo-European language to have dispensed with gutturals in recorded history, is also the first Indo-European language to introduce glottal stops! > I first noted its use by kids in Roxbury (the > Harlem of Boston, as it were) about ten years ago. "How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea/ or my cousin in Rox-bur-ee?" so Charlie on the MTA was African-American? > one of my own brothers, a Federal judge in California. an ambiguity here: is the Honorable Judge the son of your father and/or mother? (can't find the reference): I don't doubt your are right about Frederick Law Olmstead. I have not read any of his work, and I could not remember when mentioning him whether he was considered an Abolitionist or merely a reporter. An interesting rumor I heard yesterday: Cheney is going to resign as Vice President and Bush is going to appoint Colin Powell in his place. Highly unlikely, I think---had Powell been interested in elective office, he would have run for something back in the 1990's. I must say that Powell would make a better President than either Bush II or Kerry. - James A. Landau From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 16 17:53:20 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:53:20 -0800 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <034701c4cbe8$ab9e5c70$f0fbaa84@BOWIE> Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 6:29 AM, David Bowie wondered: > From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" > > ... (in contrast, /t/ after an accented > : syllable and before other syllabics is [depending on your religion] > . ^^^^^^^^ > : ambisyllabic or syllabified entirely with the following syllable... > > Is it too much of an admission of cluelessness to say that i can't tell > whether this is a typo for "region" or a non-typo? not a typo. i was referring to the intense disagreements over ambisyllabicity. all that was important for my discussion, though, was the difference between syllabifying the t as the coda of the preceding syllable and any other syllabification. arnold From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 16 19:30:41 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:30:41 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 11:45 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a message dated Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500, Wilson Gray > writes: > >> Until ca.1961, I never heard the glottal stop used by anyone, black >> or >> white, except in British movies. > > Di?nt you ever hear anyone say "uh-oh" when something went wrong or use > "uh-uh" (sometimes spelt "unh-uh") as a negative mumble? MWCD10 has > "uh-oh" dated > with a surprisingly late 1971 1971?! Must be a typo. > as pronounced "usu with strong glottal stops > before the vowels) and "uh-uh" dated as "ca. 1924" as pronounced "two > [nasal] m's > or two [nasal] n's preceded by glottal stops". In the 'hood, if someone answers "Uh-uh" to a greeting, - e.g. "Ssup?" "Uh-uh!" - it's roughly equivalent to Jewish "Don't ask!" Of course I'm used to hearing that and more. But if I could end the occurrence of glottal stops in those places in which I'm *not* accustomed to hearing them, e.g. glo?al ge?in di?n't, etc. I would. But this attitude is stereotypical from generation to generation. My grandparents went to their graves saying "wheel," though all around them people of my generation were saying "bicycle" or simply "bike." If the old folk even had a word for "motorcycle," I never heard it. Are you familiar with the song, "Cool for Cats"? The first time that I heard it, it sounded like an unending stream of glottal stops. But, after I became accustomed to hearing it, I found that I had to listen quite carefully to hear the few glottal stops that actually occur. Perhaps the use of glottal stops in the new environments will die out. If not, I'm certain that I will. > > English, the only Indo-European language to have dispensed with > gutturals in > recorded history, is also the first Indo-European language to introduce > glottal stops! > >> I first noted its use by kids in Roxbury (the >> Harlem of Boston, as it were) about ten years ago. > > "How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea/ or my cousin in > Rox-bur-ee?" > so Charlie on the MTA was African-American? The areas in which blacks are required/permitted to live shift over time in any large city. At one time, Beacon Hill, currently the most elite area of the city of Boston, was the colored part of town. That's how the oldest standing African-American house of worship came to be located on Beacon Hill. And it's also the reason that the Roxbury Latin School, an elite prep school, is no longer actually located in Roxbury. > >> one of my own brothers, a Federal judge in California. > > an ambiguity here: is the Honorable Judge the son of your father and/or > mother? The son of my mother. [Oh. Okay, I got it. Jim, you sly devil, you!] > > (can't find the reference): I don't doubt your are right about > Frederick Law > Olmstead. I have not read any of his work, and I could not remember > when > mentioning him whether he was considered an Abolitionist or merely a > reporter. As I recall, he merely reported what he saw, without going all abolitionist about it. (In the late '70's, I believe it was, he suddenly became hip and that's when I read his stuff.) If you have any spare time, read him. He's almost on a level with Mark Twain in his ability to make things that he merely observed riveting. > > An interesting rumor I heard yesterday: Cheney is going to resign as > Vice > President and Bush is going to appoint Colin Powell in his place. > Highly > unlikely, I think I agree, but it is interesting to contemplate for a plethora of reasons. -Wilson Gray > ---had Powell been interested in elective office, he would have run > for something back in the 1990's. I must say that Powell would make a > better > President than either Bush II or Kerry. > > - James A. Landau > From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 16 19:51:04 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:51:04 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <00B67262-3806-11D9-8F1B-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: To paraphrase the much-maligned (because of his uppity speech) Kerry, "Would that he were!" And the "he" can refer to either Bush or Cheney. At 02:30 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >>An interesting rumor I heard yesterday: Cheney is going to resign as >>Vice President and Bush is going to appoint Colin Powell in his place. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 16 20:00:17 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:00:17 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: First language English acquisition people always cite "uh oh" as an early utterance of babies, and they note that early words with final stops often substitute the glottal stop instead. I have no reason to think it would be any different with little black children, unless someone can cite evidence to the contrary. (Roger Brown's landmark _A First Language_ (1973) notes this in the productions of his three case studies, Adam, Eve, and Sarah; Adam was black.) At 11:45 AM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >In a message dated Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500, Wilson Gray > writes: > > > Until ca.1961, I never heard the glottal stop used by anyone, black or > > white, except in British movies. > >Di?nt you ever hear anyone say "uh-oh" when something went wrong or use >"uh-uh" (sometimes spelt "unh-uh") as a negative mumble? MWCD10 has >"uh-oh" dated >with a surprisingly late 1971 as pronounced "usu with strong glottal stops >before the vowels) and "uh-uh" dated as "ca. 1924" as pronounced "two >[nasal] m's >or two [nasal] n's preceded by glottal stops". > >English, the only Indo-European language to have dispensed with gutturals in >recorded history, is also the first Indo-European language to introduce >glottal stops! From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 16 20:13:21 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:13:21 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This deleted tap [dInt] or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do most people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps in formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: >just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >intervocalic glottalish bit. > >i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >catchphrase. > >arnold From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 16 21:02:43 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:02:43 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > This deleted tap [dInt] This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. -Wilson Gray > or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, > and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do > most > people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps in > formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) > > At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: > >> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >> intervocalic glottalish bit. >> >> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >> catchphrase. >> >> arnold > From gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Nov 16 21:29:22 2004 From: gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:29:22 -0600 Subject: gobsmack Message-ID: Any Brits here? I heard Jeff Greenfield, an American CNN political analyst, say something like "These numbers gobsmacked the pollsters." I've only ever heard this word used in the passive (e.g. I was gobsmacked.). Is this active voice form really used or is this (as I suspect) a misuse by an anglophilic American? From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 16 22:01:39 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:01:39 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:14:46 -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > >just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >intervocalic glottalish bit. > >i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >catchphrase. At least as far as the catchphrase is concerned, the exaggerated glottalization seems to require something along the lines of [dI?In?] or [dI?En?] (with at least secondary stress on the second syllable), as opposed to [dI?@n?] or [dI?n-?] (where [n-] represents syllabic [n]). I believe this is what the pronunciation spellings of "di-int" and "di-ent" are supposed to represent. Even when the intervocalic consonant remains a voiced tap, the vowel of the second syllable in the stressed form of "didn't" often sounds like [I] or [E] when spoken by young East Coasters. --Ben Zimmer From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 16 22:09:30 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:09:30 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but alas, I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I didn't really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" from somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use of "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville, but I don't recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now Labov claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old days! At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>This deleted tap [dInt] > >This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the >day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be >approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," >used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I >didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the >use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone >claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a >kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. > >-Wilson Gray > >> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, >>and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do >>most >>people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps in >>formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) >> >>At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: >> >>>just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >>>used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >>>simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >>>intervocalic glottalish bit. >>> >>>i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >>>glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >>>not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >>>catchphrase. >>> >>>arnold From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 16 21:46:37 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:46:37 -0500 Subject: gobsmack In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 03:29:22PM -0600, Matthew Gordon wrote: > Any Brits here? > I heard Jeff Greenfield, an American CNN political analyst, say something > like "These numbers gobsmacked the pollsters." I've only ever heard this > word used in the passive (e.g. I was gobsmacked.). > Is this active voice form really used or is this (as I suspect) a misuse by > an anglophilic American? 1991 _Daily Star_ 24 Dec. 33/1 There's Kenny Dalglish, for example. Old Smiler himself gobsmacked us all when he hurtled out of Anfield in '91 blaming the stress of it all for his unexpected exit. 1991 `J. GASH' _Great California Game_ (1992) iii. 25 The exhibition gobsmacked me. [a UK source, despite the title] 2000 _Sunday Times_ 27 Aug. (News Review section) 2/7, I was on the road a great deal doing personal appearances or opening supermarkets or turning up on chatshows like Wogan, Aspel or Woman's Hour, invitations that absolutely gobsmacked me. Jesse Sheidlower OED From lvonschn at WISC.EDU Wed Nov 17 00:06:11 2004 From: lvonschn at WISC.EDU (Luanne von Schneidemesser) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:06:11 -0600 Subject: Laurence Urdang-DSNA Award Message-ID: I hope you don't mind my taking the opportunity to remind Dictionary Society of North America members (and for others, it's not too late to pay your dues). . . . Don't forget that the deadline for applying for the Laurence Urdang-DSNA Award for 2005 is December 1. We welcome applications of up to $2,500. Please send your application to DSNA President David Jost. More information is on the DSNA website, URL below. Thanks to Laurence Urdang, DSNA Fellow, for his support of lexicography. Best, Luanne Luanne von Schneidemesser Executive Secretary Dictionary Society of North America University of Wisconsin-Madison 6129 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St. Madison WI 53706 http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 02:05:42 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:05:42 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but > alas, > I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I > didn't > really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" > from > somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use of > "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. -Wilson > but I don't > recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A > colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the > "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now Labov > claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift > southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old > days! > > At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> This deleted tap [dInt] >> >> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the >> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be >> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," >> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I >> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the >> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone >> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a >> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. >> >> -Wilson Gray >> >>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, >>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do >>> most >>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps >>> in >>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) >>> >>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: >>> >>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. >>>> >>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an >>>> intervocalic >>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this >>>> is >>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >>>> catchphrase. >>>> >>>> arnold > From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Wed Nov 17 02:09:12 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:09:12 -0800 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. started referring to police as "pigs"? KATHY SEAL 310-452-2769 Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) www.Kathyseal.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 6:05 PM Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------- > > > > As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but > > alas, > > I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I > > didn't > > really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" > > from > > somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use of > > "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville > > During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School > Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if > Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the > Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single > basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. > > -Wilson > > > but I don't > > recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A > > colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the > > "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now Labov > > claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift > > southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old > > days! > > > > At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: > >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >> > >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header > >>> ----------------------- > >>> Sender: American Dialect Society > >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan > >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>> -- > >>> -------- > >>> > >>> This deleted tap [dInt] > >> > >> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the > >> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be > >> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," > >> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I > >> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the > >> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone > >> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a > >> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. > >> > >> -Wilson Gray > >> > >>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, > >>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do > >>> most > >>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps > >>> in > >>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) > >>> > >>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: > >>> > >>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often > >>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is > >>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an > >>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. > >>>> > >>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an > >>>> intervocalic > >>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this > >>>> is > >>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a > >>>> catchphrase. > >>>> > >>>> arnold > > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 02:24:41 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:24:41 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 9:09 PM, Kathy Seal wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Kathy Seal > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. > started > referring to police as "pigs"? > > > KATHY SEAL > 310-452-2769 > Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, > 2001) > www.Kathyseal.net My guess is 1965. I *know* that it was before 1969, since, by then, local high-school all-stars had begun to play an annual flag-football game against the younger local cops in a game which was called the "Pig Bowl." This was in Sacramento, CA. -Wilson Gray > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wilson Gray" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 6:05 PM > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Wilson Gray >> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> ---- > ----- >> >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but >>> alas, >>> I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I >>> didn't >>> really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" >>> from >>> somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use >>> of >>> "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville >> >> During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School >> Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if >> Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the >> Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single >> basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. >> >> -Wilson >> >>> but I don't >>> recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A >>> colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the >>> "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now >>> Labov >>> claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift >>> southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old >>> days! >>> >>> At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >>>> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>>> >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>>>> ----------------------- >>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>>>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> -- >>>>> -- >>>>> -------- >>>>> >>>>> This deleted tap [dInt] >>>> >>>> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the >>>> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be >>>> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I >>>> never," >>>> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I >>>> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about >>>> the >>>> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone >>>> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a >>>> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. >>>> >>>> -Wilson Gray >>>> >>>>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, >>>>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do >>>>> most >>>>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps >>>>> in >>>>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) >>>>> >>>>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is >>>>>> often >>>>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap >>>>>> is >>>>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >>>>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. >>>>>> >>>>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an >>>>>> intervocalic >>>>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this >>>>>> is >>>>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >>>>>> catchphrase. >>>>>> >>>>>> arnold >>> > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 17 04:39:19 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:39:19 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <30755.69.142.143.59.1100642499.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: At 5:01 PM -0500 11/16/04, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:14:46 -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky > wrote: >> >>just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >>used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >>simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >>intervocalic glottalish bit. >> >>i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >>glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >>not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >>catchphrase. > >At least as far as the catchphrase is concerned, the exaggerated >glottalization seems to require something along the lines of [dI?In?] or >[dI?En?] (with at least secondary stress on the second syllable), as >opposed to [dI?@n?] or [dI?n-?] (where [n-] represents syllabic [n]). I >believe this is what the pronunciation spellings of "di-int" and "di-ent" >are supposed to represent. Right; that's what makes it perceptually a lot like the "Connecticut" [but not just Connecticut] rendering of "(New) Britain", "kitten", "mitten", etc., all with a secondarily stressed -[In]. > >Even when the intervocalic consonant remains a voiced tap, the vowel of >the second syllable in the stressed form of "didn't" often sounds like [I] >or [E] when spoken by young East Coasters. > exactly--but let me throw out a purely speculative WAG. (This isn't inconsistent with the factors Arnold brings up but might reinforce them.) It's been suggested (by Bolinger, and more recently me in a Linguist List thread a few years ago) that it's not an accident that medial glottal stops occur in both "uh-oh" and "unh-unh", where the latter rendering is intended to represent the open-mouth version of the disagreement marker (the counterpart of the agreement/assent marker "uh-huh", which crucially has no medial [?]). The closed-mouth version of the disagreement/denial/rejection marker, which I won't even try to represent, also contains a medial glottal stop, and (like uh-oh and unh-unh) high tone-low tone. The generalization seems to be that medial intervocalic [?] (not, of course, the [?] showing up before initial vowels) is associated with negation, especially in conjunction with the high/low tone sequence. (Note that the open- and closed-mouth affirmative/assent markers, uh-huh and m-hm, both have low-high tone sequences as well as medial voiceless vowel (i.e. [h]) or voiceless nasal in place of [?].) (Arguably, although this is even more speculative, it could be claimed that both the [?] and the high-low sequence are partially iconic representations of the semantic effect of negation.) Now "didn't" is pretty negative too, which may (I did say this was speculative) have motivated speakers to assimilate it to the pattern of those voiceless "kitten" words that have the medial [?], even though the voiced [d] means it "should" (ceteris paribus) pattern with words like "hidden" and "wooden", which as Arnold and I have noted don't transform to -[?In] in the same way. Any buyers? larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 17 04:52:05 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:52:05 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: P.S. on my line on unh-unh, uh-oh, didn't, etc., I just realized I should have been a bit less obscure in my terminology. Of course "uh-oh" isn't a negation in the normal propositional sense; I was alluding (following Bolinger) to the negative affect associated with situations in which "uh-oh" is uttered--in the words of AHD4, "to express alarm, foreboding, or dismay." larry From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Wed Nov 17 05:03:11 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:03:11 -0800 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: Wow, that's early on. Thank you. Kathy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" > > > > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. > > started > > referring to police as "pigs"? > > > > > > My guess is 1965. I *know* that it was before 1969, since, by then, > local high-school all-stars had begun to play an annual flag-football > game against the younger local cops in a game which was called the "Pig > Bowl." This was in Sacramento, CA. > > -Wilson Gray > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Wilson Gray" > > To: > > Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 6:05 PM > > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > > > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail > > header ----------------------- > >> Sender: American Dialect Society > >> Poster: Wilson Gray > >> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> ---- > > ----- > >> > >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >> > >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header > >>> ----------------------- > >>> Sender: American Dialect Society > >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan > >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>> -- > >>> -------- > >>> > >>> As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but > >>> alas, > >>> I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I > >>> didn't > >>> really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" > >>> from > >>> somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use > >>> of > >>> "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville > >> > >> During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School > >> Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if > >> Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the > >> Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single > >> basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. > >> > >> -Wilson > >> > >>> but I don't > >>> recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A > >>> colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the > >>> "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now > >>> Labov > >>> claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift > >>> southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old > >>> days! > >>> > >>> At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: > >>>> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header > >>>>> ----------------------- > >>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society > >>>>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan > >>>>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>>>> -- > >>>>> -- > >>>>> -------- > >>>>> > >>>>> This deleted tap [dInt] > >>>> > >>>> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the > >>>> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be > >>>> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I > >>>> never," > >>>> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I > >>>> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about > >>>> the > >>>> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone > >>>> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a > >>>> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. > >>>> > >>>> -Wilson Gray > >>>> > >>>>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, > >>>>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do > >>>>> most > >>>>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps > >>>>> in > >>>>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) > >>>>> > >>>>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is > >>>>>> often > >>>>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap > >>>>>> is > >>>>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an > >>>>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an > >>>>>> intervocalic > >>>>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this > >>>>>> is > >>>>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a > >>>>>> catchphrase. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> arnold > >>> > > From sussex at UQ.EDU.AU Wed Nov 17 05:22:26 2004 From: sussex at UQ.EDU.AU (Prof. R. Sussex) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:22:26 +1000 Subject: gobsmack In-Reply-To: <200411170501.iAH51Pcc063196@mailhub2.uq.edu.au> Message-ID: Re transitive "gobsmack": All of Jesse Sheidlower's quoted examples have a light pronoun object: 1991 _Daily Star_ 24 Dec. 33/1 There's Kenny Dalglish, for example. Old Smiler himself gobsmacked us all when he hurtled out of Anfield in '91 blaming the stress of it all for his unexpected exit. 1991 `J. GASH' _Great California Game_ (1992) iii. 25 The exhibition gobsmacked me. [a UK source, despite the title] 2000 _Sunday Times_ 27 Aug. (News Review section) 2/7, I was on the road a great deal doing personal appearances or opening supermarkets or turning up on chatshows like Wogan, Aspel or Woman's Hour, invitations that absolutely gobsmacked me. This suggests that the transitive use is a bit uncomfortable. It feels less natural with a heavy object: ?.. invitations that absolutely gobsmacked the five distinguished members present ... Certainly in Australian use - which copies British in this - the -ed formation is dominant, and the back-formed "gobsmack" is relatively more restricted. Roly Sussex -- Roly Sussex Professor of Applied Language Studies School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies The University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland 4072 AUSTRALIA University's CRICOS provider number: 00025B Office: Greenwood 434 (Building 32) Phone: +61 7 3365 6896 Fax: +61 7 3365 6799 Email: sussex at uq.edu.au Web: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/profiles/sussex.html School's website: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/ Applied linguistics website: http://www.uq.edu.au/slccs/AppliedLing/ Language Talkback ABC radio: Web: http://www.cltr.uq.edu.au/languagetalkback/ Audio: from http://www.abc.net.au/hobart/stories/s782293.htm ********************************************************** From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 17 05:45:06 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:45:06 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:39:19 -0500, Laurence Horn wrote: >It's been suggested (by Bolinger, and more recently me in a Linguist >List thread a few years ago) that it's not an accident that medial >glottal stops occur in both "uh-oh" and "unh-unh", where the latter >rendering is intended to represent the open-mouth version of the >disagreement marker (the counterpart of the agreement/assent marker >"uh-huh", which crucially has no medial [?]). The closed-mouth >version of the disagreement/denial/rejection marker, which I won't >even try to represent, also contains a medial glottal stop, and (like >uh-oh and unh-unh) high tone-low tone. The generalization seems to >be that medial intervocalic [?] (not, of course, the [?] showing up >before initial vowels) is associated with negation, especially in >conjunction with the high/low tone sequence. (Note that the open- >and closed-mouth affirmative/assent markers, uh-huh and m-hm, both >have low-high tone sequences as well as medial voiceless vowel (i.e. >[h]) or voiceless nasal in place of [?].) (Arguably, although this >is even more speculative, it could be claimed that both the [?] and >the high-low sequence are partially iconic representations of the >semantic effect of negation.) Now "didn't" is pretty negative too, >which may (I did say this was speculative) have motivated speakers to >assimilate it to the pattern of those voiceless "kitten" words that >have the medial [?], even though the voiced [d] means it "should" >(ceteris paribus) pattern with words like "hidden" and "wooden", >which as Arnold and I have noted don't transform to -[?In] in the >same way. > >Any buyers? Sure, I'll buy it, especially since the stereotypical purveyor of "oh no you/he/she [dI?In]" might very well accompany the catchphrase with other medial-glottal forms like "uh-uh", "nuh-uh", and "mm-mm" to underscore the speaker's astonishment/outrage towards a provocative statement. --Ben Zimmer From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Wed Nov 17 06:28:07 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:28:07 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached mainstream in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that point.] Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathy Seal" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 9:09 PM Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. started > referring to police as "pigs"? > > > KATHY SEAL > 310-452-2769 > Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) > www.Kathyseal.net > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wilson Gray" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 6:05 PM > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Wilson Gray > > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > > On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > > ----------------------- > > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > > > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > -------- > > > > > > As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but > > > alas, > > > I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I > > > didn't > > > really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" > > > from > > > somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use of > > > "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville > > > > During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School > > Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if > > Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the > > Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single > > basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. > > > > -Wilson > > > > > but I don't > > > recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A > > > colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the > > > "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now Labov > > > claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift > > > southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old > > > days! > > > > > > At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: > > >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > >> > > >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > >>> ----------------------- > > >>> Sender: American Dialect Society > > >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan > > >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >>> -- > > >>> -------- > > >>> > > >>> This deleted tap [dInt] > > >> > > >> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the > > >> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be > > >> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," > > >> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I > > >> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the > > >> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone > > >> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a > > >> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. > > >> > > >> -Wilson Gray > > >> > > >>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, > > >>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do > > >>> most > > >>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps > > >>> in > > >>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) > > >>> > > >>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: > > >>> > > >>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often > > >>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is > > >>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an > > >>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. > > >>>> > > >>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an > > >>>> intervocalic > > >>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this > > >>>> is > > >>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a > > >>>> catchphrase. > > >>>> > > >>>> arnold > > > > From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 17 06:56:21 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:56:21 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <005401c4cc6e$9c25fa60$2724a618@sam> Message-ID: >Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached mainstream >in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that point.] Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the 1960's US college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 17 07:00:12 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 02:00:12 -0500 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:03:11 -0800, Kathy Seal wrote: >> > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. >> > started referring to police as "pigs"? >> >> My guess is 1965. I *know* that it was before 1969, since, by then, >> local high-school all-stars had begun to play an annual flag-football >> game against the younger local cops in a game which was called the "Pig >> Bowl." This was in Sacramento, CA. > >Wow, that's early on. Thank you. Berkeley students were calling police "pigs" as early as the Sproul Hall Sit-In of December 1964. From the Free Speech Movement Archives: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1v19p3vr/ Summary of the Sproul Hall Sit In and Arrests Police officers were apparently goaded by the passive courage demonstrated by most students. They were called "commies," "pigs," "whores" and other similar names. It's unclear from this, however, if "pig" was already a specific epithet for a police officer or just a general term of abuse. In any case, I don't think it was really popularized until the rise of the Black Panthers in 1967-68, in slogans like "off the pig(s)". --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 17 08:20:31 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:20:31 -0500 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 02:00:12 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >Berkeley students were calling police "pigs" as early as the Sproul Hall >Sit-In of December 1964. From the Free Speech Movement Archives: > > http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1v19p3vr/ > Summary of the Sproul Hall Sit In and Arrests > > Police officers were apparently goaded by the passive courage > demonstrated by most students. They were called "commies," > "pigs," "whores" and other similar names. > >It's unclear from this, however, if "pig" was already a specific epithet >for a police officer or just a general term of abuse. Ah, never mind. Now that I reread this section, it seems clear that the police officers were calling the students "pigs" and not vice versa! --Ben Zimmer From abaragona at SPRYNET.COM Wed Nov 17 13:46:17 2004 From: abaragona at SPRYNET.COM (Alan Baragona) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 08:46:17 -0500 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: In his 1973 book, Revolutionary Suicide, Huey Newton claimed that it was illegal in the 60s to curse a police officer, so the Panthers started using insults like "pig" and "cracker" that were offensive but not obscene or profane. Whether the Panthers even knew about earlier uses of "pig" is not clear, but it seems perfectly possible that this was sui generis and coincidental. Alan Baragona ----- Original Message ----- From: "Benjamin Zimmer" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 2:00 AM Subject: Re: Police as "pigs" > > In any case, I > don't think it was really popularized until the rise of the Black Panthers > in 1967-68, in slogans like "off the pig(s)". > > --Ben Zimmer From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Nov 17 14:07:29 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:07:29 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041117015448.031fae60@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached mainstream > >in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that point.] > > Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the 1960's US > college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. Jesse "too lazy to look things up right now" Sheidlower OED From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Nov 17 14:33:07 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:33:07 -0500 Subject: gobsmack In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 03:22:26PM +1000, Prof. R. Sussex wrote: > Re transitive "gobsmack": > > All of Jesse Sheidlower's quoted examples have a light pronoun object: > > 1991 _Daily Star_ 24 Dec. 33/1 There's Kenny Dalglish, for > example. Old Smiler himself gobsmacked us all when he hurtled > out of Anfield in '91 blaming the stress of it all for his > unexpected exit. > > 1991 `J. GASH' _Great California Game_ (1992) iii. 25 The > exhibition gobsmacked me. [a UK source, despite the title] > > 2000 _Sunday Times_ 27 Aug. (News Review section) 2/7, I was on > the road a great deal doing personal appearances or opening > supermarkets or turning up on chatshows like Wogan, Aspel or > Woman's Hour, invitations that absolutely gobsmacked me. [...] > This suggests that the transitive use is a bit uncomfortable. It > feels less natural with a heavy object: > ?.. invitations that absolutely gobsmacked the five > distinguished members present ... > > Certainly in Australian use - which copies British in this - the -ed > formation is dominant, and the back-formed "gobsmack" is relatively > more restricted. Googling does turn up some examples of transitive _gobsmack_ with non-pronomial objects: * Bush's long awaited speech on the Middle East gobsmacked the world. [from a message board] * Its success has completely gobsmacked the duo. [from an Australian newspaper] * They've gobsmacked the world of golf. [a British golf magazine] * This has really gobsmacked the Aussies. [something from NZ] * Oh, and if you still don't know the origin of his surreal "When the seagulls follow the trawler" statement that so gobsmacked the world's media, look no further... * Murdoch gobsmacked the market by announcing blithely that he expected to lose #100 million a year for 10 years. [NZ source] Clearly this is not very common, but examples do exist. A few heavy transitive examples with _gobsmacking_: * After gobsmacking the Sunday bikers on a couple of beauty spot jaunts its next public outing was... * His characters are not spectacularly well-drawn, but are serviceable, malleable pawns in the bigger game of gobsmacking the reader. * JUPITERS on the Gold Coast has been gobsmacking the gourmets for TEN BIG YEARS! [Aussie] * Will the now apparently neutral to positive portrayal in the media end up gobsmacking the objecting Senators when some one nails them with the question... Best, Jesse Sheidlower OED From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 17 14:40:11 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:40:11 -0500 Subject: Hartered Message-ID: In the minutes of a club I belong to, but whose business meetings I do not attend, I read that a motion had been "moved, seconded, and Hartered", evidently abbreviated in later parts of the minutes as "MSH". I wrote to the clerk to ask what this meant, and here is his reply: >>>>> >From (Section 3.2(2) of NESFA's Standing Rules): Any motion made and passed with only non-substantive objections shall be denoted as: Moved, Seconded, and Hartered. [8/71, memorializing Mr. Harter's practice of voting against virtually all motions; cf. Section A.15(2).] <<<<< Obviously an in-joke, so it won't belong in the dictionaries, but I thought my fellow word freaks here would enjoy it. -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 17 15:23:04 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:23:04 -0600 Subject: gobsmack Message-ID: >From the OED: 1987 Melody Maker 24 Oct. 18/4 It's this act, or variations thereupon, with which she has been gobsmacking the punters in a recent cluster of Personal Appearances in gay clubs, straight clubs and kids clubs . From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 17 15:24:24 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:24:24 -0600 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: OED: 1874 HOTTEN Slang Dict. 253 Pig, a policeman; an informer. The word is now almost exclusively applied by London thieves to a plain-clothes man, or a nose . 1967 C. DRUMMOND Death at Furlong Post v. 63, I had to give the local P.C. a lift. I dropped the pig at Packenham. 1970 Times 7 Aug. 4/7 Pig is slang for a policeman and the defence says that the word pig was scrawled over the doors of the house after the killings. > > > > > > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. > > > started > > > referring to police as "pigs"? > > > > > > > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 17 16:16:01 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:16:01 -0600 Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" Message-ID: >From LA Times, re: a sexual harrasment suit involving the writers of "Friends": "There is an unwritten rule that what is said in the writers' room stays in the writers' room, said Bob Stevens, who has written for television for 20 years." http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-me-friends13nov13.story > -----Original Message----- > From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] > Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 12:12 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS-- 5,100 Google hits, 345 Google Groups > hits WHAT HAPPENS IN LAS VEGAS--389 Google hits, 46 Google Groups hits > > The speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, > is being accused of buying a $1,500 luxury suite in Las Vegas > for only $109. The place was owned by Caesars Entertainment, > a company that was seeking approval to build a casino in New York. > > 13 September 2004, NEW YORK SUN, pg. 9, col. 5: > Sometimes, it turns out, that happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas. > > I've covered a similar phrase before.about football locker > rooms, where a posting often says: "What happens here stays here." > From goranson at DUKE.EDU Wed Nov 17 16:33:27 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:33:27 -0500 Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" In-Reply-To: <200411171616.iAHGGTXr022519@gibson.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: In theonion.com today: "What Happens at Yucca Mountain Stays at Yucca Mountain" S. Goranson From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Wed Nov 17 16:37:22 2004 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:37:22 -0500 Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49772@rdec-exch8.ds.amr dec.army.mil> Message-ID: And from New York Magazine, "While the culture of the paper assiduously practices omertà­ what happens in the newsroom stays in the newsroom­ Miller is cause for reporters to break the code of silence." http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index.html Not "me" Miller, Judy Miller. Kathleen Miller Assistant to William Safire (At least until Dec. 30) The New York Times At 11:16 AM 11/17/2004, you wrote: > From LA Times, re: a sexual harrasment suit involving the writers of >"Friends": > >"There is an unwritten rule that what is said in the writers' room stays in >the writers' room, said Bob Stevens, who has written for television for 20 >years." > >http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-me-friends13nov13.story > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] > > Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 12:12 AM > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" > > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > > Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > ----------------- > > > > WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS-- 5,100 Google hits, 345 Google Groups > > hits WHAT HAPPENS IN LAS VEGAS--389 Google hits, 46 Google Groups hits > > > > The speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, > > is being accused of buying a $1,500 luxury suite in Las Vegas > > for only $109. The place was owned by Caesars Entertainment, > > a company that was seeking approval to build a casino in New York. > > > > 13 September 2004, NEW YORK SUN, pg. 9, col. 5: > > Sometimes, it turns out, that happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas. > > > > I've covered a similar phrase before.about football locker > > rooms, where a posting often says: "What happens here stays here." > > From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 17 18:16:04 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:16:04 -0500 Subject: wag Message-ID: Some info from our friend in North Carolina: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- I tried to do some research but I can't find any dictionary that defines "wag" in the way I used it nor any history. It must be a southern colloquialism. I don't ever remember using this term until I moved to North Carolina. Here it means to carry/drag something heavy or cumbersome. ---------- end of forwarded message ---------- -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 18:22:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:22:46 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: From: wilson.gray at rcn.com Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Date: November 17, 2004 12:35:12 PM EST To: bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu On Nov 17, 2004, at 12:45 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Benjamin Zimmer > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:39:19 -0500, Laurence Horn > > wrote: > >> It's been suggested (by Bolinger, and more recently me in a Linguist >> List thread a few years ago) that it's not an accident that medial >> glottal stops occur in both "uh-oh" and "unh-unh", where the latter >> rendering is intended to represent the open-mouth version of the >> disagreement marker (the counterpart of the agreement/assent marker >> "uh-huh", which crucially has no medial [?]). The closed-mouth >> version of the disagreement/denial/rejection marker, which I won't >> even try to represent, also contains a medial glottal stop, and (like >> uh-oh and unh-unh) high tone-low tone. The generalization seems to >> be that medial intervocalic [?] (not, of course, the [?] showing up >> before initial vowels) is associated with negation, especially in >> conjunction with the high/low tone sequence. (Note that the open- >> and closed-mouth affirmative/assent markers, uh-huh and m-hm, both >> have low-high tone sequences as well as medial voiceless vowel (i.e. >> [h]) or voiceless nasal in place of [?].) (Arguably, although this >> is even more speculative, it could be claimed that both the [?] and >> the high-low sequence are partially iconic representations of the >> semantic effect of negation.) Now "didn't" is pretty negative too, >> which may (I did say this was speculative) have motivated speakers to >> assimilate it to the pattern of those voiceless "kitten" words that >> have the medial [?], even though the voiced [d] means it "should" >> (ceteris paribus) pattern with words like "hidden" and "wooden", >> which as Arnold and I have noted don't transform to -[?In] in the >> same way. >> >> Any buyers? > > Sure, I'll buy it, especially since the stereotypical purveyor of "oh > no > you/he/she [dI?In]" might very well accompany the catchphrase with > other > medial-glottal forms like "uh-uh", "nuh-uh" "Nuh-uh"?! Oh, no you didn't! -Wilson Gray > , and "mm-mm" to underscore the > speaker's astonishment/outrage towards a provocative statement. > > --Ben Zimmer > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 18:51:15 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:51:15 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 17, 2004, at 1:16 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Some info from our friend in North Carolina: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > I tried to do some research but I can't find any dictionary that > defines > "wag" in the way I used it nor any history. It must be a southern > colloquialism. I don't ever remember using this term until I moved to > North > Carolina. Here it means to carry/drag something heavy or cumbersome. I can't say for certain whether "wag" is used when something is dragged. But "heavy or cumbersome" - absolutely! It could be two shopping bags full of groceries, one in each hand, or it could be a three-year-old, say, that still wants to be carried everywhere like a baby or a week's worth of laundry, etc. or almost anything else that forces the use of both arms, though a baby could be wagged in only one arm, since the other arm would be carrying a bottle, a blanket or other baby-type stuff. What about the used-only-by-women aspect? Is that true in NC, too? -Wilson > > ---------- end of forwarded message ---------- > > -- Mark A. Mandel > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Wed Nov 17 19:03:32 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:03:32 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <20041117181418.BD2EA23C96A@spf7.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: Possibly unrelated, but connected to groceries: Google shows several Wag-A-Bag convenience stores, in Texas and other Southern locales. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- Important: This email message and any attached files contain information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or telephone, of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without making any copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- On Nov 17, 2004, at 1:16 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Some info from our friend in North Carolina: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > I tried to do some research but I can't find any dictionary that > defines > "wag" in the way I used it nor any history. It must be a southern > colloquialism. I don't ever remember using this term until I moved to > North > Carolina. Here it means to carry/drag something heavy or cumbersome. > > ---------- end of forwarded message ---------- > > -- Mark A. Mandel > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 17 21:39:30 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:39:30 -0500 Subject: gobsmack In-Reply-To: <200411170501.AAA22206@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Thanks to Jesse for the quotations. But, as a Brit (a Londoner, FWIW), the active use of *gobsmack* isn't in my dialect; my first reaction to seeing the active use was that it was indeed a misuse by an Anglophilic American, but I suppose not entirely. I still don't think it's very common, though. Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 21:53:27 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:53:27 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 17, 2004, at 2:03 PM, Erik Hoover wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Erik Hoover > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Possibly unrelated, but connected to groceries: > > Google shows several Wag-A-Bag convenience stores, in Texas and other > Southern locales. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - I'd guess that these are probably related. My late grandmother most often used the term with reference to "wagging" home from the Safeway, the Piggly-Wiggly, and/or the A&P, all of which were located "uptown," i.e. downtown, two shopping bags loaded with groceries. -Wilson Gray > ------------- > Important: > This email message and any attached files contain information intended > for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is > addressed > and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, > confidential > and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the > intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, > disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal > restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or > telephone, > of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without > making any copies. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > On Nov 17, 2004, at 1:16 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" >> Subject: Re: wag >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> - >> -------- >> >> Some info from our friend in North Carolina: >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> >> I tried to do some research but I can't find any dictionary that >> defines >> "wag" in the way I used it nor any history. It must be a southern >> colloquialism. I don't ever remember using this term until I moved to >> North >> Carolina. Here it means to carry/drag something heavy or cumbersome. >> >> ---------- end of forwarded message ---------- >> >> -- Mark A. Mandel >> [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] >> > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 17 22:56:19 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:56:19 -0600 Subject: bolograph antedate Message-ID: bolograph (OED 1903) S. P. Langley, _Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution, Volume I_, Government Printing Office, 1900, p. 38. online at: http://ads.harvard.edu/books/saoann/ "In the fall of 1895 a very considerable number of bolographs were taken under conditions not materially different from those of June, 1895." From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Nov 17 23:12:11 2004 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:12:11 -0600 Subject: gobsmack Message-ID: It seems like the story is very much like "flabbergast". I find the active/transitive use of this verb odd, but a quick lexis/nexis search turned up some examples. Still, those examples are far outnumbered by the passive/adjectival use which sounds a lot more familiar to me. Regardless, any use of "gobsmack" by an American strikes me as painfully Anglophilic. -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Damien Hall Sent: Wed 11/17/2004 3:39 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: gobsmack Thanks to Jesse for the quotations. But, as a Brit (a Londoner, FWIW), the active use of *gobsmack* isn't in my dialect; my first reaction to seeing the active use was that it was indeed a misuse by an Anglophilic American, but I suppose not entirely. I still don't think it's very common, though. Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 18 01:00:39 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:00:39 -0800 Subject: Not a Word! -- revised version Message-ID: a revised and somewhat expanded version of this ADS-L posting of mine is now available on Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001652.html arnold From jancarsho at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 18 03:31:00 2004 From: jancarsho at YAHOO.COM (J C) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:31:00 -0800 Subject: PLEASE DO NOT DELETE Message-ID: I HOPE I DO NOT HEAR OF ANYONE BREAKING THIS ONE OR SEE DELETED This is a ribbon for soldiers fighting in Iraq. Pass it on to everyone and pray. Something good will happen to you tonight at 11:11 PM. This is not a joke. Someone will either call you or will talk to you online and say that they love you. Do not break this chain. Send this to 13 people in the next 15 minutes Go. SLEEP LAST NIGHT? Bed a little lumpy... Toss and turn any... Wish the heat was higher... Maybe the a/c wasn't on... Had to go to the john... Need a drink of water... ? ? ? Scroll down Yes... It is like that! Count your blessings, pray for them, Talk to your Creator and the next time when... the other car cuts you off and you must hit the brakes, or you have to park a little further from Walmart than you want to be, or you're served slightly warm food at the restaurant, or you're sitting and cursing the traffic in front of you, or the shower runs out of hot water, Think of them.... Protecting your freedom! DO NOT DELETE-PLS PASS ON-Message from Iraq The proud warriors of Baker Company wanted to do something to pay tribute To our fallen comrades. So since we are part of the only Marine Infantry Battalion left in Iraq the one way that we could think of doing that is By taking a picture of Baker Company saying the way we feel. It would be awesome if you could find a way to share this with our fellow countrymen. I was wondering if there was any way to get this into your papers to let the world know that "WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN" and are proud to serve our country." Semper Fi 1stSgt Dave Jobe The attached photo was forwarded from one of the last U.S. Marine companies in Iraq. They would like to have it passed to as many people as possible, to let the folks back home know that they remember why they're there and that they remember those who've been lost. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Discover all that�s new in My Yahoo! From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 18 03:36:44 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:36:44 -0500 Subject: greengrocer's apostrophe of the week Message-ID: Ad in the current Stop and Shop circular (New England-based grocery chain): Cohen's Hor's d'Oeuvres $7.99 Cocktail Franks, Eggroll or Assorted --just the thing for enjoying the holidays with your bordello bubbe... larry From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 18 05:07:55 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:07:55 -0800 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Have seen no evidence that post-'66 usage of "pig" is in any way continuous with the 19th century usage. The cites are just not there. JL Jesse Sheidlower wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Jesse Sheidlower Subject: Re: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached mainstream > >in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that point.] > > Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the 1960's US > college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. Jesse "too lazy to look things up right now" Sheidlower OED --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Discover all that�s new in My Yahoo! From douglas at NB.NET Thu Nov 18 07:30:35 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 02:30:35 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <1CF9CA2F-38E3-11D9-A3CE-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: MW3 shows this "wag" (v.t. [1b]) = "dialect: to carry or haul with difficulty : LUG ". Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: <<"... You just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker is a black man in the boonies of the eastern Appalachians, I reckon maybe in NC. [Wellman's fiction set in Appalachia is full of such things: "air" for "any", never "might" but always "might could", etc., etc.] -- Doug Wilson From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 18 12:20:48 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 07:20:48 -0500 Subject: greengrocer's apostrophe of the week In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Good sighting larry, and reminiscent of the alternatives us jolly teenagers had (back in the day): Whores de Ovaries and Horses' Doovers. What wags we were! dInIs >Ad in the current Stop and Shop circular (New England-based grocery chain): > >Cohen's >Hor's d'Oeuvres $7.99 >Cocktail Franks, Eggroll or Assorted > >--just the thing for enjoying the holidays with your bordello bubbe... > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From db.list at PMPKN.NET Thu Nov 18 13:39:39 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 08:39:39 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: From: Jesse Sheidlower : On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: :: somebody else wrote: ::: Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached ::: mainstream in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that ::: point.] :: Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the :: 1960's US college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... : I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional : coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. Of course, even if the Black Panther(s) who came up with the epithet *thought* that it was a new coinage, it may not have been. Linguistic items have a way of remaining below the surface, unnoticed, only to burst into consciousness without any of the vectors for it realizing they weren't coming up with something completely new. David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 18 14:03:49 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:03:49 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <069c01c4cd74$0eb28f20$f0fbaa84@BOWIE> Message-ID: David, A good point, and related to a common old misunderstanding of the Society's most serious endeavor: The Word of the Year. It need not be brand spanking new; it is a word which has come to unusual prominence in that year. I hope we have got around this by recently declaring a subcategory for Brand-new Word of the Year (which may, of course, go on to win Word of the Year). dInIs (who is in a fractious mood this year and is honing his Word-of-the-Year debating skills to a fine edge) >From: Jesse Sheidlower >: On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >:: somebody else wrote: > >::: Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached >::: mainstream in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that >::: point.] > >:: Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the >:: 1960's US college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... > >: I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional >: coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. > >Of course, even if the Black Panther(s) who came up with the epithet >*thought* that it was a new coinage, it may not have been. Linguistic items >have a way of remaining below the surface, unnoticed, only to burst into >consciousness without any of the vectors for it realizing they weren't >coming up with something completely new. > >David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx > Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the > house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is > chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 14:32:28 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:32:28 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 2:30 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > MW3 shows this "wag" (v.t. [1b]) = "dialect: to carry or haul with > difficulty : LUG My grandmother died before the use of grocery carts had penetrated into the piney woods of ETx. I wonder whether she would have continued to use "wag" to describe the action. > -- Theodore Garrison> The above is a perfect example of the way that this word is used in ETx. > > Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: <<"... > You > just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker is a black man So, in some parts of the country, "wag" *is* used by male speakers. I was wondering about that. > in the boonies of the eastern Appalachians, I reckon maybe in NC. > [Wellman's > fiction set in Appalachia is full of such things: "air" for "any", > never > "might" but always "might could", etc., etc.] I'm familiar with Manly Wade through his writings in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction way back when. Unfortunately, we never bonded. -Wilson Gray > > -- Doug Wilson > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 14:55:01 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:55:01 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 8:39 AM, David Bowie wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: David Bowie > Subject: Re: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > From: Jesse Sheidlower > : On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > :: somebody else wrote: > > ::: Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached > ::: mainstream in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that > ::: point.] > > :: Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the > :: 1960's US college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... > > : I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional > : coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. > > Of course, even if the Black Panther(s) who came up with the epithet > *thought* that it was a new coinage, it may not have been. Linguistic > items > have a way of remaining below the surface, unnoticed, only to burst > into > consciousness without any of the vectors for it realizing they weren't > coming up with something completely new. > > David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx > Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the > house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is > chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. I agree. A lot of "modern" black slang is just a recycled or exaggerated (WRT pronunciation) version of old-time black Southern country talk. Of course, now that I've made this claim, I can't think of any examples to back it up. Well, thangs be that way. Oh! That's an example right there! -Wilson Gray > From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Nov 18 15:09:56 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 10:09:56 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Not just black Southern country talk. My parents, in southern Kentucky, used "triflin'" to refer to an unreliable person. Many years later, I was surprised to find the word again, in the same sense, in contemporary songs by black singers. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Wilson Gray Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 9:55 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) I agree. A lot of "modern" black slang is just a recycled or exaggerated (WRT pronunciation) version of old-time black Southern country talk. Of course, now that I've made this claim, I can't think of any examples to back it up. Well, thangs be that way. Oh! That's an example right there! -Wilson Gray > From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Nov 18 16:44:15 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 11:44:15 -0500 Subject: wag Message-ID: I forgot to mention the negative "nary," as in "nary a one." In general use yet? Isn't "any" in AppEng "ary"? Or are both "air" and "ary" used? Native speakers?? At 02:30 AM 11/18/2004, you wrote: >MW3 shows this "wag" (v.t. [1b]) = "dialect: to carry or haul with >difficulty : LUG compelled to wag her baby brother around with her -- Theodore Garrison>". > >Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: <<"... You >just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker is a black man in >the boonies of the eastern Appalachians, I reckon maybe in NC. [Wellman's >fiction set in Appalachia is full of such things: "air" for "any", never >"might" but always "might could", etc., etc.] > >-- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Nov 18 16:43:14 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 11:43:14 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041118022237.031fd950@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: Isn't "any" in AppEng "ary"? Or are both "air" and "ary" used? Native speakers?? At 02:30 AM 11/18/2004, you wrote: >MW3 shows this "wag" (v.t. [1b]) = "dialect: to carry or haul with >difficulty : LUG compelled to wag her baby brother around with her -- Theodore Garrison>". > >Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: <<"... You >just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker is a black man in >the boonies of the eastern Appalachians, I reckon maybe in NC. [Wellman's >fiction set in Appalachia is full of such things: "air" for "any", never >"might" but always "might could", etc., etc.] > >-- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Thu Nov 18 17:23:34 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 12:23:34 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041118114341.031b4cb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >I forgot to mention the negative "nary," as in "nary a one." In general >use yet? > >Isn't "any" in AppEng "ary"? Or are both "air" and "ary" used? Native >speakers?? MW3 for example shows "air" as a variant of "ary". In this Wellman fiction "nair" often appears where others would use "never", and in some other contexts too, presumably = "nary". The speakers seem to be natives, but they're fictional .... -- Doug Wilson From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 18 18:29:34 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 10:29:34 -0800 Subject: Fwd: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > From: Arnold M. Zwicky > Date: November 18, 2004 10:23:03 AM PST > To: Alan Baragona > Subject: Re: Police as "pigs" > > > On Nov 17, 2004, at 5:46 AM, Alan Baragona wrote: > >> ...Whether the Panthers even knew about earlier uses of "pig" is not >> clear, but it seems perfectly possible that this was sui generis and >> coincidental. > > i don't care whether "sui generis" was intentional or inadvertent; > it's wonderful. > > arnold (zwicky, not that oinker ziffel) > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 18:46:29 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:46:29 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 12:23 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> I forgot to mention the negative "nary," as in "nary a one." In >> general >> use yet? >> >> Isn't "any" in AppEng "ary"? Or are both "air" and "ary" used? >> Native >> speakers?? > > MW3 for example shows "air" as a variant of "ary". > > In this Wellman fiction "nair" Where I'm from, ETx, folk say - or said, 50 years ago - "nair one" in place of "none." It's pronounced [nae @n], with nasalization of the vowels and stress on [ae]. They also say, instead of "ain't got no more," "ain't got nair 'nother one" pronounced [nae@ n^dn], also with nasalization of [ae@], but not of [^]. Stress falls on [^]. Note that these are not alternants but are the only forms used with the relevant meanings. (For the record, I haven't actually lived in Texas since the 'Forties and haven't even visited there since the 'Seventies. DARE lists only one, presumably white, informant from my birthplace of Marshall. So, I figure, what the hell? Can't hurt. May help.) -Wilson Gray > often appears where others would use > "never", and in some other contexts too, presumably = "nary". > > The speakers seem to be natives, but they're fictional .... > > -- Doug Wilson > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 18 18:49:02 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:49:02 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Police as "pigs" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:29 AM -0800 11/18/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: >Begin forwarded message: > >>From: Arnold M. Zwicky >>Date: November 18, 2004 10:23:03 AM PST >>To: Alan Baragona >>Subject: Re: Police as "pigs" >> >> >>On Nov 17, 2004, at 5:46 AM, Alan Baragona wrote: >> >>>...Whether the Panthers even knew about earlier uses of "pig" is not >>>clear, but it seems perfectly possible that this was sui generis and >>>coincidental. >> >>i don't care whether "sui generis" was intentional or inadvertent; >>it's wonderful. >> >>arnold (zwicky, not that oinker ziffel) Indeed. Reminded me of the old "Sooey Generous" appeal (illustrated with a pig) from Linguist List a few years back. (Googling, I find a number of other hits on this, including an eponymous William Matthews poem, described as a paean to a pig. What I was really looking for, of course, was an inadvertent use, i.e. an eggcorn, of this form, à la "bonified" and "social moray(s)", but no such luck. larry From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Nov 18 19:28:33 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:28:33 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20greengrocer's=20apo?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?strophe=20of=20the=20week?= Message-ID: Larry H'Orn and Denni's are two funny drazzel's From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Nov 18 19:41:12 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:41:12 EST Subject: deracinate Message-ID: According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard borrowed it directly from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the Variorium Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin form, which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to figure out which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and track record. But what am wondering is as follows: 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? 2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? I realize that this is not an AMERICAN English question, but then Shakespeare was really an American, wasn't he? Just born in the wrong palce? From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Thu Nov 18 19:59:23 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:59:23 -0500 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_greengrocer's_apostrophe_of_t?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?he_week?= In-Reply-To: <1e9.2f257b13.2ece51e1@aol.com> Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 14:28, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > Larry H'Orn and Denni's are two funny drazzel's Sluts? Oh, wait, one z in "drazel." Grant Barrett From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 20:12:47 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:12:47 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 2:41 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM > Subject: deracinate > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by > Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard > borrowed it directly > from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the > Variorium > Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin > form, > which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to > figure out > which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and > track record. > But what I am wondering is as follows: > > 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? > 2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? > > I realize that this is not an AMERICAN English question, but then > Shakespeare > was really an American, wasn't he? Just born in the wrong place? > 1) I don't. 2) I don't have a Latin reference handy, but it certainly seems as unlikely to me as it does to you. I'd expect DERADICINAT-US/-A/-UM or even DERACINAT-US/-A/-UM, depending upon the relevant period in the history of Latin, before I'd expect DERAXINAT-US/-A/-UM. In any case, I'd think that any decent dictionary could supply the correct Latin root, whether Shakespeare coined the word or Virgil did. -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 20:18:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:18:46 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it Message-ID: 1) Go to www.google.com 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" 4) Read the "error message" carefully. Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired soon. Anonymous via Wilson Gray From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Thu Nov 18 20:30:40 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:30:40 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: <0D29F56F-399F-11D9-B7C4-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: --On Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:18 PM -0500 Wilson Gray wrote: > 1) Go to www.google.com > 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) > 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" > 4) Read the "error message" carefully. > > Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired > soon. > Actually, no. Somebody in England has a sense of humour. The site is actually an ad for anti-Bush t-shirts (sold through cafepress) and book (with links to the British Amazon site). -- Alice Faber Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 faber at haskins.yale.edu From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Thu Nov 18 20:32:28 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:32:28 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: <20041118201648.BA3C523C7AD@spf7.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: I feel obligated to let everyone on this list know that this phenomenon is not a result of sly humor on the part of Google or its staff. It is a form of Google-bombing (q.v.). Erik ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- Important: This email message and any attached files contain information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or telephone, of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without making any copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- On Nov 18, 2004, at 3:18 PM, Wilson Gray wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: WOT, but worth it > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > 1) Go to www.google.com > 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) > 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" > 4) Read the "error message" carefully. > > Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired > soon. > > Anonymous > > via Wilson Gray > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 18 20:33:28 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:33:28 -0600 Subject: chillaxin' Message-ID: http://www.illinimedia.com/di/comics/index.php?id=1536 From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 18 21:22:55 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:22:55 -0500 Subject: Still more to read, Message-ID: This project brought to you by the NEH and LoC: The first of what's expected to be 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922 will be available in 2006. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/11/17/oldnewspapers.ap/index.html Jesse Sheidlower OED From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 18 21:23:22 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:23:22 -0800 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: <8D9280A4F17A130192F843CA@[130.132.95.94]> Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 12:30 PM, Alice Faber wrote: > --On Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:18 PM -0500 Wilson Gray > wrote: > >> ...Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired >> soon. >> > > Actually, no. Somebody in England has a sense of humour. The site is > actually an ad for anti-Bush t-shirts (sold through cafepress) and book > (with links to the British Amazon site). and the site's been around for *months*. arnold From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 21:24:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:24:10 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 3:30 PM, Alice Faber wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Alice Faber > Subject: Re: WOT, but worth it > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > I noticed the misspelling, "humour." However, I didn't click on any of > the embedded links - not a good idea, ever - so I didn't see that it > was just more spam, even though it was my wife who forwarded it to me. > Obviously, she didn't click on any of the embedded links, either. > In any case, however, please accept my apologies. -Wilson Gray > --On Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:18 PM -0500 Wilson Gray > wrote: > >> 1) Go to www.google.com >> 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) >> 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" >> 4) Read the "error message" carefully. >> >> Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired >> soon. >> > > Actually, no. Somebody in England has a sense of humour. The site is > actually an ad for anti-Bush t-shirts (sold through cafepress) and book > (with links to the British Amazon site). > > > -- > Alice Faber > Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 > T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 > faber at haskins.yale.edu > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 21:27:04 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:27:04 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 3:32 PM, Erik Hoover wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Erik Hoover > Subject: Re: WOT, but worth it > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > Yes. Unfortunately, I found that out too late. My apologies to all. -Wilson Gray > I feel obligated to let everyone on this list know that this phenomenon > is not a result of sly humor on the part of Google or its staff. It is > a form of Google-bombing (q.v.). > > Erik > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > Important: > This email message and any attached files contain information intended > for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is > addressed > and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, > confidential > and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the > intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, > disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal > restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or > telephone, > of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without > making any copies. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > On Nov 18, 2004, at 3:18 PM, Wilson Gray wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Wilson Gray >> Subject: WOT, but worth it >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> - >> -------- >> >> 1) Go to www.google.com >> 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) >> 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" >> 4) Read the "error message" carefully. >> >> Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired >> soon. >> >> Anonymous >> >> via Wilson Gray >> > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 18 22:08:03 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:08:03 -0800 Subject: more grandtheftendo Message-ID: Developed for the fans by a fan, I've taken the time to make it as comfortable as possible. From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Thu Nov 18 22:10:29 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:10:29 -0600 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <20041118143242.07EAC47D826@smtpin-1.iphouse.net> Message-ID: Wilson Gray wrote: > On Nov 18, 2004, at 2:30 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >> Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: >> <<"... You just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker >> is a black man > > > So, in some parts of the country, "wag" *is* used by male speakers. I > was wondering about that. Or was used by male speakers. According to the International Speculative Fiction Data Base, Wellman was born in 1903. His personal knowledge of such things and/or the reference works he used might well date from before you were born. My great-grandmother came to the US right after WW I, speaking three living languages (and perhaps Hebrew). She never learned English; she lived in a NYC neighborhood where everyone spoke Yiddish. My great-grandfather had to learn English; he owned a newsstand, and he had to communicate with customers. It seems likely to me that English-speaking men might similarly have to learn a more generally-used dialect of English, while women in the same group might not. (I'm not a linguist, but I suspect that there's been at least one study of this.) And after a while, certain words in that group's dialect might become thought of as women's words; and boys growing up with that perception would avoid using such words. (And that's something I'm _certain_ has been studied.) -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 22:30:16 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 17:30:16 -0500 Subject: Say what? Message-ID: A newsreader, "And, in local news, a house infected with rats!" -Wilson Gray From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Thu Nov 18 23:03:44 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 17:03:44 -0600 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: <20041118201851.6F60C47D9F7@smtpin-1.iphouse.net> Message-ID: Wilson Gray wrote: > 1) Go to www.google.com > 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) > 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" > 4) Read the "error message" carefully. > > Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired > soon. Or someone running that site knew how to design a page so Google would find it first. It comes up first in a search on that phrase. -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 23:17:12 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 18:17:12 -0500 Subject: Say what? Addendum. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 5:30 PM, Wilson Gray wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Say what? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > A newsreader, "And, in local news, a house infected with rats!" > > -Wilson Gray > It turns out that a lonely old lady was collecting the rats. And yes, they were wild, alley rats and not the tame, white, laboratory kind. -WG From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 19 00:54:29 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:54:29 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: <60.48f0ed27.2ece54d8@aol.com> Message-ID: >According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >borrowed it directly >from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the Variorium >Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin form, >which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to figure out >which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and track >record. >But what am wondering is as follows: > >1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? 1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. 2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". "Deraxinate" or the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. -- Doug Wilson From einstein at FROGNET.NET Fri Nov 19 01:13:21 2004 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 20:13:21 -0500 Subject: wag Message-ID: Dan Goodman wrote: "My great-grandmother came to the US right after WW I, speaking three living languages (and perhaps Hebrew). She never learned English; she lived in a NYC neighborhood where everyone spoke Yiddish. My great-grandfather had to learn English; he owned a newsstand, and he had to communicate with customers. It seems likely to me that English-speaking men might similarly have to learn a more generally-used dialect of English, while women in the same group might not. (I'm not a linguist, but I suspect that there's been at least one study of this.)" My first wife's parents came here from Bavaria after WW1 and their experience was exactly the opposite. Both started as house servants ("in service" they used to say) and later he worked as a machinist and she a seamstress for Jay Thorpe, then a fashionable 57th St dressmaker. His English was rougher and less assimilated than hers, because of the work environment where she got to talk with the multinational seamstresses and occasionally the upscale clientele while he could continue to use German or hadn't much practice talking with Americans. I think it's not gender but the type of work one does that is the important variable. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 19 02:01:15 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:01:15 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041118194940.031f1e80@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >>Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >>borrowed it directly >>from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the Variorium >>Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin form, >>which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to >>figure out >>which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and track >>record. >>But what am wondering is as follows: >> >>1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >>2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? > >1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. > >2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". "Deraxinate" or >the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. > >-- Doug Wilson I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: (1) as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? (2) in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) formations from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique (genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc. But why would one ever expect "rax"? larry From RonButters at AOL.COM Fri Nov 19 02:42:15 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:42:15 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20deracinate?= Message-ID: In a message dated 11/18/04 9:01:49 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >>According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by > >>Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard > >>borrowed it directly > >>from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the Variorium > >>Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin > form, > >>which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to > >>figure out > >>which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and track > >>record. > >>But what   am wondering is as follows: > >> > >>1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? > >>2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? > > > >1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. > > > >2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". "Deraxinate" or > >the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. > > > >-- Doug Wilson > > I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: > (1)  as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", > not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? > (2)  in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) formations > from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique > (genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". > Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin > reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". > Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and > not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc.  But why would one ever expect > "rax"? > > larry > > Thanks for all the help. I'll pass it on to Professor Williams. 'm not sure why the Shakespeareans thought "deraxinate" would be the right derivation from the Latin. Maybe I misread my colleague's note. What he said to me was "Why would Shakespeare have coined a term with a 'c' and not an 'x'?" Maybe what he meant was "Why 'deracinate' and not 'deradixate' or 'deradixinate'?" From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 19 04:00:06 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:00:06 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 9:01 PM, Laurence Horn wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Laurence Horn > Subject: Re: deracinate > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>> According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >>> Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >>> borrowed it directly >>> from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the >>> Variorium >>> Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the >>> Latin form, >>> which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to >>> figure out >>> which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and >>> track >>> record. >>> But what am wondering is as follows: >>> >>> 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >>> 2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? >> >> 1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. >> >> 2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". >> "Deraxinate" or >> the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. >> >> -- Doug Wilson > > I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: > (1) as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", Actually, the root is "radic-." "Radix," i.e. "radic-s," is the nominative case. > not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? Nope. It would be "deradic(in)ate." > (2) in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) formations > from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique > (genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". > Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin > reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". > Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and > not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc. But why would one ever expect > "rax"? > > larry > The lack of a classical education? A wild guess? The feeling that, inasmuch as no one studies Latin anymore, one can fake it? -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 19 04:15:13 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:15:13 -0500 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_deracinate?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 9:42 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM > Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20deracinate?= > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a message dated 11/18/04 9:01:49 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > >> At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>> According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >>>> Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >>>> borrowed it directly >>>> from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the >>>> Variori= > um >>>> Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the >>>> Latin=20 >> form, >>>> which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to >>>> figure out >>>> which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and >>>> track >>>> record. >>>> But what=A0=A0 am wondering is as follows: >>>> >>>> 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >>>> 2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? >>> >>> 1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. >>> >>> 2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". >>> "Deraxinate" o= > r >>> the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. >>> >>> -- Doug Wilson >> =20 >> I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: >> (1)=A0 as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", >> not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? >> (2)=A0 in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) >> formations >> from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique >> (genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". >> Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin >> reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". >> Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and >> not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc.=A0 But why would one ever expect >> "rax"? >> =20 >> larry >> =20 >> =20 > > Thanks for all the help. I'll pass it on to Professor Williams. 'm not > sure=20 > why the Shakespeareans thought "deraxinate" would be the right > derivation fr= > om=20 > the Latin. Maybe I misread my colleague's note. What he said to me was > "Why=20 > would Shakespeare have coined a term with a 'c' and not an 'x'?" Maybe > what=20= > he=20 > meant was "Why 'deracinate' and not 'deradixate' or 'deradixinate'?" > Maybe Shakespeare had a reasonable command of Latin morphology? -Wilson Gray From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Fri Nov 19 04:49:20 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:49:20 -0500 Subject: slow boat to china Message-ID: Supposedly Frank Loesser wrote the song of this name in 1948. I can find a Washington Post column by Bill Gold in December, 1947 which says: "As the old proberb says, I'd like to get him on a slow boat to China." I can find nothing earlier using Proquest or Newspaperarchive. Was there truly an earlier proverb, or perhaps the song actually came out in very late 1947 but has a publishing date of 1948. Sam Clements From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Fri Nov 19 07:46:26 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:46:26 -0500 Subject: slow boat to china Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:49:20 -0500, Sam Clements wrote: >Supposedly Frank Loesser wrote the song of this name in 1948. > >I can find a Washington Post column by Bill Gold in December, 1947 which >says: > >"As the old proberb says, I'd like to get him on a slow boat to China." > >I can find nothing earlier using Proquest or Newspaperarchive. > >Was there truly an earlier proverb, or perhaps the song actually came out in >very late 1947 but has a publishing date of 1948. Loesser claimed to have written "On a Slow Boat to China" in 1945 -- he even presented evidence to this effect in a court case when he was accused of plagiarizing a song published in 1947 (Robert E. Overman's "Wonderful You"). http://library.law.columbia.edu/music_plagiarism/069/069.html In the ruling (in favor of Loesser), it's stated that Loesser obtained an unpublished copyright on the song in May 1948 and a published copyright in September 1948. But perhaps Loesser was circulating the song between 1945 and 1948, allowing Bill Gold to pick up the expression. Or, alternatively, Loesser and Gold borrowed it from some other source. --Ben Zimmer From t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Fri Nov 19 13:37:31 2004 From: t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU (Terry Irons) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:37:31 -0500 Subject: CEDL Minority Scholar Survey Message-ID: Colleagues, I am forwarding the following message from Malcah Yeager. CEDL Minority Scholar Survey The Linguistic Society of America’s Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics (CEDL) is conducting a survey of minority scholars in the field to determine how the recruitment and retention of minority linguists might be improved. We are, therefore, asking undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members in linguistics who are members of minority groups in the US to participate in this survey. For the purposes of this survey, the term 'minority' refers to "members of racial and ethnic groups in the US that have been historically disenfranchised in the US and are traditionally underrepresented in higher education in general, and in linguistics in particular." This includes, but is not limited to African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans. To download the survey, please visit the CEDL website at http://www.lsadc.org/committees/index.php?aaa=ethnic.htm . The completed survey should be returned no later than Dec. 1, 2004 to mreynolds at lsadc.org or by snail mail to Maggie Reynolds; The Linguistic Society of America; 1325 18th Street, NW, Suite 211; Washington, D.C. 20036-6501. If you have any questions regarding the survey itself, please contact Tracey Weldon, the 2004 CEDL chair, at weldont at gwm.sc.edu. ------------------------------------------- Tracey L. Weldon, Assistant Professor English Department/Linguistics Program The University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 29208 Phone: (803) 777-2074 Fax: (803) 777-9064 weldont at gwm.sc.edu ----- End forwarded message ----- ******************** Malcah Yaeger-Dror Cognitive Sciences -- Psych Bldg University of AZ Tucson, AZ 85721 www.u.arizona.edu/~malcah/ (h) 520-325-3272 (o) 520-626-3569 (fax) 520-621-9306 *********************** From db.list at PMPKN.NET Fri Nov 19 13:44:56 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:44:56 -0500 Subject: greengrocer's apostrophe of the week Message-ID: From: "Dennis R. Preston" : Good sighting larry, and reminiscent of the alternatives us jolly : teenagers had (back in the day): : Whores de Ovaries : and : Horses' Doovers. I grew up with "Horse Devours". : What wags we were! What? You got dragged around on the ground? Who knew?! David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 19 13:46:55 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:46:55 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 4:23 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky" > Subject: Re: WOT, but worth it > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Nov 18, 2004, at 12:30 PM, Alice Faber wrote: > >> --On Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:18 PM -0500 Wilson Gray >> wrote: >> >>> ...Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be >>> fired >>> soon. >>> >> >> Actually, no. Somebody in England has a sense of humour. The site is >> actually an ad for anti-Bush t-shirts (sold through cafepress) and >> book >> (with links to the British Amazon site). > > and the site's been around for *months*. > > arnold Yes. I really should have known better. Again, I apologize to all. -Wilson Gray From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 19 14:09:16 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 09:09:16 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_deracinate?= In-Reply-To: <9C3B39BE-39E1-11D9-B7C4-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: At 11:15 PM 11/18/2004, you wrote: >On Nov 18, 2004, at 9:42 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM >>Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20deracinate?= >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>In a message dated 11/18/04 9:01:49 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: >> >> >>>At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>>>According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >>>>>Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >>>>>borrowed it directly >>>>>from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the >>>>>Variori= >>um >>>>>Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the >>>>>Latin=20 >>>form, >>>>>which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to >>>>>figure out >>>>>which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and >>>>>track >>>>>record. >>>>>But what=A0=A0 am wondering is as follows: >>>>> >>>>>1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >>>>>2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? >>>> >>>>1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. >>>> >>>>2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". >>>>"Deraxinate" o= >>r >>>>the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. >>>> >>>>-- Doug Wilson >>>=20 >>>I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: >>>(1)=A0 as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", >>>not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? >>>(2)=A0 in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) >>>formations >>>from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique >>>(genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". >>>Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin >>>reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". >>>Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and >>>not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc.=A0 But why would one ever expect >>>"rax"? >>>=20 >>>larry >>>=20 >>>=20 >> >>Thanks for all the help. I'll pass it on to Professor Williams. 'm not >>sure=20 >>why the Shakespeareans thought "deraxinate" would be the right >>derivation fr= >>om=20 >>the Latin. Maybe I misread my colleague's note. What he said to me was >>"Why=20 >>would Shakespeare have coined a term with a 'c' and not an 'x'?" Maybe >>what=20= >>he=20 >>meant was "Why 'deracinate' and not 'deradixate' or 'deradixinate'?" > >Maybe Shakespeare had a reasonable command of Latin morphology? > >-Wilson Gray Yes, he supposedly had "a little Latine and lesse Greeke," as I recall from my medieval and Renaissance studies at SLU. From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 19 14:41:43 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 09:41:43 -0500 Subject: greengrocer's apostrophe of the week In-Reply-To: <097201c4ce3d$f609f0b0$f0fbaa84@BOWIE> Message-ID: >Or gently toted home in the arms of our loved ones. dInIs >From: "Dennis R. Preston" > >: Good sighting larry, and reminiscent of the alternatives us jolly >: teenagers had (back in the day): > >: Whores de Ovaries > >: and > >: Horses' Doovers. > >I grew up with "Horse Devours". > >: What wags we were! > >What? You got dragged around on the ground? Who knew?! > >David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx > Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the > house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is > chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 19 15:36:28 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:36:28 -0500 Subject: CEDL minority scholar survey Message-ID: Forwarded for Malcah Yaeger-Dror: -------- CEDL Minority Scholar Survey The Linguistic Society of America’s Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics (CEDL) is conducting a survey of minority scholars in the field to determine how the recruitment and retention of minority linguists might be improved. We are, therefore, asking undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members in linguistics who are members of minority groups in the US to participate in this survey. For the purposes of this survey, the term 'minority' refers to "members of racial and ethnic groups in the US that have been historically disenfranchised in the US and are traditionally underrepresented in higher education in general, and in linguistics in particular." This includes, but is not limited to African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans. To download the survey, please visit the CEDL website at http://www.lsadc.org/committees/index.php?aaa=ethnic.htm . The completed survey should be returned no later than Dec. 1, 2004 to mreynolds at lsadc.org or by snail mail to Maggie Reynolds; The Linguistic Society of America; 1325 18th Street, NW, Suite 211; Washington, D.C. 20036-6501. If you have any questions regarding the survey itself, please contact Tracey Weldon, the 2004 CEDL chair, at weldont at gwm.sc.edu. ------------------------------------------- Tracey L. Weldon, Assistant Professor English Department/Linguistics Program The University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 29208 Phone: (803) 777-2074 Fax: (803) 777-9064 weldont at gwm.sc.edu From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Nov 19 15:43:05 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:43:05 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re=3A_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re=3A_deracinate?= Message-ID: > > > >Maybe Shakespeare had a reasonable command of Latin morphology? > > > >-Wilson Gray > > Yes, he supposedly had "a little Latine and lesse Greeke," as I > recall from > my medieval and Renaissance studies at SLU. -- Beverly Flanigan > What Shakespeare had was "little Latine and lesse Greeke," not "a little Latin". This was a remark by Ben Jonson, another Elizabethan poet and playwright, who was a notable scholar of Latin and Greek, though with probably not much more formal education than Shakespeare had. If I recall the story correctly, Jonson was brought up as a bricklayer, and was discovered when young by someone who spotted him spending his coffee break reading a Greek text. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hololwness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). > From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 19 16:15:59 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:15:59 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_deracinate?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hey, you're right! My memory is faulty after 40 years. . . . At 10:43 AM 11/19/2004, you wrote: > > > > > >Maybe Shakespeare had a reasonable command of Latin morphology? > > > > > >-Wilson Gray > > > > Yes, he supposedly had "a little Latine and lesse Greeke," as I > > recall from > > my medieval and Renaissance studies at SLU. -- Beverly Flanigan > > > >What Shakespeare had was "little Latine and lesse Greeke," not "a little >Latin". This was a remark by Ben Jonson, another Elizabethan poet and >playwright, who was a notable scholar of Latin and Greek, though with >probably not much more formal education than Shakespeare had. If I recall >the story correctly, Jonson was brought up as a bricklayer, and was >discovered when young by someone who spotted him spending his coffee break >reading a Greek text. > >GAT > >George A. Thompson >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern >Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. > >"We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hololwness, treachery, >and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, >Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). > > > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 19 17:12:53 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:12:53 -0600 Subject: blobology Message-ID: I was in a discussion with a radar engineer this morning. He was talking about an experiment he wanted to do, in which a radar would be used to observe several targets, and he wanted to distinguish between them. The targets were at the limits of the range of the radar. "I don't think it'll work. It's all blobology," he said. From gsanders at FORWARD.COM Fri Nov 19 19:29:37 2004 From: gsanders at FORWARD.COM (Gabriel Sanders) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:29:37 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays Message-ID: I'm working on a story about the phrase "Merry Chrismukkah," which seems to have been coined by the writers of the FOX teen drama "The OC." In this light, I've been thinking about holiday greetings generally and "Happy Holidays" in particular. Does anyone happen to know its earliest use? And has anyone ever been wished a "Merry Chrismukkah"? From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Fri Nov 19 20:00:31 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:00:31 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041119193616.F0D6E23C880@spf7.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: The earliest Usenet groups cite Google has for Chrismukah is November 1999. link: http://groups.google.com/groups? q=Chrismukah+1300&start=50&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&scoring=d&selm=382A1BFC.77 2D4C95%40earthlink.net&rnum=61&filter=0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- Important: This email message and any attached files contain information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or telephone, of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without making any copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- On Nov 19, 2004, at 2:29 PM, Gabriel Sanders wrote: > Chrismukkah From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Fri Nov 19 20:05:28 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:05:28 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041119200040.CEF9B7AF39@spf6-3.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: Sorry, Chrismukkah 1996. http://groups.google.com/groups? q=Chrismukkah&start=100&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&scoring=d&selm=599idk%2458u%4 0engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM&rnum=150&filter=0 The 1999 cite is for one 'k' Chrismukah. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- Important: This email message and any attached files contain information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or telephone, of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without making any copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- On Nov 19, 2004, at 3:00 PM, Erik Hoover wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Erik Hoover > Subject: Re: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > The earliest Usenet groups cite Google has for Chrismukah is November > 1999. > > > link: > > http://groups.google.com/groups? > q=Chrismukah+1300&start=50&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&scoring=d&selm=382A1BFC.7 > 7 > 2D4C95%40earthlink.net&rnum=61&filter=0 > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > Important: > This email message and any attached files contain information intended > for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is > addressed > and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, > confidential > and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the > intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, > disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal > restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or > telephone, > of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without > making any copies. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > On Nov 19, 2004, at 2:29 PM, Gabriel Sanders wrote: > >> Chrismukkah > From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 19 20:05:39 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:05:39 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: Message-ID: You've got to check all spellings: 19 Dec. 1996: "Re: Happy Chrismukkah Greetingsaa!" http://groups.google.com/groups? selm=19961219182300.NAA18961%40ladder01.news.aol.com Grant Barrett On Nov 19, 2004, at 15:00, Erik Hoover wrote: > The earliest Usenet groups cite Google has for Chrismukah is November > 1999. From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Fri Nov 19 20:08:45 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:08:45 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041119200542.F3E6C76BBF@spf6-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: > You've got to check all spellings: > Indeed. Haste made waste. Erik From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Nov 19 20:11:22 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:11:22 -0500 Subject: dirty words in dictionaries revisted Message-ID: A few of you perhaps have perhaps been each morning eagerly opening your emails hoping to see the final word on the astonishing appearance in a schoolboy's Latin Dictionary from the late 19th century of the word "cunt" offered, along with "strumpet", as a translation of the word "cunnus". I first posted about this in I believe March. The dictionary was "The Handy Dictionary of the Latin and English Languages", published by David McKay, of 610 South Washington Square, Philadelphia. My copy isn't dated, but some library's record dates it to "188?". This may not be the final word; it may be only the hemi-demi-semi-final word. But. . . . The earliest appearance of this definition I have found is in "A New Dictionary of the Latin and English languages, with an appendix of Latin geographical, historical, and mythological proper names". London, New York, George Routledge and Sons, [1878] [1 v.] 16 cm. I have seen the Harvard copy of this book. The title page doesn't carry a date, and has in pencil "187?". It was received by Harvard as a gift in 1911. The specific publication date comes from the Yale library record. (RLIN records CTYADHL6331-B & MAHGARR93213-B) The 3rd floor reference room of the NYPL has "A New Dictionary of the Latin and English Languages; with an appendix of Latin geographical, historical, and mythological proper names". Leipzig, B. Tauchnitz, 1885. This date is from the title page, and the definition of "cunnus" is present. However, the Routledge edition had a note facing the title page (the verso of the half-title page, is I believe the technical designation) "Printed for George Routledge and Sons by Bernard Tauschnitz, Leipzig", so there may have been a Tauschnitz edition before the Routledge one or simultaneous with it, and the manuscript may have originated in Germany. I see by RLIN that the Metropolitan Museum of ARt has an edition from Tauchnitz dated 1881 and described as the 3rd edition. The plates were used in the early 20th century to produce "Burt's Latin-English Dictionary in two parts: Latin-English, English-Latin". Rev. and enl. New York: A. L. Burt Co., [19--] 198, 212 pp.; 16 cm. This is at the NYPL, and contains the definition. I saw through ABEBooks that there were booksellers with copies of the McKay edition that dated from 1938, 1946 and 1950. Alan J. Miller, Bookseller (1158 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029-6917 alan at alansbooks.com) kindly responded to my email to him about the 1950 printing. Zane W. Gray (BOOKSELLERS, 11 Alice Trail, Fairfield, PA, U.S.A., 17320-8288 doddm at blazenet.net) checked the 1938 and 1946 printings. All three contain the definition. The dictionary was reset by "D. McKay" of New York in the early 1960s to produce a "Handy Dictionary of the Latin and English Languages", revised by S. C. (Sidney Chawner) Woodhouse. The book was at least sufficiently revised to eliminate the whole entry for "cunnus" -- a quick glance shows only a few minor changes otherwise. There is a copy of this at NYU. A dirty mind is a joy forever, but when I first posted this I offered those who wanted a philological justification the thought that this dictionary might represent the earliest appearance in print of the word in an American source. This is still may be the case, even though now it seems that the book didn't originate in America, and perhaps not in the English-speaking world. None the less, it is remarkable that the dictionary was published and distributed with this definition in the U. S., beginning in the dark reign of Anthony Comstock, evidently without attracting notice. Presumably at least one or two of the college boys who sniggered over this entry in the 1870s and 1880s grew up to be dour Latin masters, and yet this entry stood for at least 70 years before it was censored. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 19 20:49:19 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:49:19 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <003701c4ce6e$1bd513d0$3402a8c0@forward1.forward.com> Message-ID: To follow-up: With two citations, it's been shown that the writers/creators/producers/characters on "The OC" did not coin "Merry Chrismukkah." We know this because the "The Best Chrismukkah Ever" episode first aired December 3, 2003; even given lead times on episode production, I doubt the scripts were done too long before that. The earliest cite we've found with only cursory searching is 1996. There are also many other cites under various spellings between 1996 and 2003. So, either thousands of people--including writers for "The OC"--coined the word independently, or else it was already in circulation. [Of course, this is all true only if you take coin to mean "to invent; to neologize." The reason I add that caveat is that I keep seeing a non-literal use of "to coin (a word)" when what is really meant is "to say something cleverly" or even "to call a thing something other than its name." It's similar to when people say "to coin a phrase" after something which has, of course, been said before that moment.] On Nov 19, 2004, at 14:29, Gabriel Sanders wrote: > I'm working on a story about the phrase "Merry Chrismukkah," which > seems to have been coined by the writers of the FOX teen drama "The > OC." In this light, I've been thinking about holiday greetings > generally and "Happy Holidays" in particular. Does anyone happen to > know its earliest use? And has anyone ever been wished a "Merry > Chrismukkah"? Grant Barrett -- Project Editor, "Historical Dictionary of American Slang," Oxford University Press -- Editor, Double-Tongued Word Wrester, http://www.doubletongued.org/ -- Webmaster, American Dialect Society, http://www.americandialect.org/ From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 19 21:06:11 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:06:11 -0600 Subject: swift boat Message-ID: Earliest use?? >From _All Hands_ (Bureau of Naval Personnel magazine), Jan 1966, p. 29 (caption of photo): " "SWIFT BOAT" is name given to the new PCF (patrol craft, fast) 50-footers which arrived in Vietnam recently as part of the Coastal Surveillance Force." From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Nov 20 02:38:58 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:38:58 -0600 Subject: dialectal "from the home" referring to a woman's maiden name Message-ID: I'm sending this along without yet having checked DARE. ******** A student of mine was born in Kansas but married a man in Freeburg, Missouri, a town in Osage County, about 40 miles north of the University of Missouri-Rolla. She frequently hears statements of the type "She was a Welshmeyer from home," or "She was a Jones from home" and at first interpreted "home" here to be a place-name. She was surprised to hear of so many women coming from the town of Home. Then someone straightened her out. "She was [e.g.] a Welshmeyer from home" meant "Her maiden name was Welshmeyer." Then there's the dialectal use of the phrase "right away" that she had to get used to. It means "whenever I get around to it." So she was at first troubled when people in town would tell her that they'll do something right away, and she'd be waiting for them to do it right away, but then they acted as if there was no hurry at all. In time she was clued in.. Gerald Cohen University of Missouri-Rolla From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sat Nov 20 03:38:21 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 21:38:21 -0600 Subject: Antedating of "bathing beauty" (1897) Message-ID: In 1889, the W. S. Kimball tobacco company issued as sales premiums a set of chromolithographed color trading cards entitled "Beautiful Bathers' Cards". This was a reformatted reissue of an earlier set entitled "Fancy Bathers". They both feature pictures of women in bathing suits at various beaches. In 1889, the Kinney Brothers company issued a similar set entitled "Surf Beauties". >--------------------- Information from the mail header >----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: Sam Clements >Subject: Antedating of "bathing beauty" (1897) >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > >M-W and OED have 1920. =20 > >Using Proquest, Chicago Tribune, Sept 26, 1897. (Advertisement) p.40: > >>>Clark-ST. Dime Museum/Monday, Sept.27, 1897/Bates, the MUCH MARRIED = >MAN,in a New Role/ Bates and The Bathers/ (picture of Bates and the = >Beauties--ed.) > >BOLD, BAD BIGAMIST/Bossing Bathing Beauties./ The famous Englewood = >Divorcee as Director of the Aquatic Carnival of Lovely Lady Swimming = >Experts from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and = >Chicago./ > >The Only and Original Rosa and the Little Egypt Midway Dancers.<< > >SC > From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 20 05:41:23 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:41:23 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:49:19 -0500, Grant Barrett wrote: >To follow-up: With two citations, it's been shown that the >writers/creators/producers/characters on "The OC" did not coin "Merry >Chrismukkah." We know this because the "The Best Chrismukkah Ever" >episode first aired December 3, 2003; even given lead times on episode >production, I doubt the scripts were done too long before that. The >earliest cite we've found with only cursory searching is 1996. There >are also many other cites under various spellings between 1996 and >2003. So, either thousands of people--including writers for "The >OC"--coined the word independently, or else it was already in >circulation. Also, in the late '90s there was a widely circulated piece of net-humor in the form of a mock press release announcing the "corporate merger" of Christmas and Hanukkah into Chrismukkah. According to this site, the joke began circulating in 1998: http://www.chrismukkah.com/misc/learn_about_chrismukkah.tpl The Usenet archive has versions of the press release back to 1999 at least (with some variations, e.g., whether the spokesman sings "Oy, Come all Ye Faithful" or "Oy Vey, Come all Ye Faithful"). -- Ben Zimmer From nunberg at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Nov 20 06:08:04 2004 From: nunberg at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Geoffrey Nunberg) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:08:04 -0800 Subject: "curl up with a good book" Message-ID: I've been trying to find out when people started talking about "curling up with a good book." The phrase doesn't show up in the MOA collection or the UVa mod. Eng. text collection, and the earliest cite I've been able to find is from the NYT, Aug 29, 1926: "We read that he [Gene Tunny] takes a day off from training and curls up with a good book." But I'd have thought this goes back further than that. Geoff Nunberg From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 20 06:34:28 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 01:34:28 -0500 Subject: slow boat to china Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:46:26 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:49:20 -0500, Sam Clements >wrote: > >>Supposedly Frank Loesser wrote the song of this name in 1948. >> >>I can find a Washington Post column by Bill Gold in December, 1947 which >>says: >> >>"As the old proberb says, I'd like to get him on a slow boat to China." >> >>I can find nothing earlier using Proquest or Newspaperarchive. >> >>Was there truly an earlier proverb, or perhaps the song actually came out >>in very late 1947 but has a publishing date of 1948. > >Loesser claimed to have written "On a Slow Boat to China" in 1945 -- he >even presented evidence to this effect in a court case when he was accused >of plagiarizing a song published in 1947 (Robert E. Overman's "Wonderful >You"). > >http://library.law.columbia.edu/music_plagiarism/069/069.html Found this in the book _A Most Remarkable Fella_ (1993, 2000) by Frank's daughter Susan Loesser, via Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" feature: "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" was a well-known phrase among poker players, referring to a person who lost steadily and handsomely. My father turned it into a romantic song, placing the title in the mainstream of catch-phrases in 1947. (p. 62) http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0634009273/?v=search-inside&keywords=slow+boat --Ben Zimmer From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 20 07:08:02 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 02:08:02 -0500 Subject: slow boat to china In-Reply-To: <39140.69.142.143.59.1100932468.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: > "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" was a > well-known phrase among poker players, referring to a > person who lost steadily and handsomely. And that's just how it was used in the 1947 example in the "Washington Post"! "On a slow boat to China" = "For a long time on a ship" = "In a long series of card games". Much more natural than the romantic concept in the song! -- Doug Wilson From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Sat Nov 20 13:04:50 2004 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (paulzjoh) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:04:50 -0600 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here in North Central Ar. we here "of the home" in reference to someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. > > From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 20 14:02:19 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:02:19 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <419F40F2.1030102@mtnhome.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, paulzjoh wrote: >Here in North Central Ar. we here "of the home" in reference to someone >living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. ? Bethany From goranson at DUKE.EDU Sat Nov 20 14:06:35 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:06:35 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <200411201402.iAKE2M0K006712@ayrton.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: here-->hear? Quoting "Bethany K. Dumas" : > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, paulzjoh wrote: > > >Here in North Central Ar. we here "of the home" in reference to someone > >living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. > > ? > > Bethany > From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 20 14:21:52 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:21:52 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <1100959595.419f4f6b97606@webmail.duke.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Stephen Goranson wrote: >here-->hear? I wondered? Or is it >here --> here are "of the home" The choices seem to be: Here in North Central Ar. we hear "of the home" in reference to someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. and Here in North Central Ar. we hear are "of the home" in reference to someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. Bethany From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sat Nov 20 16:24:52 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:24:52 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE Ohio, in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase "from home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home funeral, without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others recognize this? At 09:21 AM 11/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: >On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Stephen Goranson wrote: > > >here-->hear? > >I wondered? Or is it > > >here --> here are "of the home" > >The choices seem to be: > >Here in North Central Ar. we hear "of the home" in reference to >someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read >on the radio. > >and > >Here in North Central Ar. we hear [here?] are "of the home" in reference to >someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read >on the radio. > >Bethany From AAllan at AOL.COM Sat Nov 20 20:29:37 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:29:37 EST Subject: News flash: New location for ADS annual meeting Message-ID: It's official: the Annual Meeting now will be at the Marriott Oakland Center City, across the bay from San Francisco. For information on reservations, registration, and transportation, see the website of our host, the Linguistic Society of America. You can go directly to http://www.lsadc.org/annmeet/index.html A strike at the previously arranged San Francisco hotel prompted this move. Maggie Reynolds, executive director of LSA, has worked overtime during the past weeks to make the change possible. All sessions and times of ADS meetings remain as planned. I'll be posting the full schedule shortly on ADS-L and sending it for posting on our website. - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary From AAllan at AOL.COM Sat Nov 20 20:57:53 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:57:53 EST Subject: Program for ADS Annual Meeting Message-ID: Here's our full program complete with hotel information. In case there is a problem with the typography, you'll soon find it posted on the ADS website. Full information on the luncheon will be announced next week. See you in Oakland! - Allan Metcalf, Executive Secretary 11.20.04 American Dialect Society Annual Meeting 2005 Oakland, California At the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America All sessions will be held at the Marriott Oakland City Center 1001 Broadway Oakland, CA 94607 510-451-4000 The hotel features an exercise room, heated outdoor pool and a full service business center. It’s across the street from Oakland’s Chinatown in one direction and the Old Oakland Historic District in the other. Rooms at the Marriott are available at the special rate of $95 per night, single or double. Call 1-800-991-7249 between 6 a,m. and 11 p.m. Pacific Standard Time and ask for the “LSA 2005 Annual Meeting†rate. Reservations are subject to availability if received after December15. Thursday, January 6, 2005 All sessions in Rooms 210-211, Marriott Oakland City Center Session 1: Usage, Labeling, and Lexicons, 10:00-11:30 a.m. Chair: Edward Finegan, Univ. of Southern California. 1. “Toni Morrison’s Genius Puts Her in the Grammar/Usage Spotlight.†Arnold Zwicky, Stanford Univ. 2. “Gendered Aspects of Lexicographic Labeling.†Katherine Martin, Oxford English Dictionary. 3. “Representations of Southern Speech in Folk Dictionaries.†Sarah Hilliard , Duke Univ. Session 2: Talkin’ and Testifyin’; Using Large Corpora, 1:00–2:30 p.m. Chair: Jesse Sheidlower, Oxford Univ. Press. 4. “Evidence on the History of Prosodic Rhythm in African American English.†Erik R. Thomas and Phillip M. Carter, North Carolina State Univ. 5. “Testifyin Performance and Ideology in a Black Church.†Andrea Kortenhoven, Stanford Univ. 6. “Dialect Coding for Large Corpora.†Malcah Yaeger-Dror, Univ. of Arizona; J.P. Campbell, W.M. Campbell, P. A. Torres-Carrasquillo, and D. A. Reynolds, all of MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Session 3: Southern Dialects—Black and White, 3:00–5:00 p.m. Chair: Beverly Flanigan, Ohio University. 7. “Dialect and the Spread of Country Music: the Case of ‘Alabama.’ †Catherine Evans Davies, Univ. of Alabama. 8. “ ‘Talking White’ at the Apollo: African-American Narrative Comedians Portraying the Middle-class Establishment.†Jacquelyn Rahman, Miami Univ. of Ohio. 9. “The Shifting Significance of Postvocalic R-Lessness in Southern African-American English.†Kristy D’Andrea, North Carolina State Univ. 10. “On the Shifting Social Significance of Receding Dialect Variables: The Case of Static Locative to.†Jeannine Carpenter, North Carolina State Univ. and Duke Univ., and Janelle Vadnais, North Carolina State Univ. Session 4: Special Presentation, 5:15–6:15 p.m. 11. Voices of North Carolina. Video that will be aired on PBS, featuring Outer Banks speech, Appalachian speech, metropolitan speech (Charlotte), Lumbee English, African American English in terms of dialects, as well as the state of the Cherokee language and Spanish. Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State Univ. Friday, January 7 Council meeting in Room 212, Marriott Oakland City Center Executive Council Meeting, 8:30–10:30 a.m. Open meeting; all members welcome. Presiding: ADS President Michael Montgomery, U. of South Carolina. Sessions in Rooms 210-211, Marriott Oakland City Center Words of the Year Nominations, 10:30 a.m.–12:00 noon. Open meeting of the New Words committee; ADS members and friends welcome. Chair, Wayne Glowka, Georgia College and State University. This meeting reviews nominations for Words of the Year 2004. Final candidates will be identified in preparation for the vote at 5:30 p.m. Session 5: Language Contact, 1:30–3:30 p.m. Chair: Kathryn Remlinger, Grand Valley State Univ. 12. “Another Look at the Copula in Caribbean Creoles.†James A. Walker, York Univ., Toronto, and Miriam Meyerhoff, Univ. of Edinburgh. 13. “When Speech Islands Collide.†Steve Hartman Keiser, Marquette Univ. 14. “What Happened to Texas German?†Hans C. Boas, Univ. of Texas, Austin. 15. “Spanish Dialect Contact in South Texas: Variable Subject Personal Pronoun Use by Puerto Ricans in San Antonio.†Robert Bayley, Carlos Martin Vélez-Salas, Belinda Schouten, and Norma Cárdenas, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio. Session 6: Special Session, 3:45–5:15 p.m.: The Atlanta Survey Project. Chair: William A. Kretzschmar, Jr., Univ. of Georgia. 16. “Introduction to the Atlanta Survey Project.†Sonja Lanehart and William A. Krtetzschmar, Jr., Univ. of Georgia. 17. “The Atlanta Survey Project Interview.†Betsy Barry, Univ. of Georgia. 18. “Fixed-Format Elicitation in the Atlanta Survey Project.†Iyabo Osiapem, Univ. of Georgia, 19. “Vowel Formant Characteristics from the Atlanta Survey Project.†Mi-Ran Kim and Nicole Kong, Univ. of Georgia. 20. “Publication of Full Interviews from the Atlanta Survey Project.†William A. Kretzschmar, Jr., Univ. of Georgia. Words of the Year Vote, 5:30–6:30 p.m. Reception in Toppers Rooftop Ballroom, Marriott Oakland City Center Bring-Your-Own-Book Exhibit and Reception, 6:30–7:30 p.m. Saturday, January 8 Sessions in Rooms 210-211, Marriott Oakland City Center Annual Business Meeting, 8:30–9:30 a.m. Session 7: Regional Phonology, 9:45–11:45 a.m. Chair: Connie Eble, Univ. of North Carolina. 21. “A First Approach to Regional Phonetic Variation in Canadian English.†Charles Boberg, McGill Univ. 22. “Acoustic Characteristics of Utah’s card/cord Merger.†David Bowie, Univ. of Central Florida. 23. “Upper Midwest Obstruent Variation: There’s More of It Than You Might Think.†Thomas Purnell, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; Joseph Salmons, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; Dilara Tepeli, Univ. Bonn; Jennifer Mercer, Univ. of Wisconsin. 24. “You So Don’t Talk Like Me: Exploring Southern California Sound Changes Across Generations.†Allyn Partin Hernandez, Northridge, Calif. Luncheon in Toppers Rooftop Ballroom, Marriott Oakland City Center Annual Luncheon, 12:15–1:45 p.m. Speaker: ADS president Michael Montgomery, Univ. of South Carolina. “The Voices of My Ancestors.†Information on menu, cost, and reservations will be announced soon. Session in Rooms 210-211, Marriott Oakland City Center Session 8: Promoting Awareness of Language Diversity, 2:00–4:00 p.m. Chair: Anne Curzan, Univ. of Michigan. A panel co-sponsored by the American Dialect Society Committee on Teaching and by the Linguistic Society of America. 25. “Promoting Language Awareness in Schools via Do You Speak American?†Jeffrey Reaser, Center for Applied Linguistics, Duke Univ., and North Carolina State Univ.; Carolyn Temple Adger, Center for Applied Linguistics; Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State Univ. 26. “Teaching About Language Diversity in Non-Diverse Settings.†Michael Adams, North Carolina State Univ. From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 01:23:58 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:23:58 -0500 Subject: radio Message-ID: Hey, Bethany (and others), If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 01:27:31 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:27:31 -0500 Subject: radio Message-ID: Hey, Bethany (and others), If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) I forgot to mention that this is on "Mountain Stage," a great show from West Virginia. I hope most NPR stations carry it. From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 21 01:44:50 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:44:50 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20041120202143.00ac0d58@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >Hey, Bethany (and others), >If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau >Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right >now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace >Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of course .... Bethany From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Sun Nov 21 02:01:38 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:01:38 -0500 Subject: radio Message-ID: Of course, many if not most NPR stations are available online. I listen to Sunday bluegrass from WAMU in Washington DC. All day. And I'm in Akron, OH. The internet--what a ball. Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bethany K. Dumas" To: Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 8:44 PM Subject: Re: radio > They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish > music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of > course .... > > Bethany From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:09:59 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:09:59 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 08:44 PM 11/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: >On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > >Hey, Bethany (and others), > >If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau > >Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right > >now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace > >Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) > >They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish >music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of >course .... > >Bethany Is it "Thistle and Shamrock"? Equally cool! From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:08:46 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:08:46 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: <004901c4cf6e$09d9fe10$2724a618@sam> Message-ID: Yeah, I e-mailed my son, who works in Belgrade, Serbia, urging him to listen online to his old hometown radio. At 09:01 PM 11/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: >Of course, many if not most NPR stations are available online. I listen to >Sunday bluegrass from WAMU in Washington DC. All day. And I'm in Akron, >OH. > >The internet--what a ball. > >Sam Clements > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Bethany K. Dumas" >To: >Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 8:44 PM >Subject: Re: radio > > > They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish > > music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of > > course .... > > > > Bethany From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:27:27 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:27:27 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20041120210908.0250d680@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish >>music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of >>course .... >> >>Bethany > >Is it "Thistle and Shamrock"? Equally cool! Yes - maybe. Bethany From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:42:06 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:42:06 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041120050232.6F68EB2501@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: i remember "Meppy Chrisukkah" from way way back, h.s. maybe?? (class of 65), prob. coined by a friend. Note, not "Merry": both words are hybridized. mark by hand From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:47:37 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:47:37 -0500 Subject: wag Message-ID: Our friend in NC says: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 19:31:07 -0500 (GMT-05:00) To: Mark A. Mandel Subject: Re: wag No, I think I first heard "wag" used this way by a man. I saw the message about this usage coming from the Appalachians, but I think I learned this usage of the word by people who live in Cumberland county, NC. Chris -----Original Message----- From: "Mark A. Mandel" Sent: Nov 18, 2004 10:47 AM Subject: wag extracted from ADS-L Digest - 16 Nov 2004 to 17 Nov 2004 (#2004-323) [NAME], do you have any sense of whether it is used only by women down there, as in Wilson's experience? -- DSBIL Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From dwhause at JOBE.NET Sun Nov 21 02:12:36 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:12:36 -0600 Subject: radio Message-ID: Mine plays Bluegrass on Saturday evening, but broadcasts Mountain Stage at 6:00 PM (CST) Sundays and streams it on www.kumr.org Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Beverly Flanigan" To: Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 7:27 PM Subject: radio Hey, Bethany (and others), If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) I forgot to mention that this is on "Mountain Stage," a great show from West Virginia. I hope most NPR stations carry it. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 04:18:19 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 23:18:19 EST Subject: Movie Quotes; Chrismukkah Message-ID: MOVIE QUOTES Fred Shapiro probably knows about this, but in the rare case he doesn't, this was in yesterday's papers. (GOOGLE NEWS) _AFI salutes quotes_ (http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/10217468.htm) Pioneer Press (subscription), MN - New Yor _AFI will celebrate top 100 movie quotes_ (http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?rid=1e50ca76db0afe79&cat=dd8845aa60952db2) Big News Netwo _AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes: The most memorable phrases ..._ (http://top40-charts.com/news.php?nid=11200) top40-char _Zap2it.com_ (http://www.zap2it.com/movies/go?path=/mov ies/news/story&general_id=23640) - _all 36 r »_ (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=ISO-8859-1&ncl=http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/1021746 8.htm) _Movie Quotes on AFI Agenda_ (http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15366,00.html) E! Online, CA - Nov 17, ... your seatbelts, we're in for a new countdown from those prolific list-makers: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: America's Greatest Quips, Comebacks and ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- CHRISMUUKAH There was an article on this in the Friday Wall Street Journal. I was going to post on it, but everyone beat me to it. There wasn't anything early in the OC WEEKLY (_www.ocweekly.com_ (http://www.ocweekly.com) ). The following had several interesting items. _Cover: Best of OC 2004: Part 5_ (http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/07/best-part5.php) ... (or blame) The O.C. for adding to the great American lexicon "aspirational," "THE Vegas" and "Chrismukkah." 3. Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. MTV, thanks to "unlimited access," follows a...Published October 22nd, 2004 _http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/07/best-part5.php_ (http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/07/best-part5.php) 1. Paleteros. "Those elderly men who walk around with ice-cream carts selling Mexican popsicles. Smiles, freshness and personal history—all for a buck." (...) If nothing else, praise (or blame) The O.C. for adding to the great American lexicon "aspirational," "THE Vegas" and "Chrismukkah." (...) DERISIVE OC NICKNAMES 1. Fascist Island (Fashion Island) 2. Scurvine (Irvine) 3. Seizure World (Leisure World) 4. F-Town (Fullerton) 5. Costa Misery (Costa Mesa) 6. Costa Lot (Costa Mesa) 7. Garbage Grove (Garden Grove) 8. Anaslime (Anaheim) 9. Cal State Disneyland (Cal State Fullerton) 10. Rustin (Tustin) From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Sun Nov 21 04:54:17 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 23:54:17 -0500 Subject: Movie Quotes; Chrismukkah Message-ID: Of interest to Fred Shapiro might also be a piece I heard a week or so ago on NPR, interviewing Nora Ephron about the line in "When Harry Met Sally." When Meg Ryan, in the middle of a deli, is demonstrating how women can fake an orgasm, the waiter? asks an old lady(Rob Reiner's mom) at another table what she'll have? She replies: "I'll have what SHE's having!" in obvious reference to Meg Ryan. This phrase is now used by people everywhere, but no doubt many know not from whence it came. Nora essentially said that Billy Crystal may have actually written the line. The movie was written by many people. Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 11:18 PM Subject: Movie Quotes; Chrismukkah MOVIE QUOTES Fred Shapiro probably knows about this, but in the rare case he doesn't, this was in yesterday's papers. (GOOGLE NEWS) _AFI salutes quotes_ (http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/10217468.htm) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 21 05:22:03 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:22:03 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:44 PM -0500 11/20/04, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >>Hey, Bethany (and others), >>If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau >>Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right >>now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace >>Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) > >They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish >music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of >course .... > >Bethany Well, we also have The Thistle and Shamrock here. But I highly recommend (if I hadn't already done so) the Jorma Kaukonen album (i.e. CD) from a couple of years ago, Blue Country Heart. Great stuff. Larry From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 21 06:23:09 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 01:23:09 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 20, 2004, at 11:24 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE > Ohio, > in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase "from > home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home funeral, > without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others > recognize this? When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, without the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of the great state of Texas.] -Wilson Gray > At 09:21 AM 11/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: >> On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Stephen Goranson wrote: >> >>> here-->hear? >> >> I wondered? Or is it >> >>> here --> here are "of the home" >> >> The choices seem to be: >> >> Here in North Central Ar. we hear "of the home" in reference to >> someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read >> on the radio. >> >> and >> >> Here in North Central Ar. we hear [here?] are "of the home" in >> reference to >> someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read >> on the radio. >> >> Bethany > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 07:15:19 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:15:19 EST Subject: "Curl up to a good book" Message-ID: I've been trying to find out when people started talking about "curling up with a good book." The phrase doesn't show up in the MOA collection or the UVa mod. Eng. text collection, and the earliest cite I've been able to find is from the NYT, Aug 29, 1926: "We read that he [Gene Tunny] takes a day off from training and curls up with a good book." But I'd have thought this goes back further than that. Geoff Nunberg Oh, all right. Maybe everybody else was busy preparing for Chrismukkah. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) ("curl up with" and "book") 1. _BOOKS OF THE WEEK.; Strong Brief for Expansion. Mr. Cable's Portrait. A Study in Character. Dr. Abbott's View of Paul. Lafcadio Hearn's New Book. New Work on Chess. Brief Mention. Books Received. _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000426638861&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=3 09&VName=HNP&TS=1101019141&clientId=65882) Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jan 28, 1899. p.10 (1 page) ??? 2. _WIVES OF TOMORROW; All Is Well _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=000000239746852&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HN P&TS=1101019141&clientId=65882) By FRANCES McDONALD.. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Sep 1, 1924. p. 12 (1 page) : Curl up with a book just as if you were alone. 3. _Vacation Season On, But Who'd Ever Guess It?_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=2&did=000000098387715&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT =309&VName=HNP&TS=1101019141&clientId=65882) By L.H.R.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 29, 1926. p. XX2 (1 page) _Display Ad 20 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=34&did=000000105855316&SrchMode=1&sid=9&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS= 1101020726&clientId=65882) New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Mar 21, 1923. p. 20 (1 page): _ONE OF THE SUPREME SATISFACTIONS OF LIVING!_ THE man who has not learned to curl up on a sofa of an evening occasionally and "lose himself" in a rattling good story, or "find himself" under the influence of an author with provocative ideas, is missing one of the supreme satisfactions of living. (Ad for Borzoi Books, Alfred A. Knopf--ed.) _Other 4 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=40&did=000000361774412&SrchMode=1&sid=9&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=110102 0308&clientId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 4, 1925. p. 7 (1 page) (there was a room lined with books, where Sam was allowed to go and where he would curl up in a window seat, and read and read until his father would come and turn him out to play). (_WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM_ (http://www.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) ) _Barnard Bulletin _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=QIApIoRPQIyKID/6NLMW2qbRoZxMX46Dtcp074ovQF282GxRSG7v8UIF+CsZYmrz) Friday, October 02, 1925 _New York,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:new_york+curl+up+and+book+AND) _New York_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:new_york+curl+up+and+book+AND) ...divan is a wonderful place in which to CURL UP- f _ A AND read. Don-1 miss our.....We can tavit. ytiu much monry on your BOOK especially if you can for our pr If.. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 07:55:12 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:55:12 EST Subject: Anyhoo (1865) Message-ID: Someone used "anyhoo" this week. Yes, someone did. "Anyhoo" is not in the OED. It's not in the CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG. The HDAS has 1945. It appears to be in an 1865 publication of LEAVES. I recall a comprehensive treatment of LEAVES a while back in an obscure publication called COMMENTS ON ETYMOLOGY. Most of the hits, anyhoo, seem to be from the 1930s. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Sort results by: 1. _UNCLE SAM NABS THREE; The Alleged Conspirators are Taken by Officers. Charged With Bogus Chinese Certificate Scheme. Union Bartender and Remittance Man in Trio. CARRIES TELLTALE EVIDENCE. DOCTORED DOCUMENT. _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000322686812&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101021932&cli entId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 26, 1904. p. A1 (1 page) 2. _Classified Ad 7 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=000000358020272&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HN P&TS=1101021932&clientId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 11, 1924. p. A15 (1 page) 3. _That Certain Party_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=2&did=000000388383241&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101021 932&clientId=65882) Tip Poff. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Nov 13, 1932. p. B13 (2 pages) Pg. 21: _Lead with Your Left_ Nobody swears to this, but they're leffing, anyhoo. 4. _Patrick Gives Rowsey Pasting; Orv Mohler Garners Four Hits; WARD TURNS IN ANGEL VICTORY Cherubs End Losing Streak After First in Row Locals Score Nine Runs in First Three Innings Stainback, McMullen, Lillard Get Circuit Clouts _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=3&did=000000388899891&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101021932&clientId=65882) BOB RAY. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current. Apr 22, 1933. p. 7 (2 pages) 5. _Radio Waves and Ripples_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=4&did=000000148042652&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS =1101021932&clientId=65882) The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Sep 4, 1933. p. 6 (1 page) 6. _Display Ad 22 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=5&did=000000460087702&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS= 1101021932&clientId=65882) Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jun 13, 1936. p. 21 (1 page) : SHE said: "I'm kinda Scotch anyhoo, and, I like your no tipping. ..." 7. _Comic 2 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=6&did=000000460317652&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=110102 1932&clientId=65882) Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Sep 18, 1936. p. 22 (1 page) (_WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM_ (http://www.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) ) _Appleton Post Crescent _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=NuHyyu1GcYSKID/6NLMW2mDdnKdqb9t1IjYb25U3ry4nyVnYmGViGw==) Wednesday, January 01, 1930 _Appleton,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:appleton+anyhoo+AND) _Wisconsin_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:wisconsin+anyhoo+AND) ...and charge it up to philanthropy. ANYHOO. r.-hat we meant to say was that.. _Daily Gazette And Bulletin _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=0Hv62RLHvjKKID/6NLMW2h2WLiqCA7LIJNdpi4T8ql2d5XSGz6G6XQ==) Friday, March 09, 1894 _Williamsport,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:williamsport+anyhoo+AND) _Pennsylvania_ (http://www.newspa perarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:pennsylvania+anyhoo+AND) ...t' same be moor thaji I can say; ANYHOO _ Anyliob, male1 n less ado.. Pg. 7: though how th' divil they maun chance to gittin t' same be moor than I can say; anyhoo--" "Anyhoo, mak' a less ado, whip up the' 'osses an' push ahead!" _Newark Daily Advocate _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=wUP6BEk4rpmKID/6NLMW2hdKc/gmurRk9GCN5ZTlw70nyVnYmGViGw==) Tuesday, February 02, 1897 _Newark,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:newark+anyhoo+AND) _Ohio_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:ohio+anyhoo+AND) ...it was before the belling: didn'tsee ANYHOO SarsapanHa The One True Blood.. (WRIGHT AMERICAN FICTION) Title: Leaves From the Diary of a Celebrated Burglar and Pickpocket Leaves Author: Anonymous Availability: _© 2001 The Trustees of Indiana University._ (http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=wright2 ;cc=wright2;sid=6ca5d9c72b38d632d89dc79ddd499a05;rgn=full%20text;q1=anyhoo;cite1r estrict=title;cite2restrict=title;cite3restrict=title;firstpubl1=1850;firstpub l2=1875;submit=S#) Print Source: Leaves from the diary of a celebrated burglar and pickpocket New York : G.W. Matsell, 1865. (Somewhere here--ed.) From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 21 08:01:57 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 03:01:57 -0500 Subject: Not in DARE/HDAS? Message-ID: Hold tight : wait a second/minute et sim. "Hold tight. I'll get you some." DARE has "Hold... To examine, to look at. 'Let me hold your program.' - Rare." This usage is quite common in BE. DARE has "Let me hold it." It's not clear to me what DARE means by "hold it," since the example appears in a section having to do with "hold" in both of the meanings, "to borrow; to lend." I'm not familiar with "hold" meaning "lend" (this is merely an observation; I'm making no claim). On the other hand, if "hold" in the cite means "lend," then I'm very familiar with that meaning. One person might say to another, "Let me hold twenty dollars till payday." I've both heard suchlike and said it a million times. -Wilson Gray From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 08:31:06 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 03:31:06 EST Subject: "Why not?" catchphrase author died Message-ID: This was in the last New York Sun. I don't know if Fred Shapiro has it or id interested. (GOOGLE GROUPS) From: _Hyfler/Rosner_ (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=author:relfyh at rcn.com+) (_relfyh at rcn.com_ (mailto:relfyh at rcn.com) ) Subject: Dayton Allen; NY Sun obit View: _Complete Thread (2 articles)_ (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&threadm=7eadnfVpmZVYdgPcRVn-ig at rcn.net&rnum=2&prev=/groups ?q=%22why+not%22+and+howdy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&scoring=d&selm=7eadnfVp mZVYdgPcRVn-ig%40rcn.net&rnum=2) _Original Format_ (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=7eadnfVpmZVYdgPcRVn-ig at rcn.net&output=gplain) Newsgroups: _alt.obituaries_ (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&group=alt.obituaries) Date: 2004-11-19 23:01:26 PST Dayton Allen, 85, TV Voice Artist BY Staff Reporter of the Sun November 19, 2004 Dayton Allen, who died November 11 at age 85, was a cast member of "The Howdy Doody Show," "Winky Dink and You," and a regular on the "Steve Allen Show," where he was known for his trademark "Why Not," delivered with manic intensity and a finger pointed in the air. In the 1960s, Allen's voice was nearly ubiquitous in such Saturday morning cartoons as "Deputy Dawg," "Mighty Mouse," and "Heckle and Jeckle," for which he was the voice of both of the madcap magpies. To the public, he surfaced in occasional news stories about his spectacular successes investing in penny stocks of Canadian mining companies. He published some of his investing theories in his memoir, "Why Not?" Allen was born in New York and went to school with the actor Art Carney, a lifelong friend. Always interested in performing, he found work as a disc jockey at WINS in 1935 and also wrote comedy bits for Vaudeville. He found work early in television as a voice of puppets, starting at "The Buffalo Bob Show" in 1947. It was soon renamed "Howdy Doody." He also worked on "The Adventures of Oky Doky," which starred Bob Keeshan, later better known as "Captain Kangaroo." "I met Keeshan in a men's room," Allen said in the oral history "The Box." "He said, 'You do a lot of voices. You'd be great for us.'" The show "was some piece of crap, but that's where I learned to work with a puppet," he said. "That thing must have weighed about a hundred pounds. I think it was made by King Kong." On "Howdy Doody," Allen was the voice of the mayor, Phineas T. Bluster, as well as the odd mish-mash monster Flub-a-Dub. Early TV played to Allen's strengths as an improviser. "You could do anything, as long as you remembered who the stars were, and the Peanut Gallery wasn't there," Allen told the Miami Herald in 2000. "There was a script, but we never stuck to it. [Buffalo] Bob was the greatest straight man. He'd fall on his face whatever I said." Allen added that he came close to being fired for risque ad-libs, and that "Howdy Doody" was eventually taken off the NBC studio tour because rehearsals got so "blue." In 1953, he moved to "Winky Dink and You," where he was the voice of the puppet Mr. Bungle. In 1956, he began work on "Heckle and Jeckle," the first of hundreds of cartoons he would eventually voice. He also became a semi-regular on the "Steve Allen Show," appearing as a bogus expert or man on the street. In one episode, Steve Allen introduced Dayton Allen as "Dr. Harvey L. Dayton," a world-famous surgeon and headache expert. Dayton: "Why not! Being a very famous surgeon, I have even worked in hospitals. Sometimes I would aid in helping around! Surgery to me is more than just a way to make a good fast buck ..." and so on. The "Why Not?" tag line got so famous that a writer for the Los Angeles Times claimed in 1960 that it had subconsciously become part of the language. Allen appeared in an Off-Broadway musical revue called "Why Not?" in 1960 and that same year released a comedy album called "Why Not?" He also used the line in television commercials. The craze lasted about a year then disappeared with barely an echo. Allen moved to Hollywood Beach, Fla., in 1986, and, still in excellent health, had just moved to Flat Rock, N.C., a week before he suffered a massive stroke. Allen was married to Elvi Brown in 1958; she had worked briefly in television as hostess of the WPIX show "Gadget Gallery," in which she demonstrated new kinds of tools, and also as an NBC tour guide. Allen's brother, Bradley Bolke, was the voice of Chumley on "Underdog." Dayton Allen Born Dayton Allen Bolke on September 24, 1919; died November 11 at Flat Rock, N.C., of a hemorrhagic stroke; survived by his wife, Elvi, and brother, Bradley Bolke. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 09:28:47 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 04:28:47 EST Subject: "Dope Fiend" Sandwich: Prison Food and Slang Glossary Message-ID: DOPE FIEND SANDWICH--726 Google hits, 2 Google Groups hits A jailhouse cookbook! With a slang glossary! There's nothing much new on the culinary front. I think the "sandwich lady" left out this one: Dunn also provided the recipe for the Dope Fiend Sandwich, a treat popular in the King County Jail. It consists of two Grandma’s brand peanut butter cookies, with a smashed Snickers bar in between. "These cookies are so named because heroin addicts often come to prison craving sweets," Dunn wrote. Other sweets include Behind These Bars, Celly Smores, Short-timer Cheesecake, and, for inmates from Seattle, Convict Mocha (coffee, hot chocolate, melted candy bar). (GOOGLE NEWS) _DIET: Jail Mix, Dope Fiend Sandwich, anyone? Prison chefs tout ..._ (http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/11172004/it/48982.htm) Portsmouth Herald News, NH - Nov 17, ... Those are just a few of the tasty dishes featured in the 163-page book. There’sa helpful glossary of prison slang in the back, too. ... _This jailhouse cookbook rocks_ (http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_3326749,00.html) Knoxville News Sentinel (subscription), TN - Nov 13, ... There's a helpful glossary of prison slang in the back, too. The cookbook grew out of a community college class on how to make the transition to the outside. ... _Prison chefs tout craft in cookbook_ (http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/10178585.htm) Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC - Nov 1 ... A helpful glossary of prison slang is in the back of the book. The cookbook grew out of a community college class on how to make the transition to the outside. ... From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 21 11:52:01 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 06:52:01 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: >> I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE >> Ohio, >> in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase "from >> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home funeral, >> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others >> recognize this? > >When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried >from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, without >the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted >to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption >is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of >the great state of Texas.] Now the phrase makes sense. I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this custom begin? Bethany From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 18:54:32 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 13:54:32 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I should have said, like Wilson, that this was a phrase common in our grandparents' day; I'm not sure our parents' generation could have gotten away with home preparations (or could they?). I'd add that city or county police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel 50 miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and maintain reasonable speed. But using the State Police is new to me; I'll ask my cousin, a retired MN highway patrolman. Beverly (To clarify: Borned and raised in Minnesota (as Ralph Stanley would say), lived the past 25 years in SE Ohio, with St. Louis and So. Indiana in between. So am I a Midwesterner, a North Centraler, or a Mideasterner?) At 06:52 AM 11/21/2004 -0500, you wrote: >On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > > >> I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE > >> Ohio, > >> in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase "from > >> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home funeral, > >> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others > >> recognize this? > > > >When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried > >from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, without > >the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, > >irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted > >to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be > >confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption > >is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of > >the great state of Texas.] > >Now the phrase makes sense. > >I have assisted in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never >with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >custom begin? > >Bethany From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 21 20:12:29 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:12:29 -0600 Subject: hold tight Message-ID: from page 2 of this newsletter: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/northampton/news4hmar04.pdf "Until then just hold tight and look for more information to come in soon!" http://francisco.compbio.ucsf.edu/~jacobson/biophys206/qm_model_systems.pdf "This is all a bit abstract for now, but hold tight." http://www.unc.edu/~echeran/paadanool/pdf/introduction.pdf "Until then, hold tight." http://www.webs.uidaho.edu/facultycouncil/2002-2003%20Council/Minutes/02-03F CMeeting07.pdf "He told everyone to "hold tight and enjoy the ride." " From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 21 20:16:22 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:16:22 -0600 Subject: another dayton allen obit Message-ID: http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2004_11_14.html#009205 From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 21 21:30:38 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 16:30:38 -0500 Subject: hold tight In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 3:12 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: hold tight > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > from page 2 of this newsletter: > http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/northampton/news4hmar04.pdf > "Until then just hold tight and look for more information to come in > soon!" > > > http://francisco.compbio.ucsf.edu/~jacobson/biophys206/ > qm_model_systems.pdf > "This is all a bit abstract for now, but hold tight." > > > http://www.unc.edu/~echeran/paadanool/pdf/introduction.pdf > "Until then, hold tight." > > > http://www.webs.uidaho.edu/facultycouncil/2002-2003%20Council/Minutes/ > 02-03F > CMeeting07.pdf > "He told everyone to "hold tight and enjoy the ride." " > Good cites. -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 21 22:14:55 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 17:14:55 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 1:54 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I should have said, like Wilson, that this was a phrase common in our > grandparents' day; I'm not sure our parents' generation could have > gotten > away with home preparations (or could they?). I'd add that city or > county > police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in > Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel 50 > miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and > maintain > reasonable speed. Yes. My grandfather was buried in Longview and not in Marshall. > But using the State Police is new to me It could have been the fact that Marshall and Longview are in separate counties that motivated the use of the state police as opposed to the local law. Also, I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers. I remember only the "uptown" parking-control guy who rode about on a Harley-Davidson three-wheeler. (Any bikers out there can supply the actual name of this thing.) There was some way of getting people behind bars, since my granddad's nephew, an alcoholic, spent a lot of time there. But that's all that I know. Marshall was/is? one of those places where the signs told you when nobody was home: "Railway Express man, key is under doormat. Money is in envelope on kitchen table." -Wilson Gray > ; I'll ask my > cousin, a retired MN highway patrolman. > > Beverly > (To clarify: Borned and raised in Minnesota (as Ralph Stanley would > say), > lived the past 25 years in SE Ohio, with St. Louis and So. Indiana in > between. So am I a Midwesterner, a North Centraler, or a > Mideasterner?) > > At 06:52 AM 11/21/2004 -0500, you wrote: >> On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: >> >>>> I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in >>>> SE >>>> Ohio, >>>> in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase >>>> "from >>>> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home >>>> funeral, >>>> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others >>>> recognize this? >>> >>> When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried >>> from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, >>> without >>> the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >>> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is >>> escorted >>> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >>> confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption >>> is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of >>> the great state of Texas.] >> >> Now the phrase makes sense. >> >> I have assisted in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but >> never >> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >> custom begin? >> >> Bethany > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 21 22:17:10 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:17:10 -0800 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin Message-ID: Randy Quaid, interviewed by Lillian Ross (in The New Yorker of 11/22/04, p. 39) about his role in Sam Shepard's new play, "The God of Hell": ----- Quaid, who lives in Beverly Hills with his wife, Evi, explained that he had to develop a Wisconsin accent for his role as a dairy farmer. "I had to make my 'r's more pronounced," he said. "Wisconsinites talk from the front of their mouths, because they don't want to breathe in the cold." ------ arnold, guessing that the intended parsing was [breathe in] [the cold], not [breathe] [in [the cold]] From preston at MSU.EDU Sun Nov 21 23:13:34 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 18:13:34 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <16A5DFB4-3C0B-11D9-9700-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: Good parsing arnold, but there does appear to be one phonological element which Wisconsonites have which is not shared with even their close Sotan and (some) Michigander talkalikes. The syllable division of the state name is wI - skan - s at n not wIs - con - s at n as the rest of us have it. It appears to be lexical rather than general (since they do not do funny things with the syllable division for such words as 'miscalculate'). Ah mimber whin Ah first wint up there frum Loovull to git me mah PhD how odd it sounded. I couldn't even figger out what they was doin fer a long time. Cheeseheads; funny talkers. dInIs >Randy Quaid, interviewed by Lillian Ross (in The New Yorker of >11/22/04, p. 39) about his role in Sam Shepard's new play, "The God of >Hell": >----- >Quaid, who lives in Beverly Hills with his wife, Evi, explained that he >had to develop a Wisconsin accent for his role as a dairy farmer. "I >had to make my 'r's more pronounced," he said. "Wisconsinites talk >from the front of their mouths, because they don't want to breathe in >the cold." >------ > >arnold, guessing that the intended parsing was > [breathe in] [the cold], not > [breathe] [in [the cold]] -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 00:31:43 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 19:31:43 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >Good parsing arnold, but there does appear to be one phonological >element which Wisconsonites have which is not shared with even their >close Sotan and (some) Michigander talkalikes. The syllable division >of the state name is > >wI - skan - s at n > >not wIs - con - s at n > >as the rest of us have it. or more accurately w at - , with less stress than the out-of-staters version below. Note the "transcription" below, from a nice piece from a few years ago featuring novelist Lorrie Moore: ===== The New York Times November 28, 1998, Saturday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section B; Page 9; Column 1; Arts & Ideas/Cultural Desk HEADLINE: Life Is Grim? Yes, but Good For a Laugh BYLINE: By BRUCE WEBER DATELINE: MADISON, Wis. "Wa-SKAHN-sin," Lorrie Moore said, articulating the syllables carefully, a lesson in local linguistics. "What you do, instead of breaking the syllables between the S and the C, you break between the A -- not usually in Wisconsin, of course -- and the S. So it's W-A, then there's a break, and there's S-K-A, with a nasal A." She was entertaining herself, much the way the characters in her stories and novels often do, playing with words, turning them this way and that, being impossibly clever. In the stories, it's usually a sign of a character's nervousness or discomfort or sense of crisis. "An attempt to amuse in times of deep unamusement," is the author's description of the impulse. But Ms. Moore herself, a reluctantly transplanted New Yorker walking the campus of the University of Wisconsin here, where she has taught in the English department for 14 years, seemed genuinely amused: Look how well I've assimilated! "I came here in the fall of 1984, and really, I thought 'Uh-uh,' " she said. "I was 27, by far the youngest person in the department. Everybody then was living the life that I'm living now, where you go to bed at 9:30 because your kids get you up at 6:30. I actually like Madison now. But it's a wonderful place to have a kid. When you start to have a little arthritis in the knees, it's easy to get around." [etc.] ===== > >It appears to be lexical rather than general (since they do not do >funny things with the syllable division for such words as >'miscalculate'). I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. larry > >Ah mimber whin Ah first wint up there frum Loovull to git me mah PhD >how odd it sounded. I couldn't even figger out what they was doin fer >a long time. > >Cheeseheads; funny talkers. > >dInIs > From douglas at NB.NET Mon Nov 22 01:09:29 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 20:09:29 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >The syllable division >of the state name is > >wI - skan - s at n > >not wIs - con - s at n > >as the rest of us have it. I didn't notice anything odd when I moved to Wisconsin. AFAIK, I've always said /wI skan s at n/, although I grew up in Detroit. Never thought about it, though. I say /dI sk at rIdZ/ and /dI skard/ too, I guess, but /mIs k&lkjulejt/. I suppose if I read aloud the unfamiliar word "discalculate" I would say /dIs k&lkjulejt/. I say /mI stejk/ but /mIs trit/, I think. The /I/ is more schwa-like when it doesn't have the following /s/ in the same syllable, I think. I suppose my tendencies are quite conventional in these things? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 01:23:14 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 20:23:14 -0500 Subject: Oyster Pan Roast & Seafood Pan Roast & Olympia Pan Roast (1899) Message-ID: Someone forwarded me the following. "Seafood pan roast" was invented in New York City? Let's get our pan roasts straight. There is "Olympia Pan Roast" that the OED ("miserable on food") says dates from 1907 but a quick check shows 1899. This is from Washington State. There is "Oyster Pan Roast," made famous by the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal. However, the dish pre-dates even the Oyster Bar and probably was served in Coney Island hotels in the late 1800s. Then there is "Seafood Pan Roast," which is later and I'm too lazy to work on right now. (FACTIVA) SEAFOOD PAN ROAST IN BELLTOWN 299 words 19 November 2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer FINAL 5 English Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. Q: I just got back from Reno, where I discovered "seafood pan roast." We were told this dish had come from New York City and was adopted by quite a few of the casino oyster bars. Is there any place in the Seattle area that serves this type of seafood stew? - Sherwin, a pan roast fan A: You are one lucky devil, Sherwin. Alexandria's on 2nd (2020 Second Ave.; 206-374-3700), a new Southern-cuisine restaurant, offers a delicious, generous-sized seafood pan roast featuring lobster tail, shrimp and bay scallops atop a mound of fresh peas, corn, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes in a fish stock-based sauce made with heavy cream ($26.95). Chef Michael Franklin's seafood pan roast is similar to one made famous at Justin's, the New York and Atlanta white-tablecloth soul food restaurants opened by Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. Franklin once worked as a chef at Justin's. I'm not sure how either of these seafood pan roasts compares to what you tried in Reno, where, I've read, the Silver Legacy Hotel Casino sets the standard for this dish. Having spent some 20-plus days in Reno during each of the 1999 and 2000 holiday seasons, gift-wrapping Amazon.com purchases in its Fernley warehouse, I never had the opportunity, much less the energy, to survey the seafood pan roast casino phenomenon. Maybe next time, when I'm not working the night shift. - Penelope Corcoran (FACTIVA) FOOD NY SEAFOOD HOUSE CONTINUES TRADITION Series: NEW YORK'S MASTER CHEFS 928 words 23 May 1985 The Dallas Morning News HOME FINAL 14E English (Copyright 1985) Since the Grand Central Oyster Bar opened its doors in 1913, smart commuters and diners have filled the enormous rooms of this landmark institution to sample the best in fresh seafood. The team that maintains the restaurant's fine reputation, Chef Stanley Kramer, Pastry Chef Peter Roggensinger and George Morfogen, seafood buyer, share their secrets when they appear on New York's Master Chefs at noon Saturday on Channel 13/KERA. Kramer prepared his famous Oyster Pan Roast, fresh oysters simmered in their own juices with cream, a favorite among many New Yorkers, and Mako Shark Steak au Poivre. The show is then turned over to Roggensinger, who is responsible for The Oyster Bar's picture-perfect dessert buffet which boasts some 15 selections daily. Roggensinger's desserts include such down-home American treats as rice pudding, fruit pies and cheesecake, in addition to his daily specials -- Strawberry-Almond Galette, various mousses and sorbets, and Raspberry Honey-Almond Parfait, which he created during his segment of the program. The series' visit to The Oyster Bar wouldn't be complete without a visit with Morfogen, the restaurant's seafood buyer who is an expert on freshness. "No matter what kind of fish you buy,' says Morfogen, "the best way to keep it fresh is to place it on a bed of ice in the refrigerator. Just refrigerating it can dry it out.' New York's Master Chefs is a co-production of KQED/Golden State Productions and Exploration Television in association with WNET/Thirteen in New York. Bon Appetit, one of America's leading food magazines, is the series' culinary consultant. Here are recipes from the show. OYSTER PAN ROAST Prepare each serving separately. 2 tablespoons clam broth or juice 2 tablespoons ( 1/4 stick) butter, divided 1/4 teaspoon paprika, plus some for garnish Pinch of celery salt 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 9 shucked oysters with their liquor 1 to 2 tablespoons chili sauce 1/2 cup half and half 1 slice toast In top of double boiler, place clam broth, 1 tablespoon of the butter, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, celery salt and Worcestershire sauce; stir gently. Add oysters and simmer just until their edges start to curl, about 1 minute. Stir in chili sauce and half and half and heat through. Place slice of toast in warm bowl, pour oyster pan roast over toast, and float remaining tablespoon butter on top. Sprinkle with a pinch of paprika. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving. (FACTIVA) FEATURES - FOOD Cook's Corner OYSTER PAN ROAST 207 words 10 November 1999 THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Home Final 02F English (c) 1999 Columbus Dispatch. All Rights Reserved. For R.B., Newark, Ohio. This is the recipe from the Oyster Bar at Grand Central. Molly O'Neill included it in her New York Cookbook (Workman Publishing, $17.95). 6-8 large fresh oysters 1 tablespoon butter 3 tablespoons bottled clam juice, divided 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce Dash celery salt 1/2 cup heavy cream 1 slice white bread, toasted Dash sweet paprika Shuck the oysters. Strain and reserve their liquor. Melt butter in a nonreactive skillet over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and add the oysters, their liquor and 2 tablespoons clam juice. Cook until oysters just begin to curl around the edges, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. In a small nonreactive saucepan over high heat, whisk together hot pepper and Worcestershire sauces, celery salt and the remaining 1 tablespoon clam juice. Whisk in the heavy cream and continue whisking until the mixture comes to a boil. Add the warm oysters and their cooking liquids; stir gently 1 minute. Place the toast in a wide soup bowl. Pour the pan roast over the toast and sprinkle with paprika. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving. Cindy Moran Westerville (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) New York, N. Y.; HIS MAJESTY, THE OYSTER Clementine Paddleford. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 18, 1949. p. H21 (1 page): _Nothing, New Yorkers insist,_ _can beat the bivalve dishes_ _in Grand Central Oyster Bar_ (...) The bar opened in 1913 as the first Union News restaurant. (...) _Oyster Pan Roast_ 4 dozen oysters 1/2 pound butter or margarine 6 tablespoons chili sauce 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 1/2 cups oyster liquor 1/2 teaspoon celery salt 1 teaspoon paprika 1/4 cup light cream Salt to taste Place oysters in a deep pan. Dot over butter or margarine, add sauces, lemon juice and oyster liquor and seasonings; bring to boiling point and cook one minute, stirring constantly. Add cream and bring to boiling point. Salt to taste. Serve over toast square in soup plates. Yield: 6 portions. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Grand Central Oyster Bar Shut, but May Reopen Soon; OYSTER PAN ROAST By JOHN L. HESS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 1, 1974. p. 32 (1 page) Nick Petter, the 76-year-old head cook, who came to work there in 1919, said the bar had never changed. With a sad smile, he gave permission to publish the recipe for its famous oyster stew: OYSTER PAN ROAST 8 freshly opened oysters 1 pat of butter 1 tablespoon chili sauce 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce A few drops of lemon juice 1/4 cup oyster liquor Celery salt, a dash Paprika 4 ounces cream 1 piece of dry toast (if desired) Place all but the cream in a deep pan and cook briskly for a minute, stirring constantly. Add cream. When it comes to boil, pour over toast in a soup plate and serve. (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) Indianapolis Star Saturday, November 17, 1917 Indianapolis, Indiana ...with Bacon.... 60c New York OYSTER PAN ROAST 40c ROAST Goose, OYSTER.....Dressing ROAST Leg of Lamb, with Jelly....'. 45c.. Pg. 20, col. 5: HOFBRAU CAFE. Bismarck Tribune Tuesday, March 11, 1930 Bismarck, North Dakota ...40c Ovster Pepper ROAST 50c OYSTER PAN ROAST 50c SOUP Cream of Fresh Mushroom.....of Capon Creamed Mushrooms 60c ROAST ROAST young torn turkey, ROAST young.. Indianapolis Star Monday, November 12, 1917 Indianapolis, Indiana ...Stuffed White Pish, Egg Sauce OYSTER PAN ROAST, a la Budweiser Fried' Smelts.....Enamel Douche PAN. White Enam. Douche PAN. Perfection Douche PAN. Zinc Douche.. Pg. 14, col. 2: BUDWEISER CAFE. (OED) 2. Olympia pan roast, a dish of oysters served in a savoury sauce, originating in Olympia. 1907 Overland Monthly Dec. p. xvi/2 (advt.) Hotel Donnelly... The only restaurant in the city that makes Oyster Pan Roasts from the recipe of the originator of the famous Doane Olympia Pan Roast. 1961 Spectator 8 Dec. 879/1 American ingredients and American cooking..have always to me seemed most mysterious... Olympia pan roast (olympia is an oyster) and Green Goddess dressing..turn out to be entirely local [i.e. West Coast] inventions. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) PACIFIC COAST PROSPERITY. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Mar 12, 1899. p. 23 (1 page): "Oystermen of the East will certainly find many points of interest and profit to them by studying the oyster of the State of Washington. You may not have heard of the Olympia oyster. He is little, but he is a wonder. A good Olympia pan roast is the most delicious dish I know of. Cultivation of Eastern oysters is also in progress in our State." (BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE) 13 May 1900, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 14: 15c.--Pan roast of Oysters on Toast. 16 September 1900, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 12: OYSTER PAN ROAST, toast 15 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 03:28:06 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:28:06 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041121194150.031fc760@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 8:09 PM -0500 11/21/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>The syllable division >>of the state name is >> >>wI - skan - s at n >> >>not wIs - con - s at n >> >>as the rest of us have it. > >I didn't notice anything odd when I moved to Wisconsin. > >AFAIK, I've always said /wI skan s at n/, although I grew up in Detroit. Never >thought about it, though. > >I say /dI sk at rIdZ/ and /dI skard/ too, I guess, but /mIs k&lkjulejt/. > >I suppose if I read aloud the unfamiliar word "discalculate" I would say >/dIs k&lkjulejt/. > >I say /mI stejk/ but /mIs trit/, I think. and /mIs tUk/, I assume, for a closer minimal pair. or /mIs tajm/. > >The /I/ is more schwa-like when it doesn't have the following /s/ in the >same syllable, I think. I suppose my tendencies are quite conventional in >these things? > No doubt, but there's still the perception on the part of both sophisticated and naive speakers that /w@ skan s at n/ has more of a schwa for there-ites. I assume it correlates with degree of destressing. larry From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 03:39:15 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:39:15 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 6:13 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: the curious phonology of Wisconsin > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Good parsing arnold, but there does appear to be one phonological > element which Wisconsonites have which is not shared with even their > close Sotan and (some) Michigander talkalikes. The syllable division > of the state name is > > wI - skan - s at n > > not wIs - con - s at n > > as the rest of us have it. > > It appears to be lexical rather than general (since they do not do > funny things with the syllable division for such words as > 'miscalculate'). > > Ah mimber whin Ah first wint up there frum Loovull to git me mah PhD > how odd it sounded. I couldn't even figger out what they was doin fer > a long time. > > Cheeseheads; funny talkers. > > dInIs As fate and coincidence would have it, when my father first went up to Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was then an LlB but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation peculiar to a dialect." But this definition appears to be missing from DARE and even the word is missing from HDAS. -Wilson Gray > > > > > > >> Randy Quaid, interviewed by Lillian Ross (in The New Yorker of >> 11/22/04, p. 39) about his role in Sam Shepard's new play, "The God of >> Hell": >> ----- >> Quaid, who lives in Beverly Hills with his wife, Evi, explained that >> he >> had to develop a Wisconsin accent for his role as a dairy farmer. "I >> had to make my 'r's more pronounced," he said. "Wisconsinites talk >> from the front of their mouths, because they don't want to breathe in >> the cold." >> ------ >> >> arnold, guessing that the intended parsing was >> [breathe in] [the cold], not >> [breathe] [in [the cold]] > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African > Languages > A-740 Wells Hall > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824 > Phone: (517) 432-3099 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > preston at msu.edu > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African > Languages > A-740 Wells Hall > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824 > Phone: (517) 432-3099 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > preston at msu.edu > From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 03:44:29 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:44:29 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20the=20curious=20pho?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?nology=20of=20Wisconsin?= Message-ID: In a message dated 11/21/04 6:13:59 PM, preston at MSU.EDU writes: > wI - skan - s at n > > not wIs - con - s at n > > as the rest of us have it. > I thought fer sher that my cousins from Green Bay aspirated the "c"! Maybe they just did a lot of heavy breahing when they left the cold air of Wisconsin for granny's house in balmy Iowa at Xmas. What really stood out for me was the centralized onsets of their diphthongs. From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Mon Nov 22 04:06:23 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:06:23 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041121194150.031fc760@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: This Sotan says it the wI-skan-s at n way and finds it hard to split the /s/ and /k/ apart (the aspiration feels unnatural to me). I wonder if the original American Indian word might have something to do with it? Are you outsiders syllabifying the word artificially, maybe by analogy with mis- and dis-? Natives, and adopted natives, should know best! Like Doug, I never thought about it--until my students in Ohio commented on my pronunciation of the name. (And I should be grading their papers right now instead of writing this. . . .) At 08:09 PM 11/21/2004 -0500, you wrote: >>The syllable division >>of the state name is >> >>wI - skan - s at n >> >>not wIs - con - s at n >> >>as the rest of us have it. > >I didn't notice anything odd when I moved to Wisconsin. > >AFAIK, I've always said /wI skan s at n/, although I grew up in Detroit. Never >thought about it, though. > >I say /dI sk at rIdZ/ and /dI skard/ too, I guess, but /mIs k&lkjulejt/. > >I suppose if I read aloud the unfamiliar word "discalculate" I would say >/dIs k&lkjulejt/. > >I say /mI stejk/ but /mIs trit/, I think. > >The /I/ is more schwa-like when it doesn't have the following /s/ in the >same syllable, I think. I suppose my tendencies are quite conventional in >these things? > >-- Doug Wilson From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Nov 22 04:21:39 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:21:39 -0600 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature Message-ID: Ms. Aviv, I'm forwarding your request to the American Dialect Society. Maybe someone there will be able to help you. Offhand I don't know of any works of literature in which hot dogs figure prominently, although independent scholar Barry Popik has unearthed a wealth of "hot dog" stories/anecdotes/etc. in various humor magazines. If you're interested in that, we've just written a book (the late David Shulman is also listed as author) entitled _Origin of the Term "Hot Dog_"--- limited edition; currently at the print shop. If you're interested in that sort of material just let me know. (I'll be out of the office and away from my computer for a few days.) Sincerely, Gerald Cohen > ---------- > From: Rachel Aviv > Reply To: Rachel Aviv > Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:04 PM > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard > Subject: hot dogs in literature > > Dear Professor Cohen, > > Bruce Kraig suggested I write you. I am writing an article for the Believer (a San Francisco book review journal) about fat heroes in literature. I'm interested in talking about the role the hot dog has played in novels and poems -- I was wondering if you knew any early or current works in which hot dogs figure prominently. So far the only ones I can think of are Confederacy of Dunces and The Afterlife Diet. > I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad ("As when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it > quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true? And, if so - you don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be, do you? > > At this point, my research has been pretty limited to google searches, so if you have any suggestions, or if you could point me to a text or two, it would be a > great help -- > > Thanks very much! > > Best > > Rachel > > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 04:28:21 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:28:21 -0500 Subject: "What's the matter with Kansas?"(1896); "What's the matter with Hannah?"(1875) Message-ID: WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS--72,800 Google hits, 643 Google Groups hits WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH--26 Google hits, 0 Google Groups hits Jon Stewart recently had the author of this book (Thomas Frank) on his show. "It's flat," Stewart said. The similar phrase "What's the matter with Hannah?" is forgotten now, but it should be recorded as a possible influence. I remember a stinker of a Shelley Winters film called WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN?, but that's another story. (GOOGLE) William Allen White, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" William Allen White: "What's the Matter with Kansas?" 8/15/1896. Today the Kansas Department of Agriculture sent out a statement ... www.h-net.org/~shgape/internet/kansas.html - 11k - Cached - Similar pages 1896: What's the Matter with Kansas? What's the Matter with Kansas? William Allen White. Emporia Gazette, 15 August 1896. Reprinted courtesy the Kansas State Historical Society Website. ... projects.vassar.edu/1896/whatsthematter.html - 12k - Cached - Similar pages (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Athens Messenger Thursday, September 24, 1896 Athens, Ohio ...sin overproduction. Butthat doesn't, MATTER. KANSAS never did believi in.....nickel's worth of bluing. "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Nothinc under THE.. Daily Republican Thursday, September 03, 1896 Decatur, Illinois ...an overproduction. But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS never did believe in.....Cntza. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Today THE KANSAS Department nf.. Salem Daily News Friday, September 04, 1896 Salem, Ohio ...an overproduction. But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS never did believe in.....Arkansaw and Timbttctoo. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? We all know, yet.. Athens Messenger Thursday, October 08, 1896 Athens, Ohio ...impassable tv.'o months "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? earlier than usual.....in every way since 3SSS. I What is THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? I've u> thc villn.. Decatur Weekly Republican Thursday, September 10, 1896 Decatur, Illinois ...Craze. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Today THE KANSAS Department nf.....round trip from Deoatur, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH vou? mtod? Cascarots will.. Reno Evening Gazette Saturday, October 24, 1896 Reno, Nevada ...an over-produe'ion. But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS nevor did bellsve in.....any more. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? THE nation has grown rlcb. OTHEr.. Massillon Independent Thursday, September 17, 1896 Massillon, Ohio ...an overproduction But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS neve did believe in.....nickel's worth of bluing. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Nothing under THE.. Steubenville Herald Tuesday, September 15, 1896 Steubenville, Ohio ...nickel's worth of bluing. WHAT'S THE MATTER KANSAS? Nothing under THE shining.....au oTerproductiou. But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS never did believe in.. Ohio Democrat Thursday, September 10, 1896 New Philadelphia, Ohio ...evening and tell THEm WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS." As Mr. Stambaugh.....We failed to learn what was THE MATTER WITH KANSAS, but as THE gentleman.. CHICAGO TRIBUNE 1. HIS WIFE SAVED THE EDITORIAL.; Editor White Made Famous by the Good Judgment of His Partner in the Gazette. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Feb 28, 1897. p. 47 (1 page) 2. INSURANCE AFFAIRS.; THAT FACE! THAT FACE! Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: May 4, 1897. p. 7 (1 page) 3. Will Not Print White's Speech.; No Right to Confiscate Property. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Oct 15, 1897. p. 3 (1 page) 4. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? NOTHING. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Apr 1, 1899. p. 5 (1 page) LOS ANGELES TIMES 1. THE McKINLEY NUMBER--THIRD EDITION.; PRICES, INCLUDING POSTAGE. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 25, 1896. p. 6 (1 page) 2. THE McKINLEY NUMBER--THIRD EDITION.; PRICES, INCLUDING POSTAGE. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 26, 1896. p. 6 (1 page) 3. THE LESSON OF KANSAS. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 29, 1896. p. 6 (1 page) NEW YORK TIMES The Story of William Allen White. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Nov 2, 1901. p. BR18 (1 page): The story of William Allen White's sudden fame through his "What's the Matter with Kansas" editorial is familiar to everybody, but it is not generally known by what a narrow opportunity Mr. White got there. It seems that one Summer the wife of the author of "Stratagems and Spoils" was at Colorado Springs. When he was leaving the office to join her his foreman came in and asked what provision he had made for the editorial columns during his absence. "There on that hook," said the editor, pointing to a spike on his desk upon which was impaled a quantity of manuscript. Theforeman detained Mr. White while he glanced it over, and announced that there wasn't enough copy. "Give me a little more," he pleaded, "and I'll manage to get along." "All right," said the editor, dropping into his chair. He dashed off the vigorous paragraphs, handed them to the foreman and was off for his train. When he returned he found his desk heaped two feet deep with letters, and himself a national character. It was that last editorial that did it. (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Burlington Weekly Hawkeye Thursday, November 04, 1875 Burlington, Iowa ...And now that's just WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH that's just what we.....past and we must have our say on THE MATTER, or we might burst. It is a.. Allen County Democrat Thursday, April 25, 1878 Lima, Ohio ...nnd unsteady step shows what Is-tlic MATTER WITH HANNAH, Tin ladles are right.....you Lot ne In aud tell mo WHAT'S THE MATTER." Sho let him In, and he found.. Decatur Republican Thursday, October 18, 1888 Decatur, Illinois ...wanted. [A voice That's WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH, by doinrics. Give it.....THE Cleveland administration thus did what THE republicans were charged WITH.. Hornellsville Weekly Tribune Friday, June 22, 1888 Hornellsville, New York ...where you lag, And "th'd'x WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH THE Elmira Advertiser.....defeat THE rag And "that's WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH Han lilmira Advertiser. But.. Bismarck Tribune Friday, December 31, 1880 Bismarck, North Dakota ...by don't my youux mmi propose was tho MATTER WITH HANNAH 7 don't I turn out my.....past. Hullo, Jack said I WHAT'S THE MATTER And I gave THE lady a seat on THE.. Ohio Democrat Thursday, September 10, 1896 New Philadelphia, Ohio ...may begin to realize 'WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH.' Xow, this.....its shattered system, how and WITH what friction and loss it THE one.. Saturday Herald Saturday, October 13, 1888 Decatur, Illinois ...Compare WITH his. THE war is over WITH THE democrats, except when THEy compare.....day is THE rich man of THE future. In what oTHEr country could THE poor.. Decatur Daily Republican Friday, October 12, 1888 Decatur, Illinois ...WITH his. THE war is "over WITH THE except when THEy comiare Palmer's.....day is THE rich man of THE future. In what oTHEr country could THE poor.. Middletown Daily Argus Friday, January 15, 1897 Middletown, New York ...and Oliver Hill, entitled: "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH'.'" A silver.....said in praise of Platt. It necessary. THE had corralerl THE votes and WITH THE.. (AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES) 1. A GENERAL OCCULTATION. Joseph Sharpe. The Aldine, the Art Journal of America (1874-1879). New York: Jul 1, 1876. Vol. 8, Iss. 4; p. 140 (1 page) : For Old Probs, _alias_ Boreas, took in hand, And "that's what's the matter with Hannah!" 2. Article 9 -- No Title GOSHAWK.. Forest and Stream; A Journal of Outdoor Life, Travel, Nature Study, Shooting, Fishing, Yachting (1873-1930). New York: Jun 5, 1879. Vol. Volume 12, Iss. No. 18.; p. 352 (4 pages) 3. WHIMSICAL WOMAN. The National Police Gazette (1845-1906). New York: Jun 14, 1879. Vol. Vol. XXXIV., Iss. No. 90.; p. 7 (1 page) 4. THERE WAS A HOWL,; And it Came From the Brooklynites. AND THERE WAS A WAIL, And it Came From All the Other Clubites. A TAILENDER'S AWFUL OATH. PLAY BALL.. The National Police Gazette (1845-1906). New York: Jul 5, 1890. Vol. VOLUME LVI, Iss. No. 669.; p. 7 (1 page) (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) TOOMBS AGAIN TALKING.; UNDYING HATRED OF THE UNION. SOUTHERN WHITE REPUBLICANS MALIGNED AND YANKEES RIDICULED--HE OFFER TO MAKE A CONSTITUTION BY WHICH "THE PEOPLE" SHALL RULE AND "THE NIGGERS" NEVER BE HEARD OF. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jan 29, 1876. p. 2 (1 page): The largest county has the most representatives, no matter whether it is full of gophers or men! That's "what's the matter with Hannah, now!" (HISTORIC MISSOURI NEWSPAPER PROJECT) http://newspapers.umsystem.edu/Archive/skins/Missouri/navigator.asp?BP=OK&GZ=T&AW=1101096631140 24 October 1875, St. Louis Globe Democrat, pg. 11: But the trouble with these latter-day Williams de Faro is that they are for the most part unintelligble to all except a member of a college faculty or a professional interpreter. They can't speak English, nor can they _sprechen le Deitch_. But they _parlent Francais_ like a native Parisian. And now that's just what's the matter with Hannah: that's just what we are talking about. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 04:33:51 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:33:51 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 6:52 AM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > >>> I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE >>> Ohio, >>> in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase >>> "from >>> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home >>> funeral, >>> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others >>> recognize this? >> >> When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried >> from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, >> without >> the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted >> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >> confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption >> is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of >> the great state of Texas.] > > Now the phrase makes sense. > > I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never > with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this > custom begin? > > Bethany > Perhaps the question is, rather, "When did it end?" At my grandfather's funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police was not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black people and denied to white people. -Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 04:59:38 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:59:38 -0500 Subject: "Adam Had 'Em" (1914) Message-ID: Gotta post before midnight. I was looking for the Bronx poem when this came up as the shortest. What does Fred have? LEE SIDE O'L.A. Lee Shippey. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 5, 1928. p. B4 (1 page): Up to this moment, nineteen con-tribs have sent us in "the shortest poem," to-wit: "Adam had 'em." The only difference is in the title, some heading it "Cooties," some "fleas," some "Microbes," or what have you? But every last one, except L. M., submits it as an original poem! Sometimes we're almost inclined to fear there's nothing original, but sin. Display Ad 135 -- No Title Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Jan 28, 1951. p. G6 (2 pages): The two shortest poems I know are Ogden Nash's "The Bronx? No thonx!" amd the anonymous line concerning the antiquity of lfeas: "Adam had 'em." 1. A LINE O' TYPE OR TWO Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Dec 15, 1933. p. 16 (1 page): Adam had 'em, whatever it was: b;ind staggers, pants, freckles, taxes, automobiles, warts. Whatever it was we will never know. And, anyhow, the poem is only intended as a very classy decoration on the very swell cover of R. H. L.'s NOTEBOOK 2. A LINE O' TYPE OR TWO; OAKS FROM ACORNS. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Dec 10, 1943. p. 16 (1 page) 3. Bookman's Holiday; Sixteen Lines by Thirteen Bards DELOS AVERY. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jun 23, 1946. p. B4 (1 page) 3. Queries and Answers; Queries and Answers New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 16, 1925. p. BR21 (2 pages) First page:_"Adam Had 'Em"_ L. L.--I should be very glad if some one could help me to find a poem which I suppose is entitled "Adam and the 'Appile' Tree." I heard a lady give it as a reading and I remember this much: "Talk about troubles Adam, he had'em, Adam and the 'appile' tree." 4. Queries and Answers New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 4, 1926. p. BR23 (1 page) 5. Queries and Answers New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 25, 1926. p. BR20 (1 page) 1. Other 1 -- No Title The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: May 14, 1907. p. 6 (1 page) Article image - PDF Page map Citation 2. GIFT TO COLLEGE HEAD; Faculty Presents Loving Cup to Dr. Alderman. DIPLOMAS AWARDED TO 192 All Conferred Upon Students, as Univer- sity of Virginia Bestows no Honorary Degrees -- Beta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa Initiates Officers -- Ball to the Graduates Closes Week's Festivities. Special to The Washington Post.. The Washington Post. Jun 16, 1910. p. 12 (1 page) Article image - PDF Page map Abstract 3. THREE SHORTEST POEMS.; Two That Beat That Masterpiece "Adam Had 'Em." Strickland Gillian, in the Indianapolis Star.. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Jun 5, 1914. p. 6 (1 page): The "briefest possible" referred to was our long lyric entitled "The Antiquity of Microbes." And the poem itself was: "Adam Had 'em." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 05:14:34 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:14:34 -0500 Subject: "Adam Had 'Em" (1911) Message-ID: Here's more. (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Lincoln Daily News Saturday, August 08, 1914 Lincoln, Nebraska ...The Antiquity of which reads: "ADAM HAD 'EM." Strlchland Gillilan may.....them." That was about the lost word he HAD HAD from Dick. They HAD ridden up to.. Charleroi Mail Saturday, March 25, 1911 Charleroi, Pennsylvania ...liquor men up. The Shortest Poem Made ADAM HAD 'EM. ___ Capt. Richmond Hobsori.....the effects of the heroic treatment HAD worr away the knee joint was good as.. Pg. 6(?), col. 2: _The Shortest Poem Made_ Adam Had 'em. Lincoln Daily News Saturday, June 27, 1914 Lincoln, Nebraska ...of Microbes." And the poem itself was: ADAM "HAD 'EM." Robertus speaks kindly.....kick that would have disabled a horse, HAD it struck home. Everybody under the.. Daily Commonwealth Friday, May 10, 1912 Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin ...of the Microbe." He arose and said, "ADAM HAD "em." and then sat down. "Well.....I remembered that the old rascal who HAD invaded my rooms HAD tried to make.. Pg. 7, col. 1: _Said Much in Little._ "Cy" Warman, the poet and humorist, is credited with the story of an after-dinner speaker who was called on to speak on "The Antiquity of the Microbe." He arose and said, "Adam had 'em," and then sat down. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 05:15:35 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:15:35 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 11:21 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Ms. Aviv, > I'm forwarding your request to the American Dialect Society. Maybe > someone there will be able to help you. Offhand I don't know of any > works of literature in which hot dogs figure prominently, although > independent scholar Barry Popik has unearthed a wealth of "hot dog" > stories/anecdotes/etc. in various humor magazines. If you're > interested in that, we've just written a book (the late David Shulman > is also listed as author) entitled _Origin of the Term "Hot Dog_"--- > limited edition; currently at the print shop. If you're interested in > that sort of material just let me know. (I'll be out of the office and > away from my computer for a few days.) > > Sincerely, > Gerald Cohen > >> ---------- >> From: Rachel Aviv >> Reply To: Rachel Aviv >> Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:04 PM >> To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard >> Subject: hot dogs in literature >> >> Dear Professor Cohen, >> >> Bruce Kraig suggested I write you. I am writing an article for the >> Believer (a San Francisco book review journal) about fat heroes in >> literature. I'm interested in talking about the role the hot dog has >> played in novels and poems -- I was wondering if you knew any early >> or current works in which hot dogs figure prominently. So far the >> only ones I can think of are Confederacy of Dunces and The Afterlife >> Diet. >> I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad >> ("As when a man beside a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and >> blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it >> quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true? And, if so - you >> don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be, >> do you? This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the sausage. Another word, orua [omicron-rho-upsilon-nu], dating from around 500 BCE, supposedly was used as the name of the completed sausage. -Wilson Gray >> >> At this point, my research has been pretty limited to google >> searches, so if you have any suggestions, or if you could point me to >> a text or two, it would be a >> great help -- >> >> Thanks very much! >> >> Best >> >> Rachel >> >> >> > From douglas at NB.NET Mon Nov 22 05:22:51 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:22:51 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: <8A2F4C39-3C45-11D9-BF59-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: >>>I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad >>>("As when a man beside a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and >>>blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it >>>quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true? And, if so - you >>>don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be, >>>do you? > >This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word >translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], >whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the >Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some >animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the >sausage. Maybe like a haggis. -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 05:55:35 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:55:35 -0500 Subject: Stalkerazzi, Nonstoparazzi, Poopernazi and the Superflack Message-ID: STALKERAZZI--11,400 Google hits, 484 Google Groups hits NONSTOPARAZZI--8 Google hits, 1 Google Groups hit POOPERNAZI--9 Google hits, 1 Google Groups hit SUPERFLACK--256 Google hits, 14 Google Groups hits We probably discussed "stalkerazzi" before, but it's in the news. Their nemesis is..."superflack Ken Sunshine"? We have "superflacks" now? http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix.htm November 21, 2004 -- SUPERFLACK Ken Sunshine, who reps the likes of Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake, Leonardo DiCaprio, Barbra Streisand, Ricky Martin and Hilary Duff, is on a mission to stop "stalkerazzis" - and the magazine editors who support them. Sunshine, whose client Timberlake is involved with two lawsuits regarding paparazzi, says that by buying celebrity photos for astronomical amounts, Us Weekly editrix Janice Min and Star magazine's Bonnie Fuller are creating a "dangerous atmosphere that will get somebody killed." "The situation with stalkerazzi is completely out of control in Los Angeles," Sunshine fumed. (GOOGLE NEWS) DiCaprio warns struggle with 'stalkerazzi' could end in death Independent, UK - 4 hours ago ... to investigate the latest incident in the increasingly violent clashes between stars and packs of photographers who shadow them, known as the "Stalkerazzi". ... Justin & Cameron's Snaparazzi Scuffle NBC 17.com, NC - Nov 10, 2004 ... Justin's power publicist, Ken Sunshine, said celebrities have right to privacy. "If a star is walking down the street and a stalkerazzi or a photographer gets ... Tommy Lee hopes memoir will cleanse his image CTV, Canada - Nov 4, 2004 ... by press. He's even given the cameramen plenty of cutesy names such as "nonstoparazzi," "stalkerazzi" and "poopernazi.". "You guys ... (GOOGLE) New Words In English: O - Z ... Conversation). STALKERAZZI, n. (pl. stalkerazzis) Tabloid journalist who pursues celebrities night and day, dogging their every move. [Blend ... www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ling215/NewWords/page3.html - 23k - Cached - Similar pages (GOOGLE GROUPS) Pizza, stalking and reporters ... They are called "stalkerazzi." George Clooney has taken a stand against them and now so have many others. Right on, George! You just don't get it, do you? ... alt.music.pearl-jam - Nov 19, 1996 by Madashell - View Thread (3 articles) Re: News Item from MrShowBiz ... com>>>>> Jim Carrey Gets Into Fight With Tourist Jim Carrey may want to consider joining George Clooney's efforts to stop stalkerazzi videos. ... alt.fan.jim-carrey - Nov 19, 1996 by Raquel B. Starace - View Thread (2 articles) Re: HARD COPY ALERT ... (Details if requested.) Wonder if Carrey will be angry at HC if they show more Œstolen¹ footage (taken by the so-called stalkerazzi) and refuse to agree on ... alt.fan.jim-carrey - Nov 17, 1996 by Terri Buchman - View Thread (1 article) Re: More Trouble ... It's kind of a home turf thing, seems to me. OTOH, look at the boycott several stars are doing against one of the TV shows that uses "stalkerazzi" footage. ... alt.fan.keanu-reeves - Nov 9, 1996 by Tekora - View Thread (14 articles) From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Nov 22 12:32:27 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 07:32:27 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: >> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never >> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >> custom begin? > >Perhaps the question is, rather, "When did it end?" At my grandfather's >funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police was >not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >people and denied to white people. Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I referenced began in the early 1950s. Thanks, Bethany From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Mon Nov 22 14:33:41 2004 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:33:41 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <35133.69.142.143.59.1100929283.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: There's a radio commercial out now, some cell phone company (I think it was that nextel coast-to-coast program), that smashes together all three December holidays into something like chrismahanakwanzakkah. Kathleen E. Miller From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Mon Nov 22 14:37:30 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:37:30 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: I recently attended two funerals in southern Kentucky. At the first funeral, the cemetery was about six miles out of town; there was a police escort to just past the city limits, and then the funeral procession continued on its own. At the second funeral, the cemetery was only a mile or two outside of town, and the police escort continued to the cemetery. In both cases, it was local city police, not state police. The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the highway and waiting for the funeral procession to pass. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Bethany K. Dumas Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 7:32 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: >> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never >> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >> custom begin? > >Perhaps the question is, rather, "When did it end?" At my grandfather's >funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police was >not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >people and denied to white people. Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I referenced began in the early 1950s. Thanks, Bethany From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Nov 22 14:43:28 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:43:28 -0500 Subject: [?] Stalkerazzi, Nonstoparazzi, Poopernazi and the Superflack Message-ID: American Dialect Society on Monday, November 22, 2004 at 12:55 AM -0500 wrote: > >We probably discussed "stalkerazzi" before, but it's in the news. stalkerazzi ANW Vol. 72.3 stalkerazzi or stalkarazzi or stalk-arazzi DC Vol. 10.3 stalkerazzo DC Vol. 10.3 David K. Barnhart, Editor/Publisher The Barnhart DICTIONARY COMPANION Lexik at highlands.com From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 22 14:52:28 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:52:28 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <20041122050029.9B0C4B24ED@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Larry Horn sez: >>> At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >wI - skan - s at n or more accurately w at - [...] I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. <<< "Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. And if /sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole lexicon? mark by hand From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 15:42:39 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:42:39 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.2.20041122092552.0246fe40@smtp-store.nytimes.com> Message-ID: --On Monday, November 22, 2004 9:33 AM -0500 "Kathleen E. Miller" wrote: > There's a radio commercial out now, some cell phone company (I think it > was > that nextel coast-to-coast program), that smashes together all three > December holidays into something like chrismahanakwanzakkah. > A friend of mine regularly uses the term "Chriskwanzukah" with reference to holiday-gift-giving opportunities. -- Alice Faber Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 faber at haskins.yale.edu From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Mon Nov 22 16:18:15 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:18:15 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:33:41 -0500, Kathleen E. Miller wrote: >There's a radio commercial out now, some cell phone company (I think it was >that nextel coast-to-coast program), that smashes together all three >December holidays into something like chrismahanakwanzakkah. That's Virgin Mobile, and they spell it "Chrismahanukwanzakah" in their TV and print ads: http://www.virginmobileusa.com/promo/Christmas2004FourPhone.do --Ben Zimmer From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 18:27:34 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:27:34 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: <8A2F4C39-3C45-11D9-BF59-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: At 12:15 AM -0500 11/22/04, Wilson Gray wrote: >This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word >translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], >whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the >Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some >animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the >sausage. I wonder if it's rendered as "haggis" in the standard Fitzgerald translation... larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 18:54:09 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:54:09 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <20041122095140.W91696@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: At 9:52 AM -0500 11/22/04, Mark A. Mandel wrote: >Larry Horn sez: > >>>> > >At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>wI - skan - s at n > >or more accurately w at - > > [...] > >I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort >effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. > ><<< > >"Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ >takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. I admit I don't know enough to be able to empirically argue the point, but... >And if >/sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole >lexicon? ...it does tend to occur hand-in-hand with loss of transparency, as in the "mi-stake" vs. "mis-took" examples we were just discussing, or e.g. "di-sturb", "di-stort", "di-stinct" vs. "dis-taste", "dis-temper". There's even less effort involved after the resyllabification if you then drop the now totally unstressed first syllable, whence "Sconsin" for many native Badger Staters. (It's even a shibboleth, as in Kenny Mayne's pronunciation on ESPN's SportsCenter.) L From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 19:03:36 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:03:36 -0600 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: > > I'd add that city or county police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral > > processions "up home" in Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. Huntsville, AL is a city with one foot in the 21st century, and one in the 19th. About once a year, someone proposes that the city can save money be stopping the practice of police escorts from the funeral home to the graveyard. Everyone agrees that this would save money, but the proposal always gets voted down because it just doesn't seem right. I think some of the larger cities in AL have dropped the practice, though. From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Nov 22 19:04:15 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:04:15 -0800 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin Message-ID: Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond (or tonsil)?' >mark by hand From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 19:26:52 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:26:52 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 22, 2004, at 12:22 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >>>> I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad >>>> ("As when a man beside a great fire has filled a sausage with fat >>>> and >>>> blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it >>>> quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true? And, if so - you >>>> don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be, >>>> do you? >> >> This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word >> translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], >> whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the >> Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some >> animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the >> sausage. > > Maybe like a haggis. > > -- Doug Wilson > Good eye, Doug! That's a great call! -Wilson Gray From preston at MSU.EDU Mon Nov 22 19:28:39 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:28:39 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: larry, Careful with that "totally" dropped (unless totally dropped for you includes compensatory factors). I think you will hear a long /s/ in those "Sconsins" (like you hear incredibly long /n/'s in Indianapolis when it's pronounced /nnnaepl at s/. dInIs >At 9:52 AM -0500 11/22/04, Mark A. Mandel wrote: >>Larry Horn sez: >> >>>>> >> >>At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>wI - skan - s at n >> >>or more accurately w at - >> >> [...] >> >>I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort >>effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. >> >><<< >> >>"Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ >>takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. > >I admit I don't know enough to be able to empirically argue the point, but... > >>And if >>/sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole >>lexicon? > >...it does tend to occur hand-in-hand with loss of transparency, as >in the "mi-stake" vs. "mis-took" examples we were just discussing, or >e.g. "di-sturb", "di-stort", "di-stinct" vs. "dis-taste", >"dis-temper". There's even less effort involved after the >resyllabification if you then drop the now totally unstressed first >syllable, whence "Sconsin" for many native Badger Staters. (It's >even a shibboleth, as in Kenny Mayne's pronunciation on ESPN's >SportsCenter.) > >L -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 19:31:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:31:49 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 22, 2004, at 1:27 PM, Laurence Horn wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Laurence Horn > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > At 12:15 AM -0500 11/22/04, Wilson Gray wrote: >> This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word >> translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], >> whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the >> Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some >> animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the >> sausage. > > I wonder if it's rendered as "haggis" in the standard Fitzgerald > translation... > > larry > IMO, that would be a great translation, whether totally accurate or not. -Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 19:39:03 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:39:03 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:28 PM -0500 11/22/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >larry, > >Careful with that "totally" dropped (unless totally dropped for you >includes compensatory factors). I think you will hear a long /s/ in >those "Sconsins" (like you hear incredibly long /n/'s in Indianapolis >when it's pronounced /nnnaepl at s/. > >dInIs Well, I didn't actually *say* the first syllable was totally dropped, I said it was totally unstressed (whence the tendency to schwagenize the vowel) and that it's dropped by many Badger Staters. I think, it retrospect, that while some do have the long /s/ there, many don't, and for many of those who do lengthen the /s/ it's not as remarkably lengthened as the /n/ of the tri-plus-syllabic rendering of "Indianapolis". (Which would make sense, since there's less compensation involved.) L > >>At 9:52 AM -0500 11/22/04, Mark A. Mandel wrote: >>>Larry Horn sez: >>> >>>>>> >>> >>>At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>>wI - skan - s at n >>> >>>or more accurately w at - >>> >>> [...] >>> >>>I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort >>>effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. >>> >>><<< >>> >>>"Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ >>>takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. >> >>I admit I don't know enough to be able to empirically argue the point, but... >> >>>And if >>>/sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole >>>lexicon? >> >>...it does tend to occur hand-in-hand with loss of transparency, as >>in the "mi-stake" vs. "mis-took" examples we were just discussing, or >>e.g. "di-sturb", "di-stort", "di-stinct" vs. "dis-taste", >>"dis-temper". There's even less effort involved after the >>resyllabification if you then drop the now totally unstressed first >>syllable, whence "Sconsin" for many native Badger Staters. (It's >>even a shibboleth, as in Kenny Mayne's pronunciation on ESPN's >>SportsCenter.) >> >>L > > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics >Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages >A-740 Wells Hall >Michigan State University >East Lansing, MI 48824 >Phone: (517) 432-3099 >Fax: (517) 432-2736 >preston at msu.edu From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 21:12:46 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:12:46 -0600 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature Message-ID: There's a scene in _Salem's Lot_ (Stephen King) where the protagonist discusses the right way to cook hot dogs with his would-be girlfriend's father. Not written literature, but Clint Eastwood is eating a hot dog when he stops an armed robbery in one of the Dirty Harry movies. Aviv's email address didn't show up. Will you (Gerald) forward to her? > -----Original Message----- > From: Cohen, Gerald Leonard [mailto:gcohen at UMR.EDU] > Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:22 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Ms. Aviv, > I'm forwarding your request to the American Dialect > Society. Maybe someone there will be able to help you. > Offhand I don't know of any works of literature in which hot > dogs figure prominently, although independent scholar Barry > Popik has unearthed a wealth of "hot dog" > stories/anecdotes/etc. in various humor magazines. If you're > interested in that, we've just written a book (the late David > Shulman is also listed as author) entitled _Origin of the > Term "Hot Dog_"--- limited edition; currently at the print > shop. If you're interested in that sort of material just let > me know. (I'll be out of the office and away from my computer > for a few days.) > > Sincerely, > Gerald Cohen > > > ---------- > > From: Rachel Aviv > > Reply To: Rachel Aviv > > Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:04 PM > > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard > > Subject: hot dogs in literature > > > > Dear Professor Cohen, > > > > Bruce Kraig suggested I write you. I am writing an article > for the Believer (a San Francisco book review journal) about > fat heroes in literature. I'm interested in talking about > the role the hot dog has played in novels and poems -- I was > wondering if you knew any early or current works in which hot > dogs figure prominently. So far the only ones I can think of > are Confederacy of Dunces and The Afterlife Diet. > > I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the > Iliad ("As > > when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with > fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very > eager to get it quickly roasted") -- would you say that's > true? And, if so - you don't know what the exact translation > of the sausage word would be, do you? > > > > At this point, my research has been pretty limited to > google searches, > > so if you have any suggestions, or if you could point me to > a text or > > two, it would be a great help -- > > > > Thanks very much! > > > > Best > > > > Rachel > > > > > > > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 22:14:31 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:14:31 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 22, 2004, at 7:32 AM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > >>> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but >>> never >>> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >>> custom begin? >> >> Perhaps the question is, rather, "When did it end?" At my >> grandfather's >> funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >> be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >> at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >> panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >> expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police >> was >> not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >> people and denied to white people. > > Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I > referenced began in the early 1950s. > > Thanks, > Bethany > In the _early_ '50's? That's surprising! Were the funerals in a dry county or a wet one? Marshall's both the county seat of a _dry_ county _and_ the home of the East Texas Babdis (i.e. Baptist) University, Hence, it's a more Christian location than some other towns and most cities in Texas, not to mention that my grandfather was himself a minister. Given the generally high level of holiness in the region and on this occasion, perhaps the Lord God of Hosts Himself spake unto some desk sergeant at the local state-police barracks.;-) -Wilson From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 22:15:11 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:15:11 -0600 Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? Message-ID: >From _The American Golfer_, December, 1915, No. 2, p. 90-100. "Players of the Period - VI. Mr. Edward Blackwell" "He has suppressed the craving and given himself contentment, but when the time for reunion has come again he has gone the whole length, as we say in slang, and in a fine enthusiasm has pursued this game on the east coast and the west, among the highlands and the lowlands of his own north Britain, and then by the shores and in the nooks and crannies of England and in the very heart of it where he has made his home in Worcestershire." I found a couple of other cites from this magazine in which "the whole length" has more or less the same meaning we currently ascribe to "the whole nine yards". Apparently it was thought of as a slang phrase then. I haven't searched for it in any other sources. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 22:16:25 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:16:25 -0600 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: > perhaps the Lord God of Hosts Himself spake unto > some desk sergeant at the local state-police barracks.;-) > Maybe He threatened to smite him. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 22:39:47 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:39:47 -0600 Subject: short slang story Message-ID: This is short enough it seemed proper to send it in total. "A Golf Fable in Slang" Wilbur L. Smith, _The American Golfer_, February, 1913, No. 4, p. 316-317. A GOLF FABLE IN SLANG BY WILBUR L. SMITH. (With apologies to Geo. Ade.) Once there was a Bachelor, 5 ft. 7 in. tall, who Tipped the Toy of the Blind Goddess of Justice at 277 lbs. Plus (in his Stocking Feet) and in order to Eliminate a few Pounds of Excess Baggage, he decided that Golf would be just about the Proper Caper. It so happened that there was a Skinny, Suffragette, Bachelor Maid, of uncertain Vintage, 5 ft. 7 in. tall who, in a Salome Costume, weighed just 100 lbs. Minus, and was Advised to play "Goff" to gain a few Ounces of Upholstering for her Slats. It also happened that there was a Smart Boob who was Hep to the Ideas of this Abnormal Pair, and Introduced this Human Steam Roller to the Human Darning Needle, and what was the Result? Answer: We shall Discern later. They were members of the Dubbmore Golf Club, and one Bright, Sunshiny Day, in the Pup Days of August, decided to go out for the P. M. and see if they could not Accomplish their Fell Designs. They engaged a couple of caddies to Tote the Junk and Teed off at No. 1. The Human D. N. used to play some Croquet, and held the Ladies' Open Championship Cup of the Summer Colony at Swamphurst, and knew something about a Sphere. She teed the ball carefully and Deliberately and Drove off. The Human S. R. had so much Abdominal Excess, and Extended over the Building Line so far, that when he Addressed the Ball he could not see it, but after two Vicious Stabs succeeded in hitting it (his Caddie said to the other Robber: "Gee! he couldn't hit a Bale of Hay with a Mallet") and the Pill Stopped in a nice Pot Bunker just 32 yards away-his Afternoon Affinity being over by a good Hair Mattress. She holed out in 9 (par 4). He in 14. At No. 2 tee she made a B-e-a-utiful drive, viz.: 32 yards, and he topped two times into a stream that was 10 yards from the tee-4 feet across at High, perfectly dry at Low tide- losing the ball. (His Philosophical caddie informed him that they would have a Revenue Cutter with a Diver, Anchored there next Season.) She made an 8 and He 14 (par 3). They Excavated the Course in Spots, Flubdubbed around, lost several of the Elusive Pills, and otherwise Laboriously Wormed their way to No. 13. His Collar was as Wet as Sop, and He was all Mussed-Up. Her Face was Devoid of Powder, Revealing a few Transverse Sub-Stratum Bunkers. At this tee, Dear Reader, she made the only Decent Drive of the day, for the ball Ceased Ambling 97 yards Down the Center. He, for the first time, Connected with the ball, for a Horrible Slice; Wafted it 210 yards, West S. W. ¾ W. into the Tall Timber (the course he should have Navigated was East S. E. ½ E.), and up to Going to Press the Sphere is still Ricocheting Around in the Conservation District. After this Horrible Episode he was quite Desperate and Muttered: "Curses; the Devil is in the Ball today" and Suggested to his Laurel Crowned Opponent that they Repair to the Life Saving Station-which they do. After the Showers, she tried some Oolong with a bit of Lemon and Instructor Crackers-he Lapped up a few with Maraschino Cherries in 'em. then took her back to her Home in his Limozette. For Dinner she ate one Reed Bird with a piece of Dry Toast, and was restless on her Downy Couch during the Whole Night. He went to his Club for Dinner, and told the waiter he was so hungry that he could Eat a Raw Mule Stuffed with Fire-Crackers-so the waiter brought him an Extra Porter-house with Frills and Bubble Juice, and later when he went to the Hay, Slept like Capt. Kidd. When he "Weighed in" the next morning he Threw a Fit, for the Scales Showed a Net Gain of 4 lbs. Plus. He telephoned her, and Horrors Above-she had lost-weighed 97 lbs. Minus. Moral: It was ever thus in a Golfer's happiest hour, to see some fondest hope Collapse. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Mon Nov 22 22:46:58 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:46:58 -0500 Subject: short slang story Message-ID: Rats! I though you had found "mulligan." Or "skins." :( SC ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" To: Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 5:39 PM Subject: short slang story > This is short enough it seemed proper to send it in total. > > "A Golf Fable in Slang" Wilbur L. Smith, _The American Golfer_, February, > 1913, No. 4, p. 316-317. > > A GOLF FABLE IN SLANG > BY WILBUR L. SMITH. > (With apologies to Geo. Ade.) > > Once there was a Bachelor, 5 ft. 7 in. tall, who Tipped the Toy of the Blind > Goddess of Justice at 277 lbs. Plus (in his Stocking Feet) and in order to > Eliminate a few Pounds of Excess Baggage, he decided that Golf would be just > about the Proper Caper. It so happened that there was a Skinny, > Suffragette, Bachelor Maid, of uncertain Vintage, 5 ft. 7 in. tall who, in a > Salome Costume, weighed just 100 lbs. Minus, and was Advised to play "Goff" > to gain a few Ounces of Upholstering > for her Slats. It also happened that there was a Smart Boob who was Hep to > the Ideas of this Abnormal Pair, and Introduced this Human Steam Roller to > the Human Darning Needle, and what was the Result? Answer: We shall Discern > later. They were members of the Dubbmore Golf Club, and one Bright, Sunshiny > Day, in the Pup Days of August, decided to go out for the P. M. and see if > they could not Accomplish their Fell Designs. They engaged a couple of > caddies to Tote the Junk and Teed off at No. 1. The Human D. N. used to play > some Croquet, and held the Ladies' Open Championship Cup of the Summer > Colony at Swamphurst, and knew something about a Sphere. She teed the ball > carefully and Deliberately and Drove off. The Human S. R. had so much > Abdominal Excess, and Extended over the Building Line so far, that when he > Addressed the Ball he could not see it, but after two Vicious Stabs > succeeded in hitting it (his Caddie said to the other Robber: "Gee! he > couldn't hit a Bale of Hay with a Mallet") and the Pill Stopped in a nice > Pot Bunker just 32 yards away-his Afternoon Affinity being over by a good > Hair Mattress. She holed out in 9 (par 4). He in 14. > > At No. 2 tee she made a B-e-a-utiful drive, viz.: 32 yards, and he topped > two times into a stream that was 10 yards from the tee-4 feet across at > High, perfectly dry at Low tide- losing the ball. (His Philosophical caddie > informed him that they would have a Revenue Cutter with a Diver, Anchored > there next Season.) She made an 8 and He 14 (par 3). They Excavated the > Course in Spots, Flubdubbed around, lost several of the Elusive Pills, and > otherwise Laboriously Wormed their way to No. 13. His Collar was as Wet as > Sop, and He was all Mussed-Up. Her Face was Devoid of Powder, Revealing a > few Transverse Sub-Stratum Bunkers. At this tee, Dear Reader, she made the > only Decent Drive of the day, for the ball Ceased Ambling 97 yards Down the > Center. He, for the first time, Connected with the ball, for a Horrible > Slice; Wafted it 210 yards, West S. W. ¾ W. into the Tall Timber (the course > he should have Navigated was East S. E. ½ E.), and up to Going to Press the > Sphere is still Ricocheting Around in the Conservation District. > > After this Horrible Episode he was quite Desperate and Muttered: "Curses; > the Devil is in the Ball today" and Suggested to his Laurel Crowned Opponent > that they Repair to the Life Saving Station-which they do. After the > Showers, she tried some Oolong with a bit of Lemon and Instructor > Crackers-he Lapped up a few with Maraschino Cherries in 'em. then took her > back to her Home in his Limozette. > > For Dinner she ate one Reed Bird with a piece of Dry Toast, and was restless > on her Downy Couch during the Whole Night. He went to his Club for Dinner, > and told the waiter he was so hungry that he could Eat a Raw Mule Stuffed > with Fire-Crackers-so the waiter brought him an Extra Porter-house with > Frills and Bubble Juice, and later when he went to the Hay, Slept like Capt. > Kidd. > > When he "Weighed in" the next morning he Threw a Fit, for the Scales Showed > a Net Gain of 4 lbs. Plus. > > He telephoned her, and Horrors Above-she had lost-weighed 97 lbs. Minus. > > Moral: It was ever thus in a Golfer's happiest hour, to see some fondest > hope Collapse. > From douglas at NB.NET Mon Nov 22 22:58:24 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:58:24 -0500 Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49796@rdec-exch8.ds.amr dec.army.mil> Message-ID: >"He has suppressed the craving and given himself contentment, but when the >time for reunion >has come again he has gone the whole length, as we say in slang, and in a >fine enthusiasm has pursued this >game on the east coast and the west, among the highlands and the lowlands of >his own north Britain, and >then by the shores and in the nooks and crannies of England and in the very >heart of it where he has made >his home in Worcestershire." > >I found a couple of other cites from this magazine in which "the whole >length" has more or less the same meaning we currently ascribe to "the whole >nine yards". Apparently it was thought of as a slang phrase then. I >haven't searched for it in any other sources. This is like "go the distance" or "go the extra mile", I suppose, and currently there is "go the whole nine yards" in similar application; however, according to the available data AFAIK, the earlier "whole nine yards" was not used this way: in the 1960's and 1970's the usual usage was "[have/get/etc.] the whole nine yards" as if the yards measured some substance rather than "go the whole nine yards" as if the yards measured a distance. The earliest "go the whole nine yards" in HDAS is 1981, while the earliest examples (1966) had IIRC something like (1) "untangle the whole nine yards [of divorce red tape]", (2) "buy/get the whole nine yards [of tonsorial treatment]", and an interjection "The whole nine yards!" in context which would suggest implicit "She offers the whole nine yards [of sex etc.]" IMHO. Of course it is not impossible that there is considerable undiscovered early "nine yards" material which would change the picture. -- Doug Wilson From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 22 23:00:06 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:00:06 -0800 Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? Message-ID: Bill, this is entirely new to me but very interesting. JL "Mullins, Bill" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Mullins, Bill" Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From _The American Golfer_, December, 1915, No. 2, p. 90-100. "Players of the Period - VI. Mr. Edward Blackwell" "He has suppressed the craving and given himself contentment, but when the time for reunion has come again he has gone the whole length, as we say in slang, and in a fine enthusiasm has pursued this game on the east coast and the west, among the highlands and the lowlands of his own north Britain, and then by the shores and in the nooks and crannies of England and in the very heart of it where he has made his home in Worcestershire." I found a couple of other cites from this magazine in which "the whole length" has more or less the same meaning we currently ascribe to "the whole nine yards". Apparently it was thought of as a slang phrase then. I haven't searched for it in any other sources. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! � Get yours free! From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 23:00:15 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:00:15 -0600 Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? Message-ID: > > Of course it is not impossible that there is considerable > undiscovered early "nine yards" material which would change > the picture. > Given the efforts by the members of this list, I would be surprised at "considerable". From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 23:26:09 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:26:09 -0600 Subject: Golf -- was: short slang story Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Sam Clements [mailto:SClements at NEO.RR.COM] > Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 4:47 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: short slang story > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Sam Clements > Subject: Re: short slang story > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Rats! I though you had found "mulligan." Or "skins." :( > > SC > The Amateur Athletic Foundation has files of American Golfer (1908 - 1920) and Golf Illustrated & Outdoor America (1914-1915) online. No mulligans, nothing on skins game. But I did find: birdie "Four-Ball Matches" Leighton Calkins, The American Golfer, November, 1908, No. 1, p. 18-20. "With all four players evenly matched, it is generally necessary for one of them to "jump out of the bunch" with a "birdie" in order to capture a hole." eagle "Around Philadelphia " by Hazard, The American Golfer, January, 1909, No. 3, p. 124-128. "A much mooted question is "who was the father of Birdies?" That distinction certainly belongs to one of the brothers Smith either A. H. or W. P. Some four or five years ago a party of Philadelphia golfers at Atlantic City decided that in order to improve their play, a premium of one ball from each player should be given the man who succeeded in making any hole in one less than par; in other words, accurate play up to the "tee," rather than onto the green in general was encouraged and rewarded. The innovation met with immediate favor, and from its nest in Philadelphia the Birdie has taken wing to all parts of the country. Sometime after the hatching of the Birdie another feathered feature was given to golf the Eagle, which soars even higher than the Birdie and is consequently doubly rewarded. To secure an Eagle one must hole out in two less than par, thereby receiving from each opponent three balls (two for the Eagle and one for the Birdie)." bogey (as a verb) "From the South " The Judge, The American Golfer, March, 1910, No. 5, p. 373-377. "The seventh hole here is close to 400 yards, first down hill and then up a rather steep incline, bogeyed at 5." "1910 Southern Championship" The American Golfer, July, 1910, No. 2, p. 131-136 "The East Lake course, 6,300 yards in length, is bogeyed as follows with distances given: [table follows]" From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 23:31:51 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:31:51 -0500 Subject: Predating "boogaloo" Message-ID: HDAS dates "boogaloo" to 1974 as a noun, to 1972 as part of a verb phrase and to 1971 as a verb, noting that all uses derive from the name of a dance popular in the 'Sixties. An otherwise-unknown singer, Kent Harris, fronting two different equally otherwise-unknown bands, Freddie Simon's Band and Ernie Freeman's Combo (Ernie Freeman did enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame as a solo act) recorded several songs under the name, "Boogaloo and His Gallant Crew," for Crest Records in 1956. -Wilson Gray From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Tue Nov 23 00:23:21 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 19:23:21 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray quoted me: >>>> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but >>>> never >>>> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >>>> custom begin? >> Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I >> referenced began in the early 1950s. then wrote: >In the _early_ '50's? That's surprising! Were the funerals in a dry >county or a wet one? Marshall's both the county seat of a _dry_ county >_and_ the home of the East Texas Babdis (i.e. Baptist) University, >Hence, it's a more Christian location than some other towns and most >cities in Texas, not to mention that my grandfather was himself a >minister. Given the generally high level of holiness in the region and >on this occasion, perhaps the Lord God of Hosts Himself spake unto some >desk sergeant at the local state-police barracks.;-) I have no idea whether the county was wet/dry! But one of the burials was of my maternal gf, a local Primitive Baptist preacher - I don't think the degree/brand of Christianity made any difference. If you know central TX, think Gonzales/Waelder = Gonzales County. Bethany From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 23 02:29:20 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 21:29:20 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 22, 2004, at 7:23 PM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray quoted me: > >>>>> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but >>>>> never >>>>> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >>>>> custom begin? > >>> Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I >>> referenced began in the early 1950s. > > then wrote: > >> In the _early_ '50's? That's surprising! Were the funerals in a dry >> county or a wet one? Marshall's both the county seat of a _dry_ county >> _and_ the home of the East Texas Babdis (i.e. Baptist) University, >> Hence, it's a more Christian location than some other towns and most >> cities in Texas, not to mention that my grandfather was himself a >> minister. Given the generally high level of holiness in the region and >> on this occasion, perhaps the Lord God of Hosts Himself spake unto >> some >> desk sergeant at the local state-police barracks.;-) > > I have no idea whether the county was wet/dry! But one of the burials > was > of my maternal gf, a local Primitive Baptist preacher - I don't think > the > degree/brand of Christianity made any difference. > > If you know central TX, think Gonzales/Waelder = Gonzales County. > > Bethany > Good point. BTW, folk in Marshall pronounce "y'all" in the ordinary, expected way. However, when Marshallites pronounce the long form, "you-all," it sounds like "YEW-wall." But there's nothing particularly noticeable about the way "you was/were you wish you would" etc. are pronounced. Ever notice anything like that? -Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Nov 23 03:11:36 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 22:11:36 EST Subject: "Faked into the popcorn machine" (1966) Message-ID: FAKED INTO THE POPCORN MACHINE--23 Google hits, 11 Google Groups hits ProQuest's Los Angeles Times is now at March 1967! It's advanced three months just now! We'd been waiting months for movement--and now we've got three more digitized months! Still no "slam dunk," but I found the following to be worth recording. _Hearn: a Snap, a Crackle and a Popcorn Machine_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000496069442&SrchMode=1&sid=25&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD& RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101178652&clientId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Mar 18, 1966. p. B1 (1 page): He (Chic Hearn--ed.) is most famous for having players "faked into the popcorn machine," but Hearn's invention does not stop there. He's never more than a syllable behind the action. The "dribble-drive," "give-and-go" are Hearn-ese, not basketball-ese. Any game needs imaginative synonyms for standard plays--"red dog" for a three-man rush, "hummer" for fastball, and "she's going, going, GONE!" for a dramatic home run instead of just simply "and Snyder hits a home run." (Again, sorry for no "slam dunk"--ed.) From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 23 04:55:45 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 23:55:45 -0500 Subject: "Faked into the popcorn machine" (1966) Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 10:11 PM Subject: "Faked into the popcorn machine" (1966) > He (Chic Hearn--ed.) is most famous for having players "faked into the > popcorn machine," but Hearn's invention does not stop there. >"give-and-go" 1947 at Proquest--pre-dates Hearn. > Hearn-ese, not basketball-ese. Any game needs imaginative synonyms for standard > plays.... "she's going, > going, GONE!" for a dramatic home run instead of just simply "and Snyder hits a > home run." Which existed many, many years before Hearn. Sam Clements From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 23 07:10:03 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 02:10:03 -0500 Subject: Baseball Magazine (was: Golf -- was: short slang story) Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:26:09 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: >The Amateur Athletic Foundation has files of American Golfer (1908 - 1920) >and Golf Illustrated & Outdoor America (1914-1915) online. http://www.aafla.org/search/search.htm Looks like a great resource. I see that they also have Baseball Magazine (1908-1918), which should prove quite useful. Here's a modest antedating to start the ball rolling: "submarine (pitcher)" (Proquest 1917, Dickson 1919) http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0402D&L=ads-l&P=R276 How the National League Champions Flivvered in the Big Series Wm. A. Phelon, Baseball Magazine, December, 1916, No. 2, p. 16-28 For Boston, the confident submarine thrower, Carl Mays, he who pitches from the strangest of positions: standing on his head and arching the ball upwards—was given a lovely beating, and Foster finished in splendid fashion, despite a crippled arm. --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 23 07:36:29 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 02:36:29 -0500 Subject: Predating "boogaloo" Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:31:51 -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: >HDAS dates "boogaloo" to 1974 as a noun, to 1972 as part of a verb >phrase and to 1971 as a verb, noting that all uses derive from the name >of a dance popular in the 'Sixties. > >An otherwise-unknown singer, Kent Harris, fronting two different >equally otherwise-unknown bands, Freddie Simon's Band and Ernie >Freeman's Combo (Ernie Freeman did enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame as >a solo act) recorded several songs under the name, "Boogaloo and His >Gallant Crew," for Crest Records in 1956. But what about the late boogie-woogie piano player Abie "Boogaloo" Ames (1918-2002)? Washington Post, February 8, 2002 At the age of 5, Mr. Ames began playing piano, and his style earned him the nickname "Boogaloo" in the 1940s. He moved to Detroit as a teenager and started a band, touring Europe with Louis Armstrong in 1936. He worked at Motown Studio and befriended other great musicians such as Nat King Cole and Errol Garner. See also: http://www.shs.starkville.k12.ms.us/mswm/MSWritersAndMusicians/musicians/BoogalooAmes/BoogalooAmes2.html --Ben Zimmer From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 23 14:15:13 2004 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 06:15:13 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49791@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: Police escorts of funerals, once commonplace in the Salt Lake City area, are now rare. This was never, to the best of my knowledge (i.e., my father's funeral 40 years ago) a free service, so escalating cost (liability, more time because of heavier traffic and greater distances, better police pay, etc.)is probably a major factor in the demise of this practice. --- "Mullins, Bill" wrote: > > > I'd add that city or county police (or > sheriffs) always escort funeral > > > > processions "up home" in Minnesota, and I > presume everywhere else. > > Huntsville, AL is a city with one foot in the 21st > century, and one in the > 19th. > About once a year, someone proposes that the city > can save money be stopping > the > practice of police escorts from the funeral home to > the graveyard. Everyone > agrees > that this would save money, but the proposal always > gets voted down because > it just > doesn't seem right. > > I think some of the larger cities in AL have dropped > the practice, though. > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 23 15:10:19 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 10:10:19 EST Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: Wilson Gray writes: > BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, > irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted > to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be > confused with the Texas Rangers). > I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers The town of Marshall had no town marshal? It is said that the reason the US Army does not have the rank of "Marshal" or "Field Marshal" is that the first man to be considered for such a rank was General (i.e. then four stars) George C. Marshall, and he refused to become "Marshal Marshall". It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to Field Marshal was Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason unknown to me, instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." A Texas Ranger cannot be described as a "peace officer" because the Rangers are theoretically not a police force but rather the private army of the State of Texas. Beverly Flanigan writes: > I'd add that city or county > police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in > Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel 50 > miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and maintain > reasonable speed. Wilson Gray writes: > At my grandfather's > funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to > be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police > at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused > panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, > expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police was > not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >people and denied to white people. John Baker writes: > The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the highway and > waiting for the funeral procession to pass. More than a custom; it is part of good driving practice and may be state law in most states. At least it may be state law that once a convoy (any convoy on the road, not only a funeral procession) passes a traffic light and the light turns red, the convoy keeps going. The custom of having the headlights on in a funeral procession has nothing to do with respect for the deceased. It is a warning to other motorists that this is a convoy. In fact, convoys other than funeral processions (which generally means military convoys) also have headlights on. As for the police escort, that is because a funeral procession, regardless of race creed or hairstyle, is an equal-opportunity creator of traffic problems. It is not a "service provided to white people" but rather a necessity for the police department, one of whose duties is to clear up trafic problems. Wilson Gray writes: > when my father first went up to > Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was > then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his > Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up > yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my > Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal > pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation > peculiar to a dialect." I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an Irish accent. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 23 15:19:08 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 10:19:08 EST Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature Message-ID: There is a Greek word for "sausage", namely "allas" or "allant-". It became New Latin "allantois" from which we get the English words "allantoin" and "allantois". Not to be confused with "Alan", an Indo-European people who got scattered from the Volga to North Africa by the Huns, or the Irish god "Allun". I seem to recall that one of Aristophanes's plays (perhaps "The Clouds") had a major character who was a sausage-seller. Sausage-making may go back to prehistoric times (I'm sure haggis does, but prehistoric in Scotland means before the Roman conquest of Britain, only two millenia ago). That's because sausage-making was one of the main methods of preserving meat before refrigeration, the others being salting, smoking, and drying. - Jim Landau From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Nov 23 15:55:05 2004 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 07:55:05 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <198.328cb884.2ed4acdb@aol.com> Message-ID: > It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. > However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to > Field Marshal was > Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason > unknown to me, > instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." The post and rank of "General of the Armies of the United States" was actually created in 1799 by Congress for Washington, but he died before it was conferred on him. Washington died with the rank of Lieutenant General. In 1800 after Washington's death, Congress suspended the rank. In 1976, the rank was posthumously conferred on him. Congress revived the post and rank in 1866, changing the title slightly to "General of the Army of the United States," and appointing Grant to the post. William T. Sherman succeeded Grant in the title when the latter was inaugurated president in 1869. In 1888, the ranks of Lieutenant General and General of the Army were merged and Philip Sheridan was also granted the rank of General of the Army--a month before he died. The rank was again suspended with the death of Sherman in 1891. The rank was again revived in 1919 and Pershing appointed to the post. In this revival the title was again fashioned with the plural "Armies." The exact reason for choices of singular/plural is unknown. Pershing held the rank until his death in 1948. In 1944, Congress enacted a new law authorizing the ranks of "General of the Army" and "Fleet Admiral." Technically, this is a different rank and office than Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Pershing held, although the title is the same. This is the rank that Marshall, Eisenhower, et.al. were appointed to. Initially, these new ranks were to be temporary. Congress made them permanent in 1946. (Source: https://www.perscom.army.mil/tagd/tioh/rank/goa.htm) --Dave Wilton dave at wilton.net http://www.wilton.net From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Nov 23 16:07:11 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 11:07:11 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041123050014.0E240B26F1@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: FRITZ JUENGLING asks: >>> Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond (or tonsil)?' <<< i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, punctuation, capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon naturallyspeaking to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, etc., and sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my tendinitis. i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name was mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he shortened it. i like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather than to avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees and left only the nuts. aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; french also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can see, "by hand" is away from the tonsils! it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that eng. "dozen" is '(group of) 12'. -- mark by hand From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Nov 23 16:37:20 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 08:37:20 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: Mark, I didn't know about the '15' meaning. Names are often so interesting. I have a kid whose last name is Breivogel. He naturally thinks that it has something to do with birds, but such is not the case. A Breivogel is not a bird, altho it probably alludes it one. My last name gets slaughtered all the time. I am used to it and even enjoy the variations I get. ALmost no one here at the school can even spell it. I've gotten about 20 different spellings on various notes. Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and paid with my plastic. The lady who took it, who is from China, informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if I remember correctly. It's all good:) Fritz Juengling aka Zhueng-ling >>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/23/04 08:07AM >>> FRITZ JUENGLING asks: >>> Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond (or tonsil)?' <<< i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, punctuation, capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon naturallyspeaking to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, etc., and sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my tendinitis. i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name was mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he shortened it. i like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather than to avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees and left only the nuts. aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; french also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can see, "by hand" is away from the tonsils! it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that eng. "dozen" is '(group of) 12'. -- mark by hand From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 23 17:07:06 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:07:06 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Fritz, You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. Of course familiarity does not always breed accuracy; when I was in Madison WI in the 12th Cent. there was a cheap beer (popular among the little moneyed) named Feuerbach pronounced 'fireback,' but the best local pronunciation of all the midwestern US German heritage beers was Griesedieck as 'greasydick.' dInIs >Mark, >I didn't know about the '15' meaning. Names are often so >interesting. I have a kid whose last name is Breivogel. He >naturally thinks that it has something to do with birds, but such is >not the case. A Breivogel is not a bird, altho it probably alludes >it one. >My last name gets slaughtered all the time. I am used to it and >even enjoy the variations I get. ALmost no one here at the school >can even spell it. I've gotten about 20 different spellings on >various notes. Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My >favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and >paid with my plastic. The lady who took it, who is from China, >informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you >were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know >how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was >able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if >I remember correctly. It's all good:) >Fritz Juengling aka Zhueng-ling > >>>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/23/04 08:07AM >>> >FRITZ JUENGLING asks: >>>> >Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond >(or tonsil)?' ><<< > >i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, punctuation, >capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon naturallyspeaking >to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako >escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, etc., and >sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my tendinitis. > >i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name was >mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he shortened it. i >like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather than to >avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees and left >only the nuts. > >aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; french >also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can see, >"by hand" is away from the tonsils! > >it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that eng. >"dozen" is '(group of) 12'. > >-- mark by hand -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Nov 23 17:49:54 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 09:49:54 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: Pronounced how? Will I be able to add another to the list? >>> preston at MSU.EDU 11/23/04 09:07AM >>> >Fritz, You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 23 18:13:13 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:13:13 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: /yingling/, stress on first syllable, which make make you even more Chinese than you thought but is also much closer to the original than doubtless many horrors you have suffered. My wife's maiden name was Guagliardo, and reports attempts on it which managed only to process the fact that is started with /g/; after that, it apparently went everywhere. dInIs >Pronounced how? Will I be able to add another to the list? > >>>> preston at MSU.EDU 11/23/04 09:07AM >>> >>Fritz, >You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your >name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Tue Nov 23 19:55:11 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:55:11 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of wisconsin Message-ID: Sorry if this is a little behind the times. As I don't receive ADS-L while it's hot but only once a day, I know there have been several replies to Mark's point "Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. And if /sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole lexicon? since he made it. Since no-one has done it, though, I think it's worth pointing out that there *are* dialects in which /sC-/ has spread across the whole lexicon. Mine, Standard Southern British English, is one of them. I think I have the following systematically: /wIskOnsIn/ --> [wI.sgOn.sIn] /mIstejk/ --> [mI.sdejk] I'm pretty sure that that's still my pattern. I also remember remarking about a year ago on the difference between my 'teen' numbers and those that I perceived from many Americans: (eg) /fIfti:n/ --> BrE [fIf.di:n], 'GenAmE' [fIf.ti:n] which seems to be a similar pattern, if not exactly the same. If I have picked up [wIs.kOn.sIn], it would just be from having been in the States for the past just over a year now. Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Nov 23 20:04:10 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:04:10 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: That's not a new one, but pretty uncommon. Interestingly, the nearest correct pronunciation of the pronunciation that I use in the US is from American German speakers (No, I don't insist upon the umlaut nor the 'L'). I have never really figured out why, tho. Fritz >>> preston at MSU.EDU 11/23/04 10:13AM >>> /yingling/, stress on first syllable, which make make you even more Chinese than you thought but is also much closer to the original than doubtless many horrors you have suffered. preston at msu.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 23 20:04:40 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:04:40 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:07 PM -0500 11/23/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>Fritz, > >You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your >name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. > If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced "Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of the panda family. --larry, whose last name presents its own problems From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 23 20:14:23 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:14:23 -0600 Subject: goof antedate Message-ID: goof (n) slang OED: 1. A silly, stupid, or daft person. 1916 Sat. Even. Post "What the Umpires Will Do" _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 62. "an' what inell didja say that goof's name was what was tuh pitch?" From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 23 20:43:27 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:43:27 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: larry's right; the beer is spelled with a "Y"; (I forgot), but the panda pronunciation is certainly what I had in mind. dInIs >At 12:07 PM -0500 11/23/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>Fritz, >> >>You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your >>name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. >> >If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, >which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation >depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced >"Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of >the panda family. > >--larry, whose last name presents its own problems -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Nov 23 22:39:57 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:39:57 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: The beginning is exactly as the English word 'you'. My American German speaking friends often rhyme it with 'book', i.e.[U] Sounds very strange to me. Fritz Juengling >>> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU 11/23/04 12:04PM >>> At 12:07 PM -0500 11/23/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>Fritz, > >You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your >name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. > If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced "Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of the panda family. --larry, whose last name presents its own problems From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 24 00:01:36 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 18:01:36 -0600 Subject: sports magazine cites Message-ID: foolish house "Theobald Boggles' Football System," Harry E. Corbet, _Baseball Magazine_, January, 1915, No. 3, p. 81-88 "Well, well, just so I don't wake up in the foolish house, or find it's all been a bad dream." blooey (OED 1920) "In the Bag " A. W. Tillinghast, _The American Golfer_, December, 1914, No. 2, p. 110-115. "Of course, He couldn't stop me and I got the ground good and plenty, Blooey!" clean up (baseball -- not in OED? Shulman (American Speech, 2/1951) has 1915) "Disappointments of a Big League Manager " Hugh Jennings, _Baseball Magazine_, September, 1912, No. 5, p. 54-56. "There is all the difference in the world between 370 and 270 in the batting of your cleanup man." "Detroit Notes - The New Home of the Tigers " _Baseball Magazine_, April, 1912, No. 6, p. 86. "He is still the cleanup man in one of the hardest hitting clubs ever gathered together and his bat may be depended upon to break up more than one close game in the coming season." hopper (OED 1914, Shulman has 1915) "The Part Luck Plays in Baseball " Wm. A. Phelon, Baseball Magazine, May, 1913, No. 7, p. 33-39. "Vice versa, a broken bat has rolled many a feeble hopper to an easy scoop, when the full swing of the unshattered stick would at least have hoisted an outfield fly that would send a runner home from third." ivory hunter (scout. this sense not in OED. Shulman has 1915.) "Short Lengths " Baseball Magazine, April, 1914, No. 6, p. 69-72 "Both these expert basepilferers came to the National League from the organization of which Louis Heilbroner, for many years Garry Herrmann's head ivory hunter, is the president." rhubarbs (not in OED; Shulman has 1915) "Training Camps " Chas. P. Stack, Baseball Magazine, March, 1914, No. 5, p. 27-30, 120. Even a kid outfielder will not be expected to make long, hard throws from the rhubarbs in the cold weather; they can save their wings and at the same time show their ability in catching the long flies or batting the whirring leather. top flight (OED has 1939, as does Shulman) "The Federal League Race " Howard B. Tyler, Baseball Magazine, October, 1915, No. 6, p. 28, 108, 110, passim. "The life of a slack wire walker balancing in a jaunt over Niagara Falls, is not a bit more nerve racking than trying to settle into a top flight berth in the Federal league." Waterbucket, foot in (Shulman has 1919, from a source copyrighted 1913) "Behind the Scenes in the Spring Training Camp " Baseball Magazine, April, 1916, No. 6, p. 19-20. "You mustn t put that hind foot in the waterbucket, because " From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 24 00:16:50 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 19:16:50 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, >which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation >depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced >"Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of >the panda family. I drink Yuengling Lager 'all the time'. "Yingling" does seem to be the most common pronunciation around here (Pittsburgh), although I never had any trouble wiith "Yuengling" [with the umlaut] either, and some people around here say "Yoongling" or "Yewngling" or so. The nickname (which seems to be universally recognized) is of course "Ying Yang". Another popular brand around here is Milwaukee's Best [made by Miller], nicknamed "Beast". -- Doug Wilson From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Wed Nov 24 00:38:23 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 19:38:23 -0500 Subject: sports magazine cites Message-ID: "Clean up hitter" appears frequently in the 1909 Washington Post. Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 7:01 PM Subject: sports magazine cites > clean up (baseball -- not in OED? Shulman (American Speech, 2/1951) has > 1915) > "Disappointments of a Big League Manager " Hugh Jennings, _Baseball > Magazine_, September, 1912, No. 5, p. 54-56. > "There is all the difference in the world between 370 and 270 in the batting From stalker at MSU.EDU Wed Nov 24 03:11:23 2004 From: stalker at MSU.EDU (James C Stalker) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 22:11:23 -0500 Subject: Stalkerazzi, Nonstoparazzi, Poopernazi and the Superflack In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I must object! Stalkers are not Italian. They are Scottish. And these guys are not falconers, albeit they are predators. It sure gets confusing, don't it. Jim Stalker Barnhart writes: > American Dialect Society on Monday, November 22, > 2004 at 12:55 AM -0500 wrote: >> >>We probably discussed "stalkerazzi" before, but it's in the news. > stalkerazzi ANW Vol. 72.3 > stalkerazzi > or stalkarazzi > or stalk-arazzi DC Vol. 10.3 > stalkerazzo DC Vol. 10.3 > > David K. Barnhart, Editor/Publisher > The Barnhart DICTIONARY COMPANION > Lexik at highlands.com > James C. Stalker Department of English Michigan State University From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Wed Nov 24 03:51:22 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 22:51:22 -0500 Subject: See you in the funny papers! Message-ID: This is an update to a 2002 thread. At that time, some newspapers were not digitized as yet. Doug Wilson offered that HDAS showed from 1926: <> The digitized Chicago Tribune has a cite from WGN(Chicago radio) in 1928, advertising a 12-1 Sunday show where "Uncle Quin" would read the "funny papers" to the kids listening along at home. This show shows up from 1927 in the Tribune. But the first "see you in the funny papers" is 1928, as spoken by Uncle Quin in a adv. for his show. 'Course Uncle Quin didn't mean he was leaving. He was actually reading the funnies to the kids in radioland. (Perhaps he signed off with something like "see you in the funny papers.") Had to do this one for my deceased great aunt. She always used to say that to me when I was leaving. Sam Clements From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Nov 24 04:20:37 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 23:20:37 -0500 Subject: OT: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich Message-ID: Cheesus! Maybe I'll cross-post this to rec.food.historic. http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20041122230809990009 Updated: 08:40 AM EST $28,000 Bid for Unique Grilled Cheese Sandwich HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (Nov. 22) - A woman who said her 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich bore the image of the Virgin Mary will be getting a lot more bread after the item sold for $28,000 on eBay. GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, confirmed that it placed the winning bid, and company executives said they were willing to spend "as much as it took" to own the 10-year-old half-sandwich with a bite out of it. "It's a part of pop culture that's immediately and widely recognizable," spokesman Monty Kerr told The Miami Herald. "We knew right away we wanted to have it." Photos posted on eBay show what can be viewed as a woman's face emblazoned on the sandwich, a bite taken out of one end. Bidding closed Monday. In a statement, GoldenPalace.com CEO Richard Rowe said he planned to use the sandwich to raise money for charity. Kerr and Steve Baker, CEO of GoldenPalace's management company, Cyberworld Group, flew to south Florida on Monday to make arrangements for a sandwich handover from its owner, Diana Duyser. "I would like all people to know that I do believe that this is the Virgin Mary Mother of God," Duyser, a work-from-home jewelry designer, said in the casino's statement. The online auction site initially pulled the sale, saying it didn't post joke items. The page was restored after the company was convinced that Duyser would deliver on the bid, said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy. Duyser said she took a bite after making the sandwich 10 years ago and saw a face staring back at her. She put the sandwich in a clear plastic box with cotton balls and kept it on her night stand. She said the sandwich has never sprouted a spore of mold. 11/22/04 23:07 EST From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 24 07:14:13 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 02:14:13 -0500 Subject: goof antedate Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:14:23 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: >goof (n) slang OED: 1. A silly, stupid, or daft person. 1916 Sat. Even. >Post > > >"What the Umpires Will Do" _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 62. >"an' what inell didja say that goof's name was what was tuh pitch?" I don't have Dickson's dictionary handy, but I know that "goof" was already used in baseball by that time (in Chicago at least) to refer to a second-string player on a team's roster who only played during spring training -- typically in intersquad games between the "regulars" (or "premiers") and the "goofs". Newspaperarchive.com has that sense of the term back to 1912: Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, March 15, 1912 Kid Gleason's goofs defeated the regulars. Lincoln (Neb.) Evening News, March 20, 1912 The White Sox premiers and Gleason's "Goofs" parted company today, the latter squad, commanded by Doc White, leaving this morning for San Antonio to begin practice on the diamond to be vacated today by Connie Mack's Athletics. ... The "Goofs" will probably remain at San Antonio the balance of the training season. (Decatur, Ill.) Daily Review, April 14, 1912 GOOFS SPANKED IN FIRST GAME German's Regulars Win Opening Tilt, 8 to 2. See also : The Cubs spent their weeks on the island playing mostly inter- squad games. The regulars versus the goofs, they were called. Looks like the Cubs and White Sox were the teams who most often called their B-squads "goofs", or perhaps they were the only teams to do so. (Someone with access to the Tribune archive might find earlier cites.) --Ben Zimmer From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Nov 24 10:59:39 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 05:59:39 -0500 Subject: OT (slightly) Re: Oyster Pan Roast & Seafood Pan Roast & Olympia Pan Roast (1899) Message-ID: The best of the pan roasts at the Oyster Bar is "combination pan roast". But it's too rich for my pocketbook. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com American Dialect Society on Sunday, November 21, 2004 at 8:23 PM -0500 wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header >----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM >Subject: Oyster Pan Roast & Seafood Pan Roast & Olympia Pan Roast >(1899) >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >Someone forwarded me the following. "Seafood pan roast" was invented in >New York City? > > >Let's get our pan roasts straight. > > >There is "Olympia Pan Roast" that the OED ("miserable on food") says >dates from 1907 but a quick check shows 1899. This is from Washington >State. > > >There is "Oyster Pan Roast," made famous by the Oyster Bar in Grand >Central Terminal. However, the dish pre-dates even the Oyster Bar and >probably was served in Coney Island hotels in the late 1800s. > > >Then there is "Seafood Pan Roast," which is later and I'm too lazy to >work on right now. > > > > >(FACTIVA) >SEAFOOD PAN ROAST IN BELLTOWN > > >299 words >19 November 2004 >Seattle Post-Intelligencer >FINAL >5 >English >Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All >rights reserved. > > >Q: I just got back from Reno, where I discovered "seafood pan roast." We >were told this dish had come from New York City and was adopted by quite >a few of the casino oyster bars. Is there any place in the Seattle area >that serves this type of seafood stew? > > >- Sherwin, a pan roast fan > > >A: You are one lucky devil, Sherwin. Alexandria's on 2nd (2020 Second >Ave.; 206-374-3700), a new Southern-cuisine restaurant, offers a >delicious, generous-sized seafood pan roast featuring lobster tail, >shrimp and bay scallops atop a mound of fresh peas, corn, mushrooms and >cherry tomatoes in a fish stock-based sauce made with heavy cream >($26.95). Chef Michael Franklin's seafood pan roast is similar to one >made famous at Justin's, the New York and Atlanta white-tablecloth soul >food restaurants opened by Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. Franklin once worked as >a chef at Justin's. I'm not sure how either of these seafood pan roasts >compares to what you tried in Reno, where, I've read, the Silver Legacy >Hotel Casino sets the standard for this dish. Having spent some 20-plus >days in Reno during each of the 1999 and 2000 holiday seasons, >gift-wrapping Amazon.com purchases in its Fernley warehouse, I never had >the opportunity, much less the energy, to survey the seafood pan roast >casino phenomenon. Maybe next time, when I' >m not working the night shift. > > >- Penelope Corcoran > > > > >(FACTIVA) >FOOD >NY SEAFOOD HOUSE CONTINUES TRADITION Series: NEW YORK'S MASTER CHEFS > > >928 words >23 May 1985 >The Dallas Morning News >HOME FINAL >14E >English >(Copyright 1985) > > >Since the Grand Central Oyster Bar opened its doors in 1913, smart >commuters and diners have filled the enormous rooms of this landmark >institution to sample the best in fresh seafood. The team that maintains >the restaurant's fine reputation, Chef Stanley Kramer, Pastry Chef Peter >Roggensinger and George Morfogen, seafood buyer, share their secrets when >they appear on New York's Master Chefs at noon Saturday on Channel >13/KERA. > > >Kramer prepared his famous Oyster Pan Roast, fresh oysters simmered in >their own juices with cream, a favorite among many New Yorkers, and Mako >Shark Steak au Poivre. The show is then turned over to Roggensinger, who >is responsible for The Oyster Bar's picture-perfect dessert buffet which >boasts some 15 selections daily. > > >Roggensinger's desserts include such down-home American treats as rice >pudding, fruit pies and cheesecake, in addition to his daily specials -- >Strawberry-Almond Galette, various mousses and sorbets, and Raspberry >Honey-Almond Parfait, which he created during his segment of the program. > > >The series' visit to The Oyster Bar wouldn't be complete without a visit >with Morfogen, the restaurant's seafood buyer who is an expert on >freshness. > > >"No matter what kind of fish you buy,' says Morfogen, "the best way to >keep it fresh is to place it on a bed of ice in the refrigerator. Just >refrigerating it can dry it out.' > > >New York's Master Chefs is a co-production of KQED/Golden State >Productions and Exploration Television in association with WNET/Thirteen >in New York. Bon Appetit, one of America's leading food magazines, is the >series' culinary consultant. > > >Here are recipes from the show. OYSTER PAN ROAST > > >Prepare each serving separately. > > >2 tablespoons clam broth or juice > > >2 tablespoons ( 1/4 stick) butter, divided > > >1/4 teaspoon paprika, plus some for garnish > > >Pinch of celery salt > > >1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce > > >9 shucked oysters with their liquor > > >1 to 2 tablespoons chili sauce > > >1/2 cup half and half > > >1 slice toast > > >In top of double boiler, place clam broth, 1 tablespoon of the butter, >1/4 teaspoon paprika, celery salt and Worcestershire sauce; stir gently. >Add oysters and simmer just until their edges start to curl, about 1 >minute. Stir in chili sauce and half and half and heat through. > > >Place slice of toast in warm bowl, pour oyster pan roast over toast, and >float remaining tablespoon butter on top. Sprinkle with a pinch of >paprika. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving. > > > > >(FACTIVA) >FEATURES - FOOD >Cook's Corner > > >OYSTER PAN ROAST > > >207 words >10 November 1999 >THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH >Home Final >02F >English >(c) 1999 Columbus Dispatch. All Rights Reserved. > > >For R.B., Newark, Ohio. This is the recipe from the Oyster Bar at Grand >Central. Molly O'Neill included it in her New York Cookbook (Workman >Publishing, $17.95). > > >6-8 large fresh oysters > > >1 tablespoon butter > > >3 tablespoons bottled clam juice, divided > > >1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco > > >1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce > > >Dash celery salt > > >1/2 cup heavy cream > > >1 slice white bread, toasted > > >Dash sweet paprika > > >Shuck the oysters. Strain and reserve their liquor. > > >Melt butter in a nonreactive skillet over high heat. Reduce heat to >medium and add the oysters, their liquor and 2 tablespoons clam juice. > > >Cook until oysters just begin to curl around the edges, about 2 minutes. >Remove from the heat. > > >In a small nonreactive saucepan over high heat, whisk together hot pepper >and Worcestershire sauces, celery salt and the remaining 1 tablespoon >clam juice. > > >Whisk in the heavy cream and continue whisking until the mixture comes to >a boil. > > >Add the warm oysters and their cooking liquids; stir gently 1 minute. > > >Place the toast in a wide soup bowl. Pour the pan roast over the toast >and sprinkle with paprika. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving. > > >Cindy Moran > > >Westerville > > > > >(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) >New York, N. Y.; HIS MAJESTY, THE OYSTER >Clementine Paddleford. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los >Angeles, Calif.: Dec 18, 1949. p. H21 (1 page): >_Nothing, New Yorkers insist,_ >_can beat the bivalve dishes_ >_in Grand Central Oyster Bar_ >(...) The bar opened in 1913 as the first Union News restaurant. >(...) >_Oyster Pan Roast_ >4 dozen oysters >1/2 pound butter or margarine >6 tablespoons chili sauce >2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce >1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice >1 1/2 cups oyster liquor >1/2 teaspoon celery salt >1 teaspoon paprika >1/4 cup light cream >Salt to taste > > >Place oysters in a deep pan. Dot over butter or margarine, add sauces, >lemon juice and oyster liquor and seasonings; bring to boiling point and >cook one minute, stirring constantly. Add cream and bring to boiling >point. Salt to taste. Serve over toast square in soup plates. Yield: 6 >portions. > > > > >(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) >Grand Central Oyster Bar Shut, but May Reopen Soon; OYSTER PAN ROAST >By JOHN L. HESS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug >1, 1974. p. 32 (1 page) >Nick Petter, the 76-year-old head cook, who came to work there in 1919, >said the bar had never changed. With a sad smile, he gave permission to >publish the recipe for its famous oyster stew: > > >OYSTER PAN ROAST >8 freshly opened oysters >1 pat of butter >1 tablespoon chili sauce >1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce >A few drops of lemon juice >1/4 cup oyster liquor >Celery salt, a dash >Paprika >4 ounces cream >1 piece of dry toast (if desired) > > >Place all but the cream in a deep pan and cook briskly for a minute, >stirring constantly. Add cream. When it comes to boil, pour over toast in >a soup plate and serve. > > > > >(WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) > Indianapolis Star Saturday, November 17, 1917 Indianapolis, Indiana >...with Bacon.... 60c New York OYSTER PAN ROAST 40c ROAST Goose, >OYSTER.....Dressing ROAST Leg of Lamb, with Jelly....'. 45c.. >Pg. 20, col. 5: HOFBRAU CAFE. > > > Bismarck Tribune Tuesday, March 11, 1930 Bismarck, North Dakota >...40c Ovster Pepper ROAST 50c OYSTER PAN ROAST 50c SOUP Cream of Fresh >Mushroom.....of Capon Creamed Mushrooms 60c ROAST ROAST young torn >turkey, ROAST young.. > > > Indianapolis Star Monday, November 12, 1917 Indianapolis, Indiana >...Stuffed White Pish, Egg Sauce OYSTER PAN ROAST, a la Budweiser Fried' >Smelts.....Enamel Douche PAN. White Enam. Douche PAN. Perfection Douche >PAN. Zinc Douche.. >Pg. 14, col. 2: BUDWEISER CAFE. > > > > >(OED) > 2. Olympia pan roast, a dish of oysters served in a savoury sauce, >originating in Olympia. > > > 1907 Overland Monthly Dec. p. xvi/2 (advt.) Hotel Donnelly... The only >restaurant in the city that makes Oyster Pan Roasts from the recipe of >the originator of the famous Doane Olympia Pan Roast. 1961 Spectator 8 >Dec. 879/1 American ingredients and American cooking..have always to me >seemed most mysterious... Olympia pan roast (olympia is an oyster) and >Green Goddess dressing..turn out to be entirely local [i.e. West Coast] >inventions. > > > > >(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) >PACIFIC COAST PROSPERITY. >New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Mar 12, 1899. p. 23 >(1 page): >"Oystermen of the East will certainly find many points of interest and >profit to them by studying the oyster of the State of Washington. You may >not have heard of the Olympia oyster. He is little, but he is a wonder. A >good Olympia pan roast is the most delicious dish I know of. Cultivation >of Eastern oysters is also in progress in our State." > > > > >(BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE) >13 May 1900, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 14: >15c.--Pan roast of Oysters on Toast. > > >16 September 1900, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 12: >OYSTER PAN ROAST, toast 15 From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Wed Nov 24 15:19:46 2004 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 07:19:46 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041123190852.0320d610@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: What, no Iron City? --- "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > >If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with > the spelling, > >which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the > pronunciation > >depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the > beer is pronounced > >"Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of > the offshoots of > >the panda family. > > I drink Yuengling Lager 'all the time'. "Yingling" > does seem to be the most > common pronunciation around here (Pittsburgh), > although I never had any > trouble wiith "Yuengling" [with the umlaut] either, > and some people around > here say "Yoongling" or "Yewngling" or so. The > nickname (which seems to be > universally recognized) is of course "Ying Yang". > Another popular brand > around here is Milwaukee's Best [made by Miller], > nicknamed "Beast". > > -- Doug Wilson > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Wed Nov 24 15:41:55 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:41:55 -0500 Subject: There is/there are Message-ID: I have received the following question from a student here who is foolishly trusting to my expert knowledge of such matters: "I am doing a small research project on the history of existential 'there' constructions with plural subjects (i.e., There's three books on the table as opposed to There are three books). I've looked on Bobcat, several databases available through the Libarary Website and I have found a lot of information on 'there' existential constructions, but not pertaining to the plural subjects, which is what I need." I haven't gotten back to him to enquire as to which databases he has used, but am otherwise at a loss. Any suggestions will be appreciated. I will advise him that he would do well to enroll in ADS-L. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:04:39 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:04:39 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: <20041124050154.5AD3CB2479@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes: >>>>> There is a Greek word for "sausage", namely "allas" or "allant-". It became New Latin "allantois" from which we get the English words "allantoin" and "allantois". Not to be confused with "Alan", an Indo-European people who got scattered from the Volga to North Africa by the Huns*, or the Irish god "Allun". I seem to recall that one of Aristophanes's plays (perhaps "The Clouds") had a major character who was a sausage-seller. <<<<< (OT:)** "And I'm cuttin' me own throat!" -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] * (This footnote deleted after a sudden temporary attack of sanity.) ** "off-topic", not "Old Testament" From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:13:55 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:13:55 -0500 Subject: Subject: Re: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041124050154.5AD3CB2479@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: FRITZ JUENGLING writes: >>>>> My last name gets slaughtered all the time. I am used to it and even enjoy the variations I get. ALmost no one here at the school can even spell it. I've gotten about 20 different spellings on various notes. Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and paid with my plastic. The lady who took it, who is from China, informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if I remember correctly. It's all good:) <<<<< When my sister got divorced for the second time she didn't want to keep husband #2's last name, or to go back to husband #1's, or to our father's last name either, and she didn't know what to do. I suggested that she take her middle name as last name, and instead of being NAME1 NAME2 NAME3 where NAME3 was one of the unwanted three surnames, be officially and in everyday use known as NAME1 NAME2 She was pleased with that solution and went with it. Since her original middle name was Sue, and it is now her last name, I sometimes refer to her as "my Chinese sister". -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:15:31 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:15:31 -0500 Subject: Subject: Re: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041124050154.5AD3CB2479@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: A sudden thought: Would any participant in this name thread object if I forwarded this series of posts to the American Name Society mailing list? -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:25:35 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:25:35 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041124050154.5AD3CB2479@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: FRITZ JUENGLING writes: >>>>> The beginning is exactly as the English word 'you'. My American German speaking friends often rhyme it with 'book', i.e.[U] Sounds very strange to me. <<<<< That's how I have always pronounced your surname to myself. /yu:N/ or "yoohng" (the pronunciation you describe) sounds very strange to me. English syllables ending in /N/ ("ng") always have lax vowels, never tense vowels. You won't find any of the following, at least in any dialect I'm familiar with: - *eeng with vowel as in Pete /i:N/ - *ayng " " hate /e:N, eyN/ - *(eye)ng " " kite /ayN/ - *ohng " " coat /o:N, owN/ - *oohng " " you, boot /u:N/ (your pronunciation) - *owng " " cow /awN/ I started to include the three heterorganic diphthongs, but I stopped at two because of the single exception: the onomatopoeia "boing", which I think is the only example of "oyng" /oyN/. -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:41:05 2004 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:41:05 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a "toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" that we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in other parts of the US? -Matt Gordon From rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:48:19 2004 From: rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU (Rachel E. Shuttlesworth) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:48:19 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <200411241643.iAOGhoJk023024@bama.ua.edu> Message-ID: My only experience with the term "toasted cheese sandwich" instead of "grilled cheese sandwich" (which I've heard all my life) comes from the television show SouthPark, as given below. I remember having to think about what a "toasted cheese sandwich" might be. The show is set in Colorado, but seems like the show's creators are Canadian. "No problem kids. Are you sure you don't wanna stay for some toasted cheese sandwiches? " http://www.spscriptorium.com/Season1/E104script.htm Rachel Gordon, Matthew J. wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J." > Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a = > "toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" that = > we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. > Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in = > other parts of the US? > > > -Matt Gordon From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Nov 24 16:56:58 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 08:56:58 -0800 Subject: Subject: Re: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology ofWisconsin) Message-ID: I wouldn't object. Fritz juengling (or whatever spelling/pronunciation you want) >>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/24/04 08:15AM >>> A sudden thought: Would any participant in this name thread object if I forwarded this series of posts to the American Name Society mailing list? -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:58:34 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:58:34 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I think I usually called it a grilled cheese, but toasted cheese is perfectly OK. (childhood: OH, MA; college: PA; since: WI, IL, SD, IL) In fact, I think I recently offered someone a toasted cheese sandwich and then, feeling perhaps she might not have understood, added "grilled cheese". Barbara >When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a >"toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" >that we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. >Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in >other parts of the US? > > >-Matt Gordon From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Nov 24 17:00:02 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:00:02 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: >>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/24/04 08:25AM >>> Interesting. Ironically, it's almost exclusively people who have knowledge of German who say [U]. Non-Germanists tend to get /u:/ right. They just mess up everything else. Fritz That's how I have always pronounced your surname to myself. /yu:N/ or "yoohng" (the pronunciation you describe) sounds very strange to me. English syllables ending in /N/ ("ng") always have lax vowels, never tense vowels. You won't find any of the following, at least in any dialect I'm familiar with: - *eeng with vowel as in Pete /i:N/ - *ayng " " hate /e:N, eyN/ - *(eye)ng " " kite /ayN/ - *ohng " " coat /o:N, owN/ - *oohng " " you, boot /u:N/ (your pronunciation) - *owng " " cow /awN/ I started to include the three heterorganic diphthongs, but I stopped at two because of the single exception: the onomatopoeia "boing", which I think is the only example of "oyng" /oyN/. -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From maberry at MYUW.NET Wed Nov 24 17:02:30 2004 From: maberry at MYUW.NET (Allen Maberry) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:02:30 -0800 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <200411241643.iAOGhptX019258@mxe7.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: I've heard them called both "toasted" and "grilled" cheese sandwiches all my life, almost entirely in Oregon and Washington. I tend to call them "toasted cheese sandwiches" myself. allen maberry at myuw.net On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J." > Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a = > "toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" that = > we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. > Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in = > other parts of the US? > > > -Matt Gordon > From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Wed Nov 24 17:06:53 2004 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:06:53 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: In Central NY we always ate toasted cheese sandwiches, which were put into the oven on low heat so the cheese gets good and runny. I also heard grilled cheese, which would be cooked in a frying pan, but we didn't use that. Melted-cheese sandwiches also rings a bell. Dale Coye The College of NJ From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:08:38 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:08:38 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >I started to include the three heterorganic diphthongs, but I stopped at two >because of the single exception: the onomatopoeia "boing", which I think is >the only example of "oyng" /oyN/. > Well, there's the equally (if animal rather than mineral) onomatopoetic "oink", which is /oyN/ followed by /k/... larry From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 24 17:08:55 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:08:55 -0600 Subject: breastaurant Message-ID: This is a new one on me. http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001735.html "Trial began last week in a lawsuit filed by Hooters of America against a rival "breastaurant" operator named WingHouse, which also relies on curvy waitresses to sell sports-bar food and drink to a clientele of young men. " A Yahoo search shows the term in the context of women who breast feed their babies. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:20:12 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:20:12 -0500 Subject: Yingling In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041123190852.0320d610@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: Did anyone watch "Frontline" last night? Grim--and one of the grimmest interviewees (on the credit card industry) was a man named Yingling. The caption made the spelling clear, and he was definitely not Chinese. At 07:16 PM 11/23/2004, you wrote: >>If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, >>which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation >>depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced >>"Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of >>the panda family. > >I drink Yuengling Lager 'all the time'. "Yingling" does seem to be the most >common pronunciation around here (Pittsburgh), although I never had any >trouble wiith "Yuengling" [with the umlaut] either, and some people around >here say "Yoongling" or "Yewngling" or so. The nickname (which seems to be >universally recognized) is of course "Ying Yang". Another popular brand >around here is Milwaukee's Best [made by Miller], nicknamed "Beast". > >-- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:22:25 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:22:25 -0500 Subject: See you in the funny papers! In-Reply-To: <005501c4d1d8$dd28b470$2724a618@sam> Message-ID: I used to hear this too, in the '40s. At 10:51 PM 11/23/2004, you wrote: >This is an update to a 2002 thread. At that time, some newspapers were not >digitized as yet. > >Doug Wilson offered that HDAS showed from 1926: > ><Grant, _Wise-Crack Dict._ 14: _See you in the funny sheet_-- A humorous way >of saying good-bye.>> > >The digitized Chicago Tribune has a cite from WGN(Chicago radio) in 1928, >advertising a 12-1 Sunday show where "Uncle Quin" would read the "funny >papers" to the kids listening along at home. This show shows up from 1927 >in the Tribune. But the first "see you in the funny papers" is 1928, as >spoken by Uncle Quin in a adv. for his show. 'Course Uncle Quin didn't mean >he was leaving. He was actually reading the funnies to the kids in >radioland. (Perhaps he signed off with something like "see you in the funny >papers.") > >Had to do this one for my deceased great aunt. She always used to say that >to me when I was leaving. > >Sam Clements From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:33:04 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:33:04 -0500 Subject: There is/there are Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:41:55 -0500, George Thompson wrote: >I have received the following question from a student here who is >foolishly trusting to my expert knowledge of such matters: >"I am doing a small research project on the history of existential >'there' constructions with plural subjects (i.e., There's three books >on the table as opposed to There are three books). I've looked on >Bobcat, several databases available through the Libarary Website and >I have found a lot of information on 'there' existential constructions, >but not pertaining to the plural subjects, which is what I need." >I haven't gotten back to him to enquire as to which databases he has >used, but am otherwise at a loss. Any suggestions will be appreciated. For starters, see: Miyamoto, Yoichi. 2003. On there-sentences. _Journal of Language and Linguistics_ 2(2):246-260. http://www.shakespeare.uk.net/journal/2_2/miyamoto.html (Section 4 includes a number of references on "there's" + plural NP.) Britain, David and Andrea Sudbury. 2000. There's sheep and there's penguins: 'Drift', 'slant' and singular verb forms following existentials in New Zealand and Falkland Island English. In M Jones and E Esch (eds.) _Contact-induced language change: an examination of internal, external and non-linguistic factors_. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (Abstract here: ) The topic has also come up on the alt.usage.english newsgroup, where John Lawler of the University of Michigan has provided explanations for "there's" as a frozen existential form: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=5rkki8$7fq$1 at newbabylon.rs.itd.umich.edu http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8Ah77.754$am2.14275 at news.itd.umich.edu And here is a discussion from the "Ask A Linguist" archive: http://linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1998.10/msg00025.html --Ben Zimmer From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Nov 24 17:44:58 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:44:58 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <6E4936C2.507479BB.006E8B3E@aol.com> Message-ID: >In Central NY we always ate toasted cheese sandwiches, which were put into >the oven on low heat so the cheese gets good and runny. I also heard >grilled cheese, which would be cooked in a frying pan, but we didn't use >that. Melted-cheese sandwiches also rings a bell. > >Dale Coye >The College of NJ ~~~~~~~~~~ What we meant by "toasted cheese sandwich" in my childhood home was a single piece of bread with slice of real cheese (not "American" or "process") put under the broiler in the oven long enough to melt and brown the cheese & toast the edges of the bread. "Grilled cheese" -- at least as supplied in cafes -- seems usually to mean plastic cheese between two pieces of bread and briefly fried on the stove top. A. Murie From suzanne at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:45:50 2004 From: suzanne at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Suzanne Evans Wagner) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:45:50 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <200411241739.MAA03892@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: I see that no-one has yet mentioned the "cheese toastie" variant that is, I think, almost as common in the UK as "toasted cheese sandwich", at least among college students. When I was at college in England, inviting fellow students over for a cheese toastie (made in a George Foreman-style 'toastie maker') was as much a ritual as inviting them for a cup of tea. Suzanne Evans Wagner From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Wed Nov 24 18:03:53 2004 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:03:53 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: In the Patrick O'Brien Aubrey-=Maturin series they are always eating toasted cheese on their voyages. Because they didn't include the word "sandwiches" I always wondered what exactly they were eating. Was it in fact a sandwich, or just one piece of bread with cheese, or something without bread at all. Dale Coye The College of NJ From wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Wed Nov 24 18:31:11 2004 From: wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 18:31:11 -0000 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <00B462D8.29FA0319.006E8B3E@aol.com> Message-ID: Dale Coye wrote: > In the Patrick O'Brien Aubrey-=Maturin series they are always eating > toasted cheese on their voyages. Because they didn't include the word > "sandwiches" I always wondered what exactly they were eating. Was it > in fact a sandwich, or just one piece of bread with cheese, or > something without bread at all. Definitely a piece of toast with melted cheese on top - "cheese on toast" is an exact synonym. To answer some other points: the usual term in British English is indeed "toasted cheese", never "grilled", though the usual way of making it (at least in this household) is to toast the underside of the bread, put the cheese on top and heat it under the grill until the cheese melts. However, a toasted-cheese sandwich is a cheese sandwich that has been heated up in a sandwich toaster. Let us not get into the intricacies of Welsh rabbit, which one of my subscribers keeps trying to tell me, in defiance of all experience and every dictionary and cookery book I know of, is never served on toast. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Nov 24 19:16:18 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:16:18 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >In Central NY we always ate toasted cheese sandwiches, which were put into >>the oven on low heat so the cheese gets good and runny. I also heard >>grilled cheese, which would be cooked in a frying pan, but we didn't use >>that. Melted-cheese sandwiches also rings a bell. >> >>Dale Coye >>The College of NJ >~~~~~~~~~~ >What we meant by "toasted cheese sandwich" in my childhood home was a >single piece of bread with slice of real cheese (not "American" or >"process") put under the broiler in the oven long enough to melt and brown >the cheese & toast the edges of the bread. > "Grilled cheese" -- at least as supplied in cafes -- seems usually to mean >plastic cheese between two pieces of bread and briefly fried on the stove >top. >A. Murie I had never heard of a melted cheese sandwich before! What is described above as "toasted" cheese was simply an open-faced sandwich (usually with bacon in addition to the cheese)! The joys of a childhood undimmed by cholesterol and fat and calories! Barbara From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Nov 24 19:19:02 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:19:02 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <1101318350.41a4c8ce40c70@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: >I see that no-one has yet mentioned the "cheese toastie" variant that is, I >think, almost as common in the UK as "toasted cheese sandwich", at least among >college students. When I was at college in England, inviting fellow students >over for a cheese toastie (made in a George Foreman-style 'toastie maker') was >as much a ritual as inviting them for a cup of tea. > >Suzanne Evans Wagner Is a "toasted" cheese sandwich made differently than a "toastie"? When asked a colleague here what a sandwich with cheese which was heated to melt the cheese was, he said "melted" cheese, but he describe the method of cooking as you describe the "toastie" (his mother used a waffle iron with plates installed over or instead of the waffle plates). Barbara From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 19:32:42 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 14:32:42 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <41A4D36F.32510.233D510@localhost> Message-ID: At 6:31 PM +0000 11/24/04, Michael Quinion wrote: > Let us not get into the intricacies of Welsh rabbit, which >one of my subscribers keeps trying to tell me, in defiance of all >experience and every dictionary and cookery book I know of, is never >served on toast. > Maybe your subscriber knows the cheese-on-toast version as "Welsh rarebit", and figures that after all the two can't be the same, can they? ;-) (Begging the question of what else Welsh rabbit would be, of course.) Larry, hoping he's just used "beg the question" in the traditionally approved way... From marshaalley at MSN.COM Wed Nov 24 19:45:13 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:45:13 -0800 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles for 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between, coated outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled cheese sandwich." A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the broiler until it melted was "cheese toast." The under side of the bread was never toasted first. A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts two slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a "toasted cheese sandwich." He's never heard of cheese toast. Marsha /wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 20:06:19 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:06:19 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:45 AM -0800 11/24/04, Marsha Alley wrote: >In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles >for 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between, >coated outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled >cheese sandwich." > >A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the >broiler until it melted was "cheese toast." The under side of the >bread was never toasted first. > >A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts >two slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a >"toasted cheese sandwich." He's never heard of cheese toast. > >Marsha >/wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-) This was my standard nighttime snack, untoasted Italian or Portuguese bread with cheddar (but with jalapeños or other hot peppers on it, or with pepper jack cheese instead) run under the top-brown setting in the toaster oven, before I had to cut back on carbs. (sniff...) I never really had a term for it (I suppose I'd have called it "bread with toasted cheese" or the like), but when my then teenage son began partaking, coming to the tradition off tortilla chips with spicy cheese, he called it "nacho bread". So in our family it's offically "nacho bread" rather than "toasted cheese" or "cheese toast" that I don't get to eat. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 20:10:03 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:10:03 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:45 AM -0800 11/24/04, Marsha Alley wrote: >In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles >for 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between, >coated outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled >cheese sandwich." > >A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the >broiler until it melted was "cheese toast." The under side of the >bread was never toasted first. > >A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts >two slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a >"toasted cheese sandwich." He's never heard of cheese toast. > >Marsha >/wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-) This used to be my standard nighttime snack, untoasted Italian or Portuguese bread topped with pepper jack cheese or with cheddar and sliced jalapeños, run under the top-brown setting in the toaster oven, before I had to cut back on carbs. (sniff...) I never really had a term for it originally (I suppose I'd have called it "bread with toasted cheese" or the like), but when my then teenage son began partaking, coming to the tradition off tortilla chips with spicy cheese, he called it "nacho bread". So in our family it's officially "nacho bread" rather than "toasted cheese" or "cheese toast" that I don't get to eat. Larry From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Wed Nov 24 20:16:31 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:16:31 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <41A4D36F.32510.233D510@localhost> Message-ID: On Nov 24, 2004, at 13:31, Michael Quinion wrote: > the usual way of making it (at least in this household) is to > toast the underside of the bread, put the cheese on top and heat it > under the grill until the cheese melts. No butter? Maybe it's to make up for using American cheese singles, but the way I do grilled cheese (and learned it) is to butter both sides of a slice of bread, put it on the griddle, put the cheese on the live sizzling slice, butter a second piece on both sides, and then put that one on top of the cheese. Turn it in a minute or two. This way you get a nice golden brownness on even the blandest supermarket bread. Tastes so good and fattening with real butter. Smells good, too. Everyone and the cats come sniffing around. So maybe the have the same ingredients, but I'd call "grilled cheese" and "toasted cheese" separate menu items. Grant Barrett From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 24 20:25:59 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 14:25:59 -0600 Subject: "in the soup" Message-ID: OED has 26 Apr 1889. _Quincy (Illinois) Daily Whig_ 5 Mar 1889 p. 5 col 1: "The unsuccessful suitor, the defeated political candidate, the "exploded" financial venture, the overturned market basket; in short, mishaps and disappointments of all kinds, are described as "in the soup". " From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 21:55:01 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:55:01 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: <60.48f0ed27.2ece54d8@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? Nothing comes up earlier in searching Early English Books Online Text Creation Project or Literature Online. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Wed Nov 24 22:14:58 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:14:58 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language Message-ID: The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those interested. A Philological Review of NATIVE NEW YORKERS: THE LEGACY OF THE ALGONQUIN PEOPLE OF NEW YORK, by Evan T. Pritchard, Council Oak Books, San Francisco and Tulsa, 2002. Has there ever been a language subjected to so much abuse by pretentious dabblers, as the Lenape language? From Rafinesque's WALAM OLUM (and all its modern-day "translators") to Wenning's HANDBOOK OF THE DELAWARE INDIAN LANGUAGE, charlatans and dilettanti of every kind have had their goes at duping the general public (and sometimes academia!) by their linguistic legerdemain?often with surprising success. Evan T. Pritchard, Professor of Native American Studies at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, has now given us another work in this genre?perhaps the worst yet. The reviewer identifies himself as Raymond Whritenour, LENAPE TEXTS & STUDIES GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" Date: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:08 pm Subject: breastaurant > This is a new one on me. > > http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001735.html > "Trial began last week in a lawsuit filed by Hooters of America > against a > rival "breastaurant" operator named WingHouse, which also relies > on curvy > waitresses to sell sports-bar food and drink to a clientele of > young men. " > > A Yahoo search shows the term in the context of women who breast > feed their > babies. > From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Nov 24 22:21:47 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:21:47 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <1ab7baa1abca20.1abca201ab7baa@nyu.edu> Message-ID: George, please do forward the full review to me. Beverly Flanigan At 05:14 PM 11/24/2004, you wrote: >The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist list. I will >forward the full, very detailed review to those interested. > >A Philological Review of NATIVE NEW YORKERS: THE LEGACY OF THE ALGONQUIN >PEOPLE OF NEW YORK, by Evan T. Pritchard, Council Oak Books, San Francisco >and Tulsa, 2002. > > Has there ever been a language subjected to so much abuse by > pretentious dabblers, as the Lenape language? From Rafinesque's WALAM > OLUM (and all its modern-day "translators") to Wenning's HANDBOOK OF THE > DELAWARE INDIAN LANGUAGE, charlatans and dilettanti of every kind have > had their goes at duping the general public (and sometimes academia!) by > their linguistic legerdemain?often with surprising success. Evan T. > Pritchard, Professor of Native American Studies at Marist College in > Poughkeepsie, New York, has now given us another work in this > genre?perhaps the worst yet. > >The reviewer identifies himself as Raymond Whritenour, LENAPE TEXTS & STUDIES > >GAT > >George A. Thompson >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern >Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. > >"We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, >and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, >Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Mullins, Bill" >Date: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:08 pm >Subject: breastaurant > > > This is a new one on me. > > > > http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001735.html > > "Trial began last week in a lawsuit filed by Hooters of America > > against a > > rival "breastaurant" operator named WingHouse, which also relies > > on curvy > > waitresses to sell sports-bar food and drink to a clientele of > > young men. " > > > > A Yahoo search shows the term in the context of women who breast > > feed their > > babies. > > From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 24 22:59:40 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:59:40 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041124151946.63775.qmail@web20421.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >What, no Iron City? No Iron City. Though if somebody was to buy me a case of Iron, I'd drink it right up (might could take two-three days) and say thank-you-kindly ... and no I-reckon about it. The local beer store proprietor says his biggest seller is Coors Light. -- Doug Wilson From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Nov 25 09:32:33 2004 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 01:32:33 -0800 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <200411242215.iAOMF2Gw004964@mxe3.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: Could you send a copy to me as well? I will pass it along to the Endagered Languages List. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of George Thompson > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > interested. From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Thu Nov 25 14:01:30 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 09:01:30 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <20041125050113.06C3FB26BA@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: for me & mine, "grilled cheese (sandwich)" has always been: - toast the bread, 1 slice per serving - optionally, spread a very thin layer of mayonnaise on one side; this will keep the cheese from soaking into the bread - top it with slices of cheese, usu. cheddar or jack - sprinkle with paprika - put it in the broiler to melt the cheese mark by hand From grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET Thu Nov 25 18:49:52 2004 From: grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET (Seán Fitzpatrick) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:49:52 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: Barbara Need wrote: <> Exactly. We called it a grilled cheese sandwich in the Wash., D.C. suburbs in the 1950s, and my mother taught us to make them in a waffle iron with the plates reversed to the pancake griddle side. We buttered the outsides and filled it with cheddar cheese, mustard, and maybe sliced ham. This bound me conceptually, so that I still make the sandwich before putting it in the frying pan, rather than using the elegant method of building the sandwich as it cooks. (Visages, sacred or profane, were rare, though my mother once thought she saw the likeness of Franklin Roosevelt. Her response was to cut the sandwich into quarters rather than the usual halves.) I found in the late '60s that Dutch pub fare always included--often exclusively--a grilled cheese or ham & cheese sandwich made in a press. One asked for "een ham en kaas tostie", although I'm not sure about the "tostie". Seán Fitzpatrick Strawberry tarts, cinnamon trollops, and hot buttered trulls. Uuumm,mmm good. http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/ From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 25 19:59:46 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 14:59:46 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:49:52 -0500, Seán Fitzpatrick wrote: >I found in the late '60s that Dutch pub fare always included--often >exclusively--a grilled cheese or ham & cheese sandwich made in a press. >One asked for "een ham en kaas tostie", although I'm not sure about the >"tostie". I've seen "toastje", "toastie", or "tostie". Basically the same as French "croque monsieur", no? And then there's the Australian "jaffle"... --Ben Zimmer From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Nov 25 23:42:50 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:42:50 -0600 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <200411250932.iAP9WLrt008172@listserv.cc.uga.edu> Message-ID: Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 George Thompson wrote: > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > > interested. > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Nov 26 01:36:35 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:36:35 -0800 Subject: sex 'have sex with' Message-ID: Instinct magazine, Dec. 2004, p. 42, Frank Pizzoli's "What a Difference a Gay Makes": ----- A new Chicago Department of Public Health report shows about 14 percent of primary and secondary syphilis cases reported there between 2000 and 2002 were transmitted through oral sex... Roughly 20 percent of men sexing other men and catching syphilis indicated only oral sex exposure. ----- From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 26 04:43:12 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 23:43:12 -0500 Subject: sex 'have sex with' In-Reply-To: <9BCD06D8-3F4B-11D9-9700-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 25, 2004 at 05:36:35PM -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > Instinct magazine, Dec. 2004, p. 42, Frank Pizzoli's "What a Difference > a Gay Makes": > ----- > A new Chicago Department of Public Health report shows about 14 percent > of primary and secondary syphilis cases reported there between 2000 and > 2002 were transmitted through oral sex... > Roughly 20 percent of men sexing other men and catching syphilis > indicated only oral sex exposure. > ----- OED2 does have an entry for this, with cites back only to 1966 (in intransitive use), but we now have examples from the early 20th century in the files, and I'm sure Barry or Fred or Ben or Sam will hit us with an example from ECCO or something now. We also have transitive examples--Iceberg Slim uses it thus in _Pimp_--but because you're citing an example in a homosexual context, I'll share another such (intransitive), from a classic: 1968 `A. D'ARCANGELO' _Homosexual Handbook_ 146 All Sunday we stayed in bed, reading the funnies, the book reviews of all the papers, sexing and loving. Best, Jesse Sheidlower OED From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Nov 26 05:01:15 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:01:15 EST Subject: "Pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar" (1881) Message-ID: I've been adding to my web site, and I was looking for "double Dutch." Perhaps I'll post that here. "Pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar" appears to be an early, Fred Shapiro-worthy food-based rope-jumping rhyme. Who knew it went back to 1881? Anything under "pepper" in the revised OED? Perhaps it should be added there. 1 April 1881, Reno (NV) Evening Gazette, pg. 1, col. 1: DIED FROM JUMPING ROPE. (...) >From the New York Sun. (...) Another of Rachel's little companions said: "She used to be very fond of jumping what we call 'pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar,' That is when we being to jump slow, and keep jumping faster until we get to vinegar, when you have to jump as fast as you can." 27 April 1941, New York Times, pg. SM9: The chant for the single rope jump is still, "Pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar!" Then the fast count. These kids are jumping "Double Dutch," the two-rope game. 21 April 1944, New York Times, pg. 3: Air Hero Provides Theme For Rope-Jumping Rhyme The chant of "Pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar," which for generations has timed the jump-rope game of youngsters, has become a war casualty - at least in Brooklyn. Here is what a group of girls was heard singing yesterday at Ninth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street as the rope went 'round and 'round: Major Bong is a very fine man, He shoots down all the Japs he can. How many Zeros will he get today? Let's count them up, what do you say? One-two-three-four, etc. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Nov 26 05:06:03 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 21:06:03 -0800 Subject: everynow Message-ID: correspondent mike gillis reports: ----- on a whim I typed 'everynow' into google, thinking that it would get very few hits except for perhaps artistic uses. It got 11-thousand-something, and I noticed that nearly all of the first page were hits for 'everynow' and then. So I checked, and the phrase "everynow and then" gets about eight thousand hits. It seems way too many to be all typos... although the phrase "every now and then" gets around a million hits, "every nowand then" and "every now andthen" only get a couple of hundred hits each. ----- so "every now" (in the idiom "every now and then", and with lesser frequency, in the idiom "every now and again") has followed "every time" and "every place" -- these two are in MWDEU -- in having a sequence of words that is pronounced as a unit spelled (by some people) as a unit. "everytime", "everyplace", "everynow". sorta (or kinda) like "alot" and "alright". arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), yeah, yeah, wanna, hafta, oughta, useta, and so on From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 26 05:07:10 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:07:10 -0500 Subject: "Hip" from Wolof?; Big Apple Whores (cont.); My book is published In-Reply-To: <77.363d0a6c.2ea3b5de@aol.com> Message-ID: At 7:47 AM -0400 10/17/04, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >"HIP" FROM WOLOF? > >Hip: The History >By John Leland >Ecco, 405 pp., %26.95 > >http://www.villagevoice.com/vls/182/sante.shtml >EYES WIDE SHUT >BY LUC SANTE >The way of all hip, from Emerson to a billboard near you > >John Leland may or may not have written the first history of hipness-I can't, >in an admittedly casual search, find another-but it's hard to shake the >thought that such a book might as well be its subject's obituary. It's like >broadcasting the rituals of the lodge, or maybe spelling down all >the names of the >godhead. There are dozens of histories of bohemia, but that's not the same >thing, although the two concepts have a large field of intersection. Bohemia >started in Europe and spread around the world, but hip (Leland >employs the word as >both adjective and noun) is indigenously American. The word derives from the >Wolof hepi ("to see") and hipi ("to open one's eyes"). The idea of hip emerged >from seeds sown in Senegambia that budded in America. It has everything to do >with race mixing, and it works both ways, comprising not just white people's >love and theft of black style but also African American appropriations of >European baggage: the pianoforte, the three-button suit, >existentialism, Yiddish >expressions, horn-rim glasses, the novel. And hip is occult, arcana without a >heaven. > > >I saw this book at the Barnes & Noble and I've been thinking about this. >Lighter's HDAS has "origin unknown" for "hep" and "hip." It's nice that a book >about the subject, such as this is, can go beyond scholarship and state a >conclusion for a mass audience that's not based on evidence. > >And the reviewers--they usually know even less. > >I don;t subscribe to the "Wolof" theory at all. Even if I did, however, I >would have reservations in stating this before the general public. But I guess >that wouldn't be hip. > Barry and others will be unsurprised to learn that in today's NYT (p. E18), reviewer Ben McGrath also cites Leland's Wolof etymology of "hip" without disclaimer. So now it's official. Larry From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 26 06:04:01 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:04:01 -0500 Subject: "Hip" from Wolof?; Big Apple Whores (cont.); My book is published In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Barry and others will be unsurprised to learn that in today's NYT (p. >E18), reviewer Ben McGrath also cites Leland's Wolof etymology of >"hip" without disclaimer. So now it's official. It's also unsurprising that Wolof (according to my dictionary) has no letter "h" ... although it is purportedly the language of origin not only for "hip" and even "hep-cat" but also for "honky" (in Wikipedia etc.). The verb "open one's eyes" does appear, as "xippi" ("x" = /x/ apparently). "See" does not have any entry like "hip"/"hep". The supposed etymon of "honky" sometimes given as "honq" = "pink" appears as "xonxa" = "red". Of course it may be that Wolof was a little different a few hundred years ago ... is it safe to assume that the scholars responsible for discovering these African etymologies did diligent research into the Wolof lexicon and phonetics of past centuries? -- Doug Wilson From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Fri Nov 26 09:43:01 2004 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:43:01 -0800 Subject: Dear John Letters Message-ID: I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man to a woman ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford Dictionary of English. Here is a citation where it seems to mean a letter written to many people in a generic letter (from http://www.jat.org/jtt/LipsettBilling.html): In the process of introducing a new estimating and invoicing system, however, we had to be careful to not raise the cost of a given job (well, not visibly, at any rate...). [...]We mailed out a Dear John letter on May 15th, describing what we were doing, and announced that the change would go into effect on June 1st. We stressed the fact that effective costs would not change and enclosed the new price list. Note that no relationship is being terminated whatsoever, it seems to be the genericness of the word "John" that is being borrowed. Benjamin Barrett Baking the World a Better Place www.hiroki.us From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Fri Nov 26 11:04:36 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 06:04:36 -0500 Subject: Goofs, Yannigans, Juveniles (was Re: goof antedate) Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 02:14:13 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:14:23 -0600, Mullins, Bill > wrote: > >>goof (n) slang OED: 1. A silly, stupid, or daft person. 1916 Sat. >>Even. Post >> >>"What the Umpires Will Do" _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 62. >>"an' what inell didja say that goof's name was what was tuh pitch?" > >I don't have Dickson's dictionary handy, but I know that "goof" was >already used in baseball by that time (in Chicago at least) to refer to a >second-string player on a team's roster who only played during spring >training -- typically in intersquad games between the "regulars" (or >"premiers") and the "goofs". Newspaperarchive.com has that sense of the >term back to 1912: > > Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, March 15, 1912 > Kid Gleason's goofs defeated the regulars. > > Lincoln (Neb.) Evening News, March 20, 1912 > The White Sox premiers and Gleason's "Goofs" parted company > today, the latter squad, commanded by Doc White, leaving this > morning for San Antonio to begin practice on the diamond to > be vacated today by Connie Mack's Athletics. ... The "Goofs" > will probably remain at San Antonio the balance of the > training season. > > (Decatur, Ill.) Daily Review, April 14, 1912 > GOOFS SPANKED IN FIRST GAME > German's Regulars Win Opening Tilt, 8 to 2. > >See also : > > The Cubs spent their weeks on the island playing mostly inter- > squad games. The regulars versus the goofs, they were called. > >Looks like the Cubs and White Sox were the teams who most often called >their B-squads "goofs", or perhaps they were the only teams to do so. >(Someone with access to the Tribune archive might find earlier cites.) Following up... George Thompson finds nothing relevant in the Tribune archive before that fateful spring of 1912: WHITE SOX SQUAD IN TWO SECTIONS; Callahan to Send Second Team to San Antonio Today for Practice. MATTICK GOES TO FIRSTS. Premiers and Goofs Exhausted After Most Strenuous Drill in the South. SAM WELLER. Chicago Daily Tribune: Mar 20, 1912. p. 11 I would guess that someone in the White Sox organization (perhaps coach Kid Gleason) came up with the "Goofs" sobriquet for spring training in 1912. Then at some later point the crosstown Cubs borrowed "Goofs" for their own B-squad. As the link above suggests, the Cubs were still using "Goofs" when they moved their spring training to Catalina Island in the '20s. Here's another reference, found via Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0974242403/?v=search-inside&keywords=goofs _The Cubs on Catalina: A Scrapbookful of Memories About a 30-Year Love Affair Between One of Baseball's Classic Teams & California's Most Fanciful Isle_, by Jim Vitti. Settefrati Press (2003) The guys had some fun with their intrasquad games. Just about every year, the half-squads got new names. Some matchups over the years: Regulars vs. Sand Dabs Regulars vs. Goofs Doublemints vs. Spearmints Catalinas vs. Avalons (Burns covered these in the Tribune as Joseph V. McCarthy's Avalons vs. J. Vincent McCarthy's Catalinas) Claghorns vs. Wildcats Regulars vs. Rebels Regulars vs. Daisies Regulars vs. Yannigans McCullough's Night Owls vs. Scheffing's Grumpies Whites vs. Grays Roy Johnsons vs. Spud Davises One of the B-squad nicknames listed is "Yannigans", which I see has been discussed at length here by Barry Popik and Gerry Cohen back in Dec. '02, with cites from Barry back to 1895. Indeed, when "Goofs" starts appearing in the sports pages in 1912, it's as an alternative to "Yan(n)igans", e.g.: In the Phillies' New Training Camp Edward L. Grant, Baseball Magazine, May, 1909, No. 1, p. 13-14. Every afternoon all the guests are out to see our practice or the game between the Regulars and Yanigans. And they root hard— not for the Regulars, however, for they are an out-and-out Yanigan crowd, and rejoice at any humiliation they can administer the opponents. One other B-squad name I noticed in Baseball Magazine is "Juveniles": Phillies vs. Athletics William A. Phelon, Baseball Magazine, May, 1912, No. 1, p. 1-6. A game was on between the Regulars of the team and the Juveniles— the ambitious youngsters of the aggregation... The "Juveniles" nickname lends some credence to the idea that "Yan(n)igans" started off as a variant of "young 'uns" (mentioned in a Jan. '03 post by Doug Wilson). --Ben Zimmer From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 26 13:05:58 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:05:58 -0500 Subject: "Hip" from Wolof?; Big Apple Whores (cont.); My book is published In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041126005022.03203540@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 26, 2004 at 01:04:01AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > > ... is it safe to assume that the scholars responsible for discovering > these African etymologies did diligent research into the Wolof lexicon and > phonetics of past centuries? "scholars" Jesse Sheidlower From gingi at POBOX.COM Fri Nov 26 13:20:20 2004 From: gingi at POBOX.COM (Rachel Sommer) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:20:20 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041119193834.E1F28DBD5@gold.pobox.com> Message-ID: Then there's my husband's take on it, several years (and email addresses) ago: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3A35110A.25968F27%40earthlink.net -- --<@ Rachel L.S. Sommer http://www.gingicat.org "If you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist." --George Carlin From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 26 15:30:46 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 10:30:46 -0500 Subject: Dear John Letters In-Reply-To: <200411260943.iAQ9h3J4005866@listserv.cc.uga.edu> Message-ID: At 1:43 AM -0800 11/26/04, Benjamin Barrett wrote: >I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man to a woman >ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford >Dictionary of English... Actually, that's a "Dear Jane letter" ;-) Larry From einstein at FROGNET.NET Fri Nov 26 16:11:42 2004 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:11:42 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: Clear DayThe first place I saw the Wolof etymology for "hip" and "hep" was in J. L. Dillard's Black English. ________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Nov 26 16:20:02 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:20:02 -0500 Subject: Dear John Letters In-Reply-To: <200411260943.iAQ9h3J4005866@listserv.cc.uga.edu> Message-ID: >Benjamin Barrett writes: >I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man to a woman >ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford >Dictionary of English. ~~~~~~~~~~ Surely a letter from a woman to man. Typically illustrated as the man in uniform reading the letter from the "girl he left behind." A. Murie From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 26 16:26:07 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:26:07 -0800 Subject: "only ever" Message-ID: Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes in the New Yorker for Nov. 29, Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82) I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be All Schulz ever wanted to be was a cartoonist. or Schulz wanted only to be a cartoonist. or A cartoonist! Yessirree, Bob, that's the only thing Schulz ever wanted to be! Anymore, is the New Yorker losing its celebrated sensitivity to English? Its old-time persnickety copy-editors used to would have forstalled something like this. Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column? JL --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Fri Nov 26 16:32:32 2004 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (paulzjoh) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 10:32:32 -0600 Subject: Dear John Letters Message-ID: Does anyone remember the country song popular during the Korean War? "Dear John, I've sent your saddle home"? Paul johnson. ----- Original Message ----- From: "sagehen" To: Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 10:20 AM Subject: Re: Dear John Letters > >Benjamin Barrett writes: > >I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man to a woman > >ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford > >Dictionary of English. > ~~~~~~~~~~ > Surely a letter from a woman to man. Typically illustrated as the man in > uniform reading the letter from the "girl he left behind." > A. Murie From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 26 16:33:57 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:33:57 -0800 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: I believe it was David Dalby who first made this suggestion about 1967 or '68. I also seem to recall that he made clear that it was only a suggestion, part of his interest in investigating West African languages for possibly overlooked etymologies of English words. "Jitterbug" was also on the list. So far as I know, substantive evidence of a Wolof origin for "hip/hep" (or vice versa) has never been adduced. JL David Bergdahl wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: David Bergdahl Subject: Wolof hip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clear DayThe first place I saw the Wolof etymology for "hip" and "hep" was in J. L. Dillard's Black English. ________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! � Try it today! From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 26 16:40:54 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:40:54 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <000301c4d348$79b61a60$2e2b0b45@vneufeldt> Message-ID: The best consultant would be Ives Goddard of the Smithsonian Institute. An Algonquian scholar, he would know, or would at least know who to contact. At 06:42 PM 11/25/2004, you wrote: >Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the >reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > >Victoria > >Victoria Neufeldt >727 9th Street East >Saskatoon, Sask. >S7H 0M6 >Canada >Tel: 306-955-8910 > >George Thompson wrote: > > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > > > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > > > interested. > > > >--- >Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 26 16:49:43 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:49:43 -0500 Subject: "only ever" In-Reply-To: <20041126162607.17711.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 8:26 AM -0800 11/26/04, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes >in the New Yorker for Nov. 29, > > Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82) > >I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be > > All Schulz ever wanted to be was a cartoonist. > > or > > Schulz wanted only to be a cartoonist. > > or > > A cartoonist! Yessirree, Bob, that's the only thing >Schulz ever wanted to be! > >Anymore, is the New Yorker losing its celebrated sensitivity to >English? Its old-time persnickety copy-editors used to would have >forstalled something like this. > >Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column? > I won't try to answer that last one, but after first claiming in print that "only ever" is a Briticism, I've started to accumulate many examples from U.S. English. If you google on "over ever done it once", for example, you're directed to 394 hits. I'm not sure why it would be considered "incorrect"--stilted, perhaps, but not incorrect. In general, "only" licenses negative polarity items like "ever" as long as the latter are not the focus of "only", as seen below [examples taken from a 1996 paper of mine], so the "only ever" in examples like Franzen's is actually quite well-behaved. (1) a. I only eat any meat WHEN I'M DEPRESSED. b. I eat meat only WHEN I'M DEPRESSED ABOUT {SOMETHING/ ?*ANYTHING}. c. Only WHEN I'M DEPRESSED do I ever eat any meat. d. *Only WHEN I'M EVER DEPRESSED ABOUT ANYTHING do I eat meat. (2) a. I've only ever gone there ONCE. b. I only go there {SOMETIMES/*EVER}. c. Only ONCE have I ever been there. d. *Only EVER {do I go there/have I been there}. Larry From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 26 18:43:27 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 13:43:27 -0500 Subject: Goof (1902) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: From N'archive: ---------- _Colorado Springs Gazette_, 2 March 1902: p. 17: [A humorous poem about the legislature, with interpolated commentary] <<.... / For below the people's elect were spread. / Some were statesmen, in wisdom born and bred, / While some were muggled goofs with necks of red. / <> ---------- -- Doug Wilson From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Fri Nov 26 19:14:52 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 14:14:52 -0500 Subject: "only ever" In-Reply-To: <20041126162607.17711.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Nov 2004, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes in the New Yorker for Nov. 29, > > Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82) > >I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be I have heard sentences like the first one most of my life - I do not find it weird. The focus is different, I suppose. Jon, how old did you say you are now?!? Bethany, formerly your senior From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 26 19:30:23 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 14:30:23 -0500 Subject: "only ever" In-Reply-To: <20041126162607.17711.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column? The latter. ; ) Grant From grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET Fri Nov 26 20:20:37 2004 From: grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET (Seán Fitzpatrick) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:20:37 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: Hardly, unless you mean in the same way an Egg McMuffin is the same as a croque madame. http://www.cnn.com/FOOD/specials/1999/french.food/sandwich.html To be fair, Google finds more than 21000 hits for "croque monsieur", some of which are little different from a toasted cheese sandwich. Seán Fitzpatrick Live fast, die young . . . God, what else did I forget? http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Benjamin Zimmer Sent: Thursday, 25 November, 2004 14:59 Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:49:52 -0500, Seán Fitzpatrick wrote: >I found in the late '60s that Dutch pub fare always included--often >exclusively--a grilled cheese or ham & cheese sandwich made in a press. >One asked for "een ham en kaas tostie", although I'm not sure about the >"tostie". I've seen "toastje", "toastie", or "tostie". Basically the same as French "croque monsieur", no? And then there's the Australian "jaffle"... --Ben Zimmer From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Fri Nov 26 21:21:45 2004 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 13:21:45 -0800 Subject: Dear John Letters In-Reply-To: <200411260730.1cxI3E1B43NZFpL0@mx-a065b05.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Oh, right. I always have trouble keeping straight things straight...BB > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Laurence Horn > > At 1:43 AM -0800 11/26/04, Benjamin Barrett wrote: > >I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man > to a woman > >ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford > >Dictionary of English... > > Actually, that's a "Dear Jane letter" ;-) From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sat Nov 27 02:01:13 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 20:01:13 -0600 Subject: Goof (1902) Message-ID: > <<.... / For below the people's elect were spread. / Some were > statesmen, > in wisdom born and bred, / While some were muggled goofs with necks > of red. / So what does "muggled" mean in this context?? From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 27 02:42:50 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 21:42:50 -0500 Subject: Goof (1902) In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B497B2@rdec-exch8.ds.amr dec.army.mil> Message-ID: >So what does "muggled" mean in this context?? I don't know for sure, but I suppose it to be approximately equivalent to "muddled", i.e. "confused". DARE shows a "muggle" something like this, with a reference to the EDD (which I don't have handy). Cf. also "hugger-mugger", and various "muggle" words referring to marijuana. Maybe it's just a nonce word. The same poem contains "twickled and twittled" where "twittered" or so would be expected, and "twirked" apparently similar to "twitched", and some of the legislators are termed "ismists" and "popgogs". Could "goof" itself be nonce here, and unrelated to later use? Could be, but the sense looks about right for continuity. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 27 05:26:12 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 00:26:12 -0500 Subject: "Yannigan bag"? Message-ID: A while back -- http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0301A&L=ads-l&P=R378 -- "yannigan bag" was mentioned as a supposed ancestor of the baseball "yannigan". I don't know whether anybody ever found any trace of "yannigan bag", but I happened across this word which may be related somehow: From MW3: << wanigan or wannigan ... noun ... of Algonquian origin; akin to Abnaki _waniigan_ trap, literally, that into which something strays ... 1 : a chest for supplies 2 : a shelter for sleeping, eating, storage, or office space often mounted on wheels or crawler tracks and towed by tractor or mounted on a raft or boat 3 : debts incurred by lumbermen at a company store >> I have seen "wannigan" used to mean "houseboat". Can't remember where now. Judging from the senses above maybe the basic sense is/was "carryall" or so. I don't see any connection to the baseball "yannigans". -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 27 06:01:48 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 01:01:48 -0500 Subject: Dear John Letters Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 10:32:32 -0600, paulzjoh wrote: >Does anyone remember the country song popular during the Korean War? "Dear >John, I've sent your saddle home"? There were a number of country & western songs in the early '50s on the "Dear John" theme. The one you're thinking of was called "Dear John" and was recorded by Hank Williams in 1951 (written by Aubry Gass and Tex Ritter): ------- Well when I woke up this mornin', There was a note upon my door, Said don't make me no coffee Babe, 'cause I won't be back no more, And that's all she wrote, Dear John, I've sent your saddle home. Now Jonah got along in the belly of the whale, Daniel in the lion's den, But I know a guy that didn't try to get along, And he won't get a chance again, And that's all she wrote, Dear John, I've fetched your saddle home. ------- The song is also notable for linking "Dear John" with another then-new expression, "that's all she wrote". Slightly earlier than the Hank Williams song was Ernest Tubb's "That's All She Wrote", written by Jerry Fuller in 1950: ------- I got a letter from my mama just a line or two She said listen daddy your good girl's leavin' you That's all she wrote didn't write no more She'd left the gloom a hanging round my front door Now I woke up this morning a quarter past three I just couldn't realize this could happen to me That's all she wrote... ------- "That's all she wrote" is not yet in the OED, but Googling suggests the expression dates to the '40s, perhaps as the punchline to a WWII-era joke/story about a "Dear John" letter. ("Dear John" itself dates to 1945, according to OED2.) The two expressions were familiar enough in August 1947 for a real estate agent named John H. Whitfield to run classified ads in the Nevada State Journal and the Reno Evening Gazette reading: "DEAR JOHN? BUT THAT IS NOT ALL SHE WROTE." --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Nov 27 06:30:42 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 22:30:42 -0800 Subject: The fall eggcorn crop Message-ID: three months of eggcorn collecting (in which ADS-L figures prominently) have now been summarized on the Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001671.html From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 27 07:58:43 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:33:57 -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >I believe it was David Dalby who first made this suggestion about 1967 >or '68. I also seem to recall that he made clear that it was only a >suggestion, part of his interest in investigating West African languages >for possibly overlooked etymologies of English words. "Jitterbug" was >also on the list. I think the original Dalby reference on "hip" et al. was a July 19, 1969 article in the (London) Times. From Paul Werth on the Linguist List: --------------- http://linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-705.html Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET From: Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK An expansion on my earlier rather vague note about the attempt to argue an African origin for O.K. I've managed to find my original source for the information, which was an article in the London Times of July 19, 1969, by David Dalby (Reader in West African Languages, SOAS, U of London). There is apparently independent evidence of the importance of Wolof as a lingua franca among American slaves, and some of the foodstuffs traded along the West African coast have entered the English vocab as Wolof loans (Dalby cites banana and yam). There are other examples in this article than those I cited: 'dig' in the 'understand' or 'appreciate' sense seems like Wolof 'dega', 'to understand'; 'jive', in its original sense of 'talk misleadingly' (Don't jive me, man), finds a parallel in Wolof 'jev', 'to talk disparagingly'; there's a Wolof verb 'hipi', meaning 'to open one's eyes', which with the agentive verbal suffix 'kat', gives 'hipikat', 'one whose eyes are open'. And if the explanation of an African origin for such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural shock, Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of inter- jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only are they more common in American English than in British English, they're also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! --------------- --Ben Zimmer From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Nov 27 14:31:26 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 09:31:26 EST Subject: Assorted comments Message-ID: In a message dated > Fri, 26 Nov 2004 13:43:27 -0500, "Douglas G. Wilson" < > douglas at NB.NET> quotes: > > From N'archive: > _Colorado Springs Gazette_, 2 March 1902: p. 17:> > > [A humorous poem about the legislature, with interpolated commentary] > > <<.... / For below the people's elect were spread. / Some were statesmen, > in wisdom born and bred, / While some were muggled goofs with necks of red. > / and in a later message suggests "muggled" is a (deliberate?) misrendering of "muddled". That suggestion makes sense, as the phrase would then read "muddled doofs" which could be a shortening of "muddled doofuses". I vaguely recall a discussion on the word "doofus" in ADS-L, but I don't recall how far back that word was citated. On to other short comments: Douglas Wilson also writes > The supposed etymon of > "honky" sometimes given as "honq" = "pink" appears as "xonxa" = "red". Of > course it may be that Wolof was a little different a few hundred years ago "honq" and "xonxa" look to be the same word, as trascribed by two observers with different transliteration conventions, particularly if the final "a" on "xonxa" is a grammatical inflection or agglutination. Compare the transliterations "Peiping" (or was it "Peking") and "Beijing". Alternatively "honq" and "xonxa" are variations on the same root which means "of a reddish color" as reported by observers with different transliteration conventions and different opinions as to the importance of including a variant meaning "pink". -------------------------------------------------------- Two neologisms I found this past week: In a negative review of "Alexander", the reviewer said the movie was a "shleppic". This I suspect is a nonce coinage. Sally Friedman "The Plague of the Sexless Marriage" _Inside_ (ISSN 0199-7602, published by Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia) Winter 2004, no Volume/number given, page 61 bottom of column 1: In a culture saturated with the sexual---in a world in which sexual liberation is presumably universal---m illions of American couples are living like celibate monks. There's even a name for these couples: "DINS." Double Income, No Sex "DINS" may be a derivative of "DINK"- "Dual Income No Kids" which I ran across a few years ago. Gordon Welchman _The Hut Six Story_ (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982, ISBN -0-07-069180-0) page 78 discusses the word "crib" and in a footnote gives the following unattributed quote: "And they found in his palms...what is common in palms, namely dates" Anyone familiar with this proverb(?)? It certainly appears to be a parody of a line in Bret Harte's poem "Plain Language from Truthful James" - Jim Landau From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Sat Nov 27 15:15:14 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 07:15:14 -0800 Subject: "only ever" Message-ID: I still don't get it but I know when I'm beat. JL Laurence Horn wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Laurence Horn Subject: Re: "only ever" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At 8:26 AM -0800 11/26/04, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes >in the New Yorker for Nov. 29, > > Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82) > >I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be > > All Schulz ever wanted to be was a cartoonist. > > or > > Schulz wanted only to be a cartoonist. > > or > > A cartoonist! Yessirree, Bob, that's the only thing >Schulz ever wanted to be! > >Anymore, is the New Yorker losing its celebrated sensitivity to >English? Its old-time persnickety copy-editors used to would have >forstalled something like this. > >Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column? > I won't try to answer that last one, but after first claiming in print that "only ever" is a Briticism, I've started to accumulate many examples from U.S. English. If you google on "over ever done it once", for example, you're directed to 394 hits. I'm not sure why it would be considered "incorrect"--stilted, perhaps, but not incorrect. In general, "only" licenses negative polarity items like "ever" as long as the latter are not the focus of "only", as seen below [examples taken from a 1996 paper of mine], so the "only ever" in examples like Franzen's is actually quite well-behaved. (1) a. I only eat any meat WHEN I'M DEPRESSED. b. I eat meat only WHEN I'M DEPRESSED ABOUT {SOMETHING/ ?*ANYTHING}. c. Only WHEN I'M DEPRESSED do I ever eat any meat. d. *Only WHEN I'M EVER DEPRESSED ABOUT ANYTHING do I eat meat. (2) a. I've only ever gone there ONCE. b. I only go there {SOMETIMES/*EVER}. c. Only ONCE have I ever been there. d. *Only EVER {do I go there/have I been there}. Larry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Nov 27 15:21:01 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 10:21:01 -0500 Subject: "Money Is the Mother's Milk..." In-Reply-To: <20041127151514.99350.qmail@web53906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I am without ProQuest Historical Newspaper access this weekend. Can I impose upon anyone to search PQHN to see what is the earliest appearance of Jesse Unruh's quote, "Money is the mother's milk of politics"? I would be interested in the newspaper, exact date, and exact wording. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Nov 27 16:04:00 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 11:04:00 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" In-Reply-To: <200411271524.iARFOakP025922@pantheon-po07.its.yale.edu> Message-ID: One more: Can I impose upon anyone to search ProQuest Historical Newspapers to see what is the earliest appearance there of "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us" or variants thereof? Sam Clements searched this on Newspaperarchive, but I don't think anyone posted any ProQuest results for it. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 27 16:37:05 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 11:37:05 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments In-Reply-To: <195.330f56cc.2ed9e9be@aol.com> Message-ID: >.... the phrase would then read "muddled doofs" >which could be a shortening of "muddled doofuses". "Doofus" is too recent, I think. Its possible ancestor "doof"" is easily old enough, in Scots (says HDAS). Neither of these appears frequent in the US English of 1902 (I can't find them, at a glance). >"honq" and "xonxa" look to be the same word, as trascribed by two observers >with different transliteration conventions .... I believe these are the same word. I doubt there is a separate "pink" but I haven't researched the matter fully and don't intend to. Wolof lexicon and grammar are AFAIK utterly unrelated to the etymology of the English "hip" or "honky", although I would change my position immediately if any grain of evidence were put forth. "Xonxa" is one dictionary's spelling; I think it's standard. "Honq" is of unknown provenance, possibly a casual transcription, I don't know or care. But note that the forms adduced for the etymological assertions are ones which are orthographically closer to the target word (in order better to convince the fastidious savants of Wikipedia, NYT, etc., maybe). BTW: "Peking" vs. "Beijing": the "pe"/"bei" distinction seems to be merely a choice of transcriptions of the same sound but the "king" vs. "jing" seems to reflect a recent (during last few centuries) 'fronting'/ palatalization (pronunciation shift) in northern (particularly Beijing) Chinese; I suppose the shift is probably still in progress. The "k" is the older version, presumably adopted from a dialect which had not undergone this shift at the time of the spelling choice (some dialects still don't have the shift) ... or possibly from a conservative 'formal' pronunciation (e.g., Chinese opera pronunciation retains some old features like this still, AFAIK). -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 27 17:22:26 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 12:22:26 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 09:31:26 EST, James A. Landau wrote: >That suggestion makes sense, as the phrase would then read "muddled doofs" >which could be a shortening of "muddled doofuses". I vaguely recall a >discussion on the word "doofus" in ADS-L, but I don't recall how far back >that word was citated. Over on the alt.usage.english newsgroup I posted a 1955 cite where "Doofus" is used generically for a dim-witted boxer, similar to "Joe Palooka" or "Joe Schmo". I see from the archives that Fred Shapiro reposted it over here: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0306A&L=ads-l&P=R2541 1955 John Lardner in _N.Y. Times_ 25 Dec. "Doofus lost every round from the third, but they give him the duke!" "Gratz had him on the floor in the fifth!" "You shoulda seen it!" "What kind of officiating is that!" "Was you there? You was? Then let me tell you what happened!" Fred noted that HDAS only has a 1966 cite (though it's "remembered from Jonathan Lighter's childhood" c. 1960). In any case, as Doug Wilson said, "doof(us)" is too recent a coinage to be a source for "goof" -- the other way around is more likely. "Doofus" could have been derived from "goof" via "goofus" (_Highlights Magazine_'s "Goofus and Gallant" dates to 1948, according to ). --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Nov 27 20:34:51 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 12:34:51 -0800 Subject: Rule Of Three (redux) Message-ID: i've just done a summary of our february ADS-L discussion of "location, location, location" and related matters on the Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001673.html From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 27 22:39:06 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 17:39:06 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <5506056.1101588836005.JavaMail.jharwell@tennessee.edu> Message-ID: I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: --- After a few purchases, however, buyers realize that they get better prices when they lie in wait until the last few seconds of an auction and then jump in with a higher bid. This practice, known as sniping, doesn't give other buyers the chance to reconsider their own bottom line and bump up their own bid a few dollars higher. --- The infinitive is . Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Nov 27 22:58:53 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 17:58:53 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 05:39:06PM -0500, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a > quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: Yes, it's extremely widespread. Jesse Sheidlower OED From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 27 23:03:14 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:03:14 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <20041127225853.GA10201@panix.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: > >Yes, it's extremely widespread. Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Nov 27 23:17:17 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:17:17 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 06:03:14PM -0500, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > > >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a > >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: > > > >Yes, it's extremely widespread. > > Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? None, so far as I know. That is, there are other current verbs _to snipe_ (the other newish one referring to the surreptitious placement of advertising stickers for music promotion), but this is pretty exclusive to eBay and similar sites. (In most traditional forms of auction, sniping as such is not possible, because there's no fixed time when an auction ends: any new bid will extend the time.) Jesse Sheidlower OED From panis at PACBELL.NET Sat Nov 27 23:54:52 2004 From: panis at PACBELL.NET (John McChesney-Young) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 15:54:52 -0800 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <200411272317.iARNHJLM012755@mtac2.prodigy.net> Message-ID: Out of curiosity I decided to check Google groups (searching for combinations of snipe & sniping and ebay & auction), and the earliest cite I found is from August of 1997: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=01bcaeaf%24bd0baca0%24f7a9bacd%40prescojo.ix.netcom.com&output=gplain From: jp (prescojo-- at -ix.netcom.com ) Subject: Re: I've Had It With EBay ! Newsgroups: rec.antiques Date: 1997/08/22 Hey, I have to agree with dpross- at -ibm.net on this one. Sniping is okay when it works for you, but is very frustrating when it doesn't.... so, the best bet is to give yourself and e-bay time to process the bid(s) in advance of the closing hour, bid what you're willing to pay and hope for the best. Besides, E-bay isn't really like a "live" auction; it's more of a "silent" auction where you don't know who's going to win until all the bids are in and the auction closes ... (end quote; e-mail addresses munged by me) Since eBay opened for business in September of 1995 I wonder whether it really took two years for the practice and its term to arrive; on the other hand, sniping was chancier in pre-broadband days. I was also interested to learn there's a noun, _snipe_, reportedly derived from the other meaning of verb to which JS refers. It might be that everyone else knows of it. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=199701081958.MAA06056%40sde.hp.com&output=gplain From: Evan Zweifel Subject: MOPO FAQ V.1.0 Date: 1997/01/08 Message-ID: <199701081958.MAA06056 at sde.hp.com> apparently-to: sender: Movie Poster Discussion comments: Gated by NETNEWS at AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU reply-to: Evan Zweifel newsgroups: bit.listserv.movie.memorabilia ... Snipes Also called "minis," these posters are produced by the studios/production companies (NOT by National Screen Service) usually for use in non-theatre locations to promote a film. These posters are also given out at sneak previews and other promotional events to generate interest in a movie. They received the name " snipe " since "to snipe " meant pasting advertisements up (on walls, telephone poles, etc) illegally at night. Size varies, but they are generally 11 X 17 and printed on glossy paper. John *** >On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 06:03:14PM -0500, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >> On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> >> >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a >> >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: >> > >> >Yes, it's extremely widespread. >> >> Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? > >None, so far as I know. That is, there are other current >verbs _to snipe_ (the other newish one referring to the >surreptitious placement of advertising stickers for >music promotion), but this is pretty exclusive to eBay >and similar sites. > >(In most traditional forms of auction, sniping as such >is not possible, because there's no fixed time when an >auction ends: any new bid will extend the time.) > >Jesse Sheidlower >OED -- *** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley, California, U.S.A. *** From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 27 23:55:20 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:55:20 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 23, 2004, at 10:10 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is >> escorted >> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >> confused with the Texas Rangers). > >> I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers > > The town of Marshall had no town marshal? > > It is said that the reason the US Army does not have the rank of > "Marshal" or > "Field Marshal" is that the first man to be considered for such a rank > was > General (i.e. then four stars) George C. Marshall, and he refused to > become > "Marshal Marshall". > > It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. > However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to Field > Marshal was > Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason unknown > to me, > instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." > > A Texas Ranger cannot be described as a "peace officer" because the > Rangers > are theoretically not a police force but rather the private army of > the State > of Texas. > > Beverly Flanigan writes: > >> I'd add that city or county >> police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in >> Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel >> 50 >> miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and >> maintain >> reasonable speed. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> At my grandfather's >> funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >> be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >> at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >> panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >> expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police >> was >> not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >> people and denied to white people. > > John Baker writes: > >> The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the > highway and >> waiting for the funeral procession to pass. > > More than a custom; it is part of good driving practice and may be > state law > in most states. At least it may be state law that once a convoy (any > convoy > on the road, not only a funeral procession) passes a traffic light and > the > light turns red, the convoy keeps going. The custom of having the > headlights on > in a funeral procession has nothing to do with respect for the > deceased. It is > a warning to other motorists that this is a convoy. In fact, convoys > other > than funeral processions (which generally means military convoys) also > have > headlights on. > > As for the police escort, that is because a funeral procession, > regardless of > race creed or hairstyle, is an equal-opportunity creator of traffic > problems. > It is not a "service provided to white people" but rather a necessity > for > the police department, one of whose duties is to clear up trafic > problems. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> when my father first went up to >> Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >> then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >> Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >> yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >> Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >> pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >> peculiar to a dialect." > > I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an > Irish > accent. > I think "primarily" is the term that you're searching for. But, IMO, even if the term is accepted as being restricted specifically to Irish, it merely makes my father's use of it to describe his idiolect of BE even more noteworthy. Unfortunately, he died in January of this year, at the age of 97. Otherwise, I'd question him about it. -Wilson Gray From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Sun Nov 28 01:02:47 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:02:47 -0500 Subject: boarding-house reach (1909) Message-ID: Found today (I should say refound, as I had lost it): The subject was not mentioned at breakfast; nor was anything else, in particular, mentioned. Duncan was extremely polite, and passed here the toast when ordinarily he would have permitted her to help herself (true, it was a small table, for two, and easily spanned, but she objected to a "boarding-house reach"), as was wholly affable. Edwin L. Sabin, "What Did Duncan Do?" Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (APS Online), Dec. 1909, p 724 Any examples from further back would be much appreciated. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 01:59:21 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:59:21 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <20041127231717.GA8325@panix.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a >> >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: >> > >> >Yes, it's extremely widespread. >> >> Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? > >None, so far as I know. Thanks. I thought you meant that it occurred in contexts other than those involving eBay, etc. Bethany From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Sun Nov 28 01:32:17 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:32:17 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <007201c4d31f$9cdc32a0$6400a8c0@FITZT1840> Message-ID: >Barbara Need wrote: ><instead of the waffle plates>> >Exactly. >We called it a grilled cheese sandwich in the Wash., D.C. suburbs in >the 1950s, and my mother taught us to make them in a waffle iron >with the plates reversed to the pancake griddle side. We buttered >the outsides and filled it with cheddar cheese, mustard, and maybe >sliced ham. Did you close the waffle iron? Or did you use the griddle side as a griddle and flip the sandwich. > This bound me conceptually, so that I still make the sandwich >before putting it in the frying pan, rather than using the elegant >method of building the sandwich as it cooks. I always make the sandwich before I cook it--I use a griddle or a frying pan and flip the sandwich. Barbara > (Visages, sacred or profane, were rare, though my mother once >thought she saw the likeness of Franklin Roosevelt. Her response >was to cut the sandwich into quarters rather than the usual halves.) > >I found in the late '60s that Dutch pub fare always included--often >exclusively--a grilled cheese or ham & cheese sandwich made in a >press. One asked for "een ham en kaas tostie", although I'm not >sure about the "tostie". > >Seán Fitzpatrick >Strawberry tarts, cinnamon trollops, and hot buttered trulls. Uuumm,mmm good. >http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/ From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 02:01:48 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:01:48 -0500 Subject: "Money is the mother's milk of politics" (1963) Message-ID: I am without ProQuest Historical Newspaper access this weekend. Can I impose upon anyone to search PQHN to see what is the earliest appearance of Jesse Unruh's quote, "Money is the mother's milk of politics"? I would be interested in the newspaper, exact date, and exact wording. Fred Shapiro (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Party Hackles Raised by Democratic Council CARL GREENBERG. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Apr 8, 1963. p. A4 (1 page) : This was the platform from which the committee, and subsequently the convention, jumped on Unruh with both feet, inveighing against "bossism" and "machine politics" and, lest anybody fail to get the message, using a quotation previously publicly attributed to Unruh about money being "the mother's milk of politics." California Clash; Feud of Top Democrats In Golden State Could Hurt Kennedy in 1964 Leaders Jockey to Build Power Bases; White House Ties of Unruh Irk Brown An Earful on President's Trip? California Clash: Democrats' Feud Could Hurt Kennedy in State in '64 By ALAN L. OTTEN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Wall Street Journal (1889. Jun 5, 1963. p. 1 (2 pages) Pg. 20: It cited as a horrible example a quote widely identified with the speaker (Unruh--ed.): "Money is the mother's milk of politics." Brown Signs Campaign Bill Backed by Unruh; Governor Calls CDC-Opposed Endorsement Measure 'Badly Needed to Correct Abuses' CAMPAIGN BILL CARL GREENBERG. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Jul 2, 1963. p. 2 (2 pages) Pg. 17: He (Unruh--ed.) attended its Bakersfield convention in March at which CDC adopted an election reform report using a quotation widely attributed to Unruh that "money is the mother's milk of politics." After Political Honey Comes That Big Money RICHARD BERGHOLZ. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 6, 1963. p. A4 (1 page) : Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh is credited with the classic remark that "money is the mother's milk of politics." The Democrats Are Having Troubles, Too CARL GREENBERG. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Mar 2, 1965. p. A4 (1 page) : ...rewrote Unruh's famous "Money is the mother's milk of politics"... Unruh's Money Raising Dinnerto Aid His Slate; $100 Contributions Jan. 13 to Help Those Candidates Who Are Allied With Speaker RICHARD BERGHOLZ. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Jan 2, 1966. p. 2 (1 page): Most of Unruh's followers are abundantly aware that it was the speaker who, while climbing to the top, is credited with the oft-quoted remark that "money is the mother's milk of politics." Close-up on Reagan; Hurdling the primaries Approach smoother Economy popular Slate assembled Choice possible A political signal? By John C. Waugh Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Jan 15, 1968. p. 9 (1 page): "I aim to do two things in these swings," he (Ronald Reagan--ed.) says. "Talk up Republican unity and raise the mother's milk of politics--money." The myths of politics By John A. Cicco, Jr.. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Jul 12, 1979. p. 22 (1 page) : _"Money is the mother's milk of politics."_ This constantly repeated quotation within political circles seems primarily intended to discourage any newcomers to politics. Money is important, but its importance is overrated. Too many good candidates don't run because they think it takes a fortune to do so. Too many bad cadidates do run simply because they can get the "backing." The politican who hopes to buy an election, however, will waste most of his or her money on people who make a small, but reliable, living by selling their support--often several times during the same election. Jesse Unruh, a devotee of politics and power; JUSTICE CURTIS J. SITOMER. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Aug 13, 1987. p. 17 (1 page) : "MONEY is the mother's milk of politics," quipped Jesse Unruh almost three decades ago. This catch phrase quickly became, and still is, a rallyiung cry for politicans the nation over. From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 02:08:37 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:08:37 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, John McChesney-Young wrote: >Hey, I have to agree with dpross- at -ibm.net on this one. Sniping is >okay when it works for you, but is very frustrating when it doesn't.... >so, the best bet is to give yourself and e-bay time to process the bid(s) >in advance of the closing hour, bid what you're willing to pay and hope >for the best. And I have to disagree with your best bet, based on my two weeks of experience on eBAY. Last week I lost a dining table I had my heart set on - to a last15seconds sniper. But from that experience, I figured out how to snipe (though I did not yet know the term) - and on Wednesday night I bid successfully for a much nicer table at a much lower price - in the closing seconds. The next day - Thanksgiving - I spoke with a friend who buys often on eBay. Her sniping technique involves sitting at two high-speed computers as the bid close time approaches - so she loses no time between her bids. I was fascinated by the WSJ article yesterday because it summarized most of what I had just spent two weeks learning. I am of course speaking only of eBay bids - not other kinds of . Bethany From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 02:09:26 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:09:26 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 23, 2004, at 12:07 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of > Wisconsin) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> Fritz, > > You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your > name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. > > Of course familiarity does not always breed accuracy; when I was in > Madison WI in the 12th Cent. there was a cheap beer (popular among > the little moneyed) named Feuerbach pronounced 'fireback,' but the > best local pronunciation of all the midwestern US German heritage > beers was Griesedieck as 'greasydick.' > > dInIs In addition to Griesedieck Brothers Beer, the Griesedieck Bros. Brewery, a St. Louis-based company, also brewed Falstaff Beer, the biggest-selling brand of beer in St. Louis through the 'Sixties, at least, much to the chagrin of Anheuser-Busch, the biggest-selling beer in the world, except not in its own hometown. -Wilson Gray > > > >> Mark, >> I didn't know about the '15' meaning. Names are often so >> interesting. I have a kid whose last name is Breivogel. He >> naturally thinks that it has something to do with birds, but such is >> not the case. A Breivogel is not a bird, altho it probably alludes >> it one. >> My last name gets slaughtered all the time. I am used to it and >> even enjoy the variations I get. ALmost no one here at the school >> can even spell it. I've gotten about 20 different spellings on >> various notes. Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My >> favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and >> paid with my plastic. The lady who took it, who is from China, >> informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you >> were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know >> how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was >> able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if >> I remember correctly. It's all good:) >> Fritz Juengling aka Zhueng-ling >> >>>>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/23/04 08:07AM >>> >> FRITZ JUENGLING asks: >>>>> >> Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark >> almond >> (or tonsil)?' >> <<< >> >> i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, >> punctuation, >> capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon >> naturallyspeaking >> to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako >> escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, >> etc., and >> sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my >> tendinitis. >> >> i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name >> was >> mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he >> shortened it. i >> like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather >> than to >> avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees >> and left >> only the nuts. >> >> aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; >> french >> also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can >> see, >> "by hand" is away from the tonsils! >> >> it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that >> eng. >> "dozen" is '(group of) 12'. >> >> -- mark by hand > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African > Languages > A-740 Wells Hall > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824 > Phone: (517) 432-3099 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > preston at msu.edu > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 02:38:53 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:38:53 -0500 Subject: "English was good enough for Jesus" (1905, 1912 for "St. Paul") Message-ID: One more: Can I impose upon anyone to search ProQuest Historical Newspapers to see what is the earliest appearance there of "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us" or variants thereof? Sam Clements searched this on Newspaperarchive, but I don't think anyone posted any ProQuest results for it. Fred Shapiro (AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES ONLINE) LANGUAGE OF ST. PAUL. Youth's Companion. Puck (1877-1918). New York: Sep 11, 1912. Vol. 72, Iss. 1854; p. 0_10 (1 page): Among the Wesleyans of a century ago there was a well-known and eccentric preacher named David Mackenzie. When reading the third chapter of Daniel he invariably abbreviated the instruments of the Babylonian musicians, and when the names of the instruments were repeated in verses 10 and 15 he would say, "The band as before." He was a lay preacher of the old order, and was admitted without having read the prescribed "Wesley's Sermons," and the rest. He boasted of his lack of "book learning," and scornfully told a student of the new school, who was learning Latin, that "English was good enough for St. Paul; ain't it good enough for you?"--_Youth's Companion_. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) OLDEST DINING CLUB IN THE WORLD; The State in Schwylkill, Founded in 1732, Still Holds Its Annual Dinner in Its Castle Near Philadelphia -- All Cooking Is Done by Members, and Each Must Take His Turn at It. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jan 15, 1905. p. SMA8 (1 page): PROF. ADOLPHE COHN of Columbia University recently, in discussing the teaching of French and German in public schools, said that the attitude of a good many people on that subject was explained to him very aptly by a remark he had once overheard in a street car. Two elderly Irish women were talking about their children, when one remarked: "I won't let my child be taught Frinch." "Why not?" inquired the other. "Sure," replied the first, "if English was good enough for St. Paul to write the Bible in it's good enough for me." From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 02:48:36 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:48:36 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 24, 2004, at 11:41 AM, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J." > Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now > less OT) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a = > "toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" that = > we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. > Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in = > other parts of the US? > > -Matt Gordon > "Mostly by St. Louisans"? That's very bizarre. I first knew of the "grilled-cheese" sandwich as an offering of the student cafeteria at St. Louis University. This would have been in 1955 or so. Before then, I had never eaten a grilled-/toasted-cheese sandwich nor had I even heard of such a thing, though I had, by that time, lived in St. Louis for about twenty years. What can I tell you? Segregation worked. -Wilson Gray From panis at PACBELL.NET Sun Nov 28 02:51:41 2004 From: panis at PACBELL.NET (John McChesney-Young) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:51:41 -0800 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <200411280208.iAS28XAk011542@ylpvm08.prodigy.net> Message-ID: "Bethany K. Dumas" quoted & wrote in part: >On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, John McChesney-Young wrote: > >> ... the best bet is to give yourself and e-bay time to process the bid(s) >>in advance of the closing hour, bid what you're willing to pay and hope >>for the best. > >And I have to disagree with your best bet, based on my two weeks of >experience on eBAY. ... Just to make it clear, the advice you quoted was not mine but that of the 1997 Usenet poster, jp (prescojo-- at -ix.netcom.com). In fact, I agree with you on eBay bidding techniques, although when I've tried sniping I've rarely succeeded - I think my competitors were using sniping software rather than doing it manually as I was. John -- *** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley, California, U.S.A. *** From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Sun Nov 28 03:46:10 2004 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (Vida J Morkunas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:46:10 -0800 Subject: "I kid, because I love" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A little meme keeps reappearing in many of the blogs that I read (MetaFilter, Engadget, boingboing and other tech / consumer electronics type sites) Usually the line "I kid because I love" will appear when the writer is joking about something, or kidding. Where does this phrase come from? Where was it first written? I did a search on the ADS archives, and did not get a result. A search on Google reveals 774 instances of this sentence. Cheers - Vida Morkunas Vancouver BC From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 03:45:50 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 22:45:50 -0500 Subject: Speaking of "toast" Message-ID: When I was a child, buttered toast was made by first buttering slices of "light bread" and then putting them into the broiler on a cookie sheet till the butter melted and only the *top* of the bread was toasted. After we moved to St. Louis, which was not nearly as Jim-Crow as Marshall, TX, as a child, I often had occasion to eat a meal at the houses of neighborhood white children. One of the first things that I noticed was that white people had bread-toasting machines that toasted the bread on both sides. I also noted that no butter was put onto the bread until after it was toasted. I came to the following conclusions: 1) It was not possible to make a toasting machine that could toast bread on only one side, hence both sides of a slice of bread had to be toasted 2) Since the bread was inserted into the toasting machine on the vertical, it was not possible to butter the bread before toasting it, because the melting butter would flow into the innards of machine and cause a problem Approximately 25 years later, I had a white roommate who owned a toaster-oven. One day, when it was his turn to cook, he got out a cookie sheet, put some unbuttered slices bread on it and toasted the bread. This struck me as somewhat strange, but I wasn't the one cooking, so I didn't say anything. In any case, after the bread slices had been toasted, he took the cookie sheet out of toaster and proceeded to flip the slices over to their untoasted sides and then he put the cookie sheet back into the toaster-oven. I asked, "Why are you putting that toasted bread back into the oven?" He replied, as though to a child, "Why, so that I can toast the other sides." EPIPHANY!!! White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't figure out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only one side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 03:55:59 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 22:55:59 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 24, 2004, at 2:45 PM, Marsha Alley wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Marsha Alley > Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now > less OT) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles > for = > 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between, coated = > outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled cheese = > sandwich." > > A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the broiler = > until it melted was "cheese toast." The under side of the bread was = > never toasted first. You are correct, ma'am. This is precisely the name of the foodstuff and precisely the method used to prepare it in East Texas, too. -Wilson Gray > > A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts > two = > slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a "toasted = > cheese sandwich." He's never heard of cheese toast. =20 > > Marsha > /wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-) > From marshaalley at MSN.COM Sun Nov 28 04:37:39 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:37:39 -0800 Subject: Speaking of "toast" Message-ID: Not all white folks. I prefer mine the way you had it as a child. When my aged heart can stand the butter anyway. :-) Marsha /who doesn't own a toaster or a toaster oven ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Speaking of "toast" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't figure out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only one side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 04:42:20 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 23:42:20 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 27, 2004, at 9:51 PM, John McChesney-Young wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: John McChesney-Young > Subject: Re: sniping? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > "Bethany K. Dumas" quoted & wrote in part: > >> On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, John McChesney-Young wrote: >> >>> ... the best bet is to give yourself and e-bay time to process the >>> bid(s) >>> in advance of the closing hour, bid what you're willing to pay and >>> hope >>> for the best. >> >> And I have to disagree with your best bet, based on my two weeks of >> experience on eBAY. ... > > Just to make it clear, the advice you quoted was not mine but that of > the 1997 Usenet poster, jp (prescojo-- at -ix.netcom.com). > > In fact, I agree with you on eBay bidding techniques, although when > I've tried sniping I've rarely succeeded - I think my competitors > were using sniping software rather than doing it manually as I was. > > John > -- > > > *** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley, > California, U.S.A. *** > I had no idea that there was a way to snipe manually. I've always used a sniping application myself and it's worked like a charm for me. For instance, I once got a $325 sterling-silver Tiffany charm bracelet for $85. My wife loved it! I have a Mac, for which there are about three sniping apps. PC users probably have dozens to choose among. -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 05:01:53 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:01:53 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 27, 2004, at 11:37 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: Assorted comments > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> .... the phrase would then read "muddled doofs" >> which could be a shortening of "muddled doofuses". > > "Doofus" is too recent, I think. Its possible ancestor "doof"" is > easily > old enough, in Scots (says HDAS). Neither of these appears frequent in > the > US English of 1902 (I can't find them, at a glance). > >> "honq" and "xonxa" look to be the same word, as trascribed by two >> observers >> with different transliteration conventions .... > > I believe these are the same word. I doubt there is a separate "pink" > but I > haven't researched the matter fully and don't intend to. Wolof lexicon > and > grammar are AFAIK utterly unrelated to the etymology of the English > "hip" > or "honky", although I would change my position immediately if any > grain of > evidence were put forth. "Xonxa" is one dictionary's spelling; I think > it's > standard. "Honq" is of unknown provenance, possibly a casual > transcription, > I don't know or care. But note that the forms adduced for the > etymological > assertions are ones which are orthographically closer to the target > word > (in order better to convince the fastidious savants of Wikipedia, NYT, > etc., maybe). How is the word, funky, pronounced in BE? It's pronounced as though something like "fonky," right? Now, suppose that there was an ordinary word of American English, hunky, that was originally used as a term of opprobrium for certain peoples of Central-European extraction. Now, how would this word, hunky, be pronounced in BE? It might well be pronounced something like "honky," right? Is that a reasonable supposition? -Wilson Gray > > BTW: "Peking" vs. "Beijing": the "pe"/"bei" distinction seems to be > merely > a choice of transcriptions of the same sound but the "king" vs. "jing" > seems to reflect a recent (during last few centuries) 'fronting'/ > palatalization (pronunciation shift) in northern (particularly Beijing) > Chinese; I suppose the shift is probably still in progress. The "k" is > the > older version, presumably adopted from a dialect which had not > undergone > this shift at the time of the spelling choice (some dialects still > don't > have the shift) ... or possibly from a conservative 'formal' > pronunciation > (e.g., Chinese opera pronunciation retains some old features like this > still, AFAIK). > > -- Doug Wilson > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 05:16:31 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:16:31 -0500 Subject: Speaking of "toast" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 27, 2004, at 11:37 PM, Marsha Alley wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Marsha Alley > Subject: Re: Speaking of "toast" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Not all white folks. I prefer mine the way you had it as a child. > When = > my aged heart can stand the butter anyway. :-) > > Marsha > /who doesn't own a toaster or a toaster oven I take your point. -Wilson > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header = > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society = > > > Poster: Wilson Gray = > > > Subject: Speaking of "toast" > = > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > --= > ------ > > White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't > figure > out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only > one > side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! > From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 05:26:26 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:26:26 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments In-Reply-To: <9F1F6FF8-40FA-11D9-9595-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: >How is the word, funky, pronounced in BE? It's pronounced as though >something like "fonky," right? Now, suppose that there was an ordinary >word of American English, hunky, that was originally used as a term of >opprobrium for certain peoples of Central-European extraction. Now, how >would this word, hunky, be pronounced in BE? It might well be >pronounced something like "honky," right? Is that a reasonable >supposition? I hope it's reasonable, because it's my supposition too. -- Doug Wilson From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 05:31:09 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:31:09 -0500 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. Message-ID: Am I the only one who read this essay in the TBR for 21 November? Or did everyone else read it and not find anything worthy of comment? -Wilson Gray From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 05:36:18 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:36:18 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 11:04:00 -0500, Fred Shapiro wrote: >One more: Can I impose upon anyone to search ProQuest Historical >Newspapers to see what is the earliest appearance there of "If English >was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us" or variants >thereof? Sam Clements searched this on Newspaperarchive, but I don't >think anyone posted any ProQuest results for it. Barry Popik has already turned up a 1905 cite with the "St. Paul" version, predating the two 1912 cites attributing the saying to David Mackenzie. As for the "Jesus" version, here's a Newspaperarchive cite from 1927: Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), April 27, 1927 Satisfied! An official of the Rockefeller Institute states that, among hundreds of letters of denunciation received by the institution during the past year, one was from a man in Arkansas who took the view that all this modern education is dangerous, and that the new-fangled practice of grounding preachers in Latin and Greek is especially pernicious. They ought to be taught English, he said, adding in conclusion: "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me." I don't know when the "Jesus" version began to be attributed to Texas Governor Miriam "Ma" Ferguson. I see the Ferguson attribution showed up in Safire's May 30, 1982 "On Language" column, but surely it predates that. (In a Sept. 15, 1979 Syracuse Herald Journal article, then-Congressman Paul Simon gave H.L. Mencken as the source.) --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 05:50:49 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:50:49 -0500 Subject: boarding-house reach (1909) Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:02:47 -0500, Barnhart wrote: >Found today (I should say refound, as I had lost it): > >The subject was not mentioned at breakfast; nor was anything else, in >particular, mentioned. Duncan was extremely polite, and passed here the >toast when ordinarily he would have permitted her to help herself (true, >it was a small table, for two, and easily spanned, but she objected to a >"boarding-house reach"), as was wholly affable. Edwin L. Sabin, "What Did >Duncan Do?" Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (APS Online), Dec. 1909, p 724 > >Any examples from further back would be much appreciated. Slightly earlier, from the LA Times: A MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP JOKE. Los Angeles Times, Jan 7, 1908. p. II4 So-called reformers who have a "boarding-house reach" for all the municipal pie in sight, object to the term "half-baked." --Ben Zimmer From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 28 06:00:16 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:00:16 -0600 Subject: snipe (was Re: Assorted comments) Message-ID: >On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 06:03:14PM -0500, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >> On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> >> >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a >> >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: >> > >> >Yes, it's extremely widespread. >> >> Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? > >None, so far as I know. That is, there are other current >verbs _to snipe_ (the other newish one referring to the >surreptitious placement of advertising stickers for >music promotion), but this is pretty exclusive to eBay >and similar sites. > I found another context, which I posted here: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0411A&L=ads-l&P=R564 From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 06:55:12 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 01:55:12 -0500 Subject: Mountain talk from Manly Wade Wellman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I read a few Wellman books, set in Appalachia, probably around Asheville NC, time 1946-1984. Some odd words are used, supposedly regular Appalachianisms. Some are well-known, others new to me, some seem obsolete, some I can't find in my dictionaries. "allow" = "assert"/"state" (not "concede" or so) "a gone gump" = "a complete fool" "hamper" [n.] = "impediment" "blockade [whiskey]" = "moonshine" "bee gum" = "beehive" "croker sack" = "burlap bag" "a sight" = "a multitude"/"a large quantity" "jimswinger" = "long-tailed [coat]" "whet" [n.] = "aperitif" "I swanny" [exclamation] = "I swear" "wag" = "carry" "brag" [n.] = "truculent talk" "master", "champion" [adverb, adjective (including predicate)] = "outstanding" "the pure quill" = "the real McCoy" "shammock" = "roam"(?) Generally long obsolete in standard English: "swarve" = "climb" "[not a] hooter" = "[not a] bit" Not in my books: "gop" = "gape" [same as "garp" etc. in DARE?] "use" [v.i.] = "walk"/"go"(?) "hobby" [n.] = "bunch" Anybody recognize any of the last group? Anybody want an example of any term? -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 07:10:43 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:10:43 -0500 Subject: "I kid, because I love" Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:46:10 -0800, Vida J Morkunas wrote: >A little meme keeps reappearing in many of the blogs that I read >(MetaFilter, Engadget, boingboing and other tech / consumer electronics >type sites) > >Usually the line "I kid because I love" will appear when the writer is >joking about something, or kidding. > >Where does this phrase come from? Where was it first written? I associate the line with Krusty the Clown on _The Simpsons_... "I kid, 'cause I love. I'm telling you the best folk in the world are prison folk." --"The Brother from Another Series", aired Feb. 23, 1997 http://www.snpp.com/episodes/4F14 But I see that the Usenet archive has it back to Feb. 1994: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=pcnet.22.762446402 at englab.indstate.edu Since the _Simpsons_ writers have modeled Krusty on the old Borscht Belt comedians, I'd bet that the line was long part of the shtick of "insult comics" like Don Rickles -- as a way to defuse any hard feelings after a nasty jibe (and to set up the insultee for an even nastier jibe). Jon Stewart, who also borrows heavily (if self-consciously) from Borscht Belt shtick, has made use of the line, as in this 1998 interview: http://jon.happyjoyfun.net/tran/1998/98_1003npr.html --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 07:34:29 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:34:29 -0500 Subject: "Money is the mother's milk of politics" (1963) Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:01:48 -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >Party Hackles Raised by Democratic Council >CARL GREENBERG. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: >Apr 8, 1963. p. A4 (1 page) : >This was the platform from which the committee, and subsequently the >convention, jumped on Unruh with both feet, inveighing against "bossism" >and "machine politics" and, lest anybody fail to get the message, using a >quotation previously publicly attributed to Unruh about money being "the >mother's milk of politics." Ever-so-slightly earlier: Democratic Council Hits at Unruh; Adopts Explosive Report Warning of Party Bossism Los Angeles Times, Mar 31, 1963. p. G1 The election committee made it clear that it was referring to Unruh in its report by citing a quotation attributed to him that "money is the mother's milk of politics." --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 28 07:42:33 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 23:42:33 -0800 Subject: the curious phonology of wisconsin In-Reply-To: <1101239711.41a3959f0951f@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 23, 2004, at 11:55 AM, Damien Hall added to the followups on my original New Yorker quote from Randy Quaid. no one picked up on quaid's "more pronounced" r's, or on his theory that wisconsinites "talk from the front of their mouths, because they don't want to breathe in the cold." there were some comments on the parsing of "breathe in the cold", but mostly we've been talking about that syllable-division thing in "Wisconsin" (which came up on this list back in october 2003), and in other words, like "mistake". here's a brief run-down... 1. (leaving out some messy details...) words of the form ...V1 C1 C2 V2..., where V1 is the lax vowel of the first syllable and V2 is a tense vowel with primary accent, tend to have three linked properties: (a) tertiary accent on the first syllable; (b) unreduced V1; (c) C1and C2 split between the two syllables, C1 closing the first and C2 as the onset of the second. as a result of (c), C1 has appropriate syllable-final allophones and C2 appropriate syllable-initial allophones. examples: festoon, pontoon, monsoon, poltroon, pastiche, Mankato, Monhegan, Matsui,... and Wisconsin. 2. productive, semantically transparent, "strong" prefixes, like "new" re- (recalculate), de- (defang), mis- (miscalculate), and dis- (distaste) come with tertiary accent, and so have the other properties in 1 (as appropriate). the "old", unproductive, semantically opaque, "weak" prefixes re- (receive), de- (defer), mis- (mistake), and dis- (disturb) are unaccented, have reduced vowels, and (as appropriate) have C1 syllabified with the following syllable. 3. the Oregon Effect: in very frequent, familiar words (like "Oregon" for Oregonians and "Wisconsin" for Wisconsinites), vowels with tertiary stress tend to lose it, with concomitant vowel reduction and (where appropriate) resyllabification; this is what gives the Wisconsinite pronunciation of "Wisconsin". the same thing can happen in fast, casual speech, so that "distaste" can be pronounced, on occasion, much like "mistake" (though they are usually distinct). the reverse is possible, too, but only in hyperarticulate speech, in which each syllable gets some accent. so there's the quick story. an extra twist: some prefix-like elements in names normally come with tertiary accent and show the other properties in 1; the result is a possible contrast like the famous one between "McAuley" (with [k] closing the first syllable, preserving the element "Mc") and "McCawley" (with a [k] in each syllable, or with the first deleted before another [k]). if these names are both familiar to you, they lose the accent on the first syllable and become homophones. otherwise, they *can be* distinct, with the more infrequent "McAuley" likely to preserve tertiary accent (and first-syllable [k]) and the more familiar "McCawley" likely to lose the accent (and have no [k] in the first syllable). but they can also fall together, with tertiary accent on the first syllable, and with the [k] of "McAuley" moved into the second syllable to maximize syllable onsets. The tendency to maximize onsets is in part independent of the accent condition. and now: "Van Ness", the name of a major street in san francisco. the name has a tertiary accent on the element "Van"; the first syllable can end in [n], or have it deleted before the initial [n] of the second syllable. if the [n] is deleted, a hearer who knows the naming system of english (and of the languages that have contributed to this system) can recognize the element "Van" ("Va" not being a possibility) but can't tell whether the primary-accented element is "Ness" (with [n] deleted) or "Ess" (with [n] moved into the following syllable). so if you don't know the street names of san francisco, you could well think that what you're hearing is "Van Ess". and lots of people do. well, i did, back in 1976. ok, this last stuff might be impossibly intricate. but there *are* a lot of alternative pronunciations, and which ones you have depends on things like word structure, familiarity/frequency, speech style, and all that neat stuff. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 07:51:05 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:51:05 -0500 Subject: thisclose (1933), closeasthis (1955) Message-ID: Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald, June 6, 1933 [Photo caption] HOW ROMANCE RUMORS linking the names of Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone were started you may guess from this photo showing them thisclose at a recent dinner. Bridgeport (Conn.) Telegram, April 11, 1955 Marion and Lopez Both Sure Of Winning Pennant in 1955 By UNITED PRESS Fred Haney, Pirates -- The race should be just as closeasthis. I don't care who wins if we don't. I'm just trying to build an eventual contender with the Pirates. --Ben Zimmer From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 07:53:50 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:53:50 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 28, 2004, at 12:26 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: Assorted comments > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> How is the word, funky, pronounced in BE? It's pronounced as though >> something like "fonky," right? Now, suppose that there was an ordinary >> word of American English, hunky, that was originally used as a term of >> opprobrium for certain peoples of Central-European extraction. Now, >> how >> would this word, hunky, be pronounced in BE? It might well be >> pronounced something like "honky," right? Is that a reasonable >> supposition? > > I hope it's reasonable, because it's my supposition too. > > -- Doug Wilson It's good to find a kindred soul. I don't like to assign African origin to any aspect of black-American culture to Africa, unless there's no possibility of American origin or if there's clear historical evidence that leaves me no choice. IMO, the building of a whole new culture under the most arduous of circumstances, a culture that has influenced the cultures of the rest of the world, I find that far more interesting and impressive than hearing some fool say, "Oh, no! None of that's original!. It all came from Africa!" -Wilson Gray From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 09:26:23 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 04:26:23 -0500 Subject: "hunky-dory" < Sc. "unco dour" ? Message-ID: Reading another thread's discussion of "hunky", I was inspired to check out newspaperarchive's early cites for "hunky-dory" and found this: Evening Gazette (Port Jervis, N.Y.), August 4, 1870 The slang expression of "hunky dory" is Scotch, and is a synonym of the Latin "non compos." He is "unco dour in the uptak," is the full expression. Has anyone run across this purported etymology before? I've heard the Japanese "Honcho dori" theory, but this Scots derivation is a new one. I take it the Scots expression would be glossed as "very stubborn on the uptake", though "non compos" obviously suggests a graver mental condition. This would seem to be precisely the opposite of the sense of "hunky-dory" as it emerged in the 1860s ('satisfactory, in good condition'). I've found some examples of "unco dour" in 19th-century Scots texts, though none followed by "...in the uptak": http://www.scotstext.org/makars/p_hay_hunter/chaipter_19.asp James Inwick: Ploughman and Elder by P Hay Hunter; Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier (Edinburgh and London) 1894, 1895, 1900 It wis nae uise speakin til him, an advisin him to come hame wi us, for the drink wis in his heid, an it made him unco dour. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/abk3684 Noetes ambrosianae. By Christopher North. (Prof. John Wilson.) Selected, edited & arranged by John Skelton. N.Y., J. B. Alden [pref. 1876] The flunkeys - as we weel ca'd them, sir - a contumelious nickname, which that unco dour and somewhat stupit radical in the Westminster would try to make himsel believe he invented ower again, when the impident plagiary changed it - as he did the ither day - into "Lackey." http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABR0102-0051-12 The Living age, Volume 51, Issue 654, p. 640 December 6, 1856 A WELCOME TO AULD AGE. BY MISS HAMILTON. Ye winna promise! och! ye're unco' dour, Sae hard to manage and sae cold and sour. --Ben Zimmer From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 09:29:26 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 04:29:26 EST Subject: Wake me up when Kirby dies; Broker than the Ten Commandments Message-ID: BROKER THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS BROKER THAN THE TEM COMMANDMENTS--47 Google hits, 13 Google Groups hits 1. _Straight From the Trumpet's Mouth; SATCHMO: My Life in New Orleans. By Louis Armstrong. Illustrated. 240 pp. New York: Prentice-Hall. $3.50. Trumpet's Mouth _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000096625537&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101632281&clientId=658 82) By CLEVELAND AMORY. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Oct 10, 1954. p. BR7 (2 pages) First page: Some of these, Louis tells us, hit the big time with "Roast Beef" (tuxedo) and "frebies" (free meals), others are nothing but "poor boy" sandwiches and were "broker than the Ten Commandments;... 2. _Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies; Louis Armstrong, the Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies in His Home at 71 _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=000000079675134&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT =309&VName=HNP&TS=1101632281&clientId=65882) By ALBIN KREBS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 7, 1971. p. 1 (2 pages) Pg. 41: "I was foolin' around with some tough ones," Mr.. Armstrong recalled in 1969. "Get paid a little money, and a beeline for on of them gambling houses. Two hours, man, and I was a broke cat, broker than the Ten Commandments." _Bucks County Courier Times _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=++xTpPwvmwuKID/6NLMW2twgUcwPTeHajH0yrdQ41FgSWqZgLX4bFkIF+CsZYmrz) Saturday, July 13, 1968 _Levittown,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:levittown+than+the+ten+commandments) _Pennsylvania_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:pennsylvania+than+the+ten+commandm ents) ...remember when he was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Heart transplants were.....LBJ may have been less a gag target THAN usual. had an awful lot of somebody.. _Times Recorder _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=Ga2xMtpV76yKID/6NLMW2odsq4h7NXO1gMV6rU/Tvw/+HTeu2vtXIkIF+CsZYmrz) Sunday, July 14, 1968 _Zanesville,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:zanesville+than+the+ten+commandments) _Ohio_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:ohio+than+the+ten+commandments) ...remember when he was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Heart transplants were.....In show on CBS TV brought in some more THAN slightly suggestive material.. _Bucks County Courier Times _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=++xTpPwvmwuKID/6NLMW2uZ3shyR7xZusIaZXnzEax/a6TNpIf3zKEIF+CsZYmrz) Friday, August 09, 1974 _Levittown,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:levittown+than+the+ten+commandments) _Pennsylvania_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:pennsylvania+than+the+ten+commandm ents) ...one to Flip Wil- I was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.' a mighty good of what.....pursuit of power is more important THAN civil rights and THE welfare of a.. _Frederick Post _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=ssVO2f5ZuruKID/6NLMW2lqTdsfpwucUpNKKEzyeIskdbXukfoTed0IF+CsZYmrz) Wednesday, January 22, 1997 _Frederick,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:frederick+than+the+ten+commandments) _Maryland_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:maryland+than+the+ten+commandments) ...or how THEy're 4 broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.' biie-GMC dealer Sam C.....eating briers" or how THEy're -broker THAN THE TEN CommandmentFor Po.veil. 39.. _News _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=ssVO2f5ZuruKID/6NLMW2tJ8kySV6UN3s07qcrLHUToFSiiXnTayT0IF+CsZYmrz) Wednesday, January 22, 1997 _Frederick,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:frederick+than+the+ten+commandments) _Maryland_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:maryland+than+the+ten+commandments) ...or how THEy're "broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS." For Powell. 39. a.....eating briers' or how THEy're 'broker THAN THE TEN whole mess" of friends and.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- WAKE ME UP WHEN KIRBY DIES WAKE ME UP WHEN KIRBY DIES--5 Google hits, 0 Google Groups hits (GOOGLE) _Gold Rush Women_ (http://www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html) ... purposes, was an English actor so noted for his dramatic death throes that a phrase coined by bored theatre-goers, “Wake me up when Kirby dies,†became ... www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html - 17k - _Cached_ (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:RRzT4eS4nlkJ:www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html+"wak e+me+up+when+kirby"&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/wo men.html) _San Francisco History - Strolling on Sunday Afternoons_ (http://www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm) ... Such stories of stage life he could tell! Such color of the old Bowery Theater! How he would dilate on the old slogan, “Wake me up when Kirby diesâ€! ... www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm - 12k - _Cached_ (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:z5hykI2xoP8J:www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm+"wake+me+up+when+kirby "&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm) _WHMC-Columbia-- W Word List: Tamony, Peter (1902-1985), Collection ..._ (http://www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html) ... Waiting List Wait Out Waitress Wait-See Wait Tell Next Year Wait Up Waive Waiver Waiver Rule Waivers Wak Waka Wake Wakeathon Wake Me Up When Kirby Dies Wake Up ... www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html - 33k - _Cached_ (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:68s-jb_exEkJ:www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html+"wake+me +up+when+kirby"&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.ht ml) _[CTRL] [3] The Ohio Gang_ (http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html) ... was a Civil War veteran who always bedded down in a pile of old newspapers and, by way of bidding good-night, would say, "Wake me up when Kirby dies"— whoever ... www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv. aol.com/msg15487.html - 24k - Supplemental Result - _Cached_ (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:iYCA04DCniYJ:www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html+"wake+me+up+when+kirby"&hl=e n&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html) _Article 1 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000324266932&SrchMode=1&sid=4&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=11016 28569&clientId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 12, 1898. p. 6 (1 page) The San Francisco papers, in speaking of the death of the pioneer actress, Sarah Stark Thorne, mentions James Stark as her first husband, which is quite incorrect. The lady was three times married, her first husband being the famous Bowery actor of fifty years ago, Hudson Kirby. Out of his name grew the popular newsboys' shibboleth of "Wake me up when Kirby dies." _THREE OLD-TIME THEATRES._ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=000000101218470&SrchMode=1&sid=5&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=11 01628957&clientId=65882) THOMAS W. PITTMAN.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jun 22, 1902. p. 7 (1 page) Kirby, one of the then leading tragedians, frequently played there in National anf patriotic plays, and during his engagements it was the common saying of the town, "Wrap me in an American flag and wake me up when Kirby dies," as he was regarded as great in his heroic and prolonged death scenes. 4. _In the Days of "Dese, Dem, an' Dose"; Mr. Harlow Writes a Fascinating Full-Throated Chronicle of the Old Bowery. The Bowery _ (http:// proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=3&did=000000118215627&SrchMode=1&sid=5&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD& VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101628957&clientId=65882) By HOLLISTER NOBLE. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 26, 1931. p. BR3 (2 pages) First page: Judsob Kirby appeared in "Six Degrees of Crime" and grew so famous for his death scenes that a request of the tired business man of the period to "Wake Me Up When Kirby Dies" became a bon mot for years. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 10:16:53 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 05:16:53 -0500 Subject: Wake me up when Kirby dies; Broker than the Ten Commandments Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 04:29:26 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >(http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000324266932&SrchMode=1&sid=4&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=11016 >28569&clientId=65882) >Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 12, 1898. >p. 6 (1 page) >The San Francisco papers, in speaking of the death of the pioneer actress, >Sarah Stark Thorne, mentions James Stark as her first husband, which is >quite incorrect. The lady was three times married, her first husband being >the famous Bowery actor of fifty years ago, Hudson Kirby. Out of his name >grew the popular newsboys' shibboleth of "Wake me up when Kirby dies." >From Newspaperarchive: Lima (Ohio) Daily Democratic Times, November 10, 1888 Laughing over the story recently told about the old Chatham theatre, W. B. Gregg recalls that in 1846 or 1847 an old actor named Kirby was the favorite there. Kirby was strong on melodrama and could die so pathetically that he always captivated the house in that scene. Once he was going through a particularly dull play and a kid in the pit grew weary. Stretching himself for a nap he requested his nearest neighbor in a tone clearly audible, "Wake me up when Kirby dies." The expression raised a hurrah. The curtain was rung down and Kirby was obliged to make a speech. "Wake me up when Kirby dies" was a Bowery expression from that time down to a very short time ago. -- New York Evening World. --Ben Zimmer From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 12:44:17 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 07:44:17 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks for the clarification, John. On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, John McChesney-Young wrote: >Just to make it clear, the advice you quoted was not mine but that of >the 1997 Usenet poster, jp (prescojo-- at -ix.netcom.com). > >In fact, I agree with you on eBay bidding techniques, although when >I've tried sniping I've rarely succeeded - I think my competitors >were using sniping software rather than doing it manually as I was. Bethany From goranson at DUKE.EDU Sun Nov 28 12:56:21 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 07:56:21 -0500 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. In-Reply-To: <200411280531.iAS5VEDY007543@ballard.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: I thought he did right good, New York paper and all, cept maybe that time he said he had "a relatively epicene sensibility." Stephen Goranson > Am I the only one who read this essay in the TBR for 21 November? Or > did everyone else read it and not find anything worthy of comment? > > -Wilson Gray > From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Sun Nov 28 13:14:20 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 08:14:20 -0500 Subject: 1 thousand words for reindeer? Message-ID: In a recent article in The Independent: "Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor 28 November 2004 Global warming is increasingly rendering Inuit and other Arctic peoples at a loss for words. They simply do not have names in their languages for the temperate species flocking up from the south. They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some have more than 1,000 words for reindeer - but none for, say, the robin, which is only now venturing north of the treeline. ...." This seems to be another case of journalistic exaggeration. More mythology about "snow words" I suspect. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 13:16:06 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 08:16:06 -0500 Subject: snipe (was Re: Assorted comments) In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B497B3@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Mullins, Bill wrote: >I found another context, which I posted here: > >http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0411A&L=ads-l&P=R564 Thanks - I read the webpages. I was fascinated by this bit of misinformation in one story about faculty scheduling: >The Federalists, and even some members of the faculty, suggest that the administration's rationale was nonsense; faculty schedules are the same every week. If the faculty speakers were available last Tuesday at noon, they would also be available the next Tuesday, at noon, or the Tuesday after that.< Of course that is not true. It is generally true that one's teaching schedule remains constant over a semester - but the times of department and committee meetings, travel commitments, offcampus speaking engagements, etc. vary enormously. Bethany From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 14:06:14 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 09:06:14 -0500 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Am I the only one who read this essay in the TBR for 21 November? Or >did everyone else read it and not find anything worthy of comment? I've read it now. Here is the word from Asheville: http://www.mountainx.com/ae/2004/0721southern.php That Smoky Mountain dictionary looks interesting. Is there a discount for ADS members? -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 14:35:44 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 09:35:44 -0500 Subject: "hunky-dory" < Sc. "unco dour" ? In-Reply-To: <54220.24.225.200.116.1101633983.squirrel@24.225.200.116> Message-ID: >Reading another thread's discussion of "hunky", I was inspired to check >out newspaperarchive's early cites for "hunky-dory" and found this: > > Evening Gazette (Port Jervis, N.Y.), August 4, 1870 > The slang expression of "hunky dory" is Scotch, and is a > synonym of the Latin "non compos." He is "unco dour in > the uptak," is the full expression. > >Has anyone run across this purported etymology before? I've heard the >Japanese "Honcho dori" theory, but this Scots derivation is a new one. I >take it the Scots expression would be glossed as "very stubborn on the >uptake", though "non compos" obviously suggests a graver mental condition. > This would seem to be precisely the opposite of the sense of "hunky-dory" >as it emerged in the 1860s ('satisfactory, in good condition'). I've never seen this etymology before. "Unco dour in the uptak" would seem to be similar to (still current?) "slow on the uptake", = "mentally deficient" or "of low intelligence" ... although I suppose it could be used to refer to a temporary condition (e.g., somnolence or drunkenness). Roughly equivalent to "non compos mentis" in a casual (not legal) meaning, I think. SND sense 7 for "dour": "Slow, sluggish, reluctant, used in various contexts, e.g. of a pupil to learn ...": example (1828): <> SND sense 3 for "uptak": "The capacity for understanding, power of comprehension, intelligence ... Freq. in phrs. gleg, quick, dull, simple, slow, etc. in, at, of the uptak.": example (1816): <> The sense of this "unco dour" (probably pronounced like "Unca Dewar" or so?) does not seem to have any overlap with the sense of "hunky-dory". I think maybe the newspaper item is poking fun at those hip cats who respond to "How are you?" with the ultramodern "Hunky-dory" ... or something like that ... i.e., implying that "hunky-dory" is a stupid expression. -- Doug Wilson From RonButters at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 15:39:41 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:39:41 EST Subject: 1 thousand words for reindeer? Message-ID: Yes, and I suspect that they call a robin something like [rabIn]. In a message dated 11/28/04 8:14:41 AM, barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM writes: > In a recent article in The Independent: > > "Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words > By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor > > 28 November 2004 > > Global warming is increasingly rendering Inuit and other Arctic peoples at > a loss for words. They simply do not have names in their languages for the > temperate species flocking up from the south. > > They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some have more > than 1,000 words for reindeer - but none for, say, the robin, which is > only now venturing north of the treeline. ...." > > This seems to be another case of journalistic exaggeration.  More > mythology about "snow words" I suspect. > > Regards, > David > > barnhart at highlands.com > > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 28 15:47:42 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:47:42 -0500 Subject: "hunky-dory" < Sc. "unco dour" ? In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041128090741.032016e0@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 9:35 AM -0500 11/28/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>Reading another thread's discussion of "hunky", I was inspired to check >>out newspaperarchive's early cites for "hunky-dory" and found this: >> >> Evening Gazette (Port Jervis, N.Y.), August 4, 1870 >> The slang expression of "hunky dory" is Scotch, and is a >> synonym of the Latin "non compos." He is "unco dour in >> the uptak," is the full expression. >> >>Has anyone run across this purported etymology before? I've heard the >>Japanese "Honcho dori" theory, but this Scots derivation is a new one. I >>take it the Scots expression would be glossed as "very stubborn on the >>uptake", though "non compos" obviously suggests a graver mental condition. >> This would seem to be precisely the opposite of the sense of "hunky-dory" >>as it emerged in the 1860s ('satisfactory, in good condition'). > >I've never seen this etymology before. > This does seem doubtful, as does the Japanese theory. For yet another one, check out http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhunky.html Larry From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 18:26:47 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 13:26:47 -0500 Subject: 1 thousand words for reindeer? Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 08:14:20 -0500, Barnhart wrote: >In a recent article in The Independent: > >"Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words >By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor > >28 November 2004 > >Global warming is increasingly rendering Inuit and other Arctic peoples at >a loss for words. They simply do not have names in their languages for the >temperate species flocking up from the south. > >They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some have more >than 1,000 words for reindeer - but none for, say, the robin, which is >only now venturing north of the treeline. ...." > >This seems to be another case of journalistic exaggeration. More >mythology about "snow words" I suspect. Yes, this is the " words for snow" meme with some new twists. The "~1,000 words for reindeer" part apparently came from this article: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6530026/ As ice melts, Arctic peoples at loss for words Languages don't reflect species, weather shifts By Alister Doyle Updated: 2:57 p.m. ET Nov. 24, 2004 REYKJAVIK, Iceland - What are the words used by indigenous peoples in the Arctic for "hornet," "robin," "elk," "barn owl" or "salmon?" If you don't know, youÂ’re not alone. [...] "I know about 1,200 words for reindeer — we classify them by age, sex, color, antlers," said Nils Isak Eira, who manages a herd of 2,000 reindeer in north Norway. The "no word for robins" part has been making the rounds, recently appearing in a quote from Sen. John McCain in the New York Times. Geoffrey Pullum has an entry on the Language Log about McCain's comment: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001647.html The origin of this one is a CBC Radio report in September 2000 called "No Word for Robin: Climate Change in the Canadian Arctic." You can read a summary of the report here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/highlights/010510_canadianarctic.shtml And here are audio links: (Part 1) (Part 2) At the beginning of Part 2, an Inuit bird enthusiast named Roger Kuptana tells the interviewer, Bob Carty, about a sighting of a red-breasted robin. Carty helpfully prompts, "What's the word in your language for 'robin'?" Kuptana replies, "I don't know if there's a word in Sachs Harbour for robin. They're so rare here, we don't have names for them." That was enough for Carty to name his report "No Word for Robin". The appeal of this meme is obvious-- we all know that those Eskimos have a zillion words for snow, but now with global warming that's all melting away. In place of snow come things that they don't have words for. --Ben Zimmer From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 18:47:30 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 13:47:30 -0500 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041128085313.03203b20@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >That Smoky Mountain dictionary looks interesting. Is there a discount for >ADS members? If you are talking about Michael Montgomery's book, it is interesting - it is also at least magnificent! I have given away several copies - this is a dictionary to sit and read. Bethany From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 20:17:04 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:17:04 EST Subject: Ithaca's "Hot Truck" terminology Message-ID: Ithaca, New York's "Hot Truck" is featured in the Sterns' column in the December 2004 GOURMET, pg. 56. GOURMET didn't give a web site (why not?), but check it out here: _The Hot Truck_ (http://www.thehottruck.com/) ... CHRIS: A quarter loaf with sauce, pepperoni, sausage, cheese, onion, hot and heavy, grease and garden. ... "G & G" or "Grease and Garden" - mayonnaise and lettuce. ... www.thehottruck.com/ - 20k - Nov 26, 2004 - _Cached_ (http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:10PHjIcKw4cJ:www.thehottruck.com/+"grease+and+garden"&hl=en&ie=UT F-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.thehottruck.com/) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- OT, MISC. AOL 9.0 SECURITY EDITION--I was going between windows and sent that last "Kirby dies" post before it was ready. I've downloaded this "security edition" plus something else, and my computer is still slow and I still can't get rid of that annoying "diet patch" pop-up. BARRYPOPIK.COM: Should I add "Kirby" or is that too obscure? I just added Con Ed; Mason Jar; Arthur's Theme; Fame; Big Brothers; Wigstock; Hell's Hundred Acres; Frog and Toe; Mecca of Telephone Men; Double Dutch; Harlem Globetrotters; Boulevard of Death; Death Avenue; Parkway; Millionaires' Row; and various NYC college sports nicknames. CHICAGO: I still favor jumping off the Hancock Building. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 28 20:44:23 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 12:44:23 -0800 Subject: 1 thousand words for reindeer? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 28, 2004, at 5:14 AM, David Barnhart wrote: > In a recent article in The Independent: > "Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words... Geoff Pullum has savaged these reports in a recent Language Log posting: GKP: Arctic folk at loss for words again: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001665.html > ...They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some > have more > than 1,000 words for reindeer... the reports that geoff saw apparently didn't have this reference to the ur-snowclone, "language L has [huge] N words for X". since he's one of the keepers of the "Eskimo words for snow" inventory, i've forwarded the relevant ADS-L postings on to him. people just make these things up, you know. see geoff's "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax", especially the reference to Ideas Too Good To Be False (with credit to john reed). arnold From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 20:56:00 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:56:00 -0500 Subject: AOR (1977) Message-ID: According to the OED3 draft entry, "AOR" for "album-oriented rock" is "orig. US" (first cite 1979). But this 1977 cite suggests that the abbreviation originated in the UK: "Making the Rounds" with Vic Short Blue Island (Ill.) Sun Standard, August 11, 1977, p. 9 A new music term is AOR, just cropping up in London, so maybe you don't yet know that the three little letters stand for Album Oriented Rock; another rather new term is jazz/progressive, which takes in much more, they say, than merely the limited fusion aspects of rock-pop-jazz... --Ben Zimmer From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 20:59:04 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:59:04 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of wisconsin In-Reply-To: <109706C4-4111-11D9-B0EA-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: From Arnold Zwicky: >.... >3. the Oregon Effect: in very frequent, familiar words (like "Oregon" >for Oregonians and "Wisconsin" for Wisconsinites), vowels with tertiary >stress tend to lose it, with concomitant vowel reduction and (where >appropriate) resyllabification; this is what gives the Wisconsinite >pronunciation of "Wisconsin". .... A very nice summary, thanks. I confess to having used the furriners' pronunciation of "Oregon" (with "-gon" like in "pentagon" etc.) in my youth. But I never used "Wiss-consin" ... or neither "Illinoise". I guess WI and IL were closer states and the names were more familiar. I don't suppose that it is claimed that (e.g.) residents of northern IL near the WI line universally use the outsiders' version? It is interesting that my RHUD gives the pronunciation /wIs kan s at n/ -- and speaks it so -- while my MW3 shows /w@ skan(t) s at n/ (with no other choice in either work). -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 21:51:34 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 16:51:34 -0500 Subject: After-School Club Message-ID: First OED3 cite for "After-School Club" (under "after-school") is 1929. Here is one of several newspaperarchive.com cites from 1911: ------- Atlanta Constitution, March 9, 1911, p. 10 The After-School Club of America, through the Woman's Department of The Constitution, has presented to Mrs. Willet for the club school at Tallulah for mountain boys and girls, membership for one year in the After-School Club... Membership in the After-School Club, which has headquarters in Philadelphia, opens a field of valuable instruction and literature for grown-ups, especially those who are in any way directing the welfare of children - mothers, teachers or students, while the department for children, presided over by Mr. Nathaniel Dawson, is reaching thousands of children all over the country. ------- I'm not sure when the After-School Club of America was founded. I have found references to a multi-volume set called "The After School Library" published in Philadelphia by The After School Club in 1909. --Ben Zimmer From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Sun Nov 28 21:57:06 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 16:57:06 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of wisconsin In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041128154859.03203560@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: I heard the W state mentioned just the other day (on NPR or somewhere) as "Wis-con-sin," and it sounded very strange to this Minnesotan's ears--at the syllable break there seemed to be a glottal stop, not so? Illinoise and De-Moinz are another matter, of course. Even Minnesotans sometimes say these, alas. At 03:59 PM 11/28/2004, you wrote: > From Arnold Zwicky: > >>.... > >>3. the Oregon Effect: in very frequent, familiar words (like "Oregon" >>for Oregonians and "Wisconsin" for Wisconsinites), vowels with tertiary >>stress tend to lose it, with concomitant vowel reduction and (where >>appropriate) resyllabification; this is what gives the Wisconsinite >>pronunciation of "Wisconsin". .... > >A very nice summary, thanks. > >I confess to having used the furriners' pronunciation of "Oregon" (with >"-gon" like in "pentagon" etc.) in my youth. But I never used "Wiss-consin" >.... or neither "Illinoise". I guess WI and IL were closer states and the >names were more familiar. I don't suppose that it is claimed that (e.g.) >residents of northern IL near the WI line universally use the outsiders' >version? > >It is interesting that my RHUD gives the pronunciation /wIs kan s at n/ -- and >speaks it so -- while my MW3 shows /w@ skan(t) s at n/ (with no other choice >in either work). > >-- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Sun Nov 28 23:53:12 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 18:53:12 -0500 Subject: dialectal brogues In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> >>Wilson Gray writes: >> >>>when my father first went up to >>>Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >>>then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >>>Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >>>yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >>>Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >>>pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >>>peculiar to a dialect." >> >>I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an >>Irish >>accent. > >I think "primarily" is the term that you're searching for. But, IMO, >even if the term is accepted as being restricted specifically to Irish, >it merely makes my father's use of it to describe his idiolect of BE >even more noteworthy. Unfortunately, he died in January of this year, >at the age of 97. Otherwise, I'd question him about it. > >-Wilson Gray I assume "brogue" came in with the Irish, but it's not restricted to their accent, in my experience. My mother (Norwegian-American, born 1906) used the word all the time, referring not only to other or "foreign" accents but to the common Scandinavian English everyone used in Minnesota. She'd comment on someone's extreme brogue, i.e., a heightened or exaggerated (conscious or not) use of Scand.-Am. intonation patterns, "ya," "uffda," "doncha know," etc.--the sort of brogue used in "Fargo." So, if it was used in Texas and Minnesota, I suspect it became widespread regardless of dialect or idiolect. Beverly (Olson) Flanigan, from the old sod of Minnesota (and I can say this truthfully, since my grandfather lived in a sod-roofed dugout when he first came from Sweden). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 00:41:30 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 19:41:30 -0500 Subject: "Wake me up when Kirby dies" (1886) Message-ID: I don't know if this American theatre phrase is Fred Shapiro-worthy, but this is earlier. (AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES ONLINE) Dramatic Feuilleton. STEPHEN FISKE. The Art Amateur; A Monthly Journal Devoted to Art in the Household (1879-1903). New York: Aug 1886. Vol. 15, Iss. 3; p. 47 (2 pages) Second page: In the same programme is "Wilbert, the Deformed," with J. H. Kirby as the hero. This is the actor about whom the phrase, "Wake me up when Kirby dies," was originated, because his stage deaths were so terrific. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Mon Nov 29 01:50:25 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 20:50:25 -0500 Subject: bubble wrap (1965) Message-ID: The earliest cite in the OED3 draft entry for "bubble wrap" is a 1971 U.S. Patent Office listing for the proprietary name. I see from the Trademark Application and Registration Retrieval (TARR) system that the trademark was filed by Sealed Air Corporation on June 9, 1969 and was registered on Oct. 26, 1971: http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=72329516 According to the listing, the first commercial use of the product was Oct. 1968. However, a newspaperarchive.com cite shows that Hallmark was using the name for a similar product in 1965: ------- Sheboygan (Wisc.) Press, October 11, 1965, p. 10 [Advertisement] New Hallmark 'Bubble Wrap' ... Protects as it Beautifies Wrap in it! It's Pretty Pack in it! It Protects Hundreds of tiny air cushions insure against damage. Cookies won't crumble ... Jellies won't jar. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow wilts it. ------- --Ben Zimmer From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 03:49:32 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 22:49:32 -0500 Subject: "One foot on a banana peel and the other in a grave" (1932) Message-ID: Robert Hendrickson's NEW YAWK TAWK says that DARE has 1965, but he remembered this from the late 1940s. I don't know if it's Fred Shapiro-worthy. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) PEN POINTS Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Apr 10, 1932. p. A4 (1 page): A man is in a bad fix when he has one foot on a banana peel and the other on the tail of a bulldog. A LINE O' TYPE OR TWO Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Sep 5, 1932. p. 12 (1 page): Goodness, we feel just as though poor old Tammany had one foot on a banana peel and the other way deep into an open grave. A LINE O' TYPE OR TWO Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jul 12, 1933. p. 12 (1 page): THE ENGLISH POUND was reported yesterday as being within four cents of its normal value, while the American dollar has slipped down to 68 cents and a fraction and seemed to be poised somewhat uncertainly with one foot on a banana peel and the other in an open grave. Ducks Drop Two Tilts to Angels AL WOLF. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 2, 1947. p. 6 (1 page): After having one foot on a banana peel and the other on a roller skate, our Angels got back on relatively firm footing in the Pacific Coast League pennant chase yesterday by beating Portland twice. (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Bridgeport Telegram Saturday, November 29, 1924 Bridgeport, Connecticut ...bAld mAn. Are compensAtiONs. you ONE FOOT ON. A. bAnAnA PEEL, the mAy be ON.....let the belt out Another boss is the ONE thAt provides When ONE cONsiders the.. Portsmouth Herald Monday, August 16, 1943 Portsmouth, New Hampshire ...by A GermAn Duce who AlreAdy hAs ONE FOOT ON A bAnAnA PEEL. Hitler will know.....which mAy tr'.ntblr. ntul thAt's ONE of ihrre Is still enough -rr wrnthrr.. Port Arthur News Tuesday, July 05, 1932 Port Arthur, Texas ...is like going through life with ONE FOOT ON A bAnAnA PEEL Per- hAps If I.....A clAss fight with old brAins ON ONE side And numbers ON the other.. Clearfield Progress Saturday, May 01, 1943 Clearfield, Pennsylvania ...fit" tVl NEW Mussolini muy hAve ONE, FOOT ON A bAnAnA PEEL And the other ON A.....of his hitting. His cONtrAct is for ONE yeAr the 1943 seAsON. Previous to.. Indiana Progress Wednesday, January 11, 1933 Indiana, Pennsylvania ...A mAn is in A hAd fix when he hAs ONE FOOT ON A 'bAnAnA PEEL And the other ON.....being prepAred in A vAriety of wAys. ONE type of bAnAnA is used lArgely for.. Portsmouth Herald Tuesday, April 27, 1943 Portsmouth, New Hampshire ...New York April Mussolini mAy hAve ONE FOOT ON A bAnAnA PEEL And the other ON A.....two grAndchildren, his fAther, ONE sister, Mrs. MAbel McCourt And ONE.. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 04:36:06 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 23:36:06 -0500 Subject: Mrs. Astor's pet horse (1915) Message-ID: George Thompson asked about this a few years back. I think the 1915 citation applies (pets=husbands). It doesn't appear that the Stanley Walker 1935 book coined the term. (CATNYP) Author Walker, Stanley, b. 1898. Title Mrs. Astor's horse / by Stanley Walker ; with a foreword by Nunnally Johnson; with fifteen reproductions from photographs, and an index. Imprint New York : Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1935. (CATNYP) Author Ager, Milton, 1893-1979. Title Mrs. Astor's pet horse. Selections [Mrs. Astor's pet horse / Milton Ager and Richard Rodgers ; orchestrations principally by J. Toliver, Charles L. Cooke]. Imprint [1942] (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) WEEK END FOR HUNTS; Fine Runs Near Richmond, Petersburg, and Keswick. MRS. ASTOR'S HORSE IN CHASE Deep Run Club Meets at Idle Hour, Cov- ering an Eight-Mile Steeplechase Course, Winding Up at Race Track. Riverside Hunters Finish at Kennels, After Check -- Receptions at All Clubs. Special to The Washington Post.. The Washington Post. Feb 28, 1909. p. 3 (1 page) Mrs. Astor's Pet Poodle Is Fed On $2 Steaks Special to The Washington Post.. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Jul 11, 1915. p. 10 (1 page) Why is one of Mrs. Astor's pets, Harry Lehr, put in, and another, Craig Wadsworth, left out? MRS. ASTOR'S PET APE AT HOME IN BRONX ZOO; Freda, 125-Pound Orang, Takes Keeper's Hand and Walks to New Quarters in Cage. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 4, 1934. p. 17 (1 page) Other 4 -- No Title Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 19, 1934. p. 9 (1 page): After he'll meet Maxie Rosenbloom who is just dying to advance himself socially by waltzing with Mrs. Astor's pet--er--with Mrs. Astor's latest husband. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Mon Nov 29 04:44:55 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 23:44:55 -0500 Subject: card-carrying (1927) Message-ID: The OED3 draft entry for "card-carrying" has 1943 as the earliest cite. A syndicated column by NEA Service writer Rodney Dutcher appeared in several papers on October 22, 1927, including the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, the Zanesville Signal, and the Decatur Daily Review. All include this paragraph: ----- The dominant force in Sheridan county [Montana] is the United Farmers, a secret agrarian organization which has also made headway in Washington state, Minnesota and North Dakota. This group is organized both for economic and political action. Its numbers and membership lists are kept secret and when it endorses a candidate for office the fact is kept secret so that if perchance it take a political licking the fact remains unknown. Meanwhile it arranges with local merchants to give all card-carrying members a discount when they come to town for purchases. ----- --Ben Zimmer From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 04:59:26 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 23:59:26 -0500 Subject: Wet clothes...Dry Martini (1940) Message-ID: A little earlier than 1946. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Display Ad 3 -- No Title Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Apr 30, 1940. p. 3 (1 page) "Now...out of these wet clothes ...and into a dry Martini"...* *Bon mot by Benchley (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Lowell Sun Tuesday, January 29, 1946 Lowell, Massachusetts ...himself out of A wet Statesville Daily Record Saturday, September 06, 1947 Statesville, North Carolina ...her out of thAt, wet suit And INTO A DRY mArtini. Give her A good story And A.....Home in OklAhomA" with Roy Rogers. DRY Role For Once Cyd ChArisse Achieved.. Walla Walla Union Bulletin Wednesday, September 03, 1947 Walla Walla, Washington ...her out of thAt wet suit And INTO A DRY mArtini. Give her A good story And A.....stAr to support her through A picture. DRY her off And put her in A light.. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Mon Nov 29 05:15:42 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:15:42 -0500 Subject: dream team (1925) Message-ID: The OED3 draft entry for "dream team" has a first cite of 1935. Newspaperarchive finds a cite a decade earlier, from Damon Runyon no less. -------- Bridgeport (Conn.) Telegram, December 26, 1925, p. 12, col. 1 STAR EAST AND WEST TEAMS MEET FOR HOSPITAL BENEFIT ON SAN FRANCISCO GRIDIRON By DAMON RUNYON. SAN FRANCISCO. Dec. 25. -- Two "dream teams" -- the kind of teams that football fans might dream of in their wildest dreams of gridiron ecstacy -- meet here tomorrow afternoon at Ewing Field. They are all-star teams, these "dream teams" -- the kind of teams that football bugs fondly imagine, and that the football experts set down on paper as their idea of the absolute ultimate in football prowess, but never hope to see. They are mythical teams breathed to life, made real. It takes this California to make dreams come true. -------- --Ben Zimmer From grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET Mon Nov 29 05:33:38 2004 From: grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET (Seán Fitzpatrick) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:33:38 -0500 Subject: If not 1 thousand words for reindeer, then how many? Message-ID: How many (max., average) words do the various Eskimo dialects have for snow, reindeer, and refrigerator? Is "word" limited to single words like "snow", "powder", and "slush", or can it include multi-word terms, like "wet snow"? Seán Fitzpatrick Irony-free zone: Abandon tropes, all ye who enter here http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/ From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 29 14:50:58 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 06:50:58 -0800 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. Message-ID: Montgomery's dictionary is the best book that has ever been done on Smoky Mountain English. It will never be replaced. JL "Bethany K. Dumas" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" Subject: Re: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >That Smoky Mountain dictionary looks interesting. Is there a discount for >ADS members? If you are talking about Michael Montgomery's book, it is interesting - it is also at least magnificent! I have given away several copies - this is a dictionary to sit and read. Bethany --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 29 14:58:26 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 06:58:26 -0800 Subject: dialectal brogues Message-ID: Tennesseans refer to their stereotypical accent as a "brogue." I never heard this term used up North except for Irish English. (The Scots have a "burr.") JL Beverly Flanigan wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: dialectal brogues ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>Wilson Gray writes: >> >>>when my father first went up to >>>Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >>>then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >>>Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >>>yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >>>Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >>>pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >>>peculiar to a dialect." >> >>I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an >>Irish >>accent. > >I think "primarily" is the term that you're searching for. But, IMO, >even if the term is accepted as being restricted specifically to Irish, >it merely makes my father's use of it to describe his idiolect of BE >even more noteworthy. Unfortunately, he died in January of this year, >at the age of 97. Otherwise, I'd question him about it. > >-Wilson Gray I assume "brogue" came in with the Irish, but it's not restricted to their accent, in my experience. My mother (Norwegian-American, born 1906) used the word all the time, referring not only to other or "foreign" accents but to the common Scandinavian English everyone used in Minnesota. She'd comment on someone's extreme brogue, i.e., a heightened or exaggerated (conscious or not) use of Scand.-Am. intonation patterns, "ya," "uffda," "doncha know," etc.--the sort of brogue used in "Fargo." So, if it was used in Texas and Minnesota, I suspect it became widespread regardless of dialect or idiolect. Beverly (Olson) Flanigan, from the old sod of Minnesota (and I can say this truthfully, since my grandfather lived in a sod-roofed dugout when he first came from Sweden). --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page � Try My Yahoo! From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 16:03:53 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:03:53 EST Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer quotes: > Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET > From: > Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK > > And if the explanation of an African origin for > such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural shock, > Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh > and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of inter- > jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only > are they more common in American English than in British English, they're > also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following reason: "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English has a glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has a glottal stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English should have exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal stop) not found in European languages. But if Wolof is full of words with glottal stops, it would make sense that two such words might enter American English complete with the unusual (to English-speakers) glottal stop. How would the interjections "uh-oh", "uh-uh", and "unh-uh" make the jump from slaves recently imported from Africa to the white population? Simple. In the Southern United States it was quite common for young white children to be raised by, or at least to be in frequent contact with, African-American females, i.e. house slaves before the Civil War and "mammies" after the Civil War. Social pressure and prescriptivist school-marms would cause these white children to lose any obvious features of AAVE that they would have picked up from these black servants, but the trio of interjections "uh-oh", "uh-uh", and "unh-uh" might easily have slipped beneath the prescriptivist radar. (Note the surprisingly late dates in MWCD11 for these interjections). Aside on the subject of "brogue"---I was not saying anyone was wrong, I was merely pointing out that I personally had never heard "brogue" used except to designate an Irish accent. I should, however, have noted that if "brogue" meant exclusively an Irish dialect, it would be spelled "Brogue". MWCD11 says that "brogue" is from Irish "barrog" and means "a dialect or regional pronunciaton, esp: an Irish accent" so all of us are correct. - James A. Landau From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Nov 29 16:05:25 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:05:25 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language Message-ID: With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I have offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since it deals with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The NYHist list is not a very active one, and I follow it fairly carelessly, since the other participants are mainly interested in country matters. I do not recall whether the review has made any previous postings to the group. This is the first posting on an Indian language that I recall. Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Neufeldt Date: Thursday, November 25, 2004 6:42 pm Subject: Re: the Lenape language > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > Victoria > > Victoria Neufeldt > 727 9th Street East > Saskatoon, Sask. > S7H 0M6 > Canada > Tel: 306-955-8910 > > George Thompson wrote: > > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > > > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > > > interested. > > > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 > From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Nov 29 16:18:04 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:18:04 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip In-Reply-To: <8d.1af41aac.2edca269@aol.com> Message-ID: --On Monday, November 29, 2004 11:03 AM -0500 "James A. Landau" wrote: > In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer > quotes: > >> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET >> From: >> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK >> >> And if the explanation of an African origin for >> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural >> shock, Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections >> uh-huh and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds >> of inter- jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out >> that not only are they more common in American English than in British >> English, they're also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! > > This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following > reason: "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in > English has a glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know > of that has a glottal stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems > odd that English should have exactly two vocabulary items with a > phonological feature (the glottal stop) not found in European languages. > > But if Wolof is full of words with glottal stops, it would make sense that > two such words might enter American English complete with the unusual (to > English-speakers) glottal stop. But affective interjections often have sounds that aren't part of the normal phonological inventory. In English, we have clicks (in "tsk tsk", and whatever it is one says to horses that we want to do something), velar fricatives ("yecch"), as well as the glottal stops in "uh oh" and "unh uh". For some speakers, ejectives are the norm for word-final released voiceless stops. Hebrew also uses a click in one alternative for "no". In all of these instances, contact explanations are certainly *possible*, but they are by no means necessary. -- Alice Faber Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 faber at haskins.yale.edu From ddr11 at UVIC.CA Mon Nov 29 16:27:10 2004 From: ddr11 at UVIC.CA (Dave Robertson) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:27:10 -0800 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: The presence of glottal stops in ("uh-huh" and) "u[n]h-uh" seems like poor evidence for borrowing. Two reasons come right to mind: First, English has glottal stops elsewhere, especially at the beginning of a syllable--Think of an emphatically uttered "I *am* *American*." And the farther you get from the literary standard, the more glottal stops you'll hear in US English. Second, English interjections and allegro forms make use of other sounds uncommon in or missing from our phonemic inventory, such as nasal vowels. Some of the other Wolof evidence presented is fairly compelling, but "uh-uh" is harder to make a case for. --Dave Robertson (UVic) ----- Original Message ----- From: "James A. Landau" To: Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:03 AM Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer > quotes: > >> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET >> From: >> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK >> >> And if the explanation of an African origin for >> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural >> shock, >> Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh >> and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of >> inter- >> jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only >> are they more common in American English than in British English, >> they're >> also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! > > This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following > reason: > "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English has > a > glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has a > glottal > stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English should > have > exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal > stop) > not found in European languages. From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Nov 29 17:19:04 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:19:04 -0500 Subject: Hancock building in Chicago In-Reply-To: <86.1c30dc47.2edb8c40@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 03:17:04PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > CHICAGO: I still favor jumping off the Hancock Building. It's much better looking than the Sears Tower. JTS From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Nov 29 17:34:22 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:34:22 -0500 Subject: Speaking of "toast" Message-ID: When I was a kid, the toaster my parents had, had the heating/toasting elements in the center and flaps on either side. We put the bread slices on the lowered flaps and closed them. The bread toasted on one side, but when we opened the flaps a contrivance of wire which I do not now clearly remember caught the lower edge of the slice, so that if the flap was opened and then closed the untoasted side of the bread was then presented to the heat without our having to touch the bread. We always opened and shut the toaster, because in fact we did like bread toasted on both sides. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). ----- Original Message ----- From: Wilson Gray Date: Saturday, November 27, 2004 10:45 pm Subject: Speaking of "toast" > When I was a child, buttered toast was made by first buttering slices > of "light bread" and then putting them into the broiler on a cookie > sheet till the butter melted and only the *top* of the bread was > toasted. After we moved to St. Louis, which was not nearly as Jim-Crow > as Marshall, TX, as a child, I often had occasion to eat a meal at the > houses of neighborhood white children. One of the first things > that I > noticed was that white people had bread-toasting machines that toasted > the bread on both sides. I also noted that no butter was put onto the > bread until after it was toasted. > > I came to the following conclusions: > 1) It was not possible to make a toasting machine that could toast > bread on only one side, hence both sides of a slice of bread had > to be > toasted > 2) Since the bread was inserted into the toasting machine on the > vertical, it was not possible to butter the bread before toasting > it, because the melting butter would flow into the innards of machine > and cause a problem > > Approximately 25 years later, I had a white roommate who owned a > toaster-oven. One day, when it was his turn to cook, he got out a > cookie sheet, put some unbuttered slices bread on it and toasted the > bread. This struck me as somewhat strange, but I wasn't the one > cooking, so I didn't say anything. In any case, after the bread slices > had been toasted, he took the cookie sheet out of toaster and > proceededto flip the slices over to their untoasted sides and then > he put the > cookie sheet back into the toaster-oven. I asked, "Why are you putting > that toasted bread back into the oven?" He replied, as though to a > child, "Why, so that I can toast the other sides." > > EPIPHANY!!! > > White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't figure > out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only one > side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! > > -Wilson Gray > From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 29 17:35:21 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 09:35:21 -0800 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second, their spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered with a grunt." Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been sufficient. What about "um-hmm"? I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge. JL Dave Robertson wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Dave Robertson Subject: Re: Wolof hip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The presence of glottal stops in ("uh-huh" and) "u[n]h-uh" seems like poor evidence for borrowing. Two reasons come right to mind: First, English has glottal stops elsewhere, especially at the beginning of a syllable--Think of an emphatically uttered "I *am* *American*." And the farther you get from the literary standard, the more glottal stops you'll hear in US English. Second, English interjections and allegro forms make use of other sounds uncommon in or missing from our phonemic inventory, such as nasal vowels. Some of the other Wolof evidence presented is fairly compelling, but "uh-uh" is harder to make a case for. --Dave Robertson (UVic) ----- Original Message ----- From: "James A. Landau" To: Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:03 AM Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer > quotes: > >> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET >> From: >> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK >> >> And if the explanation of an African origin for >> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural >> shock, >> Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh >> and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of >> inter- >> jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only >> are they more common in American English than in British English, >> they're >> also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! > > This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following > reason: > "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English has > a > glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has a > glottal > stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English should > have > exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal > stop) > not found in European languages. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 29 17:48:13 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:48:13 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip In-Reply-To: <20041129173521.97173.qmail@web53908.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So other people are more articulate? What does this mean?? Sounds like the old "primitive language" idea--except that now we're the primitives! At 12:35 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the >superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second, their >spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many >potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered >with a grunt." > >Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. >The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been >sufficient. What about "um-hmm"? > >I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge. > >JL From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Nov 29 18:09:13 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:09:13 -0600 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <1e58c3d1e5923a.1e5923a1e58c3d@nyu.edu> Message-ID: Thanks, George. I was just curious, because of the strong words used -- I wondered what could have prompted them, and hoped that you or someone on the list had this info at their fingertips. If someone else wants to follow this up (I haven't the time now), Ives Goddard would certainly be the person who would know. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 On Monday, November 29, 2004 10:05 AM, George Thompson wrote: > > With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I > have offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: > > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since > it deals with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The > NYHist list is not a very active one, and I follow it > fairly carelessly, since the other participants are mainly > interested in country matters. I do not recall whether the > review has made any previous postings to the group. This > is the first posting on an Indian language that I recall. > Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 29 18:16:19 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:16:19 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <000701c4d63e$880baf00$2e2b0b45@vneufeldt> Message-ID: If I can find Goddard's e-dress, I'll forward it to him. I agree that the vitriolic nature of the review is surprising. Americanists are usuallly very staid and polite in their comments (but then, maybe the book IS really really bad!). At 01:09 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >Thanks, George. I was just curious, because of the strong words >used -- I wondered what could have prompted them, and hoped that you >or someone on the list had this info at their fingertips. If someone >else wants to follow this up (I haven't the time now), Ives Goddard >would certainly be the person who would know. > >Victoria > >Victoria Neufeldt >727 9th Street East >Saskatoon, Sask. >S7H 0M6 >Canada >Tel: 306-955-8910 > >On Monday, November 29, 2004 10:05 AM, George Thompson wrote: > > > > With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I > > have offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: > > > > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > > > I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since > > it deals with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The > > NYHist list is not a very active one, and I follow it > > fairly carelessly, since the other participants are mainly > > interested in country matters. I do not recall whether the > > review has made any previous postings to the group. This > > is the first posting on an Indian language that I recall. > > Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. > >--- >Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Nov 29 18:51:37 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:51:37 -0600 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041129131432.03160ec0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: That's great, Beverly. What is especially surprising is the reviewer's statement that pretty well all the Lenape scholarship has been terrible -- as if the reviewer is the only one who's ever managed to get it right. Victoria On Monday, November 29, 2004 12:16 PM Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > If I can find Goddard's e-dress, I'll forward it to him. I > agree that the > vitriolic nature of the review is surprising. Americanists > are usuallly > very staid and polite in their comments (but then, maybe > the book IS really > really bad!). > Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 29 19:55:26 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:55:26 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041129131432.03160ec0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: I've sent it to Goddard and will forward his reply (hopefully forthcoming). At 01:16 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >If I can find Goddard's e-dress, I'll forward it to him. I agree that the >vitriolic nature of the review is surprising. Americanists are usuallly >very staid and polite in their comments (but then, maybe the book IS really >really bad!). > >At 01:09 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >>Thanks, George. I was just curious, because of the strong words >>used -- I wondered what could have prompted them, and hoped that you >>or someone on the list had this info at their fingertips. If someone >>else wants to follow this up (I haven't the time now), Ives Goddard >>would certainly be the person who would know. >> >>Victoria >> >>Victoria Neufeldt >>727 9th Street East >>Saskatoon, Sask. >>S7H 0M6 >>Canada >>Tel: 306-955-8910 >> >>On Monday, November 29, 2004 10:05 AM, George Thompson wrote: >> > >> > With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I >> > have offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: >> > >> > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the >> > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? >> > >> > I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since >> > it deals with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The >> > NYHist list is not a very active one, and I follow it >> > fairly carelessly, since the other participants are mainly >> > interested in country matters. I do not recall whether the >> > review has made any previous postings to the group. This >> > is the first posting on an Indian language that I recall. >> > Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. >> >>--- >>Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. >>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >>Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Nov 29 20:09:26 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:09:26 -0800 Subject: Fwd: If not 1 thousand words for reindeer, then how many? Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > From: Arnold M. Zwicky > Date: November 29, 2004 10:30:21 AM PST > To: Seán Fitzpatrick > Subject: Re: If not 1 thousand words for reindeer, then how many? > > > On Nov 28, 2004, at 9:33 PM, Seán Fitzpatrick asked: > >> How many (max., average) words do the various Eskimo dialects have >> for snow, reindeer, and refrigerator? >> >> Is "word" limited to single words like "snow", "powder", and "slush", >> or can it include multi-word terms, like "wet snow"? > > there are (at least) four things to count (here, "vocabulary" takes in > both words and idiomatic expressions, and "word" is a > ordinary-language synonym of "lexical item" or "lexeme"; inflected > forms of a word are not counted separately): > > 1. basic vocabulary (see our discussion of basic color words a while > back). > > 2. common vocabulary, generally known and used. > > 3. all vocabulary, including compound words, vocabulary reserved for > specialists or for particular registers/styles, and proper names. > > 4. all expressions, including syntactic phrases. > > i can't speak about reindeer and refrigerators, though i believe that > the reindeer vocabulary is much like the snow vocabulary and that the > refrigerator vocabulary is very small indeed. for the snow > vocabulary, the various eskimo (i'll continue to use this term) > languages apparently differ in details, but the general story is as > follows: > > 1. english: 1 basic vocabulary item. an eskimo lg.: 2 (falling snow, > snow on the ground). > > 2. english and eskimo lgs.: each, about a dozen common vocabulary > items. (see the discussion in pullum.) > > 3. english and eskimo lgs.: each, gigantic vocabulary (thanks to > specialist and stylistically restricted items), perhaps unlimited > (thanks to the ability of english to create new compound words and of > the eskimo lgs. to create new incorporations). > > 4. english and eskimo lgs. (and every other known lg.): each, > unlimited stock of syntactic phrases. > > all the interesting action here has to do with basic vocabulary. > languages/dialects do differ in the extent of the basic vocabulary in > some domain -- for basic color words, the range is from 2 to around a > dozen -- but if it's to be useful, the basic vocabulary can't be too > large, so the differences between languages are never really dramatic > but mostly stick within an order of magnitude. these (relatively > small) differences are often clearly grounded in cultural differences: > if you live in a snowy world, you deal with falling snow and snow on > the ground in different ways; and if you live in a culture that has > (otherwise similar) manufactured items in a wide range of hues created > by modern dyeing processes, then color differences are important to > you. this is not a particularly deep point. > > an even more trivial point is that languages will differ in their > general and total vocabularies, according to the physical settings > their speakers find themselves in, the interests of their culture in > general and of particular occupations within that culture, etc. such > cultural differences and specialist vocabularies are of course > fascinating and worthy of study, but it's hard to see what deep > lessons about human nature and variation could be drawn from them. > > some of the guys i grew up with were obsessed with cars and would > notice (and remember) details -- make, model, year, specific color, > optional equipment, etc. -- that i did not not; they had learned to do > this by long practice. meanwhile, through an informal apprenticeship > in gardening, i became an expert on flowering plants and so noticed > (and remembered) details that escaped them entirely. we were all > pretty much at sea in the domains of, say, australian flora and fauna, > or the weaponry of the european middle ages, or the ethnicities of the > indian subcontinent. there's nothing particularly startling about > that. > > cultures overall have their preoccupations -- with baseball, or > singing, or witches, or intoxication, or hunting, or whatever -- and > these will tend to show up in an elaboration of the general vocabulary > in these domains; pretty much everyone learns about these domains and > practices talking about them, and uses the associated vocabulary to > help structure their world. now there *is* an interesting question > about the extent to which these general preoccupations (and the > beliefs and knowledge associated with them) "hang together", to make a > kind of cultural profile; scholars differ as to how much unity they > see in these cultural complexes. this is a fascinating question, and > part of the way we approach it is by looking at vocabulary, but at > root the issues aren't about language. > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Nov 29 20:57:40 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:57:40 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language Message-ID: I see I made a significant typing error in my disclaimer sent earlier today. I dare say that no one was much confused, but: "I do not recall whether the review has made any previous postings to the group." should have read "reviewer". GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). ----- Original Message ----- From: George Thompson Date: Monday, November 29, 2004 11:05 am Subject: Re: the Lenape language > With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I have > offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: > > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since it deals > with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The NYHist list is not a > very active one, and I follow it fairly carelessly, since the > other participants are mainly interested in country matters. I do > not recall whether the review has made any previous postings to > the group. This is the first posting on an Indian language that I > recall. Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", > Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. > > "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, > treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our > graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Victoria Neufeldt > Date: Thursday, November 25, 2004 6:42 pm > Subject: Re: the Lenape language > > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > > > Victoria > > > > Victoria Neufeldt > > 727 9th Street East > > Saskatoon, Sask. > > S7H 0M6 > > Canada > > Tel: 306-955-8910 > > > > George Thompson wrote: > > > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > > > > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > > > > interested. > > > > > > > --- > > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > > Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 > > > From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Nov 29 22:01:21 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:01:21 -0500 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: _astroseismology_, study of star quakes. _astroseismological_ _astroseismologically_ _astroseismologist_ _e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) _point of entry_, a single examination to establish appropriateness for a lengthy medical treatment. _starter_, a precursor to the onset of a panic attack _stop stick_, a strip of hollow quills used to puncture tires of a car. IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 29 22:13:17 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:13:17 -0500 Subject: e-dress In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There must be tons of e- terms now, aren't there? E-commerce, E-trade, . . . But I love e-dress and use it all the time! At 05:01 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >_astroseismology_, study of star quakes. > _astroseismological_ > _astroseismologically_ > _astroseismologist_ >_e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) >_point of entry_, a single examination to establish appropriateness for a >lengthy medical treatment. >_starter_, a precursor to the onset of a panic attack >_stop stick_, a strip of hollow quills used to puncture tires of a car. > > >IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. >Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. > >Regards, >David > >barnhart at highlands.com From panis at PACBELL.NET Mon Nov 29 22:27:23 2004 From: panis at PACBELL.NET (John McChesney-Young) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:27:23 -0800 Subject: e-dress In-Reply-To: <200411292216.iATMGMg7032628@ylpvm04.prodigy.net> Message-ID: Checking my Eudora mailboxes, I find that a correspondent of mine at the U of Georgia has been using _edress_ since at least as far back as October of '99. John *** Beverly Flanigan wrote: >There must be tons of e- terms now, aren't there? E-commerce, E-trade, . . >. But I love e-dress and use it all the time! >At 05:01 PM 11/29/2004, David barnhart at highlands.com had written: ... >>_e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) ... >>IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. >>Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. -- *** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley, California, U.S.A. *** From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Nov 29 22:36:43 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:36:43 -0800 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: e-dress has been around for years-- I remember using it at least as long ago as '97. Fritz _e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) _point of entry_, a single examination to establish appropriateness for a lengthy medical treatment. _starter_, a precursor to the onset of a panic attack _stop stick_, a strip of hollow quills used to puncture tires of a car. IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 29 23:16:08 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:16:08 -0800 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: Beverly, are you serious? JL Beverly Flanigan wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: Wolof hip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So other people are more articulate? What does this mean?? Sounds like the old "primitive language" idea--except that now we're the primitives! At 12:35 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the >superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second, their >spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many >potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered >with a grunt." > >Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. >The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been >sufficient. What about "um-hmm"? > >I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge. > >JL --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Nov 29 23:43:06 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:43:06 -0600 Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale Message-ID: The book _"Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"_ has just been printed by my campus print shop. (authors: Barry Popik, Gerald Cohen, the late David Shulman). For those interested, the cost is $40 + $7 for mailing (total: $47). Checks should be made payable to Gerald Cohen and mailed to: Prof. Gerald Cohen, Department of Arts, Languages, and Philosophy, G-4 H-SS, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla MO 65409. As I mentioned in my earlier ads-l message, this is a scholarly work (300 pages) and is intended for lexicographers, scholars, dyed-in-the-wool word buffs, and libraries. While perfectly comprehensible, it's not a Christmas stocking-stuffer. Only 60 copies have been printed, with 50 slated for sale. A reprinting can occur if interest warrants, but I'm being careful not to overestimate the potential sale. About 20 ads-l members expressed interest in the book when I sent out my preliminary announcement last month. I'll set aside those copies to be sure that the orders can be filled. Gerald Cohen University of Missouri-Rolla From marshaalley at MSN.COM Mon Nov 29 23:59:22 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:59:22 -0800 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: So, does e-dress displace addy? Am I hopelessly outdated? :-) Marsha ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Barnhart > Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Tue Nov 30 00:01:34 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 19:01:34 -0500 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Marsha Alley wrote: >So, does e-dress displace addy? Am I hopelessly outdated? :-) I would never assume that refers to an edress. Do you use it that way? Bethany From marshaalley at MSN.COM Tue Nov 30 00:10:37 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:10:37 -0800 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: I picked "addy" up back in '95 when I first got on the internet - I was on AOL at the time, and it seemed that was what most people called an email address. I hadn't really thought about it again until I say Beverly's e-dress. I must admit, e-dress is much more specific; a better word. Marsha ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: e-dress (was Lenape ...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Marsha Alley wrote: >So, does e-dress displace addy? Am I hopelessly outdated? :-) I would never assume that refers to an edress. Do you use it that way? Bethany From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Nov 30 00:52:29 2004 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:52:29 -0600 Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale Message-ID: How did this topic result in a 300-page book? I intend this as an honest question, not a snide remark. I can't imagine having that much to say about any lexical item. -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Cohen, Gerald Leonard Sent: Mon 11/29/2004 5:43 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale The book _"Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"_ has just been printed by my campus print shop. (authors: Barry Popik, Gerald Cohen, the late David Shulman). For those interested, the cost is $40 + $7 for mailing (total: $47). Checks should be made payable to Gerald Cohen and mailed to: Prof. Gerald Cohen, Department of Arts, Languages, and Philosophy, G-4 H-SS, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla MO 65409. As I mentioned in my earlier ads-l message, this is a scholarly work (300 pages) and is intended for lexicographers, scholars, dyed-in-the-wool word buffs, and libraries. While perfectly comprehensible, it's not a Christmas stocking-stuffer. Only 60 copies have been printed, with 50 slated for sale. A reprinting can occur if interest warrants, but I'm being careful not to overestimate the potential sale. About 20 ads-l members expressed interest in the book when I sent out my preliminary announcement last month. I'll set aside those copies to be sure that the orders can be filled. Gerald Cohen University of Missouri-Rolla From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 30 01:06:45 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 20:06:45 -0500 Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon, Matthew J." To: Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 7:52 PM Subject: Re: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale >How did this topic result in a 300-page book? >I intend this as an honest question, not a snide remark. I >can't imagine having that much to say about any lexical >item. Barry DOES tend to go on at length, sometimes, well, most of the time, well always, since you're asking........ SC From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Nov 30 01:55:50 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 19:55:50 -0600 Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"-- Why 300 pages? Message-ID: Original message from Matthew Gordon, Nov. 29, 2004, 6:52 p.m.: > How did this topic result in a 300-page book? > I intend this as an honest question, not a snide remark. I can't imagine having that much to say about any lexical item. > *************** This is a partial answer to the question just above: Conents, Preface: -- 7 pp. Chapter 1 (pp. 1-4): Previous literature Chapter 2 (pp. 5-66) presents information from the college scene, 1895ff. Chapter 3 (pp.67-134) presents non-college material illustrating the 19c. popular belief that dog meat might turn up in sausages. Chapter 4 (pp.135-150) gives information on the spread of "hot dog" from college slang. Chapter 5 (pp.151-222) presents various additional information, e.g.., a more detailed look at the previous literature, various items about Coney Island in which "hot dog" is conspicuous by its absence (the term was officially avoided there), etc. etc., ----- pp. 182-200: "hot dog" (= show-off and related matters), References (often with quoted material): pp. 223-283. Index: pp. 284-293. Also: the late Peter Tamony (independent scholar, San Francisco) worked on "hot dog" for at least 35 years, albeit not full time. I published my first working paper on the term in 1978 and have been very interested in the term ever since. David Shulman headed me in the right direction, viz. college slang, and Barry Popik entered the scene in 1991 big-time with his extraordinary unearthing of material. Allen Walker Read spent decades researching "okay." I wrote two monographs on the term "shyster." (total: ca. 240 pages). And now there's the study of "hot dog." In all three cases we see that even a humble slang term can receive a thorough study. Or as the eminent linguist Eric Hamp once wrote me a few decades ago (he did so in criticism of some less than well-researched work I had recently done): "I am constantly amazed at what can emerge from the *detailed* study of a subject." Yes, so am I. Btw, I am solely responsible for the editorial decisions in such matters as the length of the book and its arrangement of material. Barry Popik is included as co-author because some 3/4 of the book's material was unearthed by him. David Shulman is included because he headed me (and then Barry) in the right direction. I had previously been stubbornly holding to Edo McCullough's view that Coney Island must have been the starting point of the term. Matthew, thanks for asking. Best. -- Gerald Cohen From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Nov 30 02:10:47 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:10:47 -0500 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. >Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. > >Regards, >David > >barnhart at highlands.com ~~~~~~~~ Saul Landau, in a recent article on Fallujah, uses "presstitutes" in connection with embedded journalists. I hadn't run across this before, but I see, via google, that it's been around for a while. (I should think it might well have come up in the first Gulf War, since even the press itself was apologetic for the way they had allowed themselves to be used by the Pentagon in that Bush's war.) A. Murie From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 02:12:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:12:10 -0500 Subject: Wake me up when Kirby dies; Broker than the Ten Commandments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 28, 2004, at 4:29 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: Wake me up when Kirby dies; Broker than the Ten > Commandments > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > BROKER THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS This is one of the oldest BE expressions known to man. We used this when we were still swinging through the trees. I don't see a date for the first cite below, but I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Satchmo used this expression when he was a pre-teen. I certainly was a pre-teen when I first heard it in St. Louis, ca.1945. -Wilson Gray > =20 > BROKER THAN THE TEM COMMANDMENTS--47 Google hits, 13 Google Groups > hits > =20 > 1. =20 > _Straight From the Trumpet's Mouth; SATCHMO: My Life in New Orleans. > By=20 > Louis Armstrong. Illustrated. 240 pp. New York: Prentice-Hall. $3.50. > Trump= > et's =20 > Mouth _=20 > (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D0&did=3D000000096625537&SrchMode=3D1= > &sid=3D2&Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD&VType=3DPQD&RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1 > 10163= > 2281&clientId=3D658 > 82)=20 > By CLEVELAND AMORY. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, > N.Y.: Oct=20= > =20 > 10, 1954. p. BR7 (2 pages)=20 > First page: Some of these, Louis tells us, hit the big time with > "Roast=20 > Beef" (tuxedo) and "frebies" (free meals), others are nothing but > "poor boy= > "=20 > sandwiches and were "broker than the Ten Commandments;... > > 2. =20 > _Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies; Louis Armstrong, > the Jaz= > z=20 > Trumpeter and Singer, Dies in His Home at 71 _=20 > (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D1&did=3D000000079675134&SrchMode=3D1= > &sid=3D2&Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD&VType=3DPQD&RQT > =3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1101632281&clientId=3D65882)=20 > By ALBIN KREBS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: > Jul 7,= > =20 > 1971. p. 1 (2 pages)=20 > Pg. 41: "I was foolin' around with some tough ones," Mr.. Armstrong > recalle= > d=20 > in 1969. "Get paid a little money, and a beeline for on of them > gambling=20 > houses. Two hours, man, and I was a broke cat, broker than the Ten > Commandm= > ents." > =20 > > _Bucks County Courier Times _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3D++xTpPwvmwuKID/ > 6NLMW2twgU= > cwPTeHajH0yrdQ41FgSWqZgLX4bFkIF+CsZYmrz) =20 > Saturday, July 13, 1968 _Levittown,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > levittown+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) _Pennsylvania_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > pennsylvania+tha= > n+the+ten+commandm > ents) ...remember when he was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS > Heart=20 > transplants were.....LBJ may have been less a gag target THAN usual. > had an= > =20 > awful lot of somebody.. > _Times Recorder _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3DGa2xMtpV76yKID/ > 6NLMW2odsq= > 4h7NXO1gMV6rU/Tvw/+HTeu2vtXIkIF+CsZYmrz) Sunday, July 14,=20 > 1968 _Zanesville,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > zanesville+than+t= > he+ten+commandments) _Ohio_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > ohio+than+the+te= > n+commandments) ...remember when=20 > he was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Heart transplants > were.....In show= > =20 > on CBS TV brought in some more THAN slightly suggestive material.. > _Bucks County Courier Times _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3D++xTpPwvmwuKID/ > 6NLMW2uZ3s= > hyR7xZusIaZXnzEax/a6TNpIf3zKEIF+CsZYmrz) =20 > Friday, August 09, 1974 _Levittown,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > levittown+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) _Pennsylvania_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > pennsylvania+tha= > n+the+ten+commandm > ents) ...one to Flip Wil- I was broker THAN THE TEN > COMMANDMENTS.' a=20 > mighty good of what.....pursuit of power is more important THAN civil > righ= > ts=20 > and THE welfare of a.. > =20 > =20 > > _Frederick Post _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3DssVO2f5ZuruKID/ > 6NLMW2lqTd= > sfpwucUpNKKEzyeIskdbXukfoTed0IF+CsZYmrz) Wednesday,=20 > January 22, 1997 _Frederick,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > frederick+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) _Maryland_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > maryland+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) =20 > ...or how THEy're 4 broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.' biie-GMC > dealer Sam= > =20 > C.....eating briers" or how THEy're -broker THAN THE TEN > CommandmentFor Po.= > veil.=20 > 39.. > _News _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3DssVO2f5ZuruKID/ > 6NLMW2tJ8k= > ySV6UN3s07qcrLHUToFSiiXnTayT0IF+CsZYmrz) Wednesday, January 22, > 1997=20 > _Frederick,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > frederick+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) _Maryland_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > maryland+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) ...or how THEy're =20 > "broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS." For Powell. 39. a.....eating > briers' or= > =20 > how THEy're 'broker THAN THE TEN whole mess" of friends and.. > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -----= > -- > -------------------------------------------------------- > WAKE ME UP WHEN KIRBY DIES =20 > =20 > WAKE ME UP WHEN KIRBY DIES--5 Google hits, 0 Google Groups hits > =20 > =20 > (GOOGLE) > =20 > _Gold Rush Women_ > (http://www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html)=20 > ... purposes, was an English actor so noted for his dramatic death > throes=20 > that a phrase > coined by bored theatre-goers, =E2=80=9CWake me up when Kirby > dies,=E2=80= > =9D became ...=20 > www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html - 17k - _Cached_=20 > (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=3Dcache:RRzT4eS4nlkJ: > www.sierrafoothillmagaz= > ine.com/women.html+"wak > e+me+up+when+kirby"&hl=3Den&ie=3DUTF-8) - _Similar pages_=20 > (http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF > -8&c2coff=3D1&q=3Drelate= > d:www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/wo > men.html) =20 > _San Francisco History - Strolling on Sunday Afternoons_=20 > (http://www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm)=20 > ... Such stories of stage life he could tell! Such color of the old > Bowery=20= > =20 > Theater! > How he would dilate on the old slogan, =E2=80=9CWake me up when Kirby > dies= > =E2=80=9D! ...=20 > www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm - 12k - _Cached_=20 > (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=3Dcache:z5hykI2xoP8J:www.zpub.com/ > sf50/sf/hg= > sto13.htm+"wake+me+up+when+kirby > "&hl=3Den&ie=3DUTF-8) - _Similar pages_=20 > (http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF > -8&c2coff=3D1&q=3Drelate= > d:www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm) =20 > _WHMC-Columbia-- W Word List: Tamony, Peter (1902-1985), Collection > ..._=20 > (http://www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html)=20 > ... Waiting List Wait Out Waitress Wait-See Wait Tell Next Year Wait > Up=20 > Waive Waiver > Waiver Rule Waivers Wak Waka Wake Wakeathon Wake Me Up When Kirby > Dies Wak= > e=20 > Up ...=20 > www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html - 33k - _Cached_=20 > (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=3Dcache:68s-jb_exEkJ:www.umsystem.edu/ > whmc/i= > nvent/3939W.html+"wake+me > +up+when+kirby"&hl=3Den&ie=3DUTF-8) - _Similar pages_=20 > (http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF > -8&c2coff=3D1&q=3Drelate= > d:www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.ht > ml) =20 > _[CTRL] [3] The Ohio Gang_=20 > (http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html)=20 > ... was a Civil War veteran who always bedded down in a pile of old=20 > newspapers and, > by way of bidding good-night, would say, "Wake me up when Kirby > dies"=E2= > =80=94 > whoever ...=20 > www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv. aol.com/msg15487.html - 24k - =20 > Supplemental Result - _Cached_=20 > (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=3Dcache:iYCA04DCniYJ:www.mail- > archive.com/ct= > rl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html+"wake+me+up+when+kirby"&hl=3De > n&ie=3DUTF-8) - _Similar pages_=20 > (http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF > -8&c2coff=3D1&q=3Drelate= > d:www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html) > =20 > =20 > _Article 1 -- No Title_=20 > (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D0&did=3D000000324266932&SrchMode=3D1= > &sid=3D4&Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD&VType=3DPQD&RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1 > 1016 > 28569&clientId=3D65882)=20 > Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 12, > 1898. p= > .=20 > 6 (1 page)=20 > The San Francisco papers, in speaking of the death of the pioneer > actress, =20 > Sarah Stark Thorne, mentions James Stark as her first husband, which > is quit= > e =20 > incorrect. The lady was three times married, her first husband being > the=20 > famous Bowery actor of fifty years ago, Hudson Kirby. Out of his name > grew=20= > the=20 > popular newsboys' shibboleth of "Wake me up when Kirby dies." > =20 > _THREE OLD-TIME THEATRES._=20 > (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D1&did=3D000000101218470&SrchMode=3D1= > &sid=3D5&Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD&VType=3DPQD&RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1 > 1 > 01628957&clientId=3D65882)=20 > THOMAS W. PITTMAN.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, > N.Y.: Jun=20 > 22, 1902. p. 7 (1 page) =20 > Kirby, one of the then leading tragedians, frequently played there in > =20 > National anf patriotic plays, and during his engagements it was the > common =20= > saying=20 > of the town, "Wrap me in an American flag and wake me up when Kirby > dies,"=20= > as=20 > he was regarded as great in his heroic and prolonged death scenes. > =20 > 4. _In the Days of "Dese, Dem, an' Dose"; Mr. Harlow Writes > a=20 > Fascinating Full-Throated Chronicle of the Old Bowery. The Bowery _ > (http:/= > / > proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D3&did=3D000000118215627&SrchMode=3D1&sid=3D5= > &Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD& > VType=3DPQD&RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1101628957&clientId=3D65882)=20 > By HOLLISTER NOBLE. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, > N.Y.: Jul= > =20 > 26, 1931. p. BR3 (2 pages) =20 > > =20 > First page: Judsob Kirby appeared in "Six Degrees of Crime" and grew > so =20 > famous for his death scenes that a request of the tired business man > of the=20= > =20 > period to "Wake Me Up When Kirby Dies" became a bon mot for years. > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Nov 30 02:29:21 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:29:21 EST Subject: Hipster Handbook, part II; Sears/K-Mart Tower in Chicago Message-ID: HIPSTER HANDBOOK, PART II Today's gothamist.com shows that the guy behind the Hipster Handbook has come out with a new one. His invented words in this tome include Food Court Druids, Idiosyncrology, Lieberal, and Cherohonkee. _http://www.hipsterhandbook.com/glossary.html_ (http://www.hipsterhandbook.com/glossary.html) _http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/cherohonkee.html_ (http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/cherohonkee.html) _http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/lieberal.html_ (http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/lieberal.html) _http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/lieberal.htmlm/foodcourtdruid.html_ (http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/lieberal.htmlm/foodcourtdruid.html) _http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/idio.html_ (http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/idio.html) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- CHICAGO On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 03:17:04PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > CHICAGO: I still favor jumping off the Hancock Building. It's much better looking than the Sears Tower. JTS It's probably Sears/K-Mart Tower now. There's no way you want to be caught dead in a K-Mart. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 02:42:45 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:42:45 -0500 Subject: "Stretching..." (was Re: Wake me...) Message-ID: "Stretching himself for a nap..." FWIW, both my wife, a native of NE PA, and I, a native of NE TX, are familiar from childhoodwith the phrase, "stretch out," with the meaning "take a nap," and "be stretched out" with the meaning, "be taking a nap," e.g. "Go get your father. He's stretched out on the couch." OTOH, "be stretched out" in Los Angeles BE slang meant "be performing some intense form of manual labor," whether sweeping up or digging ditches. "Man, John been stretched out since he copped that hame with Public Works layin' pipe. -Wilson Gray From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 03:23:21 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:23:21 -0500 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:36:43 -0800, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: >e-dress has been around for years-- I remember using it at least as long >ago as '97. The earliest appearance of "e-dress" in Google's Usenet archive is from 1987: . Based on the number of hits on Google Groups (including some false matches), it looks like usage peaked in 1998: 1993: 27 1994: 40 1995: 158 1996: 415 1997: 1,150 1998: 4,780 1999: 4,720 2000: 2,810 2001: 2,420 2002: 3,930 2003: 2,700 2004: 747 (Since the Usenet posting volume supposedly doubles annually, the decline in usage since 1998 is even more precipitous than those figures indicate.) --Ben Zimmer From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 04:21:27 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:21:27 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 29, 2004, at 11:27 AM, Dave Robertson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Dave Robertson > Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > The presence of glottal stops in ("uh-huh" and) "u[n]h-uh" seems like > poor > evidence for borrowing. Two reasons come right to mind: First, > English has > glottal stops elsewhere, especially at the beginning of a > syllable--Think of > an emphatically uttered "I *am* *American*." And the farther you get > from > the literary standard, the more glottal stops you'll hear in US > English. > Second, English interjections and allegro forms make use of other > sounds > uncommon in or missing from our phonemic inventory, such as nasal > vowels. > Some of the other Wolof evidence presented is fairly compelling, but > "uh-uh" > is harder to make a case for. > > --Dave Robertson (UVic) I might add that no less a student of black vernacular English in the United States than the late Frederick Sanford, who published under the pen name "Redd Foxx," on numerous occasions stated publicly that these "grunts" are absolutely not of African origin. -Wilson Gray > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "James A. Landau" > To: > Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:03 AM > Subject: Re: Wolof hip > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail >> header ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: "James A. Landau" >> Subject: Re: Wolof hip >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> --------- >> >> In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer >> quotes: >> >>> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET >>> From: >>> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK >>> >>> And if the explanation of an African origin for >>> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural >>> shock, >>> Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections >>> uh-huh >>> and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of >>> inter- >>> jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not >>> only >>> are they more common in American English than in British English, >>> they're >>> also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! >> >> This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following >> reason: >> "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English >> has >> a >> glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has >> a >> glottal >> stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English >> should >> have >> exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal >> stop) >> not found in European languages. > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 04:32:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:32:46 -0500 Subject: Speaking of "toast" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 29, 2004, at 12:34 PM, George Thompson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: George Thompson > Subject: Re: Speaking of "toast" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > When I was a kid, the toaster my parents had, had the heating/toasting > elements in the center and flaps on either side. We put the bread > slices on the lowered flaps and closed them. The bread toasted on one > side, but when we opened the flaps a contrivance of wire which I do > not now clearly remember caught the lower edge of the slice, so that > if the flap was opened and then closed the untoasted side of the bread > was then presented to the heat without our having to touch the bread. > We always opened and shut the toaster, because in fact we did like > bread toasted on both sides. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. > > "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, > treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our > graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). Yes, I, too, remember that toasting contraption. My family bought one shortly after we moved to St. Louis. It didn't really work for us because of our custom of buttering or, rather, oleomagarining - this was during the war - the bread before putting it into the toasting machine. -Wilson Gray > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Wilson Gray > Date: Saturday, November 27, 2004 10:45 pm > Subject: Speaking of "toast" > >> When I was a child, buttered toast was made by first buttering slices >> of "light bread" and then putting them into the broiler on a cookie >> sheet till the butter melted and only the *top* of the bread was >> toasted. After we moved to St. Louis, which was not nearly as Jim-Crow >> as Marshall, TX, as a child, I often had occasion to eat a meal at the >> houses of neighborhood white children. One of the first things >> that I >> noticed was that white people had bread-toasting machines that toasted >> the bread on both sides. I also noted that no butter was put onto the >> bread until after it was toasted. >> >> I came to the following conclusions: >> 1) It was not possible to make a toasting machine that could toast >> bread on only one side, hence both sides of a slice of bread had >> to be >> toasted >> 2) Since the bread was inserted into the toasting machine on the >> vertical, it was not possible to butter the bread before toasting >> it, because the melting butter would flow into the innards of machine >> and cause a problem >> >> Approximately 25 years later, I had a white roommate who owned a >> toaster-oven. One day, when it was his turn to cook, he got out a >> cookie sheet, put some unbuttered slices bread on it and toasted the >> bread. This struck me as somewhat strange, but I wasn't the one >> cooking, so I didn't say anything. In any case, after the bread slices >> had been toasted, he took the cookie sheet out of toaster and >> proceededto flip the slices over to their untoasted sides and then >> he put the >> cookie sheet back into the toaster-oven. I asked, "Why are you putting >> that toasted bread back into the oven?" He replied, as though to a >> child, "Why, so that I can toast the other sides." >> >> EPIPHANY!!! >> >> White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't figure >> out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only one >> side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! >> >> -Wilson Gray >> > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 05:44:33 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:44:33 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 23, 2004, at 10:10 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is >> escorted >> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >> confused with the Texas Rangers). > >> I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers > > The town of Marshall had no town marshal? Not that I know of. > > It is said that the reason the US Army does not have the rank of > "Marshal" or > "Field Marshal" is that the first man to be considered for such a rank > was > General (i.e. then four stars) George C. Marshall, and he refused to > become > "Marshal Marshall". > > It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. > However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to Field > Marshal was > Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason unknown > to me, > instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." > > A Texas Ranger cannot be described as a "peace officer" because the > Rangers > are theoretically not a police force but rather the private army of > the State > of Texas. The Rangers aren't quite an army. There aren't enough of them, though I'm sure that, if you asked, you would be told that an army is unnecessary, given the existence of the Rangers. -Wilson Gray > > Beverly Flanigan writes: > >> I'd add that city or county >> police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in >> Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel >> 50 >> miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and >> maintain >> reasonable speed. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> At my grandfather's >> funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >> be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >> at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >> panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >> expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police >> was >> not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >> people and denied to white people. > > John Baker writes: > >> The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the > highway and >> waiting for the funeral procession to pass. > > More than a custom; it is part of good driving practice and may be > state law > in most states. At least it may be state law that once a convoy (any > convoy > on the road, not only a funeral procession) passes a traffic light and > the > light turns red, the convoy keeps going. The custom of having the > headlights on > in a funeral procession has nothing to do with respect for the > deceased. It is > a warning to other motorists that this is a convoy. In fact, convoys > other > than funeral processions (which generally means military convoys) also > have > headlights on. > > As for the police escort, that is because a funeral procession, > regardless of > race creed or hairstyle, is an equal-opportunity creator of traffic > problems. > It is not a "service provided to white people" but rather a necessity > for > the police department, one of whose duties is to clear up trafic > problems. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> when my father first went up to >> Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >> then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >> Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >> yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >> Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >> pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >> peculiar to a dialect." > > I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an > Irish > accent. > From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 30 06:03:38 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas Wilson) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 01:03:38 -0500 Subject: Uh-huh, huh-uh In-Reply-To: <4DCF2CE8-4287-11D9-A06C-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: A glance at N'archive shows "uh-huh" = "yes" from 1887, "huh-uh" = "no" from 1901. If these are of interest, I can quote them ... but I suppose there are earlier ones. -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 07:12:44 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 02:12:44 -0500 Subject: drive time (1966) Message-ID: First cite in OED3 draft entry for "drive time" (the rush-hour radio time slot) is from 1975. 1966 Arlington Heights (Illinois) Herald 3 March 38/4 At WLNA he handled the late afternoon drive time air slot. --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 09:36:18 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 04:36:18 -0500 Subject: "go figure (it (out))" Message-ID: I see from the ADS-L archive that there was some discussion of "go figure" in May 2001. Jesse said that the earliest OED cite thus far was from 1980, and that is indeed what appears in the June 2004 draft entry for "go". Jesse suspected that this could be antedated, perhaps even back to the '50s. Newspaperarchive turns up a few cites from the '70s: Walla Walla (Washington) Union Bulletin, June 3, 1970 (13/3) "There Oughta Be A Law" by Al Shorten [sic: the comic strip was by Al Fagaly & Harry Shorten] Go Figure Dep't: When Hoggwell was courting Delladream, she dished up some meals that wouldn't stop. Now that they're hitched, the only time she goes into the kitchen is for a glass of water. Reno (Nevada) Evening Gazette, November 14, 1975 (15/1) NEW YORK (AP) -- Go figure. The figures under the roster column labeled "Age" tell us that the Washington Redskins are obviously too old to be running around on football fields. Also, this tagline for the movie _The Big Fix_ appeared in various newspaper ads in the fall of 1978: "Richard Dreyfuss as Moses Wine, private detective. So go figure." I haven't yet come across any cites for the bare "go figure" in the '60s, but there are numerous examples of the transitive form "go figure X", perhaps shortened from "go figure X out": Lincoln (Nebraska) Evening Journal, December 17, 1960 Go figure these things. Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, May 10, 1964 Go figure this booking. Syracuse (New York) Herald Journal, July 27, 1966 Go figure critics. (Monessen, Pennsylvania) Valley Independent, November 16, 1967 Go figure the Ivy League. (Elyria, Ohio) Chronicle Telegram, March 22, 1969 Go figure kids. (Burlington, North Carolina) Daily Times News, December 16, 1969 Go figure it. Sheboygan (Wisconsin) Press, June 10, 1970 Go figure ballplayers. The earliest transitive usage I can find is from 1955 ("You go figure it"): Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal, June 03, 1955 If you think that makes me a crazy mixed up kid, scratch any millionaire or ulcer-stricken giant of industry and you'll find a guy who longs for the little home in the country and the carpet slipper routine. You go figure it. "Go figure it out" dates back to 1953 at least, in a quote from the actor Robert Stack that appeared in Erskine Johnson's syndicated column: Walla Walla (Washington) Union Bulletin, June 10, 1953 It may have been that 3-D kiss he gave Barbara Britton, or the mint earned by "Bwana Devil," but Bob hasn't had a minute off in months and he's getting "the kind of roles I used to dream about" in films like "War Paint" and "Sabre Jet." "Go figure it out." Bob sighed. "After 'The Bullfighter and the Lady,' which was a great prestige picture, I didn't work for a year. 'Bwana Devil,' panned by everybody in Hollywood, did the trick for me." --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 10:30:39 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 05:30:39 -0500 Subject: monkey suit = baseball uniform (1914) Message-ID: The OED3 draft entry for "monkey suit" has a first cite of 1926 in the sense of "(baseball) uniform". -------- Lima (Ohio) Daily News, March 11, 1914 (4/1) Florance W. Crowley, a Chicago fan who has rooted for the Cubs for 16 years, thought he would go down south with them this spring just to see what a ball club did at the training camp. Immediately after arriving at Tampa, Fla., he sought out Manager Hank O'Day and asked permission to borrow a Cub uniform and go through the stunts outlined for all the athletes. He has written a short description of his experience which he set down as follows: "After a week's experience on the ground in a monkey suit, taking orders from Mr. O'Day, who won't stand for loafing or posing, I have reached the conclusion that these spring trips are anything but joy parties." -------- --Ben Zimmer From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Nov 30 13:53:43 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 08:53:43 -0500 Subject: dialectal brogues In-Reply-To: <20041130050029.A7CB4B24ED@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: referring to a Glasgow accent, from yesterday's NY Times, "A Traffic Reporter With No Traffic", By ANDREW JACOBS. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/29/nyregion/29traffic.html?oref=login >>> In a perfect world, Mr. Daniels would have his own drive-time radio program, playing pop music between lively banter with guests and callers. But in the rapidly consolidating realm of American radio, there are fewer opportunities for on-air personalities, especially for disc jockeys with unmistakably Scottish accents. Mr. Daniels, who was born and raised in Glasgow, can approximate Brooklynese, à la Ralph Kramden, but he cannot vanquish his brogue entirely for more than a few sentences. <<< mark by hand From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 30 14:33:17 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 06:33:17 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: Actually, the Texas Rangers are quite formidable. One day a riot broke out suddenly in a large Texas town. People were fightin' with their fists and shootin' with their .44's. Even the wimmin an' kids were punchin' an' shootin'. I think there was Bowie-knife stabbin' goin' on too. Half the town was in flames, and to make it worse, a gang of teenagers had set up speakers to play their crazy rock' n' roll music over the entire jamboree. The cops couldn't handle it. One of 'em says, "Call the Rangers! Call the Rangers!" The Chief calls the Rangers and by-and-by one little ol' Ranger shows up. He's about knee-high to a tall duck, but he's got a hellacious mean look on his face. The Chief says, "What in blazes is this? I call the Texas Rangers to put down a riot and all they send is ONE little ol' Ranger?" The Ranger shifts his chaw from one side to the other, squirts a brown stream o' juice, an' he says, "Hell, they's only ONE little ol' riot, ain't they?" JL Wilson Gray wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society . Poster: Wilson Gray Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Nov 23, 2004, at 10:10 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is >> escorted >> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >> confused with the Texas Rangers). > >> I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers > > The town of Marshall had no town marshal? Not that I know of. > > It is said that the reason the US Army does not have the rank of > "Marshal" or > "Field Marshal" is that the first man to be considered for such a rank > was > General (i.e. then four stars) George C. Marshall, and he refused to > become > "Marshal Marshall". > > It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. > However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to Field > Marshal was > Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason unknown > to me, > instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." > > A Texas Ranger cannot be described as a "peace officer" because the > Rangers > are theoretically not a police force but rather the private army of > the State > of Texas. The Rangers aren't quite an army. There aren't enough of them, though I'm sure that, if you asked, you would be told that an army is unnecessary, given the existence of the Rangers. -Wilson Gray > > Beverly Flanigan writes: > >> I'd add that city or county >> police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in >> Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel >> 50 >> miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and >> maintain >> reasonable speed. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> At my grandfather's >> funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >> be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >> at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >> panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >> expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police >> was >> not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >> people and denied to white people. > > John Baker writes: > >> The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the > highway and >> waiting for the funeral procession to pass. > > More than a custom; it is part of good driving practice and may be > state law > in most states. At least it may be state law that once a convoy (any > convoy > on the road, not only a funeral procession) passes a traffic light and > the > light turns red, the convoy keeps going. The custom of having the > headlights on > in a funeral procession has nothing to do with respect for the > deceased. It is > a warning to other motorists that this is a convoy. In fact, convoys > other > than funeral processions (which generally means military convoys) also > have > headlights on. > > As for the police escort, that is because a funeral procession, > regardless of > race creed or hairstyle, is an equal-opportunity creator of traffic > problems. > It is not a "service provided to white people" but rather a necessity > for > the police department, one of whose duties is to clear up trafic > problems. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> when my father first went up to >> Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >> then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >> Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >> yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >> Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >> pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >> peculiar to a dialect." > > I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an > Irish > accent. > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! � Try it today! From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 14:43:18 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:43:18 -0500 Subject: A trivial note re St. Louis Message-ID: I saw a TV show from St. Louis about 45 min. ago. To "down someone" is still used in place of to "put someone down," in the local version of BE, at least. Of course, to "put someone/something down" in the sense of to "diassociate oneself from a person, place, or activity" survives. As the songs go, "This Army boogie (i.e. bullshit) I believe I'll put it down"; "I can't quit you, baby, but I got to put you down for awhile." -Wilson Gray From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 30 15:00:38 2004 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 10:00:38 -0500 Subject: traveling to Oakland on the cheap. In-Reply-To: <2C9E6523-42DE-11D9-8002-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: By the way, it doesn't show up on Orbitz, but Jet Blue (jetblue.com) flies into Oakland. I got a direct flight from Boston to Oakland for less than a 1/3 of the price than flying into SFO via one of the major carriers. - Steve From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 30 16:10:40 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:10:40 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" In-Reply-To: <200411280536.iAS5aKAr022733@pantheon-po07.its.yale.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: > Barry Popik has already turned up a 1905 cite with the "St. Paul" version, > predating the two 1912 cites attributing the saying to David Mackenzie. > As for the "Jesus" version, here's a Newspaperarchive cite from 1927: > > Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), April 27, 1927 The Chronicle Telegram articles on Newspaperarchive are badly misdated, and I assume this one is misdated. What is the next earliest hit for the Jesus version on Newspaperarchive? Fred -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 30 16:55:15 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas Wilson) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:55:15 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> As for the "Jesus" version, here's a Newspaperarchive cite from 1927: >> >> Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), April 27, 1927 > > The Chronicle Telegram articles on Newspaperarchive are badly misdated, > and I assume this one is misdated. Apparently this one is dated correctly. -- Doug Wilson From marshaalley at MSN.COM Tue Nov 30 17:40:33 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:40:33 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: I'm sorry...I just have to tell Jonathan he made me LOL for real this dreary rainy morn. Thank you! Reminds me of a bar fight I got myself stuck in the middle of in Austin in '96. Two women fighting over a cowboy. Lordy, I thought I'd never get out in one piece - knives, broken beer bottles, handfuls of hair! And the band played on, of course, just louder than before! :-) Marsha ----- Original Message ----- From: Jonathan Lighter The Chief says, "What in blazes is this? I call the Texas Rangers to put down a riot and all they send is ONE little ol' Ranger?" The Ranger shifts his chaw from one side to the other, squirts a brown stream o' juice, an' he says, "Hell, they's only ONE little ol' riot, ain't they?" From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Nov 30 17:47:44 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:47:44 -0500 Subject: Uh-huh, huh-uh Message-ID: I'm surprised to see that Merriam-Webster has such late dates for these words: 1889 for uh-huh, circa 1924 for uh-uh, and, implausibly, 1971 for uh-oh. Why so late? These seem like the kind of terms that one would expect to have been in the language for centuries. Of course, their apparent lateness may be an artifact of a lack of standardized spellings and a tendency not to regard them as words, but I think the latter goes only so far, since there has always been a need to reflect such terms in colloquial dialogue. I can antedate uh-uh and uh-oh. For uh-uh, here's an August 1901 cite from The Atlantic Monthly, available on Making of America (Cornell), referring to a patient who is holding on to a woman's hand: "'Why, Henderson, I'm dashed if I can untangle him.' Carey stooped again. 'Just alive enough to swing to her. Uh-uh!'" A slightly earlier (1901, but referring to earlier events) cite is from Studybaker v. Cofield, 159 Mo. 596, 61 S.W. 246, 249 (Feb. 12, 1901), but the meaning is questionable at best: "Witness was of the opinion that on the day the deed was executed and the day before Boyer could not understand what he was doing. Witness would ask him if he wanted his medicine, and he would answer, 'Uh, uh.' 'Q. You think he was unable to make himself understood at all? A. That is, according to my-- Q. And was unable to understand what people said to him? A. That is the way I took it.'" For uh-oh, I can take it back to 1942, describing events of 1940: "The witness then testified in substance that she had been gazing in that direction (towards the west field) since the car began its ascent of the hill; that she looked back when Mr. Rubart said 'Uh Oh!' and she then saw the truck." Roushar v. Dixon, 231 Iowa 993, 995, 2 N.W.2d 660, 661 (Mar. 10, 1942). John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of douglas at NB.NET Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 1:04 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Uh-huh, huh-uh A glance at N'archive shows "uh-huh" = "yes" from 1887, "huh-uh" = "no" from 1901. If these are of interest, I can quote them ... but I suppose there are earlier ones. -- Doug Wilson From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 30 18:54:05 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:54:05 -0600 Subject: Hancock building in Chicago Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Jesse Sheidlower [mailto:jester at PANIX.COM] > Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 11:19 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Hancock building in Chicago > > On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 03:17:04PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > > > CHICAGO: I still favor jumping off the Hancock Building. > > It's much better looking than the Sears Tower. Yes, but since it's trapezoidal-shaped, you'd bounce off the sides on the way down. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 30 18:54:04 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:54:04 -0600 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. Message-ID: Tennessee Alumnus (magazine for the UT alumni) has an article about the Smoky Mountain dictionary: http://pr.tennessee.edu/alumnus/alumarticle.asp?id=547 Another dictionary some might find interesting: http://www.angelfire.com/nj/carlb/seinfeld/seinfelddictionary.html > -----Original Message----- > From: Jonathan Lighter [mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM] > Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:51 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Montgomery's dictionary is the best book that has ever been > done on Smoky Mountain English. It will never be replaced. > > JL > From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 19:16:39 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:16:39 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:55:15 -0500, Douglas Wilson wrote: >>> As for the "Jesus" version, here's a Newspaperarchive cite from 1927: >>> >>> Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), April 27, 1927 >> >> The Chronicle Telegram articles on Newspaperarchive are badly misdated, >> and I assume this one is misdated. > >Apparently this one is dated correctly. Indeed it is. I also found some "St. Paul" variants predating Barry's 1905 find, all referring to the King James Bible: --------- PREACHING ON THE BIBLE; PULPIT OPINIONS OF THE NEW VERSION. New York Times, May 23, 1881. p. 8 The Rev. Dr. Pentecost ... illustrated the tenacity with which people cling to the old Bible by telling a story about an agent of a Bible society who was trying to collect money in a country church for a new translation of the Bible. The agent asked an old farmer in the congregation to contribute. "What's the matter with the good old King James version?" the farmer replied. "That was good enough for St. Paul, and it's good enough for me." --------- "The New Covenant" and its Critics. J W Hanson. The Universalist Quarterly and General Review. Boston: Oct 1884. Vol. 21; p. 465 Prof. Schaff pertinently observes: There are many lineal descendants of those priests, who, in the reign of Henry VIII, preferred their old-fashioned Mumpsimus Domine to the new-fangled Sumpsimus; even in the enlightened State of Massachusetts, a pious deacon is reported to have opposed the Revision of 1881 with the conclusive argument, "If St. James's Version was good enough for St. Paul, it is good enough for me!" [Apparently quoting Philip Schaff's _Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version_ (1883).] --------- Nebraska State Journal, June 16, 1901, p. 12 "The Sketch," of London, says: "A new book on the history of the English Bible has a good story of a certain sprightly young deacon who, in preaching against the advocates of the revised version, startled his hearers by the contention that, if the authorized version was good enough for St. Paul, it was good enough for him!" [Story also appears in: Davenport Daily Republican, February 27, 1902.] --------- --Ben Zimmer From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 30 19:23:20 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 13:23:20 -0600 Subject: poundage and others Message-ID: poundage -- OED: 6.b. A person's weight, esp. that which is regarded as excess. 1930 WODEHOUSE Very Good, Jeeves! iv. 93 Women who have anything to do with opera..always appear to run to surplus poundage "Glimpses of the Game" Wm. A. Phelon, _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 39/1 "Added weight undoubtedly had much to do with Jack Johnson's defeat; added weight has driven many a good ballplayer out of the game and yet, in many cases, extra bulk, a large increase in poundage, has helped to keep a player in the business, and even to bring back a discard from the minors!" hippo (slang for a fat person; not in OED) "Glimpses of the Game" Wm. A. Phelon, _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 38/2 "When he became a hippo, and learned how to bend the extra bulk into the force of every blow he struck, he came back to fast company and became a whale, a terror to all pitchers." busher (OED has bush leaguer from 1906) "The New Recruit," _Baseball Magazine_, May, 1916, No. 1, p. 71/1 "Well, there ain't no sense in lettin' a busher get away with everything is there?" p. 71/2 "Not bad, y'unnerstand, but just a little scratch, to show that the big league is too rough for a busher." blinged -- swear word, not in OED "The New Recruit," _Baseball Magazine_, May, 1916, No. 1, p. 71/2 "Not while I'm tryin' to find out just where that blinged plate is located." From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Tue Nov 30 19:33:41 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 13:33:41 -0600 Subject: Scots archive Message-ID: From the UK edition of Google News: Canny Scots create muckle archive BBC News - 12 hours ago A new online archive aimed at recording the Scots tongue in all its forms is due to go live on St Andrew's Day. The Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech (SCOTS) has been put together by the University of Glasgow and has taken three years to compile. Canny idea from university means braw day for Scots The Scotsman Web project celebrates Scots tongue ic Dumfries.co.uk Glasgow Evening Times - all 11 related » The Scotsman gives the URL: • The SCOTS project corpus is available for free at www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk from today. -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions and Politics http://dsgood.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Nov 30 19:34:21 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:34:21 -0500 Subject: Attention Arnold! Message-ID: Spotted on usenet: "the same-oh-same-oh does get really, really boring!" -- Alice Faber Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 faber at haskins.yale.edu From jparish at SIUE.EDU Tue Nov 30 20:07:04 2004 From: jparish at SIUE.EDU (Jim Parish) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:07:04 -0600 Subject: poundage and others In-Reply-To: <200411301925.iAUJPRK9009130@mx1.isg.siue.edu> Message-ID: Bill Mullins wrote (with much snipped): > hippo (slang for a fat person; not in OED) > "Glimpses of the Game" Wm. A. Phelon, _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. > 2, p. 38/2 > "When he became a hippo, and learned how to bend the extra bulk into the > force of every blow he struck, he came back to fast company and became a > whale, a terror to all pitchers." There was a pitcher by the name of Jim Vaughn, nicknamed "Hippo", from about that period. He came up briefly in 1908 and returned to stay in 1910. I don't know when he acquired the nickname, but investigation might yield a slight antedating. Jim Parish ------------------------------------------------- SIUE Web Mail From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 20:19:22 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 15:19:22 -0500 Subject: Uh-huh, huh-uh Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:47:44 -0500, Baker, John wrote: > For uh-oh, I can take it back to 1942, describing events of 1940: >"The witness then testified in substance that she had been gazing in that >direction (towards the west field) since the car began its ascent of the >hill; that she looked back when Mr. Rubart said 'Uh Oh!' and she then saw >the truck." Roushar v. Dixon, 231 Iowa 993, 995, 2 N.W.2d 660, 661 (Mar. >10, 1942). Hard to search for "uh-oh" on newspaperarchive or other databases, since poor scanning results in lots of false matches. But I did find a 1930 cite: Van Wert (Ohio) Times Bulletin, August 19, 1930 The Featherheads [comic strip] Uh-oh! This is the title to a strip featuring Mr. Featherhead and his boss: Boss: Mr. Featherhead - have you got all the figures in on that Riggs deal? You want to get along that job, you know... Boss: If we get the contract, my boy... it will be a feather in your cap! A fine thing for you... yes sir! [Mr. Featherhead beams.] Boss: And if we don't get it... you'll probably be fired! Mr. Featherhead: ! I suspect earlier cites can be found in comic strips of the '20s. --Ben Zimmer From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 30 21:31:23 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 16:31:23 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Colonial English Message-ID: Ives Goddard has agreed to send me a comment on the Algonquian book review, and in return he asks for help on the following query. I told him I'd pass the request on to you all, and you can contact him directly. >X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2 >X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 6.5.2 >Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:24:41 -0500 >From: "Ives Goddard" >To: >Subject: Colonial English >X-PMX-Version: 4.7.0.111621, Antispam-Engine: 2.0.2.0, Antispam-Data: >2004.11.30.1 (pm10) >X-PMX-Information: http://www.cns.ohiou.edu/email/filtering/ >X-PMX-Spam: Gauge=IIIIIII, Probability=7%, Report='__CD 0, __CT 0, __CTE >0, __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __HAS_X_MAILER 0, __MIME_VERSION 0, >__SANE_MSGID 0' > >May I ask a favor in return? >I am trying to find someone who is familiar with Colonial American English, >the vernacular usage of letters, etc., specifically of Mass. in the 17th >century, and might be interested in looking at a purported letter of 1699 >(cited in the OED) to see if the language looks right. > Any ideas? Do you know anyone connected with DARE that might know or be >such a person? > Any aid appreciated. > --Ives Goddard Senior Linguist, Department of Anthropology Smithsonian Institution PO Box 37012 NHB 85-M, MRC 100 Washington, DC 20013-7012 From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 30 22:24:52 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:24:52 -0500 Subject: e-dress etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: That's a great one! Could be nominated for best revival? At 09:10 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: > >IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. > >Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. > > > >Regards, > >David > > > >barnhart at highlands.com >~~~~~~~~ >Saul Landau, in a recent article on Fallujah, uses "presstitutes" in >connection with embedded journalists. I hadn't run across this before, but >I see, via google, that it's been around for a while. (I should think it >might well have come up in the first Gulf War, since even the press itself >was apologetic for the way they had allowed themselves to be used by the >Pentagon in that Bush's war.) >A. Murie From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 30 22:28:03 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:28:03 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip In-Reply-To: <20041129231608.51144.qmail@web53906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Of course not! I just don't know how to show irony in a smiley. At 06:16 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >Beverly, are you serious? > >JL > >Beverly Flanigan wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header >----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: Beverly Flanigan >Subject: Re: Wolof hip >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >So other people are more articulate? What does this mean?? Sounds like >the old "primitive language" idea--except that now we're the primitives! > >At 12:35 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: > >The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the > >superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second, their > >spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many > >potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered > >with a grunt." > > > >Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. > >The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been > >sufficient. What about "um-hmm"? > > > >I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge. > > > >JL > > >--------------------------------- >Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 30 23:51:06 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:51:06 -0600 Subject: jassak and baseball slang Message-ID: jassak "The Council of War," _Baseball Magazine_, October, 1916, No. 6, p. 25 "There, there! Cut it out! Some of you split them two jassaks out before they kill each other." "The New Signals," _Baseball Magazine_, October, 1918, No. 6, p. 492 "But Wharke here has ears like a jassack, and they could be seen a mile away-" Perhaps a corruption of Jackass??? doghouse (fiddle) (a double bass -- OED has 1923. "The Council of War," _Baseball Magazine_, October, 1916, No. 6, p. 26 "Fiddle means to steal a base. Big doghouse fiddle means to work the double steal." The same article has "musketeer" for "mosquito", on the next page. roll your own (OED has "rolls its own" 1930) Bull Durham tobacco advertisement, _Baseball Magazine_, Aug 1916, p. ?? (probably back cover) "It takes only a little practice to learn to "roll your own" with "Bull Durham." knuckler (OED has 1928) classified advertisement, _Baseball Magazine_, Aug 1916, p. 4/2. "PITCH THE FADEAWAY, SPITTER, KNUCKLER, SMOKE BALL, etc." [note smoke ball is not in OED] jock (abbrev for jock-strap (supportive garment)) (OED has 1952) classified advertisement, _Baseball Magazine_, Aug 1916, p. 120/1 "Ask your dealer, and if he will not supply you with Mizpah Jock No. 44, send us 75¢." fan club (OED has 1941) "The 'R-U-A-Fan' Club," Brother Max, _Baseball Magazine_, December, 1908, No. 2, p. 51 ""But what good does it do a fellow to join the Fan Club?" I hear Bob over there in the corner ask." gink (OED has 1910) "Bugs," Louis Schneider, _Baseball Magazine_, Dec 1908, p. 62 "He'll ramp and stamp and whoop and yell; he'll tear his lungs plumb out; He'll dislocate his voice to boot, but still the gink'll shout; He's game to stay and cheer you on for fifteen innings through, But if you go and lose the game he's got it in for you!" twirl, twirler (pitch, pitcher -- this sense not in OED) "The 'R-U-A-Fan' Club," Brother Max, _Baseball Magazine_, May 1909, No. 1, p. 69 "Lyle manages to get off work on Saturday afternoons, and then he twirls for the champion boys' team of the town. We have his record, and it's a good one. "I love to pitch, and my greatest ambition is to be a famous twirler," he says. You have the right idea, Lyle." onion (slang for baseball -- not in OED) "Cutting the Corners" W. R. Hoefer, _Baseball Magazine_, July 1918, p. 287/1 "When they ain't pasting the onion they're in a slump." "Cutting the Corners" W. R. Hoefer, _Baseball Magazine_, July 1918, p. 287/2 "PICKLE the Pill: To soak, paste, biff, bang, kiss, wallop or sting the onion, apple, pill, or ball upon the snoot, seam, kisser, nose or stitch." Note that all of these are online at: http://www.aafla.org/search/search.htm From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 30 23:59:06 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 15:59:06 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: Thank you, Marsha. I've known that story for half my life but never had a chance to tell it till now. It's a good'un. JL arsha Alley wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Marsha Alley Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm sorry...I just have to tell Jonathan he made me LOL for real this = dreary rainy morn. Thank you! Reminds me of a bar fight I got myself stuck in the middle of in Austin = in '96. Two women fighting over a cowboy. Lordy, I thought I'd never = get out in one piece - knives, broken beer bottles, handfuls of hair! = And the band played on, of course, just louder than before! :-) Marsha ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Jonathan Lighter=20 The Chief says, "What in blazes is this? I call the Texas Rangers to = put down a riot and all they send is ONE little ol' Ranger?" The Ranger shifts his chaw from one side to the other, squirts a brown = stream o' juice, an' he says, "Hell, they's only ONE little ol' riot, = ain't they?" --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Nov 1 01:28:32 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:28:32 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: <20041031205159.78112.qmail@web53909.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:51:59PM -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > > The only explanation I can think of for a putative > decades-long delay in getting an idiom like this into print, > had it really been common in some branch of the military or > elsewhere, would be if it had some obscene > connotations. One thing unaddressed in this note, Jon, is the possibility of a _non_-decades long delay with the same proposed etymology. This most recent thread has focused on the possibility that _whole nine yards_ is a WWII-era term in reference to the length of ammo belts. If the expression really did arise in the Vietnam War, then that would take care of the age issue. It arose, let's say, very early in the war, it made it into a small number of publications (_Doom Pussy_, the AF Academy glossary in _Current Slang_), it didn't spread until after the war when vets returned.... Not that this solves the bigger problem, i.e. of total lack of evidence for ammo being measured in yards. But I'm not sure I buy the 'obscene' explanation. Apart from _snafu_, a better example might be _blivit_, another obscure number-based term from WWII--and this was found, with its obscene explanation, before the end of the 1940s. _whole nine yards_ would have to be _really_ obscene for its obscenity to be the reason for its nonappearance for two decades post-WWII, if it truly had been common then. Jesse Sheidlower OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 1 04:00:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 23:00:46 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Don't forget that, during WWII, the Air Force was part of the Army, first, as the "U.S. Army Air Corps," later, as the "U.S. Army Air Force." The Air Force didn't become a separate branch of service till after the war. As a consequence, we could logically expect that zoomie slang would leak into other Army units, especially given that the Army, like the Air Force, also uses various calibers of belted ammo. "The whole nine yards" was not G.I. slang when I was in the Army. This brings up another problem, that of uniformity. If all ammo meant for use in belts was meted out so that every round would fit into a standard ammo belt of a uniform length of nine yards, then the number of rounds in each such belt would vary according to the caliber of the ammo that it held. That's not S.O.P. Then there's the problem of logistics. I was the ammunition-bearer for a machine-gun crew. As such, I can testify that it would take Superman to carry with one hand a single ammo cannister containing nine yards of steel belting filled with many pounds of lead-and-brass cartridges, each in turn filled with gunpowder. An ammo-bearer is expected to carry at least two cans of ammo for the machine gun. And that would be in addition to the 300 rounds of unbelted rifle ammo for his own use, his full field pack, grenades, etc. It just couldn't be done, if there was a standard length for an ammo belt of nine yards. Finally, my own introduction to "the whole nine yards" was the Burt Reynolds movie of that name. I had uncles and cousins who served in WWII, some in the Air Corps, friends who served during the Korean-War era and there was my own service during the Vietnam-War era. No one that I know even today uses that phrase and, until this discussion came up, I'd always assumed that it had something to do with football and was to be heard only on sports talk shows. -Wilson Gray On Oct 31, 2004, at 8:28 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence > [addendum] > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:51:59PM -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >> >> The only explanation I can think of for a putative >> decades-long delay in getting an idiom like this into print, >> had it really been common in some branch of the military or >> elsewhere, would be if it had some obscene >> connotations. > > One thing unaddressed in this note, Jon, is the possibility of > a _non_-decades long delay with the same proposed etymology. > This most recent thread has focused on the possibility that > _whole nine yards_ is a WWII-era term in reference to the > length of ammo belts. > > If the expression really did arise in the Vietnam War, then > that would take care of the age issue. It arose, let's say, > very early in the war, it made it into a small number of > publications (_Doom Pussy_, the AF Academy glossary in > _Current Slang_), it didn't spread until after the war when > vets returned.... > > Not that this solves the bigger problem, i.e. of total lack of > evidence for ammo being measured in yards. But I'm not sure I > buy the 'obscene' explanation. Apart from _snafu_, a better > example might be _blivit_, another obscure number-based term > from WWII--and this was found, with its obscene explanation, > before the end of the 1940s. _whole nine yards_ would have to > be _really_ obscene for its obscenity to be the reason for > its nonappearance for two decades post-WWII, if it truly had > been common then. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Nov 1 04:38:45 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 20:38:45 -0800 Subject: Fwd: I'm done my homework Message-ID: an exchange between a grad student and me: >> Have you heard this? >> >> I'm done my homework. > > no. > >> Made me go "ugggh" but apparently it's pretty popular on the East >> Coast. > > do some googling, and you'll see it's all over: > ------ > Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 21:26:23 -0600 > Reply-To: Constructed Languages List > Sender: Constructed Languages List > From: Scotto Hlad > Subject: Re: bless (adj) > In-Reply-To: <412B94BE.7020408 at wantage.com> > > This all reminds me of a phrase that I hear here in western Canada. > North > American English speaker use 'done' to also mean 'finished' eg. I'm > done > with my homework. Where I live, the 'with' is disappearing. I hear it > everywhere, "When you're done your lunch break..." "Dad, I'm done my > homework" etc. Even the teachers in the schools say it. > ----- have we discussed this already? arnold From dwhause at JOBE.NET Mon Nov 1 04:51:48 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:51:48 -0600 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: I second Wilson's note on the logistics from the perspective of the assistant gunner on a machine gun team from which the ammo bearer had deserted on pre-deployment leave, leaving me with two 200-round cans of 7.62 mm ammo in addition to the other impedimenta. I have three .50 cal ammo cans, two marked as containing 100 rounds of blanks, the third 85 rounds of linked 1/5 tracer; they are about 6 x 8 x 10" and probably weigh 30-40 pounds filled with smaller ammunition (less lead.) Of course, the .50 cal. machine gun wasn't usually carried around by the infantry when I was doing that, so a team could have been significantly larger than the three on a medium machine gun (as I remember, the gun weighs around 110 pounds and the tripod is probably another 50.) Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" ... Then there's the problem of logistics. I was the ammunition-bearer for a machine-gun crew. As such, I can testify that it would take Superman to carry with one hand a single ammo cannister containing nine yards of steel belting filled with many pounds of lead-and-brass cartridges, each in turn filled with gunpowder. An ammo-bearer is expected to carry at least two cans of ammo for the machine gun. And that would be in addition to the 300 rounds of unbelted rifle ammo for his own use, his full field pack, grenades, etc. It just couldn't be done, if there was a standard length for an ammo belt of nine yards. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 1 05:06:12 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 00:06:12 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Oct 31, 2004, at 11:51 PM, Dave Hause wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Dave Hause > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence > [addendum] > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I second Wilson's note on the logistics from the perspective of the > assistant gunner on a machine gun team from which the ammo bearer had > deserted on pre-deployment leave Wish I'd had that kind of smarts! ;-) -Wilson > , leaving me with two 200-round cans of 7.62 > mm ammo in addition to the other impedimenta. I have three .50 cal > ammo > cans, two marked as containing 100 rounds of blanks, the third 85 > rounds of > linked 1/5 tracer; they are about 6 x 8 x 10" and probably weigh 30-40 > pounds filled with smaller ammunition (less lead.) Of course, the .50 > cal. > machine gun wasn't usually carried around by the infantry when I was > doing > that, so a team could have been significantly larger than the three on > a > medium machine gun (as I remember, the gun weighs around 110 pounds > and the > tripod is probably another 50.) > Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net > Ft. Leonard Wood, MO > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wilson Gray" > ... > Then there's the problem of logistics. I was the ammunition-bearer for > a machine-gun crew. As such, I can testify that it would take Superman > to carry with one hand a single ammo cannister containing nine yards of > steel belting filled with many pounds of lead-and-brass cartridges, > each in turn filled with gunpowder. An ammo-bearer is expected to carry > at least two cans of ammo for the machine gun. And that would be in > addition to the 300 rounds of unbelted rifle ammo for his own use, his > full field pack, grenades, etc. It just couldn't be done, if there was > a standard length for an ammo belt of nine yards. > From dave at WILTON.NET Mon Nov 1 05:49:10 2004 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 21:49:10 -0800 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: <9C1EF7EC-2BBA-11D9-A69D-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Wilson Gray > Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 8:01 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] > > > Don't forget that, during WWII, the Air Force was part of the Army, > first, as the "U.S. Army Air Corps," later, as the "U.S. Army Air > Force." The Air Force didn't become a separate branch of service till > after the war. As a consequence, we could logically expect that zoomie > slang would leak into other Army units, especially given that the Army, > like the Air Force, also uses various calibers of belted ammo. "The > whole nine yards" was not G.I. slang when I was in the Army. This > brings up another problem, that of uniformity. > > If all ammo meant for use in belts was meted out so that every round > would fit into a standard ammo belt of a uniform length of nine yards, > then the number of rounds in each such belt would vary according to the > caliber of the ammo that it held. That's not S.O.P. The Burt Reynolds movie is "The Longest Yard" (1974). There is a movie called "The Whole Nine Yards (2000), but that stars Bruce Willis. And technically, the "US Army Air Force" (as opposed to "Air Corps") was formed in 1941, before US entry into the war. In March 1942, it became the "US Army Air Forces," and while nominally part of the US Army, it in effect operated as an independent service. Gen Henry "Hap" Arnold served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff when it was formed, the equal of Gen. Marshall of the Army and Adm. King of the Navy. There wasn't much contact between units of the ground Army and the Army Air Forces. The training camps and operational bases were different and the opportunities for sharing lingo were minimal. Pre-war Army slang and jargon were certainly inherited by the Army Air Forces, but lingo that arose during the war would be unlikely to make its way into the other component. The machine gun tale of "the whole nine yards" is quite specific and does not, with one exception, refer to infantry machine guns. Instead, it quite specifically refers to fighter plane ammunition. The type of plane varies with the telling, most often the P-51 in Europe, the P-38 in the Pacific, and the Spitfire in the RAF. The infantry variant claims the phrase arose with WWI (yes, the 1914-18 war) .30-cal machine gun crews in the trenches. It's bad enough that we speculate; we shouldn't expand the scope of the folklore as we do so. --Dave Wilton dave at wilton.net http://www.wilton.net From goranson at DUKE.EDU Mon Nov 1 08:52:59 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 03:52:59 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: Perhaps recall that the earliest available uses are not related to machine guns. Nor, really, especially related operations of the Air Force. 1968 (written 1967 in Vietnam) The Doom Pussy: "Most Americans enjoyed getting the full nine yards that is included in the French barber's repertoire."(p.161/140pb) "God. The first thing in the early pearly morning and the last thing at night. Beds all over the gahdam house [of a woman back home]." (p173/150 pb) The same book discusses Montagnards, called yards. And in I Corps area R.L. Mole was teaching GIs about nine tribes of Montagnards. (The full ally compliment: the whole nine yards.) The Current Slang Air Academy issue merely defines as "adv. All the way." No machine gun nor airplane connection indicated. April 1970 Word Watching v. XLV n.4 "A Little Tale With Footnotes" makes use of Air Force Slang James Work gathered. Again, not especially air force embedded usage. "The whole nine yards [note: "the entire thing"] would really be numbah ten if he augered and bought the farm...." 1972 Strawberry Soldier by and about a Special Forces, not USAF, vet, p18, about the decorations on his uniform, several named, altogether, "the whole nine yards." Why focus on machine guns when the earliest book has a special sense of 'yards? Stephen Goranson From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 12:34:12 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 04:34:12 -0800 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: Jesse, I don't believe that "TWNY" was current at all in WWII. I was just trying to cover all bases. Your point about "blivit" is well taken, but every case is different. A '40s "TWNY" cite is always hypothetically possible, with or without an accompanying ribald explanation. There's simply no reason, IMO, to believe such a cite exists. The mid-sixties printed appearance of "TWNY" makes me think the phrase originated effectively within the previous ten years. Another SWAG. JL Jesse Sheidlower wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Jesse Sheidlower Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:51:59PM -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > > The only explanation I can think of for a putative > decades-long delay in getting an idiom like this into print, > had it really been common in some branch of the military or > elsewhere, would be if it had some obscene > connotations. One thing unaddressed in this note, Jon, is the possibility of a _non_-decades long delay with the same proposed etymology. This most recent thread has focused on the possibility that _whole nine yards_ is a WWII-era term in reference to the length of ammo belts. If the expression really did arise in the Vietnam War, then that would take care of the age issue. It arose, let's say, very early in the war, it made it into a small number of publications (_Doom Pussy_, the AF Academy glossary in _Current Slang_), it didn't spread until after the war when vets returned.... Not that this solves the bigger problem, i.e. of total lack of evidence for ammo being measured in yards. But I'm not sure I buy the 'obscene' explanation. Apart from _snafu_, a better example might be _blivit_, another obscure number-based term from WWII--and this was found, with its obscene explanation, before the end of the 1940s. _whole nine yards_ would have to be _really_ obscene for its obscenity to be the reason for its nonappearance for two decades post-WWII, if it truly had been common then. Jesse Sheidlower OED --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 12:36:38 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 04:36:38 -0800 Subject: Fwd: I'm done my homework Message-ID: Weird. JL "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky" Subject: Fwd: I'm done my homework ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- an exchange between a grad student and me: >> Have you heard this? >> >> I'm done my homework. > > no. > >> Made me go "ugggh" but apparently it's pretty popular on the East >> Coast. > > do some googling, and you'll see it's all over: > ------ > Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 21:26:23 -0600 > Reply-To: Constructed Languages List > Sender: Constructed Languages List > From: Scotto Hlad > Subject: Re: bless (adj) > In-Reply-To: <412B94BE.7020408 at wantage.com> > > This all reminds me of a phrase that I hear here in western Canada. > North > American English speaker use 'done' to also mean 'finished' eg. I'm > done > with my homework. Where I live, the 'with' is disappearing. I hear it > everywhere, "When you're done your lunch break..." "Dad, I'm done my > homework" etc. Even the teachers in the schools say it. > ----- have we discussed this already? arnold --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 12:54:24 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 04:54:24 -0800 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: We've been focusing on WWII because the recent "MG belt" theory has become so popular and just interesting enough to warrant exploration. "The whole nine Montagnards"? Surely this is too ingenious. "All nine" would be the natural way to refer to a collection of separate items. "The whole nine" suggests a solid mass of something. (This is another strike against the "MG belt" theory, BTW.) And wouldn't "all nine tribes" be even more idiomatic than "all nine Yards"? I think Yards/yards is a coincidence. JL Stephen Goranson wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Stephen Goranson Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps recall that the earliest available uses are not related to machine guns. Nor, really, especially related operations of the Air Force. 1968 (written 1967 in Vietnam) The Doom Pussy: "Most Americans enjoyed getting the full nine yards that is included in the French barber's repertoire."(p.161/140pb) "God. The first thing in the early pearly morning and the last thing at night. Beds all over the gahdam house [of a woman back home]." (p173/150 pb) The same book discusses Montagnards, called yards. And in I Corps area R.L. Mole was teaching GIs about nine tribes of Montagnards. (The full ally compliment: the whole nine yards.) The Current Slang Air Academy issue merely defines as "adv. All the way." No machine gun nor airplane connection indicated. April 1970 Word Watching v. XLV n.4 "A Little Tale With Footnotes" makes use of Air Force Slang James Work gathered. Again, not especially air force embedded usage. "The whole nine yards [note: "the entire thing"] would really be numbah ten if he augered and bought the farm...." 1972 Strawberry Soldier by and about a Special Forces, not USAF, vet, p18, about the decorations on his uniform, several named, altogether, "the whole nine yards." Why focus on machine guns when the earliest book has a special sense of 'yards? Stephen Goranson --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. From goranson at DUKE.EDU Mon Nov 1 13:14:06 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 08:14:06 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: <200411011254.iA1CsUdN003875@gibson.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: Too ingenious? Must speakers have conceived them (tribes with members) as "items," then use "all"? (Did they know and follow your rules?) I already provided a parallel phrase from a translation of Machiavelli, The Art of War, "the whole ten Companies"? Is that, too, too ingenious, for you, to exist? Coincidence is a possibility to consider. Coincidence, in the sense of meaningful relation in time and space and cause, may also be worth considering. This explanation would help explain how the origin, coining, became obscure, I suggest, when used in contexts removed from that coinciding. Stephen Goranson Quoting Jonathan Lighter : > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > > We've been focusing on WWII because the recent "MG belt" theory has become so > popular and just interesting enough to warrant exploration. > > "The whole nine Montagnards"? Surely this is too ingenious. "All nine" > would be the natural way to refer to a collection of separate items. "The > whole nine" suggests a solid mass of something. (This is another strike > against the "MG belt" theory, BTW.) And wouldn't "all nine tribes" be even > more idiomatic than "all nine Yards"? > > I think Yards/yards is a coincidence. > > JL From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 1 15:48:12 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 09:48:12 -0600 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: I first heard this phrase 10-15 years ago from active-duty military that I work with. Since then I've seen it a few times in civilian / general usage. It shows up here: http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/787868.html?mkey=1483175 (the Nov 1 2004 of the comic strip "Everybody Drunk but Me"). I don't find it in the OED. If you are "good to go", you are prepared, you have done everything you need to do to go to the next step. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 16:12:06 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 08:12:06 -0800 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: I first heard this during TV coverage of Operation Desert Shield in late 1990. It's become very common on TV and in real life. Seems to be a blend of "We're good" (recent colloq. for "we're fine") and "We're ready to go." JL "Mullins, Bill" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Mullins, Bill" Subject: "good to go" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I first heard this phrase 10-15 years ago from active-duty military that I work with. Since then I've seen it a few times in civilian / general usage. It shows up here: http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/787868.html?mkey=1483175 (the Nov 1 2004 of the comic strip "Everybody Drunk but Me"). I don't find it in the OED. If you are "good to go", you are prepared, you have done everything you need to do to go to the next step. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Nov 1 17:43:44 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 09:43:44 -0800 Subject: "good to go" In-Reply-To: <20041101161206.70467.qmail@web53910.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Nov 1, 2004, at 8:12 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > I first heard this during TV coverage of Operation Desert Shield in > late 1990. It's become very common on TV and in real life. > > Seems to be a blend of "We're good" (recent colloq. for "we're fine") > and "We're ready to go." or possibly an extension of the impersonal "It's good (for us) to go" 'It's fine (for us) to go; we're ready to go; we should go' to the personal "We're good to go" (with a similar range of meanings). similar shifts have been taking place in english for centuries. on a related topic: i had the very strong impression that this shift had also taken place (for some speakers) for some second verbs other than "go", in particular "talk". that is, i thought that in addition to "It's good to talk" 'Talking is good' (as in the title of deborah cameron's book Good to Talk?), i'd heard "I'm good to talk" 'I'm ready to talk' and similar things. but a google search on "good to talk" -to (designed to filter out the pretty common "good to talk to") got no hits at all, web or groups. so maybe it was all an illusion. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From lvonschn at WISC.EDU Mon Nov 1 19:13:16 2004 From: lvonschn at WISC.EDU (Luanne von Schneidemesser) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 13:13:16 -0600 Subject: DARE queries Message-ID: Dear all, We have posted another set of queries to our website. Please take a look; see if you can help us. Thanks. Luanne Luanne von Schneidemesser Senior Editor Dictionary of American Regional English University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park St., 6129 H.C. White Hall Madison WI 53706 phone 608 265-0532, 233-3051; fax 608 263-3817 http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 19:10:31 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 11:10:31 -0800 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: Have never noticed "I'm good to talk," but if I had, presumably I'd have interpreted it to mean "I'm ready to talk," under the influence of "good to go," or maybe "I'm (now) able to talk." "Are you good to talk now?" ("Is this a good time for you to talk?") Gee, I can almost drug myself into believing I HAVE heard it. But consciously I haven't. JL "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky" Subject: Re: "good to go" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Nov 1, 2004, at 8:12 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > I first heard this during TV coverage of Operation Desert Shield in > late 1990. It's become very common on TV and in real life. > > Seems to be a blend of "We're good" (recent colloq. for "we're fine") > and "We're ready to go." or possibly an extension of the impersonal "It's good (for us) to go" 'It's fine (for us) to go; we're ready to go; we should go' to the personal "We're good to go" (with a similar range of meanings). similar shifts have been taking place in english for centuries. on a related topic: i had the very strong impression that this shift had also taken place (for some speakers) for some second verbs other than "go", in particular "talk". that is, i thought that in addition to "It's good to talk" 'Talking is good' (as in the title of deborah cameron's book Good to Talk?), i'd heard "I'm good to talk" 'I'm ready to talk' and similar things. but a google search on "good to talk" -to (designed to filter out the pretty common "good to talk to") got no hits at all, web or groups. so maybe it was all an illusion. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. - www.yahoo.com/a From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 1 20:19:26 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 14:19:26 -0600 Subject: snipe Message-ID: A recent usage of the snipe comes from the auction site eBay. To "snipe" there is to place a bid at the very last possible opportunity, such that no one can respond to it before the auction ends. It probably arose there from the sense "to pick off". The component of the word that means "last second" isn't in the OED (don't have any of the other major dictionaries), but it seems to be migrating. See here: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_11_00.shtml#1099323088 where one lecturer has been sniped in that another lecture was concurrently scheduled (at the last minute) in order to divert attendees and attention from his own lecture. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 1 22:38:05 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 16:38:05 -0600 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: There is a 1986 movie titled "Good to Go", but apparently it has something to do with Go-Go music. It also stars Art Garfunkel, so odds are it is a real snoozer. "This Time, 'Good to Go' Is American Battle Cry" By JOHN KIFNER Special to The New York Times New York Times (1857-Current file); Feb 3, 1991; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times pg. 15 "Thus far in the Persian Gulf war, the comparable phrase is the far more bouyant "good to go." The phrase means "ready and eager," and to American officers the difference is cause for optimism." From TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM Mon Nov 1 22:38:32 2004 From: TJoyce at BELLBOYD.COM (Joyce, Thomas F.) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 16:38:32 -0600 Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic "Yess!!" ---------------------------------------- The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. ======================================== From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 1 23:00:09 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 15:00:09 -0800 Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: Am not aware it has a name. I'd call it something like, "that gesture of intense glee where you go [visual demonstration] 'YESS.' " If I've seen it called anything at all (not sure if I have), I suspect it was "a victory gesture" of some kind. It was popularized in sports in the late '80s or early '90s: very vague on dates here, but I know I never knew about it before then, at the earliest. JL "Joyce, Thomas F." wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Joyce, Thomas F." Subject: What is that gesture called? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic "Yess!!" ---------------------------------------- The information contained in this e-mail message may be privileged, confidential, and protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, any further disclosure or use, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you think that you have received this e-mail message in error, please delete it and notify the sender. ======================================== __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 1 23:03:32 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 17:03:32 -0600 Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: The earliest hard date I could put on it would be 1990, when the move "Home Alone" came out. > -----Original Message----- > From: Jonathan Lighter [mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM] > Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 5:00 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: What is that gesture called? > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: What is that gesture called? > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Am not aware it has a name. I'd call it something like, > "that gesture of intense glee where you go [visual > demonstration] 'YESS.' " > > If I've seen it called anything at all (not sure if I have), > I suspect it was "a victory gesture" of some kind. > > It was popularized in sports in the late '80s or early '90s: > very vague on dates here, but I know I never knew about it > before then, at the earliest. > > JL From douglas at NB.NET Mon Nov 1 23:09:26 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 18:09:26 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: <20041101230009.41122.qmail@web53904.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: "Arm pumping [gesture]", in my limited experience. -- Doug Wilson From gorion at GMAIL.COM Mon Nov 1 23:12:47 2004 From: gorion at GMAIL.COM (Orion Montoya) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 18:12:47 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: <-9218475712950130033@unknownmsgid> Message-ID: I've generally seen it called "pumping one's fist", though I don't know that the phrase necessarily extends to the accompanying exclamation. A google for "pump fist" yields many sales of autographed photographs of fist-pumping athletes. O. > > Am not aware it has a name. I'd call it something like, > > "that gesture of intense glee where you go [visual > > demonstration] 'YESS.' " From AAllan at AOL.COM Mon Nov 1 23:53:55 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 18:53:55 EST Subject: Alert: Site of Annual Meeting 2005 Message-ID: To those planning to attend the ADS Annual Meeting in January: There's a hotel strike in San Francisco affecting the LSA hotel, the Hyatt Regency downtown. There's a possibility, therefore, that the meeting may be moved to another location in the San Francisco Bay area. If you have not made your reservations yet (see the LSA website for details), you might want to hold off for just a little while. As soon as LSA lets us know of any possible changes, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, here are some news sites recommended by the people at LSA headquarters for the latest on the strike: www.sfgate.com or www.kcbs.com - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Nov 2 01:40:30 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:40:30 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic >"Yess!!" ~~~~~~~~~~ I don't know what light it might throw on the term for it, but one application of this gesture used to be seen in street demos where there were signs "Honk for ______" ("Choice," as it might be, or "Peace.") Semi drivers operating their air horns apparently with some overhead apparatus made the gesture &/or we would prompt them to with the gesture. The double pump went with the expression "Hubba hubba!" back in the '40s, according to my husband, especially in sports contexts. A. Murie A&M Murie N. Bangor NY sagehen at westelcom.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 2 02:15:32 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 21:15:32 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: <29d6fbaf041101151258d72a22@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Maybe "fist pump"? That out-hits "pump fist" by 1000 or so on google, and it seems more in accord with English nominal compounding patterns. Of course, that still doesn't bring in the accompanying "Yesssss", which in turn (although its co-occurrrence with the fist pump is indeed associated with "Home Alone") evokes Marv Albert's calls for baskets on Knicks' and other NBA broadcasts. Larry At 6:12 PM -0500 11/1/04, Orion Montoya wrote: >I've generally seen it called "pumping one's fist", though I don't >know that the phrase necessarily extends to the accompanying >exclamation. > >A google for "pump fist" yields many sales of autographed photographs >of fist-pumping athletes. > >O. > > > > Am not aware it has a name. I'd call it something like, >> > "that gesture of intense glee where you go [visual >> > demonstration] 'YESS.' " From shollis at COMCAST.NET Tue Nov 2 02:12:31 2004 From: shollis at COMCAST.NET (Steve Hollis) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:12:31 -0600 Subject: terminology question Message-ID: Greetings, I subscribed to this list in hopes of finding out some information. I am having a little trouble in some research and I believe it is because I don't know the correct terminology. I am looking for the correct vocabulary to describe people changing dialects due to changing social groups. For example, when I go to visit my parents in rural Alabama, my accent deepens and I speak with a more rural dialect. Is a dialect shift what I am looking for? Any articles that explains this phenomenon would be most helpful. Thank you all in advance for your time. From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Tue Nov 2 02:54:57 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 21:54:57 -0500 Subject: Fw: New revision of report on the word SCRUMP Message-ID: Edward GatesForwarding to ADS-L ----- Original Message ----- From: Edward Gates To: T. Paikeday Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 1:00 PM Subject: New revision of report on the word SCRUMP Tom-- Recently I encountered an unfamiliar word in the cartoon "Fred Basset" (printed on p. E7 of the Springfield, Mass., Republican for 18 October 2004). In the first frame, the dog Fred Basset says or thinks "There's nothing like a scrumped apple." In the second frame, it is polishing off an apple on the ground. The word "scrumped" was completely unfamiliar to me. There is an entry in W3 for "scrump", but it doesn't fit the use in the cartoon. I did Google searches in the Web and News and found two definitions and some uses and discussion of the word. It seems to be British. It is described in one dictionary entry as "UK Old-fashioned. Informal. Steal fruit (as apples) from trees." In one chat room people discuss "scrumping" apples and other fruit from orchards, and also "scrumping" scaffolding signs (I think we would call them billboard signs), and cars. One use in the News search is in Grist Magazine (online) for 5 Oct. 2004. in an article "Norwegian Wood" by Lissa Harris. There it has yet another meaning. The article is about a young man and woman in Norway who exploit sex to raise money for environmental protection: It must be noted that what Fuck the Forest lacks in glitzy production it makes up for its sheer joie de vivre. "The two of them (and the occasional friends from Sweden and Germany and the like) scrump with the energy, enthusiasm, and disregard for social convention that makes being a young twentysomething so much fun," [Jamais] Cascio wrote [in an e-mail to the author]. "They are actually relatively attractive, in a will-fuck-for-spare-pot kind of way." For this meaning, a Web search later turned up the following: UrbanDictionary.com/Scrump ... (v.) Any action of or relating to sexual arousal through physical contact. "So did you two do it?" "No, we just kinda scrumped all night.". ... It scrumped itself! ... www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scrump - 14k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages UrbanDictionary.com/Scrump ... 2. n. l337 RS player that pwns you all on GSA. The girl was hot, so I scrumped her. ... "So did you two do it?" "No, we just kinda scrumped all night.". ... www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Scrump&b=1 - 14k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages [ More results from www.urbandictionary.com ] "Scrump" as the name of a music group may relate to this meaning. The cartoon may be British; it is distributed by Atlantic Syndication/Universal Press Syndicate, and on a later day showed a car with the steering wheel on the right. The chat room discussion is British and perhaps Australian. One writer says he or she has heard the word only in Essex. Jamais Cascio has a column in a British newspaper. I haven't discovered the location of the Urban Dictionary. My curiosity led me on quite a chase. Ed From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 2 03:41:21 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:41:21 -0500 Subject: terminology question In-Reply-To: <4186ED0F.8040005@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 08:12:31PM -0600, Steve Hollis wrote: > Greetings, > > I subscribed to this list in hopes of finding out some information. I > am having a little trouble in some research and I believe it is because > I don't know the correct terminology. > > I am looking for the correct vocabulary to describe people changing > dialects due to changing social groups. For example, when I go to visit > my parents in rural Alabama, my accent deepens and I speak with a more > rural dialect. Is a dialect shift what I am looking for? If you're doing this deliberately, based on circumstances, the usual term would be "code-switching". Jesse Sheidlower From shollis at COMCAST.NET Tue Nov 2 04:03:15 2004 From: shollis at COMCAST.NET (Steve Hollis) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:03:15 -0600 Subject: terminology question Message-ID: Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >If you're doing this deliberately, based on circumstances, the >usual term would be "code-switching". > >Jesse Sheidlower > > > I thought that, andIdid try to do some searching for code-shifting, but everything I found was switching two different languages didn't seem to address dialects, I didn't try code-switching, and I will give that a try. Thank you. From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Nov 2 04:13:31 2004 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 22:13:31 -0600 Subject: terminology question Message-ID: Code-switching can refer to shifts between 2 or more languages or dialects. Style-shifting would be another alternative for intra-dialect variation. You might also look at the literature on dialect accomodation, which usually deals with adopting features of a dialect that is not your native one. -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Steve Hollis Sent: Mon 11/1/2004 10:03 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: terminology question Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >If you're doing this deliberately, based on circumstances, the >usual term would be "code-switching". > >Jesse Sheidlower > > > I thought that, andIdid try to do some searching for code-shifting, but everything I found was switching two different languages didn't seem to address dialects, I didn't try code-switching, and I will give that a try. Thank you. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 2 04:18:00 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 23:18:00 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Goranson" To: Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 3:52 AM Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] > Perhaps recall that the earliest available uses are not related to machine > guns. Nor, really, especially related operations of the Air Force. > > 1968 (written 1967 in Vietnam) The Doom Pussy: > "Most Americans enjoyed getting the full nine yards that is > included in the French barber's repertoire."(p.161/140pb) > "God. The first thing in the early pearly morning and the last thing at night. > Beds all over the gahdam house [of a woman back home]." (p173/150 pb) > The same book discusses Montagnards, called yards. And in I Corps area R.L. > Mole was teaching GIs about nine tribes of Montagnards. (The full ally > compliment: the whole nine yards.) > > The Current Slang Air Academy issue merely defines as "adv. All the way." No > machine gun nor airplane connection indicated. > > April 1970 Word Watching v. XLV n.4 "A Little Tale With Footnotes" makes use of > Air Force Slang James Work gathered. Again, not especially air force embedded > usage. "The whole nine yards [note: "the entire thing"] would really be numbah > ten if he augered and bought the farm...." > > 1972 Strawberry Soldier by and about a Special Forces, not USAF, vet, p18, > about the decorations on his uniform, several named, altogether, "the whole > nine yards." > > Why focus on machine guns when the earliest book has a special sense of 'yards? > > Stephen Goranson > While the earliest use is Doom Pussy(1967), the second earliest cite is from " a 1968 cite in one of the _Current Slang_ volumes, from the U.S. Air Force Academy" (courtesy of a previous post on ADS by Jesse Sheidlower). And the third oldest cite is about apartments in Ft. Walton Beach, FL.--home of Elgin Air Force Base. [1969 _Playground Daily News_ (Fort Walton Beach, Fla.) 25 Apr. 15 (advertisement) This home has the "whole nine yards" in convenience.] courtesey of Fred Shapiro. The Air Force origin is inescapable. Sam Clements From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 2 04:44:38 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 23:44:38 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: <20041101125424.66791.qmail@web53908.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >"All nine" would be the natural way to refer to a collection of separate >items. That's what I think too, but after a little database browsing I'm a little less positive. I find "the whole five men" to be unnatural, for example, but it turns out this type of construction occurs -- although not with great frequency -- here and there in the routine newspapers for example. >"The whole nine" suggests a solid mass of something. (This is another >strike against the "MG belt" theory, BTW.) I disagree with the BTW. I think "the whole nine yards of ammo" is more natural than "all nine yards of ammo" particularly if the yards can be subdivided (which they can). I would prefer "all 400 rounds" rather than "the whole 400 rounds" however. None of these strikes me as grammatically impossible. -- Doug Wilson From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 2 05:33:57 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 00:33:57 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 1, 2004, at 11:44 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence > [addendum] > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> "All nine" would be the natural way to refer to a collection of >> separate >> items. > > That's what I think too, but after a little database browsing I'm a > little > less positive. I find "the whole five men" to be unnatural, for > example, > but it turns out this type of construction occurs -- although not with > great frequency -- here and there in the routine newspapers for > example. > >> "The whole nine" suggests a solid mass of something. (This is another >> strike against the "MG belt" theory, BTW.) > > I disagree with the BTW. I think "the whole nine yards of ammo" is more > natural than "all nine yards of ammo" particularly if the yards can be > subdivided (which they can). I would prefer "all 400 rounds" rather > than > "the whole 400 rounds" however. None of these strikes me as > grammatically > impossible. > > -- Doug Wilson > Has anyone yet shown that ammunition of any given caliber is or was measured in yards of belting, as opposed to its being measured by the number of rounds in a container, whether the container holds loose rounds or belted rounds, regardless of the length of the belt, either officially or unofficially, in any branch of service whatsoever at any time whatsoever? -Wilson Gray From goranson at DUKE.EDU Tue Nov 2 09:24:00 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 04:24:00 -0500 Subject: "Whole nine yards" : some negative evidence [addendum] Message-ID: Some apparently think machine gun belts are still worthy of consideration. Sam Clemens wrote that "The Air Force origin is inescapable" after I wrote: > > Perhaps recall that the earliest available uses are not related to machine > > guns. Nor, really, especially related [to] operations of the Air Force. Though it is true that the earliest two uses were dialogue of a semi-fictionalized Air Force pilot character named Smash [Crandell, really Chandler, now deceased], and that some later uses have Air Force tradents, it remains that all early uses lack association with machine gun belts or any other specifically Air Force operation. Jim Morris, the 1972 Special Forces vet author, had read Doom Pussy. James Work's AF sources flew different planes; the 1970 source includes "...the whole smash..." in note 45, a gloss on our phrase, suggesting another reader of the 1968 book. Basically, later references, so far presented, add little helpful information. So we're back to the book and 1967 Vietnam, where an officer taught about nine tribes of Montagnards, called by some yards. Montagnards are a subject of the book; photographs are included; and the odd or silly, and to some offensive (perhaps source of resistance?), name "yards" is used. This confluence of evidence may not yet constitute proof, but is it curious that some might feature that it does not pass machine gun belts? Stephen Goranson From goranson at DUKE.EDU Tue Nov 2 09:31:10 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 04:31:10 -0500 Subject: typo and PS Re: "Whole nine yards" ... In-Reply-To: <200411020924.iA29O2nR024289@heinlein.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: I typed "Clemens" for Clements; sorry. Stephen Goranson P.S. Though "Smash" was Air Force, Elaine Shepard, the author, after all, was not. From mlee303 at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 2 09:42:04 2004 From: mlee303 at YAHOO.COM (Margaret Lee) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 01:42:04 -0800 Subject: Call for Nominations: Presidential Honorary Memberships In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Allan, When is the deadline for the nominations? Margaret Lee AAllan at AOL.COM wrote: This notice is for members of the American Dialect Society: President Michael Montgomery invites nominations of students for three Presidential Honorary Memberships, to be awarded at our Annual Meeting in January for the 2005-08 term. Presidential Honorary Members are guests at our Annual Luncheon, and more importantly receive complimentary membership in ADS for four years. The aim of the awards is to encourage interest and participation of our best prospects. Any ADS member may nominate a student, graduate or undergraduate, who shows outstanding aptitude for and interest in our field. There is no application form. Instead, send a message detailing the nominee's qualifications, together with supporting materials if you wish, to Montgomery at ullans at yahoo.com. You are welcome to send a preliminary inquiry. His postal address, if you prefer that, is Department of English, University of South Carolina, Columbia SC 29208. - Allan Metcalf, ADS Executive Secretary Margaret G. Lee, Ph.D. Professor of English & Linguistics and University Editor Department of English Hampton University, Hampton, VA 23668 757-727-5769(voice);757-727-5084(fax);757-851-5773(home) margaret.lee at hamptonu.edu or mlee303 at yahoo.com --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com/a From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 2 11:52:44 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 06:52:44 -0500 Subject: terminology question In-Reply-To: <20041102034121.GA15117@panix.com> Message-ID: Jesse, Must "code-switching" be deliberate? When my Wisconsin wife listens to me as we drive South, she says I get hillbillier and hillbiller, but I do this un(in?)deliberately. I don't think this is a common requirement for code-switching. The major distinction in the literature has been between 'situational' versus 'metaphoric.' dInIs >On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 08:12:31PM -0600, Steve Hollis wrote: >> Greetings, >> >> I subscribed to this list in hopes of finding out some information. I >> am having a little trouble in some research and I believe it is because >> I don't know the correct terminology. >> >> I am looking for the correct vocabulary to describe people changing >> dialects due to changing social groups. For example, when I go to visit >> my parents in rural Alabama, my accent deepens and I speak with a more >> rural dialect. Is a dialect shift what I am looking for? > >If you're doing this deliberately, based on circumstances, the >usual term would be "code-switching". > >Jesse Sheidlower -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 13:39:00 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 08:39:00 EST Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: In a message dated Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:40:30 -0500, our sage hen writes > >The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic > >"Yess!!" > ~~~~~~~~~~ > I don't know what light it might throw on the term for it, but one > application of this gesture used to be seen in street demos where there > were signs "Honk for ______" ("Choice," as it might be, or "Peace.") Semi > drivers operating their air horns apparently with some overhead apparatus > made the gesture &/or we would prompt them to with the gesture. If the gesture is made with the clenched fist held so that the fingers are horizontal, then it is a friendly request to a semi-trailer driver to honk his horn. I learned this gesture either in 1966 or 1967 from a college friend. The gesture is made gently---it is a friendly gesture, remember---and there is only a single downward pump, as the truck driver is only going to give a single blast on his horn. There is nothing inherently political to this gesture---it can be made to any semi. Sure, someone in a street demo might make this gesture, but the thought of semi-trailers joining a political street demonstration is rather mind-boggling. Anyway, for obvious reasons of safety, a semi-driver finding a demonstration on the street ahead of him will wither make a detour or call for a police escort. I have a suspicion that the gesture originated not in trucking but in railroading, dating back to the days when all locomotives were steam engines. In a steam engine the engineer has nothing resembling a dashboard in front of him. Instead he has a throttle, a Johnson bar, and the air brake controls in front of him, With the exception of Shays and cab-forwards, he has a very narrow workstation, since the boiler restricts him to a very narrow window looking forward. There is not much space for a whistle button to be placed in front of him, so the whistle control was probably a cord hanging down from the roof of the locomotive cab, said cord running over the top of the boiler to the whistle which was mounted somewhere on top of the boiler. Still, many semi tractors must have an overheard control for the air horn, which is frequently mounted on top of the tractor cab. Linguistic note: the horn on a Diesel locomotive is still called the "whistle" even though Diesel locomotives use an air horn. If all engineers are supposed to blow a whistle at a particular point on the tracks, there will be a sign (called a "whistleboard") by the side of the tracks carrying the letter "W". The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is long long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the crossing. Sometimes you will see by the tracks near a grade crossing a sign with the cryptic inscription - - . - This is of course telling the engineer to sound long long short long. While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen Goranson: Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il Principe", a title best translated into English as "The Ruler". "The Art of War" was by Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.) Aside to Wilson Gray: the Britannica (Fifteenth Edition, volume 3 page 361 article on "Clausewitz") reads: In maintaining that "war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with the admixture of differnt means," he denied that war is an end in itself. - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 13:55:12 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 08:55:12 -0500 Subject: Natino; David Shulman Message-ID: Greetings from Darjeeling. The internet connection here really sucks. India is getting computer outsourcing? When I can't even get a line to send a single e-mail? OT: BHUTAN--I found it a disappointment. Long drives on winding roads the entire day. Miserable cuisine of white rice and bad noodles. Almost nothing to see besides a few dzongs, which you get tired of like you do with the churches. If you've been to Nepal or Tibet or Burma, then Bhutan adds just a little...The country prides itself that it has no lawyers...I haven't seen a traffic light on the trip yet! OT: DARJEELING--The Indian food at the Mayfair Resort here has to be some of the best Indian food I've ever tasted...Visited a tea garden today...Also visited a Tibetan refugee center. There's a hunger strike going on today because China killed a Tibetan monk. NATINO/NOTINO--Jon Stewart's THE DAILY SHOW (available on CNN International) had John Kerry and George Bush's Spanish sound bites. Stewart then called them Natinos or Notinos--Not Latinos. Does this have any currency? DARJEELING FEELING--Not used for diarrhea. "Delhi belly" is used here. DRESSED CHICKEN--Seen all over. No "fried" chicken here? No "naked" chicken, either? OUT MEAL AVAILABLE--Seen on a sign. I guess that's takeout. FOODING AVAILABLE HERE--Another sign. MAY (YOU) CLIMB FROM PEAK TO PEAK--Motto of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute here. I don't know if Fred Shapiro is interested in collecting this. BHUTANESE GOLF--Archery. HIMALAYAN RECIPES INNER WHEEL CLUB OF DARJEELING The only local book available for sale here. I'll go through it when I return. DAVID SHULMAN--Before he died, he told me that he has a safety deposit box that has some rare coins. Perhaps Sam Clements can value tham. Before I left, he had a new pacemaker put in. I told him to take it slowly until I return. I knew that he was weak, but I didn't expect him to die on me. David Shulman's contributions are many. He debunked OED's 1909 citation for "jazz." (That citation is from 1919.) He found "hot dog" from 1896, which was the best anyone had found. He did some work on the Great White Way and the Big Apple that I also used. Shulman's donation of his entire collection of cryptography books to the New York Public Library was way too generous. He did a lot for the NYPL--showed up almost every day for fifty years--and got little in return. He noted that Eric Partridge was honored by a chair somewhere in the British National Library. The NYPL should honor Shulman somewhere--if it cares about the people who use its resources at all. There's a space on www.nypl.org where you can "Tell your library story." If anyone wants to honor Dave, mention his name here. He wanted to do a book on daredevil Brooklyn Bridge jumper Steve Brodie. I was approached by a book agent at the party for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. The agent specializes in NYC books. Perhaps I'll finish the book inhis memory. From goranson at DUKE.EDU Tue Nov 2 14:06:56 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:06:56 -0500 Subject: Machiavelli (was Re: What is that gesture called?) In-Reply-To: <200411021339.iA2DdDM4019502@ballard.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: Niccolo Machiavelli published his Arte della guera in his own lifetime, in Florence, in 1521. I quoted from the Ellis Farnewoth translation. Stephen Goranson Quoting "James A. Landau" : > While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen Goranson: > Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il Principe", > a > title best translated into English as "The Ruler". "The Art of War" was by > Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.) From slang at ABECEDARY.NET Tue Nov 2 14:08:37 2004 From: slang at ABECEDARY.NET (Jonathon Green) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:08:37 -0000 Subject: Natino; David Shulman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Shulman's donation of his entire collection of cryptography books to the > New York Public Library was way too generous. He did a lot for the > NYPL--showed up almost every day for fifty years--and got little in > return. He noted that Eric Partridge was honored by a chair somewhere in > the British National Library. The NYPL should honor Shulman > somewhere--if it cares about the people who use its resources at all. Partridge, another longterm library man, did indeed sit in the same seat, K1, in the British Museum Reading Room (later British Library) for several decades. But he was never honoured and in the revamped Reading Room (the Library as many members will know has departed to a new site on Euston Road) the seat and the row of desks to which it belonged have been removed. Indeed, such existence as Partridge still has is less honour than dishonour. The old shelves are now filled with a supposedly representative selection of the works of well-known Reading Room users. Partridge is there, but represented only by two or three late edition paperbacks of minor works; his magna opera - the dictionaries of slang and of the underworld - are not on offer. Other authors appear to be (mis-)treated in a similar manner. The Reading Room, once a monument of scholarship, now resmbles nothing more than a third-rate second-hand bookstore. Jonathon Green From goranson at DUKE.EDU Tue Nov 2 14:08:47 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:08:47 -0500 Subject: Machiavelli (was Re: What is that gesture called?) In-Reply-To: <200411021406.iA2E6xBI009380@ballard.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: typo: guerra quoting Stephen Goranson : > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Stephen Goranson > Subject: Machiavelli (was Re: What is that gesture called?) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > > Niccolo Machiavelli published his Arte della guera in his own lifetime, in > Florence, in 1521. I quoted from the Ellis Farnewoth translation. > > Stephen Goranson > Quoting "James A. Landau" : > > > > While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen Goranson: > > Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il > Principe", > > a > > title best translated into English as "The Ruler". "The Art of War" was > by > > Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.) > From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 2 14:43:23 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:43:23 -0500 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: Bill Mullins wrote: > There is a 1986 movie titled "Good to Go", but apparently it has something > to do with Go-Go music. It also stars Art Garfunkel, so odds are it is a > real snoozer. > > "This Time, 'Good to Go' Is American Battle Cry" > By JOHN KIFNER Special to The New York Times > New York Times (1857-Current file); Feb 3, 1991; ProQuest Historical > Newspapers The New York Times > pg. 15 > "Thus far in the Persian Gulf war, the comparable phrase is the far more > bouyant "good to go." The phrase means "ready and eager," and to American > officers the difference is cause for optimism." I wouldn't discount the movie title. Despite the presence of Art Garfunkel, the movie was supposed to introduce the country to "go-go" music, which allmusic.com describes as "a bass-heavy, funky variation of hip-hop that was designed for house parties," originating in Washington, DC in the early to mid-'80s. The soundtrack included a song called "Good to Go" by the group Trouble Funk, which was sampled by many hiphop DJs. The phrase "good to go" appeared in a number of rap songs of the mid-'80s. The earliest example I can find is from LL Cool J's 1985 single, "I Can't Live Without My Radio": "I'm good to go on your radio." The Gulf War usage could very well have originated in hiphop/go-go circles. --Ben Zimmer From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 2 15:05:21 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:05:21 -0500 Subject: terminology question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 06:52:44AM -0500, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > Jesse, > > Must "code-switching" be deliberate? When my Wisconsin wife listens > to me as we drive South, she says I get hillbillier and hillbiller, > but I do this un(in?)deliberately. > > I don't think this is a common requirement for code-switching. The > major distinction in the literature has been between 'situational' > versus 'metaphoric.' I think I was using a highly idiomatic meaning of _deliberately_. My apologies, you're right of course. Jesse Sheidlower From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Nov 2 15:25:39 2004 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 07:25:39 -0800 Subject: "good to go" In-Reply-To: <21751.69.142.143.59.1099406603.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: > The phrase "good to go" appeared in a number of rap songs of the mid-'80s. > The earliest example I can find is from LL Cool J's 1985 single, "I Can't > Live Without My Radio": "I'm good to go on your radio." The Gulf War > usage could very well have originated in hiphop/go-go circles. The phrase was extremely common during my pre-Gulf War Army service, 1985-89. There was certainly no conscious connection to the rap song in its military use. --Dave Wilton dave at wilton.net http://www.wilton.net From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 2 16:26:19 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:26:19 -0600 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: > The > soundtrack included a song called "Good to Go" by the group > Trouble Funk, which was sampled by many hiphop DJs. > > The phrase "good to go" appeared in a number of rap songs of > the mid-'80s. > The earliest example I can find is from LL Cool J's 1985 > single, "I Can't Live Without My Radio": "I'm good to go on > your radio." The Gulf War usage could very well have > originated in hiphop/go-go circles. > --Ben Zimmer Amazon has a dozen or so albums with the title "Good to Go"; most all are from the last 6 years and are urban or hip hop music. If you go through the book search, though, the phrase is much more associated recently with instruction books (program your computer, fix your Harley, seduce a woman -- "Do xxxx, and you're Good to Go!"), and as you move back past the mid-1990's, it becomes more associated with military themes. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 2 16:38:05 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 10:38:05 -0600 Subject: "good to go" Message-ID: Another military phrase -- this one is new to me: "day on stay on" "They have eaten MREs day on stay on." " I worked day-on stay-on , which means that I was on call 24 hours a day, " "This type of assignment is day-on stay-on, meaning that the firefighters will work till the flames are out" Do a Google search for the exact phrase, and most of the initial responses are military related. From indigo at WELL.COM Tue Nov 2 17:17:24 2004 From: indigo at WELL.COM (Indigo Som) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 09:17:24 -0800 Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: >The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic >"Yess!!" A number of people have mentioned fist pumping. I think there are 2 different gestures going on here. When I read this original post I visualized that gesture where it's a single pull, close to the middle of your body, often accompanied by a slight hunching over of one's back. Your elbow starts out toward the front of you, about half-bent & ends up completely bent somewhere near your waist. The back of your fist faces outward. I don't have a name for this one. When I think of fist pumping, I think of the gesture where your arm is higher up in the air & your fist is higher than your head. Your arm is to the side of you, not in front, & there are multiple pumps. It's like punching the air. Emphasis on the upstroke, not the downstroke as w/ the first one. It's similar to the truck-horn-request thing, but that one has emphasis on the downstroke. -- Indigo Som indigo at well.com http://www.indigosom.com Poets don't have hobbies; they have obsessions --Leonard Nathan From AAllan at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 18:38:19 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 13:38:19 -0500 Subject: Call for Nominations: Presidential Honorary Memberships Message-ID: <> Well, Margaret, this is a very informal procedure. The deadline is - whenever the president has chosen three nominees. If he has lots of nominations this time, that will be soon. If not, it might be necessary to issue another call. But the sooner the better, if you have a candidate! Best wishes - Allan From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Nov 2 19:17:17 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 13:17:17 -0600 Subject: David Shulman Message-ID: Dear Mr. Martin, I've just been preparing a tribute to David Shulman for Victoria Neufeldt, who editors the DSNA newsletter (Dictionary Society of North America). It's in draft form, but I'll send you a copy. Best. -- Gerald Cohen P.S. You might get a good quote or two from Jesse Sheidlower (editor, Oxford English Dictionary; e-mail address is jester at panix.com) and Barry Popik (bapopik at aol.com). Barry is currently traveling in Asia but checks his e-mail once a day. > ---------- > From: Douglas Martin > Sent: Tuesday, November 2, 2004 11:09 AM > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard > Subject: shulman > > I am a reporter for The New York Times working on our obit of David Shulman. I would be most interested in your views about his significance. > also any enlightening personal material? examples of his finds? If you can, please e-mail me back or call me at 212-556-1950. Thanks much, Doug Martin > > > > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 2 19:31:07 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 11:31:07 -0800 Subject: NOT A WORD! Message-ID: While I was putting Robert Hartwell Fiske's The Dictionary of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar (2005 -- yes, 205, this book is really on the cutting edge of the time line) onto the shelf, it fell open to a page with an entry for TREPIDACIOUS, which caught my eye because i am an occasional (and proud) user of the word TREPIDATIOUS 'tremblingly reluctant' and took TREPIDACIOUS to be a misspelling of this word, which should have a T because TREPIDATION does. (A quick web Google showed ca. 2,150 hits for TREPIDATIOUS, to 658 for TREPIDACIOUS, and Google asked about the latter if I meant the former. The site wordsmith.org notes the latter spelling and suggests that the word should be spelled with a T "if at all" -- on which, see below.) But no. Fiske's entry declares sternly that *trepidatious* is "solecistic for *fearful* (and similar words)"; he offers *uneasy* and *anxious* as well as *fearful*. A bit of thesaurisizing for the noun *trepidation* provided the following alternatives to *trepidatious*: agitated, alarmed, anxious, apprehensive, dismayed, fearful, frightened, hesitant, reluctant, timid, uneasy. But none of these expresses the shade of meaning I want when I use *trepidatious*; I want the sense of trembling reluctance that *trepidation* conveys. *Trepidatious* is simply a more vivid adjective than all the alternatives (though *apprehensive* comes closest to the effect I want), certainly a better choice than the three blander options that Fiske provides. On the general principle that you should use the best word for your purposes, I choose *trepidatious*. Ah, but Fiske doesn't allow me this choice. He asserts, baldly: "*Trepidacious* is not a word", adding that "*Trepidation*, meaning fear or apprehension, is a word, as as *trepid* (the antonym of the more familiar *intrepid*), meaning timid or fearful." (Yeah, like I'm going to use "trepid". Even Fiske doesn't go so far as to advise that I use "trepid" instead of "trepidatious".) I've been hearing this "not a word" bullshit since I was a kid, usually applied to non-standard "ain't" and taboo "fuck" (neither of which Fiske bothers to inveigh against, undoubtedly because they're so far beyond the pale). It mystified me then, and it angers me now. It's (literally) superhyperbolic, two steps of exaggeration beyond reality, and it's insulting. First, reality (and insult): The admonition that people of taste and refinement should not use X. This is an expression of the admonisher's judgment about linguistic usages, couched as an injunction. It's insulting because the admonisher takes himself to be the arbiter of other people's behavior and brooks no objection that people of taste and refinement do in fact use X. The admonisher knows what's right; it's not a matter for discussion. Well, I'm a person of some taste and refinement (in the appropriate circumstances), and I use "trepidatious". Stop telling me I'm a clumsy ignoramus. A side issue here. I assume that Fiske objects to "trepidatious" because it's a recent innovation: "Even though people use it (horrible to hear, ridiculous to read though it is), no major dictionary, remarkably, has yet included *trepidacious* in its listing." Give them time, Fiske, give them time. The word has a lot going for it, beyond the fact that some careful writers -- like me -- use it. It's an instance of a small but significant pattern in English derivational morphology: words in "-atious" meaning 'inclined to "-ation" '. Ostentatious, flirtatious, disputatious, vexatious. "Trepidatious" is transparent, easily understood. It's a good thing to have. ("Trepid", in contrast, is a dead loser.) But back to superhyperbole. We start with the admonition that people of taste and refinement should not use X. This is exaggerated, elevated to the admonition that people, in general, should not use X; what should govern the behavior of the "best" of us (those are genuine sneer quotes) in certain circumstances should govern the behavior of all of us, all of the time, in all contexts, for all purposes. (What a remarkable lack of nuance! What a divorcement from the complex textures of social life!) As if that weren't enough, it ratchets up, hysterically, one more notch, to the bald assertion that X simply isn't available for use; it's just not part of the social repertoire. My dear, it just isn't done. But if it truly isn't done, then there's no need for the admonitions. Don't tell me there's "no such word". Parade your idiosyncratic prejudices, if you wish, and if your mind is open enough we might be able to talk about the bases of your prejudices (and mine). But don't lie to me about the state of the language. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 2 19:44:01 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:44:01 -0500 Subject: Sad news about David Shulman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: David Shulman was a major contributor to the OED and published a number of good pieces in American Speech. Adriana Orr, the Washington researcher for the OED, once told me that David's slips never needed correcting. I also believe David was a major figure in the bibliography of cryptography. I first met David when I was sitting in the New York Public Library with a dozen or so volumes of the OED strewn about me (remember when the OED was used in print form?). He came over and asked me what I was doing. I then became friendly with him, although after I moved to New Haven I failed to keep up communications. My favorite memory of David involved a ridiculously flawed article about "The Words of Scrabble" published in American Speech in the mid-1980s. The author analyzed the words in the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary and concluded that this lexicon was way ahead of the new-word watchers in Springfield and Oxford in picking up novel vocabulary. I discovered that, in addition to the author's failing to realize that this book was compiled by Merriam-Webster, the author had done a terrible job of checking earlier dictionaries and missed the fact that a lot of the supposedly novel words had previously appeared in Webster's Collegiate. David, employing his characteristic methodicalness and driven by his own strong interest in the game of Scrabble, found that in fact all of the words had appeared in earlier dictionaries and the article author had concocted a theory with absolutely no basis in reality. Both my response and David's were published in American Speech; I wanted to call mine "Scrabble Babble" but Ron Butters wouldn't let me. David adopted a more restrained and gentlemanly tone in his piece. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 2 21:00:27 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 16:00:27 -0500 Subject: "good to go" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 2, 2004, at 11:38 AM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: Re: "good to go" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Another military phrase -- this one is new to me: > > "day on stay on" > > "They have eaten MREs day on stay on." > " I worked day-on stay-on , which means that I was on call 24 hours a > day" If the example immediately above is a military usage, it's changed slightly from my day, 1960 (no surprise there, I guess). I was on guard duty when a Europe-wide alert was sounded. The entire post - Badnerhof Kasern in Heilbronn - suited up, putting on, among other articles of clothing, olive-drab "Mickey-Mouse" boots - and moved off to battle stations. Except for those actively on guard duty (as opposed to those in the guardhouse passively waiting their turn to *go* on guard duty). That was "day-on-stay-on" duty: we stayed behind at our posts until the alert was over, however long that was. Normally, guard duty was two hours on and four hours off over a period of 24 hours. That is, you weren't merely on call. Rather, "day-on-stay-on" meant that, if you were actively carrying out a particular duty, then, under certain circumstances, you were stuck with it for the duration, with no possibility of relief. -Wilson Gray > "This type of assignment is day-on stay-on, meaning that the > firefighters > will work till the flames are out" > > Do a Google search for the exact phrase, and most of the initial > responses > are military related. > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 2 19:02:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:02:10 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 2, 2004, at 8:39 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: What is that gesture called? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a message dated Mon, 1 Nov 2004 20:40:30 -0500, our sage hen > writes > >>> The clenched fist pulled downward, usually accompanied by an emphatic >>> "Yess!!" >> ~~~~~~~~~~ >> I don't know what light it might throw on the term for it, but one >> application of this gesture used to be seen in street demos where >> there >> were signs "Honk for ______" ("Choice," as it might be, or "Peace.") >> Semi >> drivers operating their air horns apparently with some overhead >> apparatus >> made the gesture &/or we would prompt them to with the gesture. > > If the gesture is made with the clenched fist held so that the fingers > are > horizontal, then it is a friendly request to a semi-trailer driver to > honk his > horn. I learned this gesture either in 1966 or 1967 from a college > friend. > The gesture is made gently---it is a friendly gesture, remember---and > there is > only a single downward pump, as the truck driver is only going to give > a single > blast on his horn. > > There is nothing inherently political to this gesture---it can be made > to any > semi. Sure, someone in a street demo might make this gesture, but the > thought of semi-trailers joining a political street demonstration is > rather > mind-boggling. Anyway, for obvious reasons of safety, a semi-driver > finding a > demonstration on the street ahead of him will wither make a detour or > call for a > police escort. > > I have a suspicion that the gesture originated not in trucking but in > railroading, dating back to the days when all locomotives were steam > engines. In a > steam engine the engineer has nothing resembling a dashboard in front > of him. > Instead he has a throttle, a Johnson bar, and the air brake controls > in front > of him, With the exception of Shays and cab-forwards, he has a very > narrow > workstation, since the boiler restricts him to a very narrow window > looking > forward. There is not much space for a whistle button to be placed in > front of > him, so the whistle control was probably a cord hanging down from the > roof of > the locomotive cab, said cord running over the top of the boiler to > the whistle > which was mounted somewhere on top of the boiler. > > Still, many semi tractors must have an overheard control for the air > horn, > which is frequently mounted on top of the tractor cab. > > Linguistic note: the horn on a Diesel locomotive is still called the > "whistle" even though Diesel locomotives use an air horn. If all > engineers are > supposed to blow a whistle at a particular point on the tracks, there > will be a > sign (called a "whistleboard") by the side of the tracks carrying the > letter "W". > > The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is > long > long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the > crossing. > Sometimes you will see by the tracks near a grade crossing a sign with > the cryptic > inscription > - > - > . > - > This is of course telling the engineer to sound long long short long. > > While I have your attention (if I still do), an aside to Stephen > Goranson: > Machiavelli's most famous work (he was also a playwright) was "Il > Principe", a > title best translated into English as "The Ruler". "The Art of War" > was by > Clausewitz (actually compiled by his widow after his death.) > > Aside to Wilson Gray: the Britannica (Fifteenth Edition, volume 3 page > 361 > article on "Clausewitz") reads: > > In maintaining that "war is nothing but a continuation of political > intercourse with the admixture of different means," he denied that war > is an end in > itself. > > > - Jim Landau > Well, okay. That seems to be an interpretation rather than simply a translation. Nevertheless, I find it fully acceptable as the last word on this point. Thank you for caring, Jim. -Wilson Gray From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Tue Nov 2 21:13:41 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 15:13:41 -0600 Subject: "Flash Crowd" -- another science fiction word in real-world use Message-ID: So why am I a happy camper? We survived an unprecedented triple flash crowd and logged it all. As it turns out, two of the faculty members in my Dept., Maarten van Steen and Guillaume Pierre, are doing research on coping with flash crowds. The research issues include how many replicas to set up, where to place them, how fast to deploy them, and how to do it automatically, in real time, and at minimum cost. To simulate proposed algorithms, you need data about real flash crowds and real attacks, preferably at the same time. http://electoral-vote.com Flash Crowd From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (Redirected from Flash crowd) Flash Crowd was the title of a 1973 short story by the science fiction author Larry Niven, one of a series about the consequences of instantaneous, practically free teleportation booths that could take one anywhere on Earth in milliseconds. One consequence, not predicted by the builders of the system, was that with the almost instantaneous reporting of newsworthy events, tens of thousands of people worldwide would flock to the scene of anything interesting -- along with criminals, hoping to exploit the instant disorder and confusion so created. On the World Wide Web, a similar phenomenon can occur, when some web site catches the attention of a large number of people, and gets an unexpected and overloading surge of traffic: a notorious example is the Slashdot effect. Another similar phenomenon is the Flash mob. Other reading: * "Flash Crowd" is on pages 99-164 of the paperback edition of The Flight of the Horse, copyright 1973 by Larry Niven. The story (or parts of it) was originally published as "Flash Crowd" in Three Trips in Time and Space, copyright 1973 by Robert Silverberg, ed. * "The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club" is on pages 41-52 of the paperback edition of A Hole in Space, copyright 1974 by Larry Niven. * Other stories in this series are in these two books, and in All the Myriad Ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Crowd * This page was last modified 07:36, 19 Sep 2004. -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 2 21:33:58 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 15:33:58 -0600 Subject: "Flash Crowd" -- another science fiction word in real-world use Message-ID: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Dan Goodman > Organization: Self > Subject: "Flash Crowd" -- another science fiction word > in real-world use > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > So why am I a happy camper? We survived an unprecedented > triple flash crowd and logged it all. As it turns out, two of > the faculty members in my Dept., Maarten van Steen and > Guillaume Pierre, are doing research on coping with flash > crowds. The research issues include how many replicas to set > up, where to place them, how fast to deploy them, and how to > do it automatically, in real time, and at minimum cost. To > simulate proposed algorithms, you need data about real flash > crowds and real attacks, preferably at the same time. > http://electoral-vote.com > > Flash Crowd [wikipedia entry follows] > > Another similar phenomenon is the Flash mob. > I hope you send this along to Malcolm Farmer M.J.Farmer at bham.ac.uk at the OED Science Fiction Project http://www.jessesword.com/SF/sf_citations.shtml Neither Flash Crowd nor Flash Mob are listed in their collection of Science Fiction terms, for which they are actively looking for antedates. > On the World Wide Web, a similar phenomenon can occur, when > some web site catches the attention of a large number of > people, and gets an unexpected and overloading surge of > traffic: a notorious example is the Slashdot effect. See also the "Instalanch", which is what happens when the blog www.instapundit.com links to your site. From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 22:01:08 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 17:01:08 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20Sad=20news=20about=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?David=20Shulman?= Message-ID: In a message dated 11/2/04 2:47:35 PM, fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU writes: > Both my response and David's were > published in American Speech; I wanted to call mine "Scrabble Babble" but > Ron Butters wouldn't let me.? David adopted a more restrained and > gentlemanly tone in his piece. > Ah, yes, that gentlemanly old Ron Butters--who is honored to be mentioned in the same paraagraph with David S. From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Nov 2 22:04:33 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 17:04:33 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20NOT=20A=20WORD!?= Message-ID: In a message dated 11/2/04 2:31:25 PM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes: > > Don't tell me there's "no such word".? Parade your idiosyncratic > prejudices, if you wish, and if your mind is open enough we might be > able to talk about the bases of your prejudices (and mine).? But don't > lie to me about the state of the language. > i agree From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Nov 2 22:37:31 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 14:37:31 -0800 Subject: NOT A WORD! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Tuesday, November 2, 2004 11:31 AM -0800 "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote: > But if it truly isn't done, then there's no need for the admonitions. And for that very reason, Fiske's book should provide useful material for some doctoral student a couple of hundred years from now doing a dissertation on early 21st century AE usage. A pity Fiske wasn't around when "trepidation" first crept under the tent of the then doubtless more "pure" English language. He could have nipped it in the bud right there, and we would have been spared the misery of hearing and reading "trepidac/tious" today. But wait, maybe I missed something. Is Fiske saying that "trepidacious" is o.k., if only you eschew the dreaded t when writing it? In which case, problem solved! I suppose we must all have had a reaction similar to Arnold's back in childhood upon hearing that something "isn't a word." The first time I ran into this was when I complained to my 5th-grade teacher that "this sure is drudgerous work." Nonplussed when she laughed and said that the word I had just used "isn't in the dictionary," I asked what word should be used instead (to make an adjective out of "drudgery"), and was told that there simply wasn't a way to do it. I see that even today, "drudgerous" still "isn't in the dictionary" if the dictionary is the AHD4. Naturally I banished the word from my vocabulary after my teacher revealed its nonexistence to me lo those many years ago, but I've always kind of missed it. Peter Mc. ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Tue Nov 2 23:49:44 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 17:49:44 -0600 Subject: Sad news about David Shulman (Scrabble dict. story) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tuesday, November 02, 2004 1:44 PM, Fred Shapiro wrote: . . . . > My favorite memory of David involved a ridiculously flawed > article about > "The Words of Scrabble" published in American Speech in the > mid-1980s. > The author analyzed the words in the Official Scrabble > Player's Dictionary > and concluded that this lexicon was way ahead of the > new-word watchers in > Springfield and Oxford in picking up novel vocabulary. I > discovered that, > in addition to the author's failing to realize that this > book was compiled > by Merriam-Webster, the author had done a terrible job of > checking earlier > dictionaries and missed the fact that a lot of the > supposedly novel words > had previously appeared in Webster's Collegiate. David, > employing his > characteristic methodicalness and driven by his own strong > interest in the > game of Scrabble, found that in fact all of the words had > appeared in > earlier dictionaries and the article author had concocted a > theory with > absolutely no basis in reality. Both my response and David's were > published in American Speech; I wanted to call mine > "Scrabble Babble" but > Ron Butters wouldn't let me. David adopted a more restrained and > gentlemanly tone in his piece. An amazing story. I don't remember reading that article. The fact is that not only is the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary published by M-W, but the dictionary's editors (who are not M-W people) have always followed a policy of entering only words that appear in at least one of the four principal U.S. college dictionaries: M-W's Collegiate, Webster's New World, American Heritage, and Random House. I have never checked, but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a statement to that effect somewhere in the introductory matter of the dictionary. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From AAllan at AOL.COM Wed Nov 3 00:05:57 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 19:05:57 EST Subject: Update on Annual Meeting arrangements Message-ID: Headquarters at the Linguistic Society agrees with the sentiment that, despite the strike, the 2005 annual meeting should be at the previously agreed time and the previously agreed airline destination - i.e. January 6-9 in the San Francisco Bay Area. A hotel in Oakland now seems the most likely alternative, if the strike isn't settled soon. LSA has this announcement: <> Stand by for further developments! - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary PS. In case you're wondering, ADS is involved in advising LSA, but not in making the arrangements for hotels. As guests of LSA, we rely entirely on them. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 3 01:34:32 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 20:34:32 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? Message-ID: Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") -Wilson Gray From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Nov 3 16:49:39 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:49:39 -0500 Subject: Jeepable; No Spit Zone; BRO road signs Message-ID: Greetings from Sikkim. JEEPABLE--A description on a map here for a road. Someone asked me about this word. QUEEN OF THE HILLS--Nickname for Darjeeling. LITTER AND SPIT FREE ZONE--A sign in Sikkim. BRO ROAD SIGNS--The Border Road Organisation has some wacky signs on the rocks around turns in the mountains here. They're so stupid, I had to collect them all. Here's a few: SPEED THRILLS BUT KILLS. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. HURRY MAKES WORRY. DRIVE DON'T FLY. HASTE MAKES WASTE. ALWAYS EXPECT UNEXPECTED. ON THE BEND GO SLOW FRIEND. THREE ENEMIES OF THE ROAD--LIQUOR, SPEED, AND OVERLOAD. DRIVING FASTER CAN CAUSE DISASTER. THIS IS HIGHWAY, NOT RUNWAY. IT IS NOT A RALLY. ENJOY THE VALLEY. IF MARRIED, DIVORCE SPEED. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 3 17:21:33 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 11:21:33 -0600 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? Message-ID: I bet the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has something to do with it. > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Slay, ?slayed? > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 > > "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." > > This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" > replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? > (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") > > -Wilson Gray > From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 3 17:34:11 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:34:11 -0500 Subject: What is that gesture called? In-Reply-To: <20041103050115.02E59B251D@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Jim Landau wrote: >>>>> The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is long long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the crossing. Sometimes you will see by the tracks near a grade crossing a sign with the cryptic inscription - - . - This is of course telling the engineer to sound long long short long. <<<<< I tried to remember what that means in International Morse Code, but before my mind popped up with the answer ("Q") I got a musical hit*: the theme from what I think of as the Death March, which I remember singing as a child to the words "Where will we be in a hundred years from now?" * as in using a search engine -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 3 17:40:43 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:40:43 -0500 Subject: NOT A WORD! In-Reply-To: <20041103050115.02E59B251D@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Arnold writes: >>>>> While I was putting Robert Hartwell Fiske's The Dictionary of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar (2005 -- yes, 205, this book is really on the cutting edge of the time line) onto the shelf, it fell open to a page with an entry for TREPIDACIOUS, which caught my eye because i am an occasional (and proud) user of the word TREPIDATIOUS 'tremblingly reluctant' and took TREPIDACIOUS to be a misspelling of this word, which should have a T because TREPIDATION does. [...] <<<<< Arnold is either having a bad day or having a good day; the latter, I hope. Traditional capitalization! On the point: well said, Arnold! -- Mark [I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is perfect.] From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Wed Nov 3 18:25:08 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 10:25:08 -0800 Subject: NOT A WORD! In-Reply-To: <20041103123943.H6745@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 3, 2004, at 9:40 AM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > Arnold writes: >>>>>> > > While I was putting Robert Hartwell Fiske's The Dictionary of > Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly > Correct Grammar... > <<<<< > > Arnold is either having a bad day or having a good day; the latter, I > hope. > Traditional capitalization! i was contemplating passing a version of this on to Language Log (and still am), so i took the trouble to use traditional capitalization from the start. next comes html-ization. (and correction of typos.) > On the point: well said, Arnold! thank you, mark. as for the day, i'm tempted to say that it was the best of days, it was the worst of days, but that would be rather over the top. i certainly was *annoyed*. arnold From jparish at SIUE.EDU Wed Nov 3 18:31:30 2004 From: jparish at SIUE.EDU (Jim Parish) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:31:30 -0600 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: <200411031721.iA3HLgZW007063@mx2.isg.siue.edu> Message-ID: To be specific: there is an episode of BtVS in which Buffy is talking to her friends about a vampire which she "slayed - or is it slew?"; Giles, the librarian, passing nearby, replies, "Both are correct." Jim Parish Quoting "Mullins, Bill" : > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- > > I bet the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has something to do with it. > > > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Wilson Gray > > Subject: Slay, ?slayed? > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > ----------------- > > > > Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 > > > > "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." > > > > This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" > > replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? > > (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") > > > > -Wilson Gray > > > ------------------------------------------------- SIUE Web Mail From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 3 21:22:34 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 16:22:34 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" - from 1996 and it agrees with Giles, except that it specifies that "slayed" is grammatical only in figurative uses, such as, e.g. "... slayed his rivals [in a rapping contest]" vs., e.g. "... slew his rivals [on the battlefield]." Therefore, Giles is close, but gets no cigar, since Buffy literally slew the vampire. At this point, I'm going to drop back five and punt. -Wilson Gray On Nov 3, 2004, at 1:31 PM, Jim Parish wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jim Parish > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > To be specific: there is an episode of BtVS in which Buffy is talking > to > her friends about a vampire which she "slayed - or is it slew?"; Giles, > the librarian, passing nearby, replies, "Both are correct." > > Jim Parish > > Quoting "Mullins, Bill" : > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >> Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> ------- > -- >> >> I bet the TV show "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has something to do with >> it. >> >> >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Wilson Gray >>> Subject: Slay, ?slayed? >>> -------------------------------------------------------------- >>> ----------------- >>> >>> Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 >>> >>> "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." >>> >>> This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" >>> replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? >>> (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") >>> >>> -Wilson Gray >>> >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------- > SIUE Web Mail > From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Nov 3 21:38:19 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 13:38:19 -0800 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? and I'm done my homework Message-ID: When I voted a few days ago, I noticed this odd phrase "... you vote this ballot..." For me, it must be '..vote on this ballot' What I saw would be acceptable only if one meant a round of voting--then I could say 'vote this ballot.'' Otherwise 'on.' Fritz >>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/02/04 05:34PM >>> Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") -Wilson Gray From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Nov 3 21:46:12 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 16:46:12 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: <7A7347E0-2DDE-11D9-801E-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 04:22:34PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" [...] Now, now. We all know that "Webster's" is generic, but of the various versions, New World is by no means an off-brand. It's one of the good ones. Jesse Sheidlower OED From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Nov 3 21:47:33 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 13:47:33 -0800 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? and I'm done my homework Message-ID: >>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/02/04 05:34PM >>> Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 > (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") -Wilson Gray 'Walked onstage" doesn't bother me a bit. I don't think 'Walked onstage' and 'walked onto the stage' necessarily mean the same thing. Fritz From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 3 22:10:01 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:10:01 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? and I'm done my homework In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 3, 2004, at 4:47 PM, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? and I'm done my homework > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >>>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/02/04 05:34PM >>> > Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 >> (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") > -Wilson Gray > > 'Walked onstage" doesn't bother me a bit. I don't think 'Walked > onstage' > and 'walked onto the stage' necessarily mean the same thing. > Fritz > Sorry, Fritz. I ain't messin' wit' dis'un. As I said, I'm ignoring it. Though I am quite tempted to rise to the challenge. However, I know that, as a consequence of having spent years learning "proppa Ang-lish," I tend to be a stickler for locutions that those who grew up *speaking* what they consider to be proper English - and not some random, non-standard dialect - don't waste their time with. -Wilson From jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Wed Nov 3 22:14:43 2004 From: jdespres at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Joanne M. Despres) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:14:43 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: <20041103214611.GB24445@panix.com> Message-ID: WNW is very highly regarded here, too. No need whatsoever to apologize for it! Joanne Despres Merriam-Webster On 3 Nov 2004, at 16:46, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 04:22:34PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > > FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" > > [...] > > Now, now. We all know that "Webster's" is generic, but of > the various versions, New World is by no means an off-brand. > It's one of the good ones. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 3 22:19:08 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:19:08 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 3, 2004, at 4:46 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 04:22:34PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: >> FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" > > [...] > > Now, now. We all know that "Webster's" is generic, but of > the various versions, New World is by no means an off-brand. > It's one of the good ones. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > "It's one of the good ones." I know. For a second, there, when I first pulled it off the shelf, even I thought it was the real thing. ;-) -Wilson From gcohen at UMR.EDU Wed Nov 3 22:19:52 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 16:19:52 -0600 Subject: David Shulman--1999 article about him Message-ID: For anyone interested in material about David Shulman's life and activity, there's an article about him in _The Jerusalem Report_, by Danielle Haas, May 10, 1999. pp. 46-47; title: "The Word Sleuth." The article contains a color photograph of him (p.47), and even though part of it appears on p. 46, there's enough on p. 47 to make for a good picture. If anyone writing an obituary is interested, I could have it scanned at my campus and sent to you; the technology people here assure me this is no problem. Gerald Cohen From MAdams1448 at AOL.COM Wed Nov 3 22:35:32 2004 From: MAdams1448 at AOL.COM (Michael Adams) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:35:32 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? Message-ID: "Slayer Slang" records a few instances of "slayed," not just from episodes of the show (though they're represented) but in other texts, like "Teen People" (though the quotation is Buffy-related). I don't think that the show influenced the use of "slayed" as a term of appreciation, though -- "He slays me" (of a comedian or musician), which I suppose was accompanied by "He slayed me" way back there, somehwere in time. Is jazz the source? In "Buffy," by contrast, "slay" really means "kill" and the extensions are things like "Buffy slayed the football." They aren't related to the (earlier) slang sense. Spears include the term in that sense (1989/1995), so it predates the television show, but by how much I can't tell (Spears gives no dates). If it's in Spears, though, it's probably in DAS3 and dated generally there -- I just can't find my copy under the mounds of books here. Michael Adams From MAdams1448 at AOL.COM Wed Nov 3 22:42:42 2004 From: MAdams1448 at AOL.COM (Michael Adams) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 17:42:42 -0500 Subject: NOT A WORD! Message-ID: Arnold's comments on "trepidacious" were timely! In History of the English Language today, we started to discuss regulation in the Early Modern period, the inkhorn controversy, etc., Jonson, Lowth, and Campbell, on our way to Johnson's dictionary. I read the entire e-mail to the class -- it very effectively linked the current to the Early Modern and provided that sliver of relevance so useful in teaching history to the young. From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Nov 4 04:23:34 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 22:23:34 -0600 Subject: Webster's New World (was: Slay, ?slayed?) In-Reply-To: <20041103214611.GB24445@panix.com> Message-ID: Thank you, Jesse. I wasn't going to say anything . . . (But of course David Guralnik was one of the finest lexicographers of the 20th century, tops in analysis as well as the writing of definitions.) Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Jesse Sheidlower > Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 3:46 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > > > On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 04:22:34PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > > FWIW, I have only an off-brand Webster's - "New World" > > [...] > > Now, now. We all know that "Webster's" is generic, but of > the various versions, New World is by no means an off-brand. > It's one of the good ones. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > > --- > Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 04:36:55 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 23:36:55 -0500 Subject: Webster's New World (was: Slay, ?slayed?) In-Reply-To: <000401c4c226$0ca1e9a0$2e2b0b45@vneufeldt> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 10:23:34PM -0600, Victoria Neufeldt wrote: > Thank you, Jesse. I wasn't going to say anything . . . (But of > course David Guralnik was one of the finest lexicographers of the 20th > century, tops in analysis as well as the writing of definitions.) Well, of course I couldn't let that go by! Best, Jesse From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 4 12:36:26 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 07:36:26 -0500 Subject: Webster's New World (was: Slay, ?slayed?) In-Reply-To: <20041104043655.GA15714@panix.com> Message-ID: >What's more the late Harold Whitehall lent his expertise to what was >for a time the very best historical/etymological info one could get >in a smaller dictionary (and in some cases, I am sorry to say, the >best one could get anywhere). dInIs >On Wed, Nov 03, 2004 at 10:23:34PM -0600, Victoria Neufeldt wrote: > > Thank you, Jesse. I wasn't going to say anything . . . (But of >> course David Guralnik was one of the finest lexicographers of the 20th >> century, tops in analysis as well as the writing of definitions.) > >Well, of course I couldn't let that go by! > >Best, > >Jesse From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Nov 4 13:04:42 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:04:42 EST Subject: What is that gesture called? Message-ID: In a message dated Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:34:11 -0500, "Mark A. Mandel" and his pet dragon wrote: >> The whistle [horn] signal for a train approaching a grade crossing is long > > long short sustained long ending when the locomotive reaches the crossing. > > I tried to remember what that means in International Morse Code, but before > my mind popped up with the answer ("Q") I got a musical hit*: the theme from > what I think of as the Death March, which I remember singing as a child to > the words "Where will we be in a hundred years from now?" In railway Morse (which oddly enough never seems to be called "railroad Morse") the Q is short short long short, so it's doubtful that whoever invented the long-long-short-sustained long whistle for a grade crossing was thinking of the letter Q. (ref: http://www.trainweb.org/railwayop/Codes/codes.html} Two suggested reasons for long-long-short-sustained long: 1) anyone randomly blowing a whistle would probably generate either a series of shorts or a series of longs, so long-long-short-sustained long wouldn't be mistaken for somebody casually doing something with a whistle 2) it is rather dramatic (and therefore attention-getting, which is highly desirable), the two longs introducing the signal, then the short providing a buildup to the dramatic sustained long. Compare the limerick, which is long long short short long (with punch line) Actually long-long-short-sustained long goes way back, long before railroads, to the Renaissance at least. In Renaissance music a common ornament, used so often that it is a musical cliche, i is long note, same long note, short note one half tone lower in pitch, then the original note either long or sustained long. I don't know if there is a name for this particular ornament, but it is an example of a mordent which is the opposite of a trill, that is rapid alternating of a note with the note below it. - Jim Landau From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Nov 4 13:07:28 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:07:28 -0500 Subject: Himalayan Recipes Message-ID: Greetings from Gangtok, Sikkim. DUST BINS--Garbage cans. The following would be included in a web food dictionary of mine, but I am required by law to do parking tickets ten hours a day in a room with no air. HIMALAYAN RECIPES INNER WHEEL CLUB OF DARJEELING No page numbers, no date MOMO OR TIBETAN DUMPLINGS THUKPA TSU-LA-TSE (Chilli in Oil) JHINGE ACHAR-SUKHA QUASI (Tibetan Cookies) DALO KHORSANI (Round Red Chilli Paste) KWATI (Mixed Pulse and Beans) SIDRA (Small Dry Fish Achar) TOMATO ACHAR SIMI-ACHAR BOILED BUFF MEAT YAMARI POTATO ACHAR ROASTED/GRILLED BUFF OR CHICKEN OR MUTTON BAMBOO FIRST SHOOT KINAMA (Fermented Soya bean) PAKKU CHURPI DIP (Fresh Cottage Cheese Paste) MISS-MASS ALU ACHAR BHUTA KO MASU (Dry Fried Beef/Mutton) BLACK GRAM VADA SEL-ROTI TIBETAN GYAKO SOUP (Chimney Soup) PORK AND SAAG TROTTER ACHAR SEKUWA CHUTNEY OF GUNDRUK GORKHALI ALOODAM DALO KHORSANI (Round Red Chillies in Oil) SKIIKIM, DARJEELING, BHUTAN: A GUIDE AND HANDBOOK by Rajesh Verma New Delhi: NBC Press International 12th edition March 2004 Pages 16-17: Momo Thukpa Sael Roti Niguru with Churpi Gundruk Chang (Thomba) NOW! TRAVELMATE: YOUR GUIDE TO THE SIKKIM EXPERIENCE issue 1 Tadong, East Sikkim Pg. 8: Calling all foodies ...low traditional seatings called "bodens" and stools called "mooras." (...) The "soucha" is a specialty soup brewed from the local nettle plant with a hint of butter. (...) Also try the tender fern-shoot "kicho" or what the Nepalese call "ningro" that is fried with "chu" or local cottage cheese. You will find Sikkimese are fond of eating "rokyu" or fermented bamboo shoot. Another specialty is the rich "phelu" or syrupy yellow cottage cheese that is devoured with rice. (...) ..."momos" and "thukpas"... The "gyakho" is a traditional meat stock enriched with slices of boiled beef, pork, carrots, seaweed, "soru" or meat/veg fried in flour batter, vegetables, mushrooms and "tofu" arranged very meticulously over which the meat soup is periodically refilled. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Thu Nov 4 13:11:36 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:11:36 EST Subject: Slay, ?slayed? Message-ID: Wilson Gray wrote: > Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 > > "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." > > This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" > replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? > (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") What's wrong with "walked onstage"? In stage jargon at least, "onstage" and "offstage" are perfectly legitimate adverbs that also double as adjectives. MWCD11 lists them both as "adv or adj" with surprisingly late dates of 1925 and 1921 respectively. Do you have any trouble with "walked downhill"? About that Clausewitz quote: I should thank you for bringing it to my atttention that Clausewitz's much-quoted maxim is translated badly by the use of the word "politics". - Jim Landau From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 4 13:52:09 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:52:09 -0500 Subject: Slay, ?slayed? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 8:11 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: Slay, ?slayed? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray wrote: > >> Newsweek November 8, 2004 p.56 >> >> "He simply walked onstage and slayed his rivals...." >> >> This is at least the third time this year that I've seen "slew" >> replaced in print by "slayed." Language change in progress? >> (I'm ignoring "walked onstage" vs. "walked onto the stage.") > > What's wrong with "walked onstage"? In stage jargon at least, > "onstage" and > "offstage" are perfectly legitimate adverbs that also double as > adjectives. > MWCD11 lists them both as "adv or adj" with surprisingly late dates of > 1925 and > 1921 respectively. Do you have any trouble with "walked downhill"? Well, I prefer "walked downdale." But no, I don't have any trouble with "walked downhill." Hey, wait! Didn't I say that I didn't want to deal with "walked onstage"?! Jim, you slyboots, you! > > About that Clausewitz quote: I should thank you for bringing it to my > atttention that Clausewitz's much-quoted maxim is translated badly by > the use of the > word "politics". > - Jim Landau > You're very welcome. I wish that I could take full credit, but I'm fairly certain that I read it - i.e. that "politics" as the translation of "politik" is a faux ami - somewhere or other. -Wilson Gray From msauciuc at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 4 14:48:07 2004 From: msauciuc at GMAIL.COM (Mircea Sauciuc) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 08:48:07 -0600 Subject: "borrow me"--again Message-ID: Hi folks-- I'm sorry to be asking this again, but I remember some time back (most likely in the summer) several posts here referring to "borrow me", as in "my mom used to borrow me the car." or "could you borrow me a pencil?" However, I cannot seem to find it in my mail. I could be wrong and it was never posted here, but I feel certain it was. Does anyone remember what was said about "borrow me"? Thanks in advance. --Mircea Sauciuc From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 4 15:03:17 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:03:17 -0500 Subject: "A Hard Man is Good to Find" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm working someplace without ProQuest Historical Newspapers access right now. Can anyone check for me what is the earliest hit on PQHN for the phrase "a hard man is good to find." I find it on Newspaperarchive in 1973 as a porn movie title, but am trying to see if there are earlier attributions to Mae West. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 15:13:25 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:13:25 -0500 Subject: "A Hard Man is Good to Find" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 10:03:17AM -0500, Fred Shapiro wrote: > I'm working someplace without ProQuest Historical Newspapers access right > now. Can anyone check for me what is the earliest hit on PQHN for the > phrase "a hard man is good to find." I find it on Newspaperarchive in > 1973 as a porn movie title, but am trying to see if there are earlier > attributions to Mae West. Different context, but: 1944 Chicago Daily Tribune 22 June 19 Tough umpires are the best thing for baseball. A hard man is good to find....-- Paul Larmer. An ad in the NYT in 1957 uses the phrase--apparently quoted from Time Magazine--in reference to West, but Nathanael, not Mae. Jesse Sheidlower OED From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 4 15:51:40 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 07:51:40 -0800 Subject: the curious grammar of Ohio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Oct 27, 2004, at 8:50 AM, i wrote: > from David Blaustein's review of Keith Banner's The Smallest People > Alive, in the Lambda Book Report, August/September 2004, p. 25: > ----- > Another unifying idea is simply the context of the book: The stories > are all set in Ohio, where Banner lives. Banner uses the curious > grammar of the region to great effect throughout his book... Whether > Banner is comfortable being labeled as a regional writer or not, he > has produced a work that is wholly of a specific place and time. > ----- well, i've now read the book, and blaustein's praise of its regional specificity is much more puzzling than before. the *settings* are (for the most part) clearly regional, though most of them could be translated to hardscrabble areas anywhere in the country -- rural new england, california's central valley, whatever -- without losing anything important in the characterizations or plots. banner has merely set his stories in places like those he knows well. and the *language* his characters use shows barely any regional specificity at all; with a tiny number of exceptions, it's colloquial working-class speech of the sort that you can hear anywhere in the u.s. (and that has been represented well in fiction for a long time). first, general colloquial features, all of them appearing many times in the book's 260 pages: prospective "gonna", obligative "gotta" subject omission, of the "Saw him yesterday" sort initially reduced questions, of the "She okay?" and "When you gonna go?" sorts expletives like "the fuck" and other taboo vocabulary [oddly, banner doesn't use taboo vocabulary for 'penis', instead uniformly employing "thing", as in "his thing" and "my thing"] the tag "and shit" reinforcing reflexives, as in "Edgar and myself go way back" then, general working-class vernacular features, again appearing many times in the book; most of this list of features can be found in mencken: "ain't" "anyways" past tense "done" accusative coordinate subject pronouns: "Him and me had movies" multiple negation determiner "them": "them guys" past form for past participle: "have ran" transparent "type of": "these type of things" "of" with exceptional degree modifiers: "too Adj of a N" invariant singular in existentials": "There was a lot of people there" i found only *four* features that might be described as truly regional, and each occurs only *once* in the book (ok, i might have missed an occurrence, but these features are really really thin on the ground): "dern" for "darn" (what *is* its regional distribution?) "sack" 'bag' the vernacular ethical dative: "I need me a gun" (what *is* the regional distribution of this one?) "want" + past participle: "The main reason Irene wanted divorced..." note: no positive "anymore", and only one "want/need Ved". plus one ethical dative, which might just be another widespread vernacular feature. plus one lexical item ("sack") and one pronunciation ("dern"). that's not a lot of "curious grammar" characteristic of the region. maybe blaustein was hypersensitive to (one or more of) these features, so that a single occurrence was enough to trigger a strong sense of place. but i'm more inclined to think that he was just confounding style and class with region, as people who don't share the class-related features so often do. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Nov 4 16:11:25 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:11:25 -0500 Subject: Sikkim Food Message-ID: "They'll eat anything with legs, except the tables and chairs--and they're working on that." --heard again at dinner, about the Chinese This was the local Sikkim cuisine at the Tashi Delek restaurant here in Gangtok. I won't bother checking OED. SEW CHANG--A traditional Sikkimese drink. Long bamboo containers are filled with millet and soaked with boiled water to be sipped through delicate bamboo straws. The recipe for making 'pho' local yeast, which is used for fermentation, is a fiercely guarded secret. The taste has been compared to "sake". (Kitty litter with hot water, if you ask me--ed.) KHANYOE SUE TSE--This flavorful soup is made from a unique cucumber, originally discovered in Sikkim. One of its aspects is the sheer size, which often reaches lengths of over two feet! KHURI--A delicacy of griddle roasted bread created from buckwheat filled with sauteed greens and cottage cheese. SEU--This land is also known by the ancient name "Demazong"--or Hidden valley. Rice is grown in adbundance on the lush terraced paddy that you see across the verdant hills. GYARI--A succulent dish of prime cuts of pork, pot roasted with herbs and spices--served hot or cold, thinly sliced. GNYA--River fish caught in the wild mountain streams and farms are wrapped in greens and baked in fresh bamboo sleees to impart a flavour so sublime it must be tasted to be believed. (Scrawny, bony things. Someone got a bone in her throat while eating it--ed.) PHYA SHA--Free range chicken flavored with ginger and simmered in butter with a touch of tumeric, believed to have great rejuvenating value--the antidote for coughs and colds! SOUCHA--Hard to gather but delicious to eat is this exotic, seasonal favourite, made from the leaves of stinging nettles and may be sered with or without minced meat. KAYTSEU--A seasonal favourite made from only the most tender tips of young fern which grow abundantly in these mountains are sauteed in butter--fabulous! BARHEY--Sikkim, a land so lush with orchids we even eat them! Rare and exotic, edible orchids hae a very short season but luckily they can be pickled. So delicious, that we often savour them alone with rice. (The orchids were not in season. I said I'd take two rhododendrons, and make it snappy--ed.) DHO--The new shoots of indigenous bamboo, tender and mild--when not in season are pickled in hot mustard oil for use round the year. LAPSE--Wild, sour berries pickled in flavorful spices served as an accouterment to many Sikkimese dishes. JHEKAR--Finely ground sauce made from red or green peppers. The most potent chillies savoured in these mountains are known as "Akbarey" or "Dallay". They can bepickled too! CHUBENDA--Cottage cheese with a subtle flavour is traditionally blended with fresh tomatoes and spices. MOMOS--Steamed dumplings filled with minced chicken, vegetables or cottage cheese and ensconced in a thin flour layer. Served piping hot with a sauce of fresh cottage cheese blended with herbs and chilly. (Great, as usual--ed.) GYAKHO--This delicacy is known to have been made using as many as 108 ingredients and is traditionally served at all weddings and other auspicious occasions. Akin to the Mongolian Hot Pot, this dish is served in an ornate metal vessel kept hot with its own flame, unique to this delicacy. (Fabulous!--ed.) From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 4 16:15:06 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 10:15:06 -0600 Subject: exit polls Message-ID: >From the blog The Volokh Conspiracy: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_11_00.shtml#1099498083 "Exit Polls" in Daily Life: The apparent inaccuracy of the exit polls yesterday makes me wonder whether the phrase "exit poll" will now enter the American vernacular to mean "a quick impression that is probably wrong." From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Thu Nov 4 17:02:01 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 12:02:01 -0500 Subject: exit polls Message-ID: My impression is that the term has been around in one form or another for 28 years. I don't think that the experience of one election will profoundly change the definition. I am sure that some exit polling has produced inaccuracies in the past, just as has some other polling. But, time will tell. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com American Dialect Society on Thursday, November 04, 2004 at 11:15 AM -0500 wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header >----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >Subject: exit polls >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >>From the blog The Volokh Conspiracy: >http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_11_00.shtml#1099498083 > > > > >"Exit Polls" in Daily Life: The apparent inaccuracy of the exit polls >yesterday makes me wonder whether the phrase "exit poll" will now enter >the >American vernacular to mean "a quick impression that is probably wrong." From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 4 17:06:26 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:06:26 -0600 Subject: exit polls Message-ID: Oh, I'm sure the phrase has been around for a while. I just thought the proposed definition was funny. > -----Original Message----- > From: Barnhart [mailto:barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM] > Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 11:02 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: exit polls > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Barnhart > Subject: Re: exit polls > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > My impression is that the term has been around in one form or > another for > 28 years. I don't think that the experience of one election > will profoundly change the definition. I am sure that some > exit polling has produced inaccuracies in the past, just as > has some other polling. But, time will tell. > > Regards, > David > > barnhart at highlands.com > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 4 17:24:30 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 11:24:30 -0600 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: From the comic strip Boondocks: http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything would work itself out soon. Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in such a mainstream form. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 4 19:25:55 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 14:25:55 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > From the comic strip Boondocks: > http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ > > Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . > Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything would > work > itself out soon. > Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. > Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. > > > I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in > such a > mainstream form. > Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it were. FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive "s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down (sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. -Wilson Gray From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 4 19:28:34 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 13:28:34 -0600 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: > If this kind of thing interests you(-all), > you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's > the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Chappelle was interviewed on Fresh Air (NPR) recently, and wasn't "on". A completely different persona than the sketch show. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Nov 4 20:02:06 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:02:06 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <5923DBC4-2E97-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) At 02:25 PM 11/4/2004, you wrote: >On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>Subject: CP Time >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >> >>Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything would >>work >>itself out soon. >>Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >> >> >>I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>such a >>mainstream form. > >Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it were. > >FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >"s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >(sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. > >-Wilson Gray From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 4 20:35:05 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:35:05 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <5923DBC4-2E97-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after 'person"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin with the wrong crowd. dInIs PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some lame asked what it meant. >On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>Subject: CP Time >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >> >>Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything would >>work >>itself out soon. >>Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >> >> >>I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>such a >>mainstream form. >> > >Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it were. > >FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >"s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >(sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. > >-Wilson Gray -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 4 21:05:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:02 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," a group that includes college graduates, postal and other civil-service workers, owners of businesses, politicians, etc., especially if they have money (this is America; what can I say?) but excludes entertainers of any kind (unless they are also college graduates), pimps, drug dealers, and other low-lifes, regardless of their income. Though Bill Cosby made his rather enormous fortune as an entertainer, the fact that he graduated from college *before* he made it as an entertainer and then *continued* his education to the point of earning a doctorate places him solidly within the boojie class. On the other hand, Sean "Puffy/Puff Daddy/P. Diddy" Combes will never be boojie, regardless of the fact that he has money to burn. Unless he uses his money to get into politics, to set up scholarships and fellowships at United Negro College Fund schools, or for something else that will "uplift the race." That is, he can buy his way into the boojie class. As Jack Benny once noted, "There's only one thing that money can't buy, and that's poverty." I could go on, but I'm sure that you get the point. -Wilson > > At 02:25 PM 11/4/2004, you wrote: >> On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>> Subject: CP Time >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>> http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >>> >>> Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>> Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything >>> would >>> work >>> itself out soon. >>> Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>> Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >>> >>> >>> I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>> such a >>> mainstream form. >> >> Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >> would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >> Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >> references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >> you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >> the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it >> were. >> >> FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >> "s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >> (sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >> music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >> upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >> Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. >> >> -Wilson Gray > From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Nov 4 21:08:21 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:08:21 -0500 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) and perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the slower pace prevailing on Caribbean islands. John Baker From stevekl at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 21:13:48 2004 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:13:48 -0500 Subject: SF hotel situation LSA/ADS Message-ID: I received this email from Ivan Sag, who passed on the message from LSA president Joan Bybee. Members of the ADS who haven't been to a meeting and therefore aren't members of the LSA this year might not be aware of this. So, I'm passing on the word. -- Steve K ---------- Forwarded message ---------- (forwarded from Joan Bybee, President of the LSA) 3 November 2004 Dear Members, As you may know, the Hyatt Regency San Francisco where we planned to hold the 2005 Annual Meeting is involved in a labor dispute. As we assume that many of our members would not want to cross picket lines, we are seeking alternative sites for the meeting in case the dispute is not settled. The LSA Executive Committee has determined that maintaining the stated dates and finding a suitable location in the San Francisco Bay Area are of the highest priority. The Secretariat is exploring the options in the Bay Area over the 6-9 January dates and will report to the Executive Committee which will then decide if a change is warranted. In order to keep you informed of any changes as promptly as possible, we ask that you please check the LSA site (http://www.lsadc.org) for updates on the situation. While we feel that it relatively safe to make your travel reservations, you may wish to wait a few days before making reservations at the Hyatt. I thank you for your patience and look forward to seeing you in January. Sincerely Joan Bybee President From stevekl at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 21:17:34 2004 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:17:34 -0500 Subject: Oops. My apologies for the redundant message. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm an utter idiot. I wrote that message and then thought I should check my unread headers to see if it had already been mentioned, and I noticed Allan had already done so, and I went to cancel the email and I typed in the command for send instead. (That's twice I've done that today, and I haven't done that in like 10 years, so I don't know what's up with my brain today.) -- Steve From kurtpatt4 at NETSCAPE.NET Thu Nov 4 21:23:19 2004 From: kurtpatt4 at NETSCAPE.NET (Patti J. Kurtz) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:23:19 -0600 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <200411041608.683418a9a4c26e@rly-nc04.mx.aol.com> Message-ID: Or like 'Indian time," which is generally used in the west to refer to the casual attitude towards time that Native Americans tend to have. Patti Kurtz JMB at STRADLEY.COM wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: "Baker, John" >Subject: Re: CP Time >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) and perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the slower pace prevailing on Caribbean islands. > >John Baker > > -- Dr. Patti J. Kurtz Assistant Professor, English Director of the Writing Center Minot State University Minot, ND 58707 Foster: What about our evidence? They've got to take notice of that. Straker: Evidence. What's it going to look like when Henderson claims that we manufactured it, just to get a space clearance program? Foster: But we are RIGHT! Straker: Sometimes, Colonel, that's not quite enough. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 4 21:31:17 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 13:31:17 -0800 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:35 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are > most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after > 'person")... my experience as well. often self-mockingly used. more recently -- i might have told this story here already -- my daughter and i went to the dementia care facility where my partner was housed for six years, right in time for a holiday party. the activities director, a wonderfully outgoing black woman, was a bit frazzled when we arrived. monica explained that things weren't put together yet, laughingly confessing that they were "running on CPT" (my daughter and i took this as a gesture of trust and solidarity). oh, i said, we have GPT. monica dissolved in laughter. Gay People's Time!, she shouted, i love it! of course, monica's a boojie, and she had an overt possessive ending on "People's". arnold From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Nov 4 21:36:11 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:36:11 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 03:35 PM 11/4/2004, you wrote: >Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are >most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after >'person"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin >with the wrong crowd. > >dInIs > >PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some >lame asked what it meant. Uh oh, guess I'm a lame. (And I DO know what that means!) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 4 21:47:02 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:47:02 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <418A9DC7.6070007@netscape.net> Message-ID: At 3:23 PM -0600 11/4/04, Patti J. Kurtz wrote: >Or like 'Indian time," which is generally used in the west to refer to >the casual attitude towards time that Native Americans tend to have. > >Patti Kurtz this must indeed be a very general phenomenon. When I was giving talks in Aix-en-Provence (in the south of France) in 1977 I was informed that I should allow for "le quart d'heure aixois", the Aix Quarter-Hour, encapsulating the idea that everything there can be expected to begin 15 minutes after the officially posted time, or by implication 15 minutes after it would have started in uptight northern places like Paris, London, New York, etc. Larry > >JMB at STRADLEY.COM wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Baker, John" >>Subject: Re: CP Time >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) >>and perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the >>slower pace prevailing on Caribbean islands. >> >>John Baker >> > >-- > >Dr. Patti J. Kurtz > >Assistant Professor, English > >Director of the Writing Center > >Minot State University > >Minot, ND 58707 > > > >Foster: What about our evidence? They've got to take notice of that. > > > >Straker: Evidence. What's it going to look like when Henderson claims >that we manufactured it, just to get a space clearance program? > > > >Foster: But we are RIGHT! > > > >Straker: Sometimes, Colonel, that's not quite enough. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Thu Nov 4 21:50:32 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:50:32 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Thursday, November 4, 2004 4:47 PM -0500 Laurence Horn wrote: > At 3:23 PM -0600 11/4/04, Patti J. Kurtz wrote: >> Or like 'Indian time," which is generally used in the west to refer to >> the casual attitude towards time that Native Americans tend to have. >> >> Patti Kurtz > > this must indeed be a very general phenomenon. When I was giving > talks in Aix-en-Provence (in the south of France) in 1977 I was > informed that I should allow for "le quart d'heure aixois", the Aix > Quarter-Hour, encapsulating the idea that everything there can be > expected to begin 15 minutes after the officially posted time, or by > implication 15 minutes after it would have started in uptight > northern places like Paris, London, New York, etc. At one point in my life, friends of mine referred to this as "Jewish time". From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 4 21:59:10 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:59:10 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <4F9206AFCC62C07F6C79D602@[130.132.95.94]> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 04:50:32PM -0500, Alice Faber wrote: > > At one point in my life, friends of mine referred to this as "Jewish time". DARE has "Jewish time" from 1952. And HDAS has "C.P.T." from Carl van Vechten's _Nigger Heaven_ from 1926. I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. Jesse Sheidlower OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 4 22:16:20 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 17:16:20 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are > most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after > "people"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin > with the wrong crowd. > > dInIs > > PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some > lame asked what it meant. If I wrote anything that implied that I thought that "CP time" was a fresh term, I apologize. It's probably two days older than water. As far as my experience of the living use of the term is concerned, "CP time" is the pretty much the only way that I've ever heard the term used. However, I've never heard "colored people time," only "colored people's time." However, I do not doubt that there are speakers who say the former. As for your moms, you better had listen. Yo momma she tellin you straight. (The "better had" is a St. Louis BE-ism that merely adds emphasis and has no effect on the tense of the main verb.) -Wilson > > > >> On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>> Subject: CP Time >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>> http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >>> >>> Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>> Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything >>> would >>> work >>> itself out soon. >>> Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>> Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >>> >>> >>> I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>> such a >>> mainstream form. >>> >> >> Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >> would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >> Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >> references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >> you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >> the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it >> were. >> >> FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >> "s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >> (sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >> music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >> upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >> Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. >> >> -Wilson Gray > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Thu Nov 4 23:02:50 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 15:02:50 -0800 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: add 'Mormon Standard Time' Fritz >>> jester at PANIX.COM 11/04/04 01:59PM >>> On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 04:50:32PM -0500, Alice Faber wrote: > > At one point in my life, friends of mine referred to this as "Jewish time". DARE has "Jewish time" from 1952. And HDAS has "C.P.T." from Carl van Vechten's _Nigger Heaven_ from 1926. I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. Jesse Sheidlower OED From gorion at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 4 23:09:03 2004 From: gorion at GMAIL.COM (Orion Montoya) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:09:03 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <-7232643498162320673@unknownmsgid> Message-ID: On the other hand, when I was in Greece someone told me that when Greek people are arranging to meet, they call it an "English appointment" or an "English meeting" if it is important for the conferees to show up at the actual time scheduled. The implication being that otherwise you'll show up an hour or so later. But that is not American dialect, and I can't remember the Greek for "meeting" to verify it now. O. Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 4 23:51:35 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:51:35 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Larry, I think this 15 minutes is, in fact, rather precise. It is often referred to as "Deutsche akademische Rad," the fact that 2:00 lectures begin (precisely) at 2:15. I could be wrong since Aix seems a little bit more laid-back to me, but I'm sill suspicious. dInIs >At 3:23 PM -0600 11/4/04, Patti J. Kurtz wrote: >>Or like 'Indian time," which is generally used in the west to refer to >>the casual attitude towards time that Native Americans tend to have. >> >>Patti Kurtz > >this must indeed be a very general phenomenon. When I was giving >talks in Aix-en-Provence (in the south of France) in 1977 I was >informed that I should allow for "le quart d'heure aixois", the Aix >Quarter-Hour, encapsulating the idea that everything there can be >expected to begin 15 minutes after the officially posted time, or by >implication 15 minutes after it would have started in uptight >northern places like Paris, London, New York, etc. > >Larry > >> >>JMB at STRADLEY.COM wrote: >> >>>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>>----------------------- >>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>Poster: "Baker, John" >>>Subject: Re: CP Time >>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) >>>and perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the >>>slower pace prevailing on Caribbean islands. >>> >>>John Baker >>> >> >>-- >> >>Dr. Patti J. Kurtz >> >>Assistant Professor, English >> >>Director of the Writing Center >> >>Minot State University >> >>Minot, ND 58707 >> >> >> >>Foster: What about our evidence? They've got to take notice of that. >> >> >> >>Straker: Evidence. What's it going to look like when Henderson claims >>that we manufactured it, just to get a space clearance program? >> >> >> >>Foster: But we are RIGHT! >> >> >> >>Straker: Sometimes, Colonel, that's not quite enough. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 4 23:56:11 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:56:11 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <27A8DEB8-2EAF-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: "Better had" go way beyond St.Louis, bro. And you're right; I shoulda listened to my momma more. But, if she hadn't collaborated with my daddy givin me these 5'10" genes, I coulda been a NBA star. dInIs (who once guarded the Big O, to his [i.e.,mine] everlasting basketball shame) >On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>Subject: Re: CP Time >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are >>most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after >>"people"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin >>with the wrong crowd. >> >>dInIs >> >>PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some >>lame asked what it meant. > >If I wrote anything that implied that I thought that "CP time" was a >fresh term, I apologize. It's probably two days older than water. As >far as my experience of the living use of the term is concerned, "CP >time" is the pretty much the only way that I've ever heard the term >used. However, I've never heard "colored people time," only "colored >people's time." However, I do not doubt that there are speakers who say >the former. > > As for your moms, you better had listen. Yo momma she tellin you >straight. (The "better had" is a St. Louis BE-ism that merely adds >emphasis and has no effect on the tense of the main verb.) > >-Wilson > >> >> >> >>>On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: >>> >>>>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>>>----------------------- >>>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>>>Subject: CP Time >>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>-- >>>>-------- >>>> >>>> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>>>http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >>>> >>>>Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>>>Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything >>>>would >>>>work >>>>itself out soon. >>>>Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>>>Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >>>> >>>> >>>>I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>>>such a >>>>mainstream form. >>>> >>> >>>Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other group" >>>would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >>>Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >>>references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >>>you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >>>the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it >>>were. >>> >>>FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the possessive >>>"s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >>>(sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their rap >>>music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >>>upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >>>Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. >>> >>>-Wilson Gray >> >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>University Distinguished Professor >>Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian and African Languages >>Wells Hall A-740 >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>Office: (517) 353-0740 >>Fax: (517) 432-2736 -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 01:16:18 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:16:18 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 6:02 PM, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: FRITZ JUENGLING > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > add 'Mormon Standard Time' > Fritz > >>>> jester at PANIX.COM 11/04/04 01:59PM >>> > On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 04:50:32PM -0500, Alice Faber wrote: >> >> At one point in my life, friends of mine referred to this as "Jewish >> time". > > DARE has "Jewish time" from 1952. And HDAS has "C.P.T." from > Carl van Vechten's _Nigger Heaven_ from 1926. C.P.T., like Bird and Frodo, lives. -Wilson Gray > > I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, > religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 01:23:53 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:23:53 -0500 Subject: New? Message-ID: New to me, anyway. Heard on the TV show, CSI: Shake hands with Shorty (or, perhaps, shorty) : masturbate -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 01:34:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:34:10 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 4:08 PM, Baker, John wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Baker, John" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > "C.P. time" sounds like the more familiar (at least to me) and > perhaps less pejorative "island time," which refers to the slower pace > prevailing on Caribbean islands. > > John Baker > FWIW, "C.P. time" has always struck me as more jocular than pejorative. Others' attitudes may, of course, differ. One never knows, do one? -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 01:45:22 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 20:45:22 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 6:56 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > "Better had" go way beyond St.Louis, bro. And you're right; I shoulda > listened to my momma more. But, if she hadn't collaborated with my > daddy givin me these 5'10" genes, I coulda been a NBA star. > > dInIs (who once guarded the Big O, to his [i.e.,mine] everlasting > basketball shame) The Big O? Really? That's interesting! Though no more so than any of your other posts, of course.;-) -Wilson > > > > >> On Nov 4, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>> Subject: Re: CP Time >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> Wilson, I have heard this for a very long time and from folk who are >>> most definitely not boojies (and who definitely do not have /s/ after >>> "people"). But my momma told me a long time ago that I was runnin >>> with the wrong crowd. >>> >>> dInIs >>> >>> PS: Truth is, I have rarely heard the "full form"; only when some >>> lame asked what it meant. >> >> If I wrote anything that implied that I thought that "CP time" was a >> fresh term, I apologize. It's probably two days older than water. As >> far as my experience of the living use of the term is concerned, "CP >> time" is the pretty much the only way that I've ever heard the term >> used. However, I've never heard "colored people time," only "colored >> people's time." However, I do not doubt that there are speakers who >> say >> the former. >> >> As for your moms, you better had listen. Yo momma she tellin you >> straight. (The "better had" is a St. Louis BE-ism that merely adds >> emphasis and has no effect on the tense of the main verb.) >> >> -Wilson >> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Nov 4, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: >>>> >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>>>> ----------------------- >>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>> Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>>>> Subject: CP Time >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> -- >>>>> -- >>>>> -------- >>>>> >>>>> From the comic strip Boondocks: >>>>> http://www.ucomics.com/boondocks/2004/11/02/ >>>>> >>>>> Huey: I dreamt I talked to God last night . . . >>>>> Huey: He said, Don't worry about the election 'cause everything >>>>> would >>>>> work >>>>> itself out soon. >>>>> Huey: Of course, to God, "Soon" could be, like, 50 million years. >>>>> Caesar: Yeah, He's been on C.P. time lately. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I've seen/heard "C.P. Time" as "Colored People Time", but never in >>>>> such a >>>>> mainstream form. >>>>> >>>> >>>> Aaron probably recked without the ADS, figuring that "the other >>>> group" >>>> would be too lame and unhip to have any idea what the reference was. >>>> Or, perhaps, he just didn't care, since he uses a lot of in-group >>>> references in his work. If this kind of thing interests you(-all), >>>> you(-all) may want to watch Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. He's >>>> the sketch-comedy version of Richard Pryor, so to speak. Or as it >>>> were. >>>> >>>> FWIW, I know this only as "colored people's time," with the >>>> possessive >>>> "s" pronounced, since I've heard it used only by boojies as a down >>>> (sic) of the underclass types who, with their lack of couth, their >>>> rap >>>> music, and their blink-blink (sic) persist in interfering with the >>>> upward progress of the Talented Tenth. Bill - or, rather, William - >>>> Cosby, EdD, you know what I'm saying. >>>> >>>> -Wilson Gray >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Dennis R. Preston >>> University Distinguished Professor >>> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >>> Asian and African Languages >>> Wells Hall A-740 >>> Michigan State University >>> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>> Office: (517) 353-0740 >>> Fax: (517) 432-2736 > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African > Languages > A-740 Wells Hall > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824 > Phone: (517) 432-3099 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > preston at msu.edu > From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 5 02:48:44 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 21:48:44 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <20041104215910.GA23821@panix.com> Message-ID: >I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. I suppose most of the versions are national. On the Web there are plenty of examples of "on X time" = "late" (or sometimes "slow"/"leisurely"): "Chinese time", "Korean time", "Thai time", "Indian time" (referring to India), "Filipino time", "Spanish time", "Brazilian time", "Mexican time", "Italian time", etc., etc. ... also "Asian time", "African time", "South American time", "Latin time". "American time", "British time", "English time", "Japanese time" usually seem to have the opposite sense, referring to punctuality. -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 04:12:26 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 23:12:26 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041104212809.03209610@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 9:48 PM -0500 11/4/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >>religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. > >I suppose most of the versions are national. On the Web there are plenty of >examples of "on X time" = "late" (or sometimes "slow"/"leisurely"): >"Chinese time", "Korean time", "Thai time", "Indian time" (referring to >India), "Filipino time", "Spanish time", "Brazilian time", "Mexican time", >"Italian time", etc., etc. ... also "Asian time", "African time", "South >American time", "Latin time". > >"American time", "British time", "English time", "Japanese time" usually >seem to have the opposite sense, referring to punctuality. > >-- Doug Wilson left-hemisphere time vs. right-hemisphere time? From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 04:27:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 23:27:49 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" Message-ID: I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern relatives. The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. Above the magnolias : up North. I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian friend says. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Nov 5 13:20:32 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:20:32 EST Subject: CP Time Message-ID: In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray writes: > > Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) > > A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," I don't recall having heard "boojies" (or if I did, I probably misheard it as "boogie"). I do have a vague recollection of having run across "MCN" ("Middle Class Negro"---this was a print reference and the word "Negro" was used, it is possible that a different term was bowdlerized) as a pejorative, meaning something like "Oreo cookie". Nor do I recall ever having heard "CP time". I do know "Jewish Standard Time". The idea of an in-group categorizing itself as perpetually late goes way back, to at least Aristophanes. In _Lysistrata_, if memory serves, there is a place where Lysistrata says something to the effect of "You are proper Athenians. Always late." - James A. Landau PS to Dennis Preston, about guarding the Big O: Back when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was in high school (and known as "Lew Alcindor"), an opposing coach said "there's no such thing as a one-man basketball team" and ordered his team to let Alcindor do whatever he pleased, just guard the other four players. Alcindor's team lost 63-60, with Alcindor scoring 57 of the 60. From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 5 14:04:26 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:04:26 -0500 Subject: Boojies (was CP Time) In-Reply-To: <1ab.2b3b0c08.2ebcd820@aol.com> Message-ID: Boojies/boogies/bougies (the latter the more common spelling in my experience) is still used enough that just last week I saw it graffitied across an advertisement on the Brooklyn-bound side of the First or Third Avenue stop of the L train in Manhattan. Grant Barrett > In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray > writes: > >>> Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) >> >> A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 14:26:44 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:26:44 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 8:20 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray > writes: > >>> Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) >> >> A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," > > I don't recall having heard "boojies" (or if I did, I probably > misheard it as > "boogie"). I do have a vague recollection of having run across "MCN" > ("Middle Class Negro"---this was a print reference and the word > "Negro" was used, it > is possible that a different term was bowdlerized) as a pejorative, > meaning > something like "Oreo cookie". MCN's, in turn, use the term "typical Negro" - wherein bowdlerization is also possible - against the lower orders. BTW, do you recall the song, "Junk-Food Junkie," which had a line something like, "Twice as good as an Oreo cookie, almost as good as nookie"? I was shocked, shocked to hear "nookie" on ordinary FM radio, with no bleeping, since I've always felt that this word is obscene. I'm just old-school, I guess. -Wilson > > Nor do I recall ever having heard "CP time". I do know "Jewish > Standard > Time". > > The idea of an in-group categorizing itself as perpetually late goes > way > back, to at least Aristophanes. In _Lysistrata_, if memory serves, > there is a > place where Lysistrata says something to the effect of "You are proper > Athenians. > Always late." > > - James A. Landau > > PS to Dennis Preston, about guarding the Big O: Back when Kareem > Abdul-Jabbar > was in high school (and known as "Lew Alcindor"), an opposing coach > said > "there's no such thing as a one-man basketball team" and ordered his > team to let > Alcindor do whatever he pleased, just guard the other four players. > Alcindor's > team lost 63-60, with Alcindor scoring 57 of the 60. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 14:42:41 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:42:41 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <1ab.2b3b0c08.2ebcd820@aol.com> Message-ID: At 8:20 AM -0500 11/5/04, James A. Landau wrote: > >PS to Dennis Preston, about guarding the Big O: Back when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar >was in high school (and known as "Lew Alcindor"), an opposing coach said >"there's no such thing as a one-man basketball team" and ordered his >team to let >Alcindor do whatever he pleased, just guard the other four players. >Alcindor's >team lost 63-60, with Alcindor scoring 57 of the 60. Are you sure that's true? I thought his high school, Power Memorial, went undefeated during Alcindor's years there. But maybe they lost one game. Let's see what I can find. Ah, under the aptly yet ineptly titled SportsCentury web bio at espn.com, "A Dominate Force" (eggcorn alert!), it is noted that Alcindor's teams during his high school and first two college years went 126-1: "The only defeat came when DeMatha snapped Power Memorial's 71-game winning streak in January 1965." So that must have been the game to which Jim alludes. Another site confirms the result but not the details, which are slightly less impressive: the final score was 65-62 and Alcindor scored 38, not 57. --Larry, who never tried guarding Lew Alcindor (or Lewis, as Coach Wooden used to call him) at UCLA but did sit behind him in class once. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 14:44:36 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:44:36 -0500 Subject: Boojies (was CP Time) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:04 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > Subject: Re: Boojies (was CP Time) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Boojies/boogies/bougies (the latter the more common spelling in my > experience) is still used enough that just last week I saw it > graffitied across an advertisement on the Brooklyn-bound side of the > First or Third Avenue stop of the L train in Manhattan. > > Grant Barrett But "boogie" is pronounced the same as the "boogie" in "boogie-woogie" and is not class-specific. For example, a white character in the groundbreaking 1950 movie, "No Way Out," says something like, "I saw a boogie driving a Cadillac a block long!" as the whites of Beaver Canal are firing themselves up to riot against the blacks of Niggertown. -Wilson Gray > >> In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray >> writes: >> >>>> Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) >>> >>> A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," > From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Fri Nov 5 15:37:01 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:37:01 -0500 Subject: Alcindor's only high school loss (was CP Time) Message-ID: A newspaper account of that loss shows that the final score was Dematha 46, Power Memorial 43. Alcindor scored 16 points. The analysis of the game said that Dematha used a "tough zone defense" to contain Power. --Sam Clements, who could dunk a ball with three steps, could play defense brilliantly, but who couldn't hit a basket to save his soul. From: "Laurence Horn" Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 9:42 A > At 8:20 AM -0500 11/5/04, James A. Landau wrote: > > > >PS to Dennis Preston, about guarding the Big O: Back when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar > >was in high school (and known as "Lew Alcindor"), an opposing coach said > >"there's no such thing as a one-man basketball team" and ordered his > >team to let > >Alcindor do whatever he pleased, just guard the other four players. > >Alcindor's > >team lost 63-60, with Alcindor scoring 57 of the 60. > > > Let's see what I can find. Ah, under the aptly yet ineptly titled > SportsCentury web bio at espn.com, "A Dominate Force" (eggcorn > alert!), it is noted that Alcindor's teams during his high school and > first two college years went 126-1: "The only defeat came when > DeMatha snapped Power Memorial's 71-game winning streak in January > 1965." So that must have been the game to which Jim alludes. Another > site confirms the result but not the details, which are slightly less > impressive: the final score was 65-62 and Alcindor scored 38, not 57. > From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 5 15:40:05 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:40:05 -0500 Subject: Boojies (was CP Time) In-Reply-To: <36B9E2E6-2F39-11D9-B2EB-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 09:44, Wilson Gray wrote: > On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:04 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: >> Boojies/boogies/bougies (the latter the more common spelling in my >> experience) is still used enough that just last week I saw it >> graffitied across an advertisement on the Brooklyn-bound side of the >> First or Third Avenue stop of the L train in Manhattan. > But "boogie" is pronounced the same as the "boogie" in "boogie-woogie" > and is not class-specific. For example, a white character in the > groundbreaking 1950 movie, "No Way Out," says something like, "I saw a > boogie driving a Cadillac a block long!" as the whites of Beaver Canal > are firing themselves up to riot against the blacks of Niggertown. You are, of course, absolutely right. Grant Barrett From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 5 15:49:50 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:49:50 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: <0D109100-2EE3-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 23:27, Wilson Gray wrote: > Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go > barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern > relatives. The few current uses I find for this refer to a rural area meaning, I guess, an area Bigfoot is likely to inhabit. Do you have any cites older than, say, 15 years on this? Grant Barrett From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 5 15:52:47 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:52:47 -0600 Subject: nookie Message-ID: > BTW, do you recall the song, "Junk-Food Junkie," which had a > line something like, "Twice as good as an Oreo cookie, almost > as good as nookie"? I was shocked, shocked to hear "nookie" > on ordinary FM radio, with no bleeping, since I've always > felt that this word is obscene. I'm just old-school, I guess. > 1. Agree with your characterization of the word. 2. Here: http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=%22junk+food+junkie&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&u=ww w.ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/j/junk_food_junkie.txt&w=%22junk+food +junkie%22&d=FFB733F788&icp=1&.intl=us are the lyrics of "Junk Food Junkie", as I remember them (amazing how I can sing along in my head with a song I haven't heard in 20-odd years). The lyric you mention isn't in there, and I don't remember it from when the song was current. Maybe a different song? Or did you see Groce perform live, with an "extended" version? From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Fri Nov 5 16:30:13 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:30:13 -0500 Subject: Dust(-)bin In-Reply-To: <200411050506.AAA29429@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Barry Popik's second-latest post from Sikkim (wish I were there) gives the gloss DUST BIN = 'garbage can'. Looks to me like an Indian / Sikkimese recutting of the standard British English DUSTBIN; DUSTBIN is the only term used for that object in any British dialect I know, except for the abbreviation BIN (which also refers to any receptacle for waste, no matter what its size or where it's placed). Anyone else have that? Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From W-Stone at NEIU.EDU Fri Nov 5 16:45:33 2004 From: W-Stone at NEIU.EDU (William Stone) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:45:33 -0600 Subject: Dust(-)bin Message-ID: Yes, dustbin it is, certainly in the parts of Britain that I've lived in (W. Midlands, S.E. & S.W.). And the garbage man is usually the dustman although I have heard dustbin man. William Stone Northeastern Illinois University Damien Hall wrote: > Barry Popik's second-latest post from Sikkim (wish I were there) gives the gloss > DUST BIN = 'garbage can'. Looks to me like an Indian / Sikkimese recutting of > the standard British English DUSTBIN; DUSTBIN is the only term used for that > object in any British dialect I know, except for the abbreviation BIN (which > also refers to any receptacle for waste, no matter what its size or where it's > placed). Anyone else have that? > > Damien Hall > University of Pennsylvania From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Fri Nov 5 16:48:49 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:48:49 -0500 Subject: better had ~ had better: semantics In-Reply-To: <200411050506.AAA29429@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Wilson Gray and dInIs commented yesterday on 'better had', as in "Yo better had listen" = "It would be very advisable for you to listen" It sounds as if this might have the same motivation (pardon me for using such a vague term) as the standard British "You had better [listen, etc]" or "You'd better [listen, etc]" As in "better had", the "had" has no effect on the tense of the main verb, though I hadn't noticed that about my own dialect until Wilson pointed it out about his. Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Fri Nov 5 16:49:09 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:49:09 -0500 Subject: better had ~ had better: syntax In-Reply-To: <200411050506.AAA29429@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Another comment on 'better had', as in "Yo better had listen" = "It would be very advisable for you to listen" Is this difference in word order a reflection of what I think is an American tendency to be able to place adverbs before auxiliary verbs as a default, unemphatic position? In British English, adverbs can usually only be raised that high for purposes of emphasis; the raising will often be motivated by a need for comparison, and will be accompanied by contrastive stress, as in "New York buses are seldom red, but London buses always *have* been." My intuition is that many, if not most, Americans would use the following as a default version of that sentence: "New York buses seldom are red, but London buses *always* have been." A friend is doing some systematic work on this difference and is wondering whether the different tendencies reflect different prescriptions, or simply competing tendencies, where it so happens that one of the possibilities is favoured in American English and the other in British, though both are in fact available to both sets of speakers. Any comments? Thanks - Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 5 16:54:55 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:54:55 -0600 Subject: Navy slang -- Gundeck Message-ID: >From _All Hands_ (Bureau of Naval Personnel magazine), Sept 1968, letters to the editor: "Sir: I have been trying to find some clue as to the origin of the term "gundeck" as used to refer to the doctoring of records, reports and the like. I have asked many old salts about this and checked dictionaries of naval terms buthave been unable to come up with anything specific . . . . [answer] The origin of "gundeck" as a slang expression, meaning the altering or falsifying of records, is obscure ....." >From letters in the May 1968 issue: "SIR: After reading your explanation of the term gundecking in your September 1968 issue (Letters to the Editor, p. 28), and the continuing controversy on the subject since then, I believe a more colorful explanation is one which I ran across some years ago in an old book of naval slang and expressions. It describes how the commodore of an early British squadron received his position reports from his navigator who had a somewhat oversimplified method of determining his fix. By using the reports received from the other ships in company, the navigator obtained his position without so much as taking one celestial. He never had to leave the gundeck, the one below the main deck. As a result, it became known that at fix time, the navigator was below gundecking his position. As an added matter of interest, I ve also learned that gundecking also means pretending to be sober whereas smokestacking describes pretending to be drunk. -G. W. Crowninshield, LCDR, USN. SIR: In your September 1968 LTE section you invited readers to submit explanations for the term gundecking. I so submit. You are correct in assuming that the gundeck was the deck below the upper deck and one upon which no guns were actually mounted. It was the living quarters for the midshipmen. The term gundecking arises from the fact that this was also the place where the midshipmen did their navigation lessons. They would take sun lines at noon and celestial fixes at night, then go below to the gundeck, work out their calculations and show them to the navigation officer who taught the classes. Certain of these young men, however, had a special formula worked out ahead of time which aided them in arriving at a pretty safe and correct conclusion. They would note the noon or last position on the quarterdeck traverse board and determine an approximate current position by dead reckoning plotting, using the quarterdeck log information, such as speedand course changes from the last calculated position. With this dead reckoning position in hand, they would return to the gundeck and proceed to gundeck their navigation homework by simply working backwards from the dead reckoning position. -E. F. Speck, Jr." Also seen: " I maintain that in order to draw advance pay (better known as a dead horse ) ..." (Nov, 1968) From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 5 17:30:34 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:30:34 -0600 Subject: clam Message-ID: From National Review Online: http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_11_05_corner-archive.asp#045364 "In the sitcom business, we call that a clam. No one knows where the term originates, several people claim "clam" as their own, but the term describes any phrase which has had all traces of humor or wit sucked out by constant and careless use. "Houston, we have a problem." "Is that your final answer?" "Who are you are what have you done with Kathryn?" Clams can also be references that have lost what little zing they might have once had. Viagra. Gandhi. White House interns. Milli Vanilli. (You can see that sitcom writers are a rigorous bunch.) " From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 17:45:06 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:45:06 -0500 Subject: Boojies (was CP Time) In-Reply-To: <9A8A2DF2-2F33-11D9-AF26-000393AF7C50@worldnewyork.org> Message-ID: Ah, "bougies" I have seen--and presumably it's pronounced with [Z]? or not necessarily, since your alternate spellings use 'j' or 'g'? At 09:04 AM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >Boojies/boogies/bougies (the latter the more common spelling in my >experience) is still used enough that just last week I saw it >graffitied across an advertisement on the Brooklyn-bound side of the >First or Third Avenue stop of the L train in Manhattan. > >Grant Barrett > >>In a message dated Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:05:49 -0500, Wilson Gray >> writes: >> >>>>Boojies? (Sorry, Wilson!) >>> >>> A nickname/slang term for "members of the black bourgeoisie," From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 17:39:42 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:39:42 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: <0D109100-2EE3-11D9-BCE0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: This is totally unrelated to anything, but Wilson's "the point is that" reminded me of two alternate constructions: "the point being that" and "the reason being that." How common are these, and is there any regional siting for them (I doubt it, but--)? At 11:27 PM 11/4/2004, you wrote: >I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. > >Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go >barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >relatives. > >The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. > >Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the >title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two >different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the >English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG >cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the >record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. > >Above the magnolias : up North. > >I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for >AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian >friend says. From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Nov 5 18:13:20 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:13:20 -0800 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" Message-ID: Big-foot Land--the South? Dang, I thought you were talking about ORegon, Washington, and BC. Fritz >>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/04/04 08:27PM >>> I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern relatives. The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. Above the magnolias : up North. I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian friend says. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Nov 5 18:55:13 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 10:55:13 -0800 Subject: the curious grammar of Ohio In-Reply-To: <6B3D184A-2E79-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 4, 2004, at 7:51 AM, i wrote: > ... well, i've now read the book, and blaustein's praise of its > regional > specificity is much more puzzling than before... > i found only *four* features that might be described as truly regional, > and each occurs only *once* in the book (ok, i might have missed an > occurrence, but these features are really really thin on the ground): > "dern" for "darn" (what *is* its regional distribution?) DARE has "durn" (variants "dern", "dirn") as chiefly Sth, S Midl (but with only three spots in (southern) ohio -- many more in west virginia, kentucky, etc.). > "sack" 'bag'... further notes on banner's book: the characters are distinguished by their speech, some having many more colloquial or working-class variants than others. banner is *extremely* sparing with spelling "-in'" for an alveolar variant of "-ing" and with auxiliary reduction spellings, though presumably his characters would use these pronunciations very frequently. arnold From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:05:14 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:05:14 -0500 Subject: better had ~ had better: syntax In-Reply-To: <1099673349.418baf0575d13@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: >Another comment on 'better had', as in > >"Yo better had listen" = "It would be very advisable for you to listen" > >Is this difference in word order a reflection of what I think is an American >tendency to be able to place adverbs before auxiliary verbs as a default, >unemphatic position? I don't think so. This American is familiar with "had better"/"'d better" (or of course just plain "better") and not with "better had", so the variants are regionally and/or socially distributed within the U.S. Larry From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Nov 5 19:17:40 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:17:40 -0500 Subject: better had ~ had better: semantics In-Reply-To: <1099673329.418baef1bf182@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: >Wilson Gray and dInIs commented yesterday on 'better had', as in > >"Yo better had listen" = "It would be very advisable for you to listen" > >It sounds as if this might have the same motivation (pardon me for using >such a >vague term) as the standard British > >"You had better [listen, etc]" or "You'd better [listen, etc]" > >As in "better had", the "had" has no effect on the tense of the main verb, >though I hadn't noticed that about my own dialect until Wilson pointed it out >about his. > >Damien Hall >University of Pennsylvania ~~~~~~~~ I've a notion that "had better" is perhaps a sort of back-formation from " would better" passing through " 'd better". "Would" conforms to the real meaning of the expression than "had" does. And both are contracted that way. This explanation is not as clear as it might be, but perhaps you take my meaning. A. Murie ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:25:08 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:25:08 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <20041105050601.B96EDB24E3@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've always heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) Jesse notes: >>>>> I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. <<<<< It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or not such terms are used by the group referenced in them. On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. -- Mark A. Mandel [I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is perfect.] From rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:32:36 2004 From: rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU (Rachel E. Shuttlesworth) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:32:36 -0600 Subject: The reason/point Was: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: <200411051747.iA5HlFJk023997@bama.ua.edu> Message-ID: I've heard several people say (and others lament) the following: "The reason is because..." Rachel Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > This is totally unrelated to anything, but Wilson's "the point is that" > reminded me of two alternate constructions: "the point being that" and > "the reason being that." How common are these, and is there any regional > siting for them (I doubt it, but--)? > -- ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Rachel E. Shuttlesworth CLIR Post-Doctoral Fellow University of Alabama Libraries Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0266 Office: 205.348.4655/ Fax:205.348.8833 rachel.e.shuttlesworth at ua.edu From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:31:20 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:31:20 -0800 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Or is the stress different on the one that means the South? I.e., is the South "Big-FOOT-Land" (where people have big feet), vs. "BIGfoot Land" (the Northwest, where the Sasquatch roams)? Peter Mc. --On Friday, November 5, 2004 10:13 AM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: > Big-foot Land--the South? Dang, I thought you were talking about ORegon, > Washington, and BC. Fritz > >>>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/04/04 08:27PM >>> > I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. > > Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go > barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern > relatives. > > The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. > > Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the > title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two > different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the > English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG > cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the > record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. > > Above the magnolias : up North. > > I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for > AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian > friend says. ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 5 19:55:05 2004 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 11:55:05 -0800 Subject: better had ~ had better: syntax In-Reply-To: <1099673349.418baf0575d13@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: If by comment you mean what would I say, I'd say the first, the second sounding very artificial, unnatural. --- Damien Hall wrote: .... > > "New York buses are seldom red, but London buses > always *have* been." > > My intuition is that many, if not most, Americans > would use the following as a > default version of that sentence: > > "New York buses seldom are red, but London buses > *always* have been." > > A friend is doing some systematic work on this > difference and is wondering > whether the different tendencies reflect different > prescriptions, or simply > competing tendencies, where it so happens that one > of the possibilities is > favoured in American English and the other in > British, though both are in fact > available to both sets of speakers. > > Any comments? > > Thanks - > > Damien Hall > University of Pennsylvania > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:53:45 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:53:45 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <20041105142444.O19992@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation of teaching, research, and service! At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've always >heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) > >Jesse notes: > >>>>> > I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. > <<<<< > >It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or not such >terms are used by the group referenced in them. > >On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon >time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a >Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. > >-- Mark A. Mandel >[I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >perfect.] From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 19:57:40 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 14:57:40 -0500 Subject: The reason/point being In-Reply-To: <418BD554.2080407@bama.ua.edu> Message-ID: Yes, this is common, and goes way back, I suspect (my h.s. teacher railed against it too). But the substitution of 'being' for 'is' is what interests me. I had never heard this substitution before coming to southern Ohio, but I suspect it's generational rather than regional, since I get it in student writing as well as in speech. At 02:32 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >I've heard several people say (and others lament) the following: >"The reason is because..." > >Rachel > >Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>This is totally unrelated to anything, but Wilson's "the point is that" >>reminded me of two alternate constructions: "the point being that" and >>"the reason being that." How common are these, and is there any regional >>siting for them (I doubt it, but--)? > >-- >~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ > >Rachel E. Shuttlesworth >CLIR Post-Doctoral Fellow >University of Alabama Libraries >Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0266 >Office: 205.348.4655/ Fax:205.348.8833 >rachel.e.shuttlesworth at ua.edu From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:25:58 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:25:58 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041105145140.0323de00@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might >better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation >of teaching, research, and service! And that was .... ? Bethany From eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:29:44 2004 From: eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (J. Eulenberg) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:29:44 -0800 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <200411051320.iA5DKcU0021156@mxe1.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be from the same hamlet in Kentucky. Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg From davemarc at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 5 17:16:56 2004 From: davemarc at PANIX.COM (davemarc) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:16:56 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" Message-ID: I thought this item might be of interest: http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/street_slang_update_brain_doesn t_mean_smart.php David From maberry at MYUW.NET Fri Nov 5 20:37:21 2004 From: maberry at MYUW.NET (Allen Maberry) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:37:21 -0800 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <200411052031.iA5KV3oM014957@mxe3.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: There are about 9 posts over the past several years on the history of burgoo in the ADS-L archives. allen maberry at myuw.net On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, J. Eulenberg wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "J. Eulenberg" > Subject: Burgoo > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to > see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our > friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be > from the same hamlet in Kentucky. > > Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg > From Beckymercuri at AOL.COM Fri Nov 5 20:37:14 2004 From: Beckymercuri at AOL.COM (Beckymercuri at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:37:14 EST Subject: Burgoo Message-ID: In a message dated 11/5/2004 3:31:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU writes: I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be from the same hamlet in Kentucky. Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg I think if you do a search under "burgoo" and the author as "bapopik," you'll find some information. From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 5 20:43:51 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:43:51 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <00d501c4c377$138c41a0$2fc654a6@gmsc20b> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: > I thought this item might be of interest: > > http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/street_slang_update_brain_doesn > t_mean_smart.php That's hysterical. I'm surprised no one caught it. Jesse Sheidlower OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 20:43:54 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:43:54 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:49 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Nov 4, 2004, at 23:27, Wilson Gray wrote: >> Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go >> barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >> relatives. > > The few current uses I find for this refer to a rural area meaning, I > guess, an area Bigfoot is likely to inhabit. Do you have any cites > older than, say, 15 years on this? > > Grant Barrett > Unfortunately, I have no cites at all. Most of the stuff that I know that's not already in either DARE and HDAS is pretty close to folkloric: if you grow up black, you hear your grandparents, your parents, men hanging out on the corner or in the barbershop using certain locutions and you learn them. In random cases, I can remember when I first heard a given locution. Mainly, the best that I can do is to remember the circumstances. In this case, I met the teen-aged children of a family that had moved to St. Louis from Cincinnati, or "Cincinnata," as they pronounced it. When they found out that my family had moved up from the South (according to some sources, Marshall, Texas, is the western terminus of the old "Black Belt"), they began to tease me about being from "down in Big-Foot Land." I remember the year as 1952, because I'm hypersensitive to teasing and I was really, really pissed off. But I'm partially blind in one eye and very nearsighted in the other, so it wasn't as though I was in a position to kick ass. So, I just had to take it. FWIW, it's from these same kids that I learned the locution, "cop a squat," a couple of years later. IMO, just about everything that can be found in print and reliably dated is already in DARE and/or HDAS. For example, while I was looking for "Big-Foot Land," I came across "busthead," with uses that I'm familiar with and uses new to me whose accuracy I have no reason to doubt. That simply amazed me. Till that moment, I'd assumed that "busthead" was a local term used only in a couple of the 'hoodz of St. Louis. It's taken me a while, but I've learned to double-check DARE & HDAS *before* I presume to post something "new." -Wilson Gray From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:39:59 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:39:59 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 03:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > >Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might > >better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation > >of teaching, research, and service! > >And that was .... ? > >Bethany Oh gosh, I can't remember. First we looked at him open-mouthed, then we smiled, then someone cracked a joke, and then we tuned him out. (Don't get me wrong; he's a great guy. But most of us just aren't that organized, or time-bound, or neat, or self-regulated. Maybe we should be, but . . . .) From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:48:01 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:48:01 -0500 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'll beat Allan Metcalf in pointing out that 'burgoo' is in his _How We Talk: American Regional English Today_, p. 47: Burgoo is "a spicy stew cooked outdoors in a kettle, which you can also get in central Illinois." That doesn't explain its origin, of course, but I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR people. The varied mix of pork, mutton, and fowl sounded interesting though. . . . At 03:29 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to >see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our >friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be >from the same hamlet in Kentucky. > >Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:50:46 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:50:46 -0500 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Julia, Hardly the same hamlet! It is the state dish. A stew y'all would call it, I reckon. See the recipe on p. 167 of The United State Regional Cookbook, ed. by Ruth Berolzheimer. Chicago: Culinary Arts Institute, 1939. Here is the list of ingredients: 600 lbs lean soup meat 200 lbs fat hens 2000 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced 5 bushels cabbage, chopped 200 lbs onions 60 #10 cans tomatoes 24 #10 cans puree of tomatoes 24 #10 cans of carrots 18 #10 cans of corn Red pepper and salt to taste Season with Worcestershire, Tabasco, or A-1 sauce In season, add one dozen squirrels to each 100 gallons. The beginning of the recipe notes it will make 1200 gallons. It is the recipe of J. T. Looney of Lexington who, we are told, is (was, I reckon, now) Kentucky's most famous burgoo-maker. We are also warned that this is a dish not to be attempted by an amateur. It simmers 15 to 20 hours over outdoor wood fires in big iron pots. dInIs PS: There is an alternative recipe on p. 168 for "small parties." >I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to >see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our >friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be >from the same hamlet in Kentucky. > >Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:53:33 2004 From: eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (J. Eulenberg) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 12:53:33 -0800 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <200411052050.iA5Koq6l020527@mxe3.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: The recipe you quote certainly does make it sound like the state dish! There's enough to feed at least half the state -- maybe more. Thanks for the response! Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: Burgoo > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Julia, > > Hardly the same hamlet! It is the state dish. A stew y'all would call > it, I reckon. See the recipe on p. 167 of The United State Regional > Cookbook, ed. by Ruth Berolzheimer. Chicago: Culinary Arts Institute, > 1939. Here is the list of ingredients: > > 600 lbs lean soup meat > 200 lbs fat hens > 2000 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced > 5 bushels cabbage, chopped > 200 lbs onions > 60 #10 cans tomatoes > 24 #10 cans puree of tomatoes > 24 #10 cans of carrots > 18 #10 cans of corn > Red pepper and salt to taste > Season with Worcestershire, Tabasco, or A-1 sauce > > In season, add one dozen squirrels to each 100 gallons. > > The beginning of the recipe notes it will make 1200 gallons. It is > the recipe of J. T. Looney of Lexington who, we are told, is (was, I > reckon, now) Kentucky's most famous burgoo-maker. We are also warned > that this is a dish not to be attempted by an amateur. It simmers 15 > to 20 hours over outdoor wood fires in big iron pots. > > dInIs > > PS: There is an alternative recipe on p. 168 for "small parties." > > > > > > > >> I heard this term on NPR yesterday morning, and I got up half expecting to >> see it discussed in the list already . . . nothing, even today! Or is our >> friend still in the library searching? Everyone using it seemed to be >> from the same hamlet in Kentucky. >> >> Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 5 20:53:32 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:53:32 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041105145140.0323de00@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: Once when I taught in New York I told a colleague who I was driving to a conference that I wouls pick him up around 7:10 or 7:15. He asked "Which?" Reckon I was usin some kinda time he wasn't used to. Coulda been HP time. dInIs >Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might >better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation >of teaching, research, and service! > >At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >>Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've always >>heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) >> >>Jesse notes: >>>>>>> >> I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >>religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. >> <<<<< >> >>It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or not such >>terms are used by the group referenced in them. >> >>On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon >>time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a >>Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. >> >>-- Mark A. Mandel >>[I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >>perfect.] -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 5 20:55:13 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:55:13 -0500 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041105154201.0326e288@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 03:48:01PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland > term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR > people. It is in DARE, which labels it "esp. KY". Jesse Sheidlower OED From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 21:04:39 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:04:39 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041105153550.03275060@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: --On Friday, November 5, 2004 3:39 PM -0500 Beverly Flanigan wrote: > At 03:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> >> > Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we >> > might better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 >> > evaluation of teaching, research, and service! >> >> And that was .... ? >> >> Bethany > > Oh gosh, I can't remember. First we looked at him open-mouthed, then we > smiled, then someone cracked a joke, and then we tuned him out. (Don't > get > me wrong; he's a great guy. But most of us just aren't that organized, or > time-bound, or neat, or self-regulated. Maybe we should be, but . . . .) When my ex-husband taught intro computer science at a major state university, back in the 70s, a problem arose with over-enrollment relative to terminals in the computer lab (back when virtually no students had their own computers). The lab was open 100 hours a week, and there were still students who couldn't get enough computer time to finish their assignments. One bright bulb on the faculty suggested keeping the lab open 200 hours a week. From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Nov 5 21:05:41 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:05:41 -0800 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: Don't get it. >>> flanigan at OHIOU.EDU 11/05/04 11:53AM >>> Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we might better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 evaluation of teaching, research, and service! At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've always >heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) > >Jesse notes: > >>>>> > I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. > <<<<< > >It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or not such >terms are used by the group referenced in them. > >On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon >time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a >Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. > >-- Mark A. Mandel >[I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >perfect.] From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Nov 5 21:09:46 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 13:09:46 -0800 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: No way, Mormon Standard Time definitely means LATE. If one of my fellow believers ever said "I'll be there at 5:06, I wouldn't expect him until 5:25ish." There is even a play on this in the lampoon movie "The Singles Ward." Fritz >>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/05/04 11:25AM >>> On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or "Mormon time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme punctuality: that a Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at 5:06. -- Mark A. Mandel [I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is perfect.] From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 5 21:13:37 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:13:37 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <20041105204351.GB24122@panix.com> Message-ID: FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's not that common, even on the pornonet. Grant Barrett > On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >> I thought this item might be of interest: >> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >> t_mean_smart.php From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 21:44:37 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:44:37 -0500 Subject: nookie In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:52 AM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: nookie > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> BTW, do you recall the song, "Junk-Food Junkie," which had a >> line something like, "Twice as good as an Oreo cookie, almost >> as good as nookie"? I was shocked, shocked to hear "nookie" >> on ordinary FM radio, with no bleeping, since I've always >> felt that this word is obscene. I'm just old-school, I guess. >> > > 1. Agree with your characterization of the word. > > 2. Here: > http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=%22junk+food+junkie&ei=UTF > -8&fl=0&u=ww > w.ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/j/ > junk_food_junkie.txt&w=%22junk+food > +junkie%22&d=FFB733F788&icp=1&.intl=us > > are the lyrics of "Junk Food Junkie", as I remember them (amazing how > I can > sing along in my head with a song I haven't heard in 20-odd years). > The > lyric you mention isn't in there, and I don't remember it from when > the song > was current. Maybe a different song? Or did you see Groce perform > live, > with an "extended" version? > This is the same song, no doubt. The words don't ring a bell. But I went to AMG and played a sample and it is what I remember. This is the best explanation that I can come up with. I actually heard it on a campus radio station, which is really not quite the same as "ordinary" FM. And I *think* that the relevant line was *spoken* at the end of the song, where Warner could have easily erased it for regular release. -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 22:09:52 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:09:52 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 2:31 PM, Peter A. McGraw wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Peter A. McGraw" > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Or is the stress different on the one that means the South? I.e., is > the > South "Big-FOOT-Land" (where people have big feet), vs. "BIGfoot Land" > (the > Northwest, where the Sasquatch roams)? > > Peter Mc. It has the same stress pattern as the Northwest version. When I wrote, I had forgotten about *the* Bigfoot, which is kinda strange, seeing as how I once had a heavy-footed upstairs neighbor that I called "Bigfoot" - behind her back, of course - in honor of the Sasquatch. -Wilson Gray > > --On Friday, November 5, 2004 10:13 AM -0800 FRITZ JUENGLING > wrote: > >> Big-foot Land--the South? Dang, I thought you were talking about >> ORegon, >> Washington, and BC. Fritz >> >>>>> wilson.gray at RCN.COM 11/04/04 08:27PM >>> >> I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. >> >> Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go >> barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >> relatives. >> >> The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. >> >> Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the >> title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two >> different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the >> English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG >> cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the >> record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. >> >> Above the magnolias : up North. >> >> I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for >> AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian >> friend says. > > > > ***************************************************************** > Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon > ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 22:22:42 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:22:42 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 3:53 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: CP Time > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Once when I taught in New York I told a colleague who I was driving > to a conference that I wouls pick him up around 7:10 or 7:15. He > asked "Which?" Reckon I was usin some kinda time he wasn't used to. > Coulda been HP time. > > dInIs You obviously mint inny time 'tween sebm 'n' sebm-thetty, dInIs, seem like t'me, though that is rather early. As Richard Pryor has pointed out, don't nothin be hapnin 'fo' lebm-thetty. -Wilson > >> Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we >> might >> better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 >> evaluation >> of teaching, research, and service! >> >> At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >>> Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've >>> always >>> heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) >>> >>> Jesse notes: >>>>>>>> >>> I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >>> religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. >>> <<<<< >>> >>> It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or >>> not such >>> terms are used by the group referenced in them. >>> >>> On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or >>> "Mormon >>> time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme >>> punctuality: that a >>> Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at >>> 5:06. >>> >>> -- Mark A. Mandel >>> [I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >>> perfect.] > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 22:27:40 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:27:40 -0500 Subject: The reason/point being In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yes, it does go way back. When I was in grade school in the 'Forties, "The reason is because" was right up there with "In the first beginning." Wilson Gray On Nov 5, 2004, at 2:57 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: The reason/point being > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Yes, this is common, and goes way back, I suspect (my h.s. teacher > railed > against it too). But the substitution of 'being' for 'is' is what > interests me. I had never heard this substitution before coming to > southern Ohio, but I suspect it's generational rather than regional, > since > I get it in student writing as well as in speech. > > At 02:32 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >> I've heard several people say (and others lament) the following: >> "The reason is because..." >> >> Rachel >> >> Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>> Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> ---------- >>> >>> This is totally unrelated to anything, but Wilson's "the point is >>> that" >>> reminded me of two alternate constructions: "the point being that" >>> and >>> "the reason being that." How common are these, and is there any >>> regional >>> siting for them (I doubt it, but--)? >> >> -- >> ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ >> >> Rachel E. Shuttlesworth >> CLIR Post-Doctoral Fellow >> University of Alabama Libraries >> Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0266 >> Office: 205.348.4655/ Fax:205.348.8833 >> rachel.e.shuttlesworth at ua.edu > From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 5 22:39:10 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:39:10 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <35AEADC0-2F79-11D9-B2EB-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Wilson, Your stuff is good cept for the r-lessness (e.g., thetty, for me at least). I'm one rhotic sumbitch. Sides, wadn't my fault they start meetings in NY so dang early. dInIs >On Nov 5, 2004, at 3:53 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>Subject: Re: CP Time >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>Once when I taught in New York I told a colleague who I was driving >>to a conference that I wouls pick him up around 7:10 or 7:15. He >>asked "Which?" Reckon I was usin some kinda time he wasn't used to. >>Coulda been HP time. >> >>dInIs > >You obviously mint inny time 'tween sebm 'n' sebm-thetty, dInIs, seem >like t'me, though that is rather early. As Richard Pryor has pointed >out, don't nothin be hapnin 'fo' lebm-thetty. > >-Wilson > >> >>>Our department chair, who is Mormon, instructed us recently on how we >>>might >>>better parcel out the hours of the day to reflect the 40-40-20 >>>evaluation >>>of teaching, research, and service! >>> >>>At 02:25 PM 11/5/2004, you wrote: >>>>Alice and Jesse speak of "Jewish time". It seems to me that I've >>>>always >>>>heard this expression from my relatives. (We are Jewish.) >>>> >>>>Jesse notes: >>>>>>>>> >>>> I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, >>>>religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. >>>> <<<<< >>>> >>>>It seems to me that there's a significant difference in whether or >>>>not such >>>>terms are used by the group referenced in them. >>>> >>>>On the other hand, "Mormon standard time", which Fritz cites, or >>>>"Mormon >>>>time" as I have heard it, I was told referred to extreme >>>>punctuality: that a >>>>Mormon would say "I'll be there at 5:06" and appear at your door at >>>>5:06. >>>> >>>>-- Mark A. Mandel >>>>[I talk, Dragon NaturallySpeaking types, I correct. Neither of us is >>>>perfect.] >> >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>University Distinguished Professor >>Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian and African Languages >>Wells Hall A-740 >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>Office: (517) 353-0740 >>Fax: (517) 432-2736 -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 5 22:43:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 17:43:49 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: But why "demeaning to women," especially? Don't they also get brain? Men don't feel demeaned when they give women brain. So I've heard. -Wilson Gray On Nov 5, 2004, at 3:43 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >> I thought this item might be of interest: >> >> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >> t_mean_smart.php > > That's hysterical. I'm surprised no one caught it. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 5 22:48:55 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:48:55 -0600 Subject: numerical acronym Message-ID: Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly formed by a numerical digit(s)? K-9 P2P (peer-to-peer) many vanity license plates "b4" for "before" From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Fri Nov 5 23:04:55 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 18:04:55 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49737@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: --On Friday, November 5, 2004 4:48 PM -0600 "Mullins, Bill" wrote: > Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly > formed by a numerical digit(s)? > > K-9 > P2P (peer-to-peer) > many vanity license plates > "b4" for "before" I don't know if this is "official" terminology, but aren't these a kind of rebus spelling? From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Nov 5 23:17:38 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:17:38 -0800 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 12:50 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > Hardly the same hamlet! It is the state dish. A stew y'all would call > it, I reckon. See the recipe on p. 167 of The United State Regional > Cookbook, ed. by Ruth Berolzheimer.... > In season, add one dozen squirrels to each 100 gallons. > > The beginning of the recipe notes it will make 1200 gallons... this is such a big project it ought to be called Texas Burgoo. i don't think i ever had kentucky burgoo, but i was told, decades ago, that burgoo could be made without the squirrels, but that they were essential for True Burgoo. arnold, pining for kentucky country hams and beaten biscuits (cheese grits i can make myself) From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Nov 5 23:34:22 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 18:34:22 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49737@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: Bill Mullins asks: > Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly >formed by a numerical digit(s)? > >K-9 >P2P (peer-to-peer) >many vanity license plates >"b4" for "before" ~~~~~~~~~ Probably "rebus" would cover these. They aren't properly acronyms since they don't spell new words in the usual way, as in, e.g., POTUS. A. Murie From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 5 23:47:58 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 15:47:58 -0800 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" Message-ID: I came across a single printed citation of "Bigfoot Country" (or maybe "Land") in the sense Wilson refers to long, long ago, probably in (or published in) the late '60s. Since it was still a "oncer" after a couple of decades, I dumped it. Maybe it's buried under something somewhere. JL Wilson Gray wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Wilson Gray Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Nov 5, 2004, at 10:49 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Nov 4, 2004, at 23:27, Wilson Gray wrote: >> Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern blacks go >> barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >> relatives. > > The few current uses I find for this refer to a rural area meaning, I > guess, an area Bigfoot is likely to inhabit. Do you have any cites > older than, say, 15 years on this? > > Grant Barrett > Unfortunately, I have no cites at all. Most of the stuff that I know that's not already in either DARE and HDAS is pretty close to folkloric: if you grow up black, you hear your grandparents, your parents, men hanging out on the corner or in the barbershop using certain locutions and you learn them. In random cases, I can remember when I first heard a given locution. Mainly, the best that I can do is to remember the circumstances. In this case, I met the teen-aged children of a family that had moved to St. Louis from Cincinnati, or "Cincinnata," as they pronounced it. When they found out that my family had moved up from the South (according to some sources, Marshall, Texas, is the western terminus of the old "Black Belt"), they began to tease me about being from "down in Big-Foot Land." I remember the year as 1952, because I'm hypersensitive to teasing and I was really, really pissed off. But I'm partially blind in one eye and very nearsighted in the other, so it wasn't as though I was in a position to kick ass. So, I just had to take it. FWIW, it's from these same kids that I learned the locution, "cop a squat," a couple of years later. IMO, just about everything that can be found in print and reliably dated is already in DARE and/or HDAS. For example, while I was looking for "Big-Foot Land," I came across "busthead," with uses that I'm familiar with and uses new to me whose accuracy I have no reason to doubt. That simply amazed me. Till that moment, I'd assumed that "busthead" was a local term used only in a couple of the 'hoodz of St. Louis. It's taken me a while, but I've learned to double-check DARE & HDAS *before* I presume to post something "new." -Wilson Gray __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Sat Nov 6 00:06:46 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:06:46 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" Message-ID: Wilson Gray posts: > I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. > > Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern > blacks go > barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern > relatives. > This may explain a stereotype of black people that I have encountered in several places in 1820s newspapers: the idea that black people are notable for having a longer heel than white people. Actually, I can find only one citation in my notes, though I think there should be at least one other, somewhere. This is from a strange parody of a soliloquy purportedly delivered by a black actor at The African Theatre: If our heel?s long, and our feet splay are found We take a firmer grip of parent ground; Large are our bladders ? copious are our brains; And we can dream ? O yes! ? of Afric?s plains! St. Tammany?s Magazine, # 4, December 4, 1821, p. 52. I have no idea about the bladder notion, which I haven't encountered elsewhere. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. ----- Original Message ----- From: Wilson Gray Date: Thursday, November 4, 2004 11:27 pm Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. > > Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the > title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two > different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the > English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG > cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the > record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. > > Above the magnolias : up North. > > I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for > AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian > friend says. > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Nov 6 00:16:19 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:16:19 -0800 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <00d501c4c377$138c41a0$2fc654a6@gmsc20b> Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:16 AM, davemarc provided a "brain" website. interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes on semantics, language use, and language change. the development seems to be entirely in the expressions "get/give brain", which cover exactly the territory of "get/give head". the motivation for the development is surely concealment, but otherwise it's just metonymy, with the brain part used to refer to the head whole (well, strictly speaking, to the referent of "head" in the expressions denoting oral sex). not unlike, say, the development of the modern russian word for 'head' from a (presumably) slang use of a word for 'skull' (borrowed from latin "calvus"). in fact, "get/give head" is a metonymy too, since what you receive from or provide to your partner in oral sex is not really the whole head, but just the mouth, in particular the lips and tongue. and, finally, there's the shift from the count noun "head", denoting a body part, to a mass noun, denoting an activity saliently involving that body part. another kind of metonymy. arnold, omigod, it's *everywhere* From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 6 00:20:44 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:20:44 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <155D33C4-2F89-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: >interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes >on semantics, language use, and language change. > >the development seems to be entirely in the expressions "get/give >brain", which cover exactly the territory of "get/give head". the >motivation for the development is surely concealment, but otherwise >it's just metonymy, with the brain part used to refer to the head whole >(well, strictly speaking, to the referent of "head" in the expressions >denoting oral sex). not unlike, say, the development of the modern >russian word for 'head' from a (presumably) slang use of a word for >'skull' (borrowed from latin "calvus"). > >in fact, "get/give head" is a metonymy too, since what you receive from >or provide to your partner in oral sex is not really the whole head, >but just the mouth, in particular the lips and tongue. > >and, finally, there's the shift from the count noun "head", denoting a >body part, to a mass noun, denoting an activity saliently involving >that body part. another kind of metonymy. And I suppose everyone's already familiar with "get/give [some] skull" in English in the same sense? -- Doug Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Nov 6 02:22:06 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:22:06 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym In-Reply-To: <43D13811931876B412E7E726@[130.132.95.94]> Message-ID: At 6:04 PM -0500 11/5/04, Alice Faber wrote: >--On Friday, November 5, 2004 4:48 PM -0600 "Mullins, Bill" > wrote: > >> Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly >>formed by a numerical digit(s)? >> >>K-9 >>P2P (peer-to-peer) >>many vanity license plates >>"b4" for "before" > >I don't know if this is "official" terminology, but aren't these a kind of >rebus spelling? I've always thought of official rebuses as involving pictures too. The former kind I think of as alphanumeric, but I don't know the specific term. As Allen Walker Read relates (see Chapters 10-15 of his collected lexicography in PADS 86), there was a craze for what were then called "laconics" in the 1830s and 1840s, including (but not limited to) the "b4" above, as illustrated by this anonymous poem reprinted in 1832 entitled "To Miss Catherine Jay, of Utica": Oh KTJ is far B4 All other maids IC; Her XLNC I adore As a lovely NTT. As I've suggested here before, the popularity of such "cabalistic" readings in the "O.K." (< "oll korrect") era was evidently not hindered by the fact that communication back then was either by newspapers or F2F, with very little texting or IMing in evidence. In any case, the "B4" in the above poem is the only alphanumeric laconic I've come across in Read's citations or the MoA databases for the antebellum era. I'd be very interested if anyone else could find others from that period. Larry From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 6 02:26:33 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:26:33 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 7:06 PM, George Thompson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: George Thompson > Subject: Re: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray posts: > >> I didn't find these in HDAS or in DARE. >> >> Big-Foot Land : the South; the point is that, since Southern >> blacks go >> barefooted, they have bigger feet than their shoe-wearing Northern >> relatives. >> > This may explain a stereotype of black people that I have encountered > in several places in 1820s newspapers: the idea that black people are > notable for having a longer heel than white people. Actually, I can > find only one citation in my notes, though I think there should be at > least one other, somewhere. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that "Big-Foot Land" is an example of black-on-black violence. But, yes, long-heeled-ness is one of those stereotypes partially based on fact that goes way back. All that I have to do is to look at my own bare foot and then to look at the bare foot of any random white person to see that my heel does indeed appear to be longer by comparison. Back in the bad old days, when anthropology still provided the primary underpinning of "scientific" racism, I came across, to my great surprise, what might be termed a "liberal" anthropology text which proposed to debunk various stereotypes regarding black people. One chapter compared and contrasted both blacks and whites to apes. It pointed out that apes have straight hair/fur, not curly or wooly; that they have thick brow ridges; that under their hair/fur, the skin of many apes lacks pigmentation; that apes have extremely thin lips; that apes have no buttocks to speak of; and that the feet of apes have little or no heel. Similar features are more typical of whites than blacks. The accompanying text went on to address the apparent long-heeled-ness, stating that, if one had only the skeleton of a foot to go by, it wouldn't be possible to tell the foot of a black person from the foot of a white person. However, in life, black people have a thick, extra layer of flesh around the heel that causes said heel to appear longer. This book was published some time in the late '50's or the early '60's. I haven't read another anthropological text. I once glanced through one that, on one page, featured what purported to be a chart of all possible Jewish nasal profiles for the discerning anti-Semite and, on another page, stated that the Japanese agreed with the author's contention that blacks have the foulest body odor on earth. This book was published by OUP and had a 1977 imprint. So, I've given up on anthro. -Wilson Gray > > This is from a strange parody of a soliloquy purportedly delivered by > a black actor at The African Theatre: > If our heel?s long, and our feet splay are found > We take a firmer grip of parent ground; > Large are our bladders ? copious are our brains; > And we can dream ? O yes! ? of Afric?s plains! > St. Tammany?s Magazine, # 4, December 4, 1821, p. 52. > > I have no idea about the bladder notion, which I haven't encountered > elsewhere. > > GAT > > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African > Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Wilson Gray > Date: Thursday, November 4, 2004 11:27 pm > Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" >> The Cotton Curtain : the Mason-Dixon Line in its extended meaning. >> >> Behind the sun : down South; over 60,000 Google hits (this is also the >> title of an R&B instrumental recorded before 1957 by at least two >> different bands, the name of a vocal by the Red-Hot Chili Peppers, the >> English title of a Brazilian movie, etc., etc.) reduced to one AMG >> cite. However, the earliest AMG cite, 1959, is too recent to be the >> record used as a themesong by a local St. Louis DJ ca.1953. >> >> Above the magnolias : up North. >> >> I know that this info may be worthless without any dates, except for >> AMG's too-recent date of 1959. But, "what the hell, eh?" as a Canadian >> friend says. >> > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sat Nov 6 02:42:29 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:42:29 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <155D33C4-2F89-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: At 4:16 PM -0800 11/5/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: >On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:16 AM, davemarc provided a "brain" website. > >interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes >on semantics, language use, and language change. Good idea. I'll try it out this week; we're just up to semantic change, taboo avoidance, and such. > >the development seems to be entirely in the expressions "get/give >brain", which cover exactly the territory of "get/give head". the >motivation for the development is surely concealment, but otherwise >it's just metonymy, with the brain part used to refer to the head whole >(well, strictly speaking, to the referent of "head" in the expressions >denoting oral sex). not unlike, say, the development of the modern >russian word for 'head' from a (presumably) slang use of a word for >'skull' (borrowed from latin "calvus"). cf. also Fr. t?te 'head' < Late Latin testa 'skull' < Classical Latin testa 'shell' (metaphor followed by metonymy) > >in fact, "get/give head" is a metonymy too, since what you receive from >or provide to your partner in oral sex is not really the whole head, >but just the mouth, in particular the lips and tongue. Well, I suppose we do have to allow for variant practices... larry From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Nov 6 02:51:08 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:51:08 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <294A87A1-2F7C-11D9-B2EB-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 05:43:49PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > But why "demeaning to women," especially? Don't they also get brain? > Men don't feel demeaned when they give women brain. So I've heard. While _head_ can refer to either fellatio or cunnilingus, I've never seen _brain_ (or _skull_, for that matter) refer to the latter. And I do think the expression is fairly widespread now. Perhaps there's an example of 'cunnilingus' out there, but if it exists, it must be pretty rare. Jesse Sheidlower OED From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Sat Nov 6 03:08:50 2004 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:08:50 -0800 Subject: Snarky In-Reply-To: <200410140314.1ci2CG1Vc3NZFpJ0@mx-a065a32.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: I heard snarky again today in a movie review where one movie was not as snarky as another, or something like that. I was driving, so couldn't get an exact citation. Although Grant argues it works for the Bush example below, I wonder if the AHD4 meaning is what the writer or the movie reviewer really intended. Benjamin Barrett Ballard Visualization Complete > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Grant Barrett > Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 2:57 AM > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > > There's a 10,000 to one cite ratio of > snark-as-negative to snark-as-positive. "Sometimes mistaken > for a snotty or arrogant attitude" should be "; a snotty or > arrogant attitude." There's no mistaking about it. > > I also don't see why irascible doesn't work as a def in the > CNN paragraph. > > On Oct 14, 2004, at 04:04, Benjamin J Barrett wrote: > > > The AHD4 online gives: > > "Slang Irritable or short-tempered; irascible." > > > > The Urban Dictionary > > (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snarky) gives: > > "(adjective) describes a witty mannerism, personality, > or behavior > > that is a combination of sarcasm and cynicism. Usually > accepted as a > > complimentary term. Snark is sometimes mistaken for a snotty or > > arrogant attitude." > > > > Here's a citation that doesn't surely doesn't fit in the AHD > > definition, though I'm not 100% sure about the UD > definition (citation > > from > > http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/13/viewer.reax/): > > > > "Tim from Maryland: > > > > "While Kerry sometimes leans too heavily on statistics and arcane > > figures, it is clear he has a command of the issues impacting the > > lives of most Americans, and has a thoughtful plan to address each > > one. Bush is clearly looking past the questions for any > opportunity to > > place a prepared one-liner fed him by a speech writer. If > Bush spent > > his energy studying the issues facing this country, and > spent a little > > less time being snarky, he might just learn about what the > rest of us > > need from our president." From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Sat Nov 6 09:06:56 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 04:06:56 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <155D33C4-2F89-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: Two more data points: "hanging brains" is to dangle one's scrotum through the fly of one's pants and "to brain" someone is to hang one's scrotum next to or on the face or head of a sleeping person, usually so a picture can be taken. Grant Barrett On Nov 5, 2004, at 19:16, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:16 AM, davemarc provided a "brain" website. > > interesting development, suitable for energizing undergraduate classes > on semantics, language use, and language change. From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Sat Nov 6 13:39:40 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 08:39:40 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" Message-ID: As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! (though not arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so far on SCRUMP. (forwarded to Ed Gates) t.m.p. www.paikeday.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grant Barrett" To: Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Grant Barrett > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: > > http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ > > The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's > not that common, even on the pornonet. > > Grant Barrett > >> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>> I thought this item might be of interest: >>> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>> t_mean_smart.php > From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Sat Nov 6 14:11:56 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:11:56 -0500 Subject: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" Message-ID: correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Paikeday" To: Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Thomas Paikeday > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! (though not > arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so far > on > SCRUMP. > (forwarded to Ed Gates) > t.m.p. > www.paikeday.net > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Grant Barrett" > To: > Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail >> header ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Grant Barrett >> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >> >> http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >> >> The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's >> not that common, even on the pornonet. >> >> Grant Barrett >> >>> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>> I thought this item might be of interest: >>>> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>> t_mean_smart.php >> From preston at MSU.EDU Sat Nov 6 14:51:47 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 09:51:47 -0500 Subject: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <014d01c4c40a$93c27bd0$a6c96395@paikeday> Message-ID: >I was just about to haul off and write in about the loose-penned >failure to distinguish between "ain't had no" and "didn't have no." dInIs PS: Wilson, don't write in and tell us about "ain't have no" = "didn't have no." I'm assuming Thomas Paikeday does not send us messages in AAVE (with preterite "ain't"). >correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Thomas Paikeday" >To: >Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM >Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > >>---------------------- Information from the mail >>header ----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: Thomas Paikeday >>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! (though not >>arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so far >>on >>SCRUMP. >>(forwarded to Ed Gates) >>t.m.p. >>www.paikeday.net >> >>----- Original Message ----- >>From: "Grant Barrett" >>To: >>Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM >>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >> >>>---------------------- Information from the mail >>>header ----------------------- >>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>Poster: Grant Barrett >>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>>FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >>> >>>http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >>> >>>The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's >>>not that common, even on the pornonet. >>> >>>Grant Barrett >>> >>>>On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>>>I thought this item might be of interest: >>>>>http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>>>street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>>>t_mean_smart.php -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From AAllan at AOL.COM Sat Nov 6 18:53:00 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 13:53:00 EST Subject: Help wanted - History of English - U of Wisconsin - Spring 2005 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 08:54:41 -0600 From: "Cecilia E. Ford" The English department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison is in desperate need of a temporary lecturer next semester for History of English (as we were for phonetics/phonology and dialects last semester). If you have any leads, please let me and Betsy know! (see below). -Ceci We continue to have a gap in our English Linguistics required courses this year, given the retirement of both Marian Bean and Charles Scott. Rebecca Roeder taught English phonology and American dialects this semester, but she must now return to MSU to complete her dissertation. We will be working to get an English phonetics/phonology/dialects hire this year ( that is, working to have the dept. request such a hire -- which, if all goes well, would mean a search next year but no colleague till the year after!). In the meantime our students and our degree programs hobble along without a faculty member to represent the sounds of English! With time passing since any of our grad students have had advanced trianing in these vital areas, the pool of potential qualified lecturers has pretty much evaporated. Most immediately, what all this means is that we desperately need a lecturer for Spring's English 323: The History of English. If you have among your advanced grad students, or in your historical linguistics network in a larger world, scholars who would be ready to teach this course (they could also be advanced scholars in phonology with a solid knowledge of the history of English -where the sound system figures so much), please have them contact Gini Martens in the dept. of English (263-3766/ TTY 263-2437-- email: vmartens at wisc.edu) as soon as possible. It may also be possible for a good candidate to teach 2 courses in order to make what would be closer to a working wage, with the second course being intro to the structure of English - 324 -- a course that many will be ready to take on. One course = 33% of a 9 month appointment; minimum salary= 30, 000 (full time, 9 ms -so not what s/he gets, of course). Degree and area of specialization: PhD preferred, minimum all but dissertation, Applied Linguistics, Linguistics/ English or related field. Minimum number or years and type of work experience: Experience teaching at the university level. Principal duties: Teach one section of English 323, History o the English Language, Linguistic and sociolinguistic change in English from its beginnings to the present. Prepare, administer, and grade exams; hold office hours. Thanks in advance for your help to the English department in finding a qualified lecturer! -Ceci Cecilia E. Ford Professor Department of English and Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 6 19:59:25 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 14:59:25 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 6, 2004, at 9:51 AM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> I was just about to haul off and write in about the loose-penned >> failure to distinguish between "ain't had no" and "didn't have no." > > dInIs > > PS: Wilson, don't write in and tell us about "ain't have no" = > "didn't have no." I'm assuming Thomas Paikeday does not send us > messages in AAVE (with preterite "ain't"). I won't. But, for the record, "ain't have no" is *way* younger than I am. The use of _have_ sounds really "wrong" and "pseudo-learned," compared to "ain't _got_ no," which is, of course, the "correct" form. [No, I don't intend for this comment be taken seriously. I'm jes funnin wit chawl.] -Wilson > > >> correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Thomas Paikeday" >> To: >> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM >> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail >>> header ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Thomas Paikeday >>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> ---------- >>> >>> As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! >>> (though not >>> arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so >>> far >>> on >>> SCRUMP. >>> (forwarded to Ed Gates) >>> t.m.p. >>> www.paikeday.net >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "Grant Barrett" >>> To: >>> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM >>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>> >>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail >>>> header ----------------------- >>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>> Poster: Grant Barrett >>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>> ----------- >>>> >>>> FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >>>> >>>> http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >>>> >>>> The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's >>>> not that common, even on the pornonet. >>>> >>>> Grant Barrett >>>> >>>>> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>>>> I thought this item might be of interest: >>>>>> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>>>> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>>>> t_mean_smart.php > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From MAdams1448 at AOL.COM Sat Nov 6 20:38:22 2004 From: MAdams1448 at AOL.COM (Michael Adams) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 15:38:22 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym Message-ID: There really are two classes of word in question here, yes? "b4" is an example of laconic (word-rebus like) forms; K-9 is a shortening that looks like an initialism (or alphabetism) -- NOT an acronym, but with a number (which isn't an initial). So the question is, do we recognize a class of shortening that combines initials and numbers, or do we lump the phenomenon into alphabetism/initialism, faute de mieux? Good question! From preston at MSU.EDU Sat Nov 6 21:54:44 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 16:54:44 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: <5BD73AD6-302E-11D9-BAA0-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: >Wilson, >Hmmmm. I'm not so sure that "Ain't got no" forces a preterite >interpretation of "ain;t." "Got" is funny. Let's take a clean >example like "go." I ain't gone there = I haven't gone there. I ain't go there = I didn't go there. The second ain't (clearly a preterit) is one of the few forms which appears to be nearly unique to AAVE dInIs PS: Least I know Wilson ain't gon be hasslin me bout "nearly unique." >On Nov 6, 2004, at 9:51 AM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>Subject: Re: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>>I was just about to haul off and write in about the loose-penned >>>failure to distinguish between "ain't had no" and "didn't have no." >> >>dInIs >> >>PS: Wilson, don't write in and tell us about "ain't have no" = >>"didn't have no." I'm assuming Thomas Paikeday does not send us >>messages in AAVE (with preterite "ain't"). > >I won't. But, for the record, "ain't have no" is *way* younger than I >am. The use of _have_ sounds really "wrong" and "pseudo-learned," >compared to "ain't _got_ no," which is, of course, the "correct" form. >[No, I don't intend for this comment be taken seriously. I'm jes funnin >wit chawl.] > >-Wilson > >> >> >>>correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". >>> >>>----- Original Message ----- >>>From: "Thomas Paikeday" >>>To: >>>Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM >>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>> >>>>---------------------- Information from the mail >>>>header ----------------------- >>>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>Poster: Thomas Paikeday >>>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>--------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>---------- >>>> >>>>As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! >>>>(though not >>>>arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments so >>>>far >>>>on >>>>SCRUMP. >>>>(forwarded to Ed Gates) >>>>t.m.p. >>>>www.paikeday.net >>>> >>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>>From: "Grant Barrett" >>>>To: >>>>Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM >>>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>> >>>>>---------------------- Information from the mail >>>>>header ----------------------- >>>>>Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>>Poster: Grant Barrett >>>>>Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>>----------- >>>>> >>>>>FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >>>>> >>>>>http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >>>>> >>>>>The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. It's >>>>>not that common, even on the pornonet. >>>>> >>>>>Grant Barrett >>>>> >>>>>>On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>>>>>I thought this item might be of interest: >>>>>>>http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>>>>>street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>>>>>t_mean_smart.php >> >> >>-- >>Dennis R. Preston >>University Distinguished Professor >>Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >> Asian and African Languages >>Wells Hall A-740 >>Michigan State University >>East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>Office: (517) 353-0740 >>Fax: (517) 432-2736 -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 7 00:24:32 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 19:24:32 -0500 Subject: iPod use? Message-ID: Is anyone using an iPod for recording voice samples? I have just started doing that. Now I want to be able to transfer audio files from hard disk or audio (cassette) tape to the iPod. I think I will be able to do this once the files are on a CD or a hard disk. There is a nifty iPod dock with speakers available for use in class. Bethany From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 7 02:01:09 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:01:09 -0500 Subject: CP Time In-Reply-To: <20041106050920.C4632B2503@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Wilson sez: >>> You obviously mint inny time 'tween sebm 'n' sebm-thetty, dInIs, seem like t'me, though that is rather early. As Richard Pryor has pointed out, don't nothin be hapnin 'fo' lebm-thetty. <<<<< That A. or P.? -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] (Mostly.) From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 7 02:05:07 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:05:07 -0500 Subject: numerical acronym In-Reply-To: <20041106050920.C4632B2503@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: "Mullins, Bill" inquires: >>> Is there a special word for an acronym or other construct that is partly formed by a numerical digit(s)? K-9 P2P (peer-to-peer) many vanity license plates "b4" for "before" <<<<< I wouldn't call any of those "acronyms". Call me pedantic and retro, but "FBI" is an initialism; "NATO" is an acronym. I go with Alice for "rebus spelling". -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 7 02:18:36 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:18:36 -0500 Subject: "Big-Foot/Bigfoot Land" In-Reply-To: <20041106050920.C4632B2503@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: ja' George A. Thompson: >>> This is from a strange parody of a soliloquy purportedly delivered by a black actor at The African Theatre: If our heel's long, and our feet splay are found We take a firmer grip of parent ground; Large are our bladders -- copious are our brains; And we can dream -- O yes! -- of Afric's plains! St. Tammany's Magazine, # 4, December 4, 1821, p. 52. I have no idea about the bladder notion, which I haven't encountered elsewhere. <<< Guesswork time: 1. (I'm guessing about the nonASCII punctuation, which hits my screen as ~R and ~W.) 2. (WAG on the subject matter) I'm guessing it could stem from some white people's excuse for not providing Black people with adequate or sufficient bathrooms or bathroom break time. -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From dwhause at JOBE.NET Sun Nov 7 00:49:33 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 18:49:33 -0600 Subject: CP Time Message-ID: One more, from the medical side is MAFAT, Mandatory Anesthesia Fuck Around Time, spoken only by the other members of the operatory team. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jesse Sheidlower" DARE has "Jewish time" from 1952. And HDAS has "C.P.T." from Carl van Vechten's _Nigger Heaven_ from 1926. I hear new variants of this constantly--"[some ethnic, racial, religious etc. group] time" = 'late'. Jesse Sheidlower OED From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Sun Nov 7 02:47:16 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 20:47:16 -0600 Subject: iPod use? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Is anyone using an iPod for recording voice samples? I have just started >doing that. Now I want to be able to transfer audio files from hard disk >or audio (cassette) tape to the iPod. I think I will be able to do this >once the files are on a CD or a hard disk. > >There is a nifty iPod dock with speakers available for use in class. > >Bethany To transfer audio files from your hard disk to your iPod as iPod-playable, I believe all you have to do is open them in iTunes. Once iTunes finds them, they can be exported to your iPod. To transfer your cassette recordings (obligatory language lab plaint, why would you want to?) to your iPod, there may be a way to do it directly, but there are also two methods to get your cassettes (or other analog audio) to your hard disk, depending on your computer. Some computers have an audio-in jack (sometimes a microphone jack, sometimes on a sound board). As long as your analog playback has at least a headphone jack out, you can connect the two devices. There is also something called an iMic, Griffin Technologies(?), which connects to your computer via a USB port. Mind you, I am not advocating this, but I know that people want digital audio for reasons other than archival (e.g., playback in class, or for ones* own entertainment). Barbara *I have spaced and in the midst of a move, so my reference books are not handy. Should this be one's or ones? From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 7 03:29:15 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 22:29:15 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 6, 2004, at 4:54 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> Wilson, > >> Hmmmm. I'm not so sure that "Ain't got no" forces a preterite >> interpretation of "ain't." "Got" is funny. Let's take a clean >> example like "go." > > > I ain't gone there = I haven't gone there. > > I ain't go there = I didn't go there. > > The second ain't (clearly a preterit) is one of the few forms which > appears to be nearly unique to AAVE > > dInIs > > PS: Least I know Wilson ain't gon be hasslin me bout "nearly unique." dInIs, I am in complete agreement with you with respect to the example sentences and their interpretation. As for "nearly unique," yes, I can get behind that, too. Now, had you written, let us say, "most unique,"...;-) -Wilson > >> On Nov 6, 2004, at 9:51 AM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" >>> Subject: Re: Fw: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>>> I was just about to haul off and write in about the loose-penned >>>> failure to distinguish between "ain't had no" and "didn't have no." >>> >>> dInIs >>> >>> PS: Wilson, don't write in and tell us about "ain't have no" = >>> "didn't have no." I'm assuming Thomas Paikeday does not send us >>> messages in AAVE (with preterite "ain't"). >> >> I won't. But, for the record, "ain't have no" is *way* younger than I >> am. The use of _have_ sounds really "wrong" and "pseudo-learned," >> compared to "ain't _got_ no," which is, of course, the "correct" form. >> [No, I don't intend for this comment be taken seriously. I'm jes >> funnin >> wit chawl.] >> >> -Wilson >> >>> >>> >>>> correction: "didn't have" should read "haven't had". >>>> >>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>> From: "Thomas Paikeday" >>>> To: >>>> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 8:39 AM >>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>> >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail >>>>> header ----------------------- >>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>> Poster: Thomas Paikeday >>>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> -- >>>>> ---------- >>>>> >>>>> As a lexicographer, I find this, esp. the citations, exciting! >>>>> (though not >>>>> arousing). Ed Gates, now you know why we didn't have any comments >>>>> so >>>>> far >>>>> on >>>>> SCRUMP. >>>>> (forwarded to Ed Gates) >>>>> t.m.p. >>>>> www.paikeday.net >>>>> >>>>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>>> From: "Grant Barrett" >>>>> To: >>>>> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 4:13 PM >>>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>> >>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail >>>>>> header ----------------------- >>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>>> Poster: Grant Barrett >>>>>> Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" >>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>>> -- >>>>>> ----------- >>>>>> >>>>>> FYI, I did an entry for it this morning: >>>>>> >>>>>> http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/get_brain/ >>>>>> >>>>>> The earliest cite I could find without spending hours was 1998. >>>>>> It's >>>>>> not that common, even on the pornonet. >>>>>> >>>>>> Grant Barrett >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 12:16:56PM -0500, davemarc wrote: >>>>>>>> I thought this item might be of interest: >>>>>>>> http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/11/05/ >>>>>>>> street_slang_update_brain_doesn >>>>>>>> t_mean_smart.php >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Dennis R. Preston >>> University Distinguished Professor >>> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, >>> Asian and African Languages >>> Wells Hall A-740 >>> Michigan State University >>> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA >>> Office: (517) 353-0740 >>> Fax: (517) 432-2736 > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, > Asian and African Languages > Wells Hall A-740 > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA > Office: (517) 353-0740 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 7 04:47:43 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 23:47:43 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2004, at 9:51 PM, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jesse Sheidlower > Subject: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 05:43:49PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: >> But why "demeaning to women," especially? Don't they also get brain? >> Men don't feel demeaned when they give women brain. So I've heard. > > While _head_ can refer to either fellatio or cunnilingus, I've > never seen _brain_ (or _skull_, for that matter) refer to the > latter. And I do think the expression is fairly widespread > now. Perhaps there's an example of 'cunnilingus' out there, > but if it exists, it must be pretty rare. > > Jesse Sheidlower > OED > I agree. But there's nothing to prevent one from using "give brain/skull" in exactly the way that one uses "give head," if one so chooses. It's not obligatorily gender-specific like, e.g. "polish knob." In any case, I had in mind the performance of the act of cunnilingus itself and not the use of "give brain" as a possible term for the performance of that act. I'm sorry that I was less than clear. -Wilson Gray From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 7 05:11:01 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 21:11:01 -0800 Subject: cat hoarding Message-ID: today's Palo Alto Daily News reported on a flagrant case of "cat hoarding" -- keeping large numbers of cats, especially if they breed, especially if they are confined within a house. the case in question, in san carlos, ca., involved about 80 cats in a fairly small house. someone starts out helping or rescuing cats, and eventually it gets out of hand. "cat hoarding" doesn't come up on searches in recent ADS-L archives. (a google web search gives about 145 hits, not all about this local case.) the expression is partly, but not entirely, transparent. does someone want to record it? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 7 12:49:33 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 07:49:33 -0500 Subject: iPod use? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks for your comments, Barbara. The reason I want to get the recordings transferred from a casette tape to an iPod is so I do not have to carry a boombox to class. Also, once the files are digitized, I can make them available to students in a variety of ways. Bethany From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Sun Nov 7 16:06:54 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 11:06:54 -0500 Subject: cat hoarding In-Reply-To: <6B04E328-307B-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: It's usually "animal hoarding" or "animal collecting," since it's not just cats that are collected. Teresa Nielsen Hayden (a book editor with a very good blog) has some interesting posts about this. Some of this stuff will make you barf your Maypo. http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/002253.html http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/005722.html Grant Barrett On Nov 7, 2004, at 00:11, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > today's Palo Alto Daily News reported on a flagrant case of "cat > hoarding" -- keeping large numbers of cats, especially if they breed, > especially if they are confined within a house. the case in question, > in san carlos, ca., involved about 80 cats in a fairly small house. > > someone starts out helping or rescuing cats, and eventually it gets out > of hand. > > "cat hoarding" doesn't come up on searches in recent ADS-L archives. > (a google web search gives about 145 hits, not all about this local > case.) the expression is partly, but not entirely, transparent. does > someone want to record it? > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > From orinkh at CARR.ORG Sun Nov 7 16:34:59 2004 From: orinkh at CARR.ORG (Orin Hargraves) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 11:34:59 -0500 Subject: cat hoarding Message-ID: > >It's usually "animal hoarding" or "animal collecting," since it's not >just cats that are collected. Teresa Nielsen Hayden (a book editor with >a very good blog) has some interesting posts about this. Some of this >stuff will make you barf your Maypo. I heard it as "pet hoarding" for the first time a couple of weeks ago from a NYC friend whose building had a "pet hoarder" (cats in this case) who was causing, literally, a stink. Orin Hargraves From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Nov 7 17:51:47 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 12:51:47 EST Subject: "Napoleon"? Message-ID: There is a type of pastry whose name I always assumed was spelt "Napoleon", perhaps because a certain Emperor had to go to the water-loo after eating too many of them. But in my local grocery today I found for sale "Napolians". Is this the correct spelling? A hypercorrection by somebody who thought they were really Italian? Chauvinism from a Neapolitan in exile from the ice cream department? - Jim Landau (whose only expertise in pastry has to do with pi) From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 7 18:01:10 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 10:01:10 -0800 Subject: "Napoleon"? In-Reply-To: <12e.504b4e23.2ebfbab3@aol.com> Message-ID: On Nov 7, 2004, at 9:51 AM, Jim Landau wrote: > There is a type of pastry whose name I always assumed was spelt > "Napoleon", > perhaps because a certain Emperor had to go to the water-loo after > eating too > many of them. But in my local grocery today I found for sale > "Napolians". Is > this the correct spelling? A hypercorrection by somebody who thought > they > were really Italian? Chauvinism from a Neapolitan in exile from the > ice cream > department? no, it's really "Napoleon". or, as Vol. I of the Gourmet Cookbook has it, "Petites Milles-feuilles / often called Napoleons". but "Napolian" does turn up occasionally as a re- (or mis-)spelling. here's a double delight: "Napolian" *and* a greengrocer's apostrophe: ... Google. Plum and Fig Napolian's. Prepared by: Chef Roberts. Ingredients: 1 pkg. puff pastry dough, found in the freezer section of grocery store; 1 can whole figs ... www.wilx.com/recipes/recipes/159017.html arnold, getting hungry again after being put off by the animal hoarding sites From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 7 18:03:10 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 12:03:10 -0600 Subject: LBJ cake Message-ID: I went to a picnic a couple weeks ago, and someone brought an "LBJ cake". I didn't get to try it or ask her about it --- why is it called an LBJ cake? From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 7 18:09:10 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 10:09:10 -0800 Subject: "Napoleon"? In-Reply-To: <015E08F2-30E7-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 7, 2004, at 10:01 AM, i quoted: > ... Google. Plum and Fig Napolian's. Prepared by: Chef Roberts. > Ingredients: 1 pkg. puff pastry dough, found in the freezer section of > grocery store; 1 can whole figs ... > www.wilx.com/recipes/recipes/159017.html to make things perfectly clear: i am arnold zwicky, and i very much do *not* approve this recipe. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 7 19:09:36 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 11:09:36 -0800 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <35A1E31E-2FD3-11D9-98C6-000393AF7C50@worldnewyork.org> Message-ID: On Nov 6, 2004, at 1:06 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > Two more data points: "hanging brains" is to dangle one's scrotum > through the fly of one's pants and "to brain" someone is to hang one's > scrotum next to or on the face or head of a sleeping person, usually so > a picture can be taken. fascinating. ya learn something new every day around here. what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle and a brain? or what? in any case, i'm interested in the expression, for a rather odd reason. in another part of my life, i'm a collagist, working mostly with images of the male body and of gay love and sex; "They All Laughed When the Hot-Hot Man-Man Sex Started: XXX-rated homoerotic comic collages by Arnold Zwicky" was part of a local group show in may of 2003. (it started years ago as a kind of art therapy. now it's a semi-pro hobby.) i'm currently working on a long-range project on the ways male models and actors (in porn and in the mass media) display their bodies. so i've been collecting images in a large number of categories -- the very common "pits 'n' tits" presentation, with armpits and nipples vulnerably displayed, for example. one of the categories i call "peekaboo"; this is where a guy's equipment sort of spills out of his confining clothing. there are many subtypes of the peekaboo display, among them the through-the-fly escapee (which tends to look really silly, probably because it's the classic flasher pose). but -- yes, i do have a point here -- i have yet to collect a pure "hanging brains" display. plenty of scrota proudly presented, but always with an accompanying penis, which takes center stage, so to speak. probably there's a specialist corner of the sexual world where scrota are celebrated entirely in their own right, but i haven't yet come across it. (lord knows, the variety of sexual tastes and fantasies is astonishing.) arnold, your friendly neighborhood pornographer From jester at PANIX.COM Sun Nov 7 19:23:18 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:23:18 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <90B86AFA-30F0-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 11:09:36AM -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > On Nov 6, 2004, at 1:06 AM, Grant Barrett wrote: > > >Two more data points: "hanging brains" is to dangle one's scrotum > >through the fly of one's pants and "to brain" someone is to hang one's > >scrotum next to or on the face or head of a sleeping person, usually so > >a picture can be taken. > > fascinating. ya learn something new every day around here. The first connection I heard between _brain_ and any part of the male anatomy was _showing brain_ 'to inadvertently display the scrotum, as under loose shorts', which I first heard in the mid-1980s (and never heard thereafter). But _hanging brain_ in the sense under discussion seems to be widespread among men in the 30s, based on some completely random polling in the last few days. Most of these hadn't heard _brain_ 'fellatio', though this was universally known among younger people (late 20s or younger) (of both sexes). > what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the > expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's > genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle > and a brain? or what? I'm very sure that _brain_ 'scrotum' is based on the similarity of appearance between the scrotum and the surface of the brain in conventional representations. This is different from _brain_ 'fellatio', which is metonymically from _head_. Jesse Sheidlower OED From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 7 19:25:39 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:25:39 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <90B86AFA-30F0-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: >what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the >expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's >genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle >and a brain? or what? It seems to me highly probable that originally the human scrotum itself (not the testicle) is being likened to a human brain in general external appearance. Both scrotum and brain are (approximately) symmetrically bilobate (with two hemiscrota [each containing a testis] versus two cerebral hemispheres) and corrugated (from dartos muscle contractions versus cortical gyri and sulci). The other member of the set is the walnut, maybe. -- Doug Wilson From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Sun Nov 7 19:38:21 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:38:21 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <90B86AFA-30F0-11D9-8B82-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 7, 2004, at 14:09, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the > expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's > genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle > and a brain? or what? I wonder if there's a connection to the common belief that men tend to think with their small head more than their larger one. Grant Barrett From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 7 19:45:31 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:45:31 -0500 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times Message-ID: http://nytimes.com/2004/11/07/nyregion/07shulman.html The New York Times November 7, 2004 A Man of Many Words, David Shulman Dies at 91 BY DOUGLAS MARTIN David Shulman, a self-described Sherlock Holmes of Americanisms who dug through obscure, often crumbling publications to hunt down the first use of thousands of words, died on Oct. 30 at Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn. He was 91 and lived in Brooklyn. His friend David Kahn announced the death. Jesse Sheidlower, editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary, said Mr. Shulman contributed uncountable early usages to the 20-volume lexicon. "All very good stuff," Mr. Sheidlower said. "What David did was read through the sort of things most people don't read," he added, mentioning yellowing editions of The National Police Gazette. Mr. Sheidlower said only a few contributors were more prolific and fewer still possessed Mr. Shulman's knack for sending usable material. His name appeared in the front matter to O.E.D.'s epochal second edition, each of the Addition Series volumes, and is currently on the Web. Mr. Shulman avoided excessive modesty, letting it drop that he was at least temporarily the last word on words that included "The Great White Way," "Big Apple," "doozy," "hoochie-coochie." Gerald Cohen, professor of foreign languages at the University of Missouri, Rolla, said Mr. Shulman did indeed contribute to the understanding of all these words and many more. He said Mr. Shulman's most pioneering effort concerned the term "hot dog." He found the word was college slang before it was a sausage, paving the way for deeper investigation. A book on hot dog's glossarial provenance will appear this year under the names of Mr. Shulman, Mr. Cohen and Barry Popick. Dr. Cohen said Mr. Shulman obliterated a big impediment to finding the origins of the word jazz by proving it was on a 1919 record, not the 1909 version of the same disk. (Other scholars traced first use of the term to the baseball columns of Scoop Gleeson in the San Francisco Bulletin in 1913.) Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Shulman was first to challenge that "shyster" derived from a lawyer named Scheuster. Others, particularly Roger Mohovich, then traced the etymology to 1843-1844. "Shyster" turned out to be a Yiddish corruption of a German vulgarism meaning a crooked lawyer. Mr. Shulman considered the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue his real home. He commuted by subway to its rare books room, to which he donated valuable volumes. "David Shulman was the one reader I could count on seeing at the library every day," Paul LeClerc, president of the library, said. "We often spoke about his work, and I never knew anyone who thrilled to bookish discoveries as he did." Every inch of Mr. Shulman, from his sneakers to his plastic bag crammed with scrawled notes to his soiled baseball cap, suggested the classic New York eccentric. He recorded his finds on index cards, sending them to the O.E.D. when he got 100. His obsessions included trying to prove that Steve Brodie jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge on July 23, 1886, not faking it as many reports claimed. He once wrote a sonnet, "Washington Crossing the Delaware" in which each line is an anagram of the title. But in 70 years at the library, he allowed as how he had seen, well, odder folks. There was the well-dressed chap who wandered about for years carrying his hat and never touching a book. Or the man who tracked down burial places of 60,000 New Jersey soldiers. Mr. Shulman finally asked why. "I might as well be plain with you," the man replied, according to an interview with Mr. Shulman in The New York Times in 1990. "I'm a nut." David Shulman was born on Nov. 12, 1912, and grew up on the Lower East Side speaking Yiddish, according to an interview in The Jerusalem Report in 1999. His first library was a branch in the Bronx. After City College, he devised puzzles and puzzle contests for newspapers. During World War II, he cracked Japanese secret codes for the Army, then returned to puzzles. He was a founder of the American Cryptogram Association, and in 1976 published "An Annotated Bibliography of Cryptography," still used by experts. He was a champion scrabble player, and wrote a scholarly article about the game's lexicography. After a heart attack in his early 80's, Mr. Shulman gave beloved possessions to the New York Public Library. Gifts included a primer from Colonial America, 20,000 century-old postcards and Bowery Boys novels the library did not have. He earlier donated his cryptography collection, including a book about secret writing from 1518. His mentor at the library was Norbert Pearlroth, famed researcher for "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" Mr. Shulman came to view him as less than rigorous. "Instead of believing it," he said in an interview with The Times in 1999. "I believed it not." Mr. Shulman never married, and made it clear he had scant time for his only relatives, two nieces who tried to stop him from giving his treasures to the library. "I hate to say it, but your relatives can be predators," he said to The Times in 1999. Mr. Shulman always insisted that the persnickety pickiness he exemplified rates among the supreme virtues. "What difference does it make?" he sputtered in an interview with The Times in 1989. "Why, the same difference as being literate or illiterate, accurate or inaccurate, telling the truth or spreading yarns." Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company From jester at PANIX.COM Sun Nov 7 19:51:27 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 14:51:27 -0500 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times In-Reply-To: <41657.24.149.144.160.1099856731.squirrel@24.149.144.160> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 02:45:31PM -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: > http://nytimes.com/2004/11/07/nyregion/07shulman.html > > The New York Times > November 7, 2004 > A Man of Many Words, David Shulman Dies at 91 > BY DOUGLAS MARTIN [...] > A book on hot dog's glossarial provenance will appear this > year under the names of Mr. Shulman, Mr. Cohen and Barry > Popick. Poor Barry. It never ends. Jesse Sheidlower OED From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sun Nov 7 21:05:12 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 15:05:12 -0600 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) Message-ID: First, my deep thanks to Douglas Martin (NY Times) and Steve Miller (NY Sun) for their interest in David Shulman and their recent obituaries about him. Douglas Martin had already written two articles about Shulman (1989; 1999?), and IMHO both obituaries captured the essence of what Shulman was all about. As for mistakes, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. I'm not sure what it is about Barry Popik's last name, but it was misspelled not only in the two obituaries but a while back in Dear Abby (concerning "The Big Apple"; Abby wrote "Popick.") It's a minor error unless your name happens to be Popik. Both Steve Miller and Douglas Martin made an effort to obtain an accurate picture of Shulman's etymological work, but mistakes are an intergral part of anything to do with etymology (I speak here from experience). Steve Miller was probably misled by the 1989 NY Times article--which represented the state of the art at that time concerning "The Big Apple" but was superseded by better insight into what had happened. (The 1909 attestation of "the big apple" almost certainly meant "overweening bigshot" and only happened to refer to NYC. It was *not* NYC's nickname at that time. Mariam Touba of The NY Historical Society had drawn the 1909 attestation to my attention, I put it in my Comments on Etymology, someone (probably Shulman himself ) drew it to the attention of Douglas Martin, and Martin then interviewed Shulman about the nickname and related matters.) Meanwhile, I'd like to make a few small corrections to Douglas Martin's comment on "shyster." The full quote is: "Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Shulman was first to challenge that "shyster" derived from a lawyer named Scheuster. Others, particularly Roger Mohovich, then traced the etymology to 1843-1844. "Shyster" turned out to > be a Yiddish corruption of a German vulgarism meaning a crooked lawyer." "Shyster" has nothing to do with Yiddish. It derives from German Sheisser, which is indeed vulgar (from scheissen) and highly derogatory as in "ein alter Scheisser", cf. "alter Kacker." Scheisser entered British cant as "shiser" (well attested), meaning "someone totally worthless." (The original reference in German was to someone who couldn't control his bowels.) The lawyer (albeit not bona fide) Cornelius Terhune used this term "shiser" in his conversation with NYC editor Mike Walsh, and in the context of the conversation Walsh interepreted the term to refer to the worthless, corrupt lawyers (not bona fide!) who were scamming the prisoners in the NYC prison known as The Tombs. Walsh inveighed against that practice. Also, "Others, particularly Roger Mohovich" is a bit vague. Roger Mohovich deserves sole credit for discovering the 1843-1844 _Subterranean_ material on "shyster."and I then developed it. Unless something is slipping my mind, no one else besides the two of us was involved. But again, my thanks to Steve Miller and Douglas Martin for their work on David Shulman. In both cases it is much appreciated. Gerald Cohen From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 7 21:56:00 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 16:56:00 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041107141316.031f6cc0@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 2:25 PM -0500 11/7/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the >>expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's >>genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle >>and a brain? or what? > >It seems to me highly probable that originally the human scrotum itself >(not the testicle) is being likened to a human brain in general external >appearance. Both scrotum and brain are (approximately) symmetrically >bilobate (with two hemiscrota [each containing a testis] versus two >cerebral hemispheres) and corrugated (from dartos muscle contractions >versus cortical gyri and sulci). The other member of the set is the walnut, >maybe. > >-- Doug Wilson Interestingly, transitivity doesn't work here: (kick someone in the) nuts = balls [I have indeed always assumed walnuts here] balls/scrotum = brain (as we've seen), but nuts =/= brain. Unless when we say someone is nuts we're really saying their brain has reverted to its primitive walnuttian state. larry From preston at MSU.EDU Sun Nov 7 22:15:31 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:15:31 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Please note that in the world's languages, eggs overwhelms nuts 135 to 1 (roughly) for balls, uh, I mean testicles. dInIs >At 2:25 PM -0500 11/7/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the >>>expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's >>>genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle >>>and a brain? or what? >> >>It seems to me highly probable that originally the human scrotum itself >>(not the testicle) is being likened to a human brain in general external >>appearance. Both scrotum and brain are (approximately) symmetrically >>bilobate (with two hemiscrota [each containing a testis] versus two >>cerebral hemispheres) and corrugated (from dartos muscle contractions >>versus cortical gyri and sulci). The other member of the set is the walnut, >>maybe. >> >>-- Doug Wilson > >Interestingly, transitivity doesn't work here: > >(kick someone in the) nuts = balls [I have indeed always assumed walnuts here] >balls/scrotum = brain (as we've seen), but >nuts =/= brain. >Unless when we say someone is nuts we're really saying their brain >has reverted to its primitive walnuttian state. > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 7 23:46:14 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:46:14 -0600 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) Message-ID: >From the NY Sun David Shulman, 92, Prolific 'Big Apple' Lexicographer BY STEPHEN MILLER - Staff Reporter of the Sun November 4, 2004 David Shulman, who died October 27 at age 92, was a word detective, prolific contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary, cryptographer and cryptologist, anagrammic poet, and general expert on all things lexicographical. Among the longest-resident denizens of the rare book room at the New York Public Library, Shulman's absence in recent weeks was noted by increasingly apprehensive staffers. He discovered the library at age 12 and basically never left - except when it was closed. His death was first announced on the American Dialect Society Web site, where etymologists of many stripes eulogized Shulman as a language maven. Thanks to Shulman, the 3rd edition of the OED has more accurate and, in many cases, older citations for hundreds of words, among them jazz; doozy (not from the Dusenberg automobile, as previously had been cited); snowman, and Big Apple, which he traced to an anti-New York screed published in 1909. A contributor to etymological journals as well, Shulman theorized that the word Manhattan was Delaware Indian for "the place where we all get drunk," although this was not verified. A 300-page scholarly tome he co-authored about the history of the term hot dog is in press at the University of Missouri. Shulman was also blessed with an enthusiasm for New York history, especially the kind that can be pursued through musty stacks of newspapers and issues of the Police Gazette. He told friends that he had recently completed a manuscript contending that Bowery celebrity saloonkeeper Steve Brodie really did jump off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. Many sources in intervening years - including the New York Times in Brodie's 1901 obituary - have denied it. Shulman was born in 1912 to Eastern European Jewish immigrants and grew up speaking Yiddish at Henry Street on the Lower East Side. Years later in a letter in the Times, he complimented author Tom Wolfe for using the phrase "big makher" correctly. (Shulman must have mailed hundreds of letters to the editor, because at least 50 were published, and he groused about how few got in.) Shulman told The Jerusalem Report that he fell in love with lexicography while hanging around his local library in the Bronx, where the family had moved. He graduated from City College in 1937 and found a job writing a column called "Can You...?" for the World Telegram and other newspapers that consisted of word puzzles and trivia. (Example: "Can You ... Take two letters from five to leave four? Yes. Take F and E from FIVE and you leave IV. Catch a Glasgow magistrate in a fish net? Yes. Glasgow magistrate is a nickname for a kind of herring." Shulman served for a time as president of the New York unit of the American Cryptogram Association. A report on a convention of the group in 1952 disclosed that members addressed one another by proxy names. Shulman's was Ab Struse. Other members chose anagrams of their real names. Shulman, meanwhile, showed himself a virtuoso at anagramming in his sonnet "Washington Crossing the Delaware," in which each of the poem's 14 lines is an anagram of its title. (A hard, howling, tossing water scene:/Strong tide was washing hero clean./"How cold!" Weather stings as in anger./O Silent night shows war ace danger!) The poem was often reprinted as a curiosity. In recent years he had moved to an assisted-living facility in Bay Ridge, from which he commuted daily more than an hour each way to the library at Times Square. He was a familiar sight on the library stairs in his ragged windbreaker, carrying a large plastic bag filled with papers and dog-eared index cards in one hand. A librarian who knew Shulman, Robert Scott, said he had produced drawings to go along with a book of poems Shulman was trying to get published. "He was more excited about the poems than even he was about the hot dog book," recalled his co-author of that book, Gerald Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla. Mr. Cohen credited Shulman with "pointing the way" toward college humor as being the source of the phrase, rather than Coney Island vendors or a cartoonist who'd been served a frankfurter by stadium food pioneer Harry Stevens, as some had posited. Another independent word researcher, Barry Popkin -the third co-author of the book - made the actual discovery, in a Yale humor magazine, in 1895. The phrase was a tasteless college jape referring to the common belief - apparently with a basis in fact - that sausages frequently contained dog meat. Shulman never married, but had many friends and correspondents, including H.L. Mencken, A.J. Liebling, Heywood Broun, and the magician Ricky Jay. Late in life he told friends that the only family he had was two nieces, from whom he was completely estranged after they tried to prevent him from donating his extensive collections of cryptographic materials and ephemera to the library. Among these were an unused ticket to the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, the first printed book on ephemera, from 1518, and 20,000 19th-century postcards. During World War II, Shulman joined the Army 2nd Signal Corps Battalion, where he worked decoding Japanese intercepts, then went back to working for newspapers. He went into "semi-retirement" in the mid-1950s and apparently rarely earned money after that, except for some small payments for his citation work for the OED. The American editor of the OED, Jesse Sheidlower, credited Shulman with sending in literally tens of thousands of citations, making him one of the dictionary's most prolific contributors. "He would read unusual sources - sensationalistic novels and trade magazines - the language in them is very interesting, closer to the colloquial," said Mr. Sheidlower. Shulman was particularly proud of his dictionary citations, seeing them as contributions to the English language. When the OED accepted his early citation for Big Apple in 1989 - and shortly after the mayor had bestowed an award on a rival etymologist whose citation was more than a decade later - a gleeful Shulman told the Times, "Mayor Koch, William Safire, Merriam-Webster, and other wordmongers, take heed!" Correction from November 5, 2004 October 30 is the date David Shulman died. An obituary on Page 17 of yesterday's New York Sun misstated the date. Barry Popik co-authored a book with Shulman. His name was misspelled. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 7 23:51:22 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 17:51:22 -0600 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy Message-ID: >what's the motivation for "brains" 'scrotum'? is it based on the >expression "have balls for brains" '[of a man] think with one's >genitals'? or on a perceived physical similarity between a testicle >and a brain? or what? Does this mean that the left testicle is the artistic one, and the right testicle is the logical one? >one of the categories i call "peekaboo"; this is where a guy's >equipment sort of spills out of his confining clothing. there are many >subtypes of the peekaboo display, among them the through-the-fly >escapee (which tends to look really silly, probably because it's the >classic flasher pose). I recently saw a frame grab from an episode of "Three's Company" in which you could definitely see some of John Ritter's equipment, peeking out of a pair of athletic shorts he was wearing. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Mon Nov 8 00:04:23 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 19:04:23 -0500 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" To: Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 6:46 PM Subject: Re: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) > Another independent > word researcher, Barry Popkin -the third co-author of >the book - made the > actual discovery, in a Yale humor magazine, in 1895. About the only thing they haven't called him is "Barry Poppins." ....................yet Sam Clements From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 00:14:05 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 19:14:05 -0500 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: Greetings from the Singapore Airport. I have a 16-hour layover until my 23-hour-55-minute flight to New York. BARRY POPICK/POPKIN--Happens every single time, every single thing I do, over my entire life. It's not just the NY Times (write to corrections for me!). It's not just the NY Sun. It's not just "Dear Abby." The 1996 NY Times piece on me about my research on model Audrey Munson called me "Barry Popick." It was corrected--four years later! After six years of struggle, www.hot-dog.org finally surrendered (in 2001) and admitted the TAD story was an origination myth. I'm "Barry Popick" on that web page to this day. This is not trivial--people do search for your name. THAT'S GOTTAT HURT--12,300 Google hits, 12,800 Google Groups hits I just heard this Fred Shapiro-worthy phrase on an action video. I don't know what he has for it (if anything). It appears to come from professional wrestling. (GOOGLE GROUPS) Summit of E-Wrestling Day 2 ... That's gotta hurt!' Coward: 'Morganna the Kissing Bandit is eliminated.' Vince: 'Well that's one down and six to go, and there's the buzzer again.' Coward ... rec.games.pbm - 28 Dec 1991 by Francois LARAMEE - View Thread (1 article) Conclusion of Re: A Simple Question ... set on a rock. . . **BANG!!>>> Oooh, that's gotta hurt! What happened? The kid had reliable book knowledge. But no matter ... alt.magick - 13 Oct 1991 by Michael Smith - View Thread (1 article) Re: Most Inhibitionless ... UTexas Austin | out there in the starlight, one soul burns tmca at astro.as.utexas.edu | brighter than a thousand suns." - Simple Minds ^ That's *gotta* hurt, too ... alt.sex - 18 Sep 1990 by Jabberwokky - View Thread (13 articles) Re: WWF Theory ... the way. I remember the table was trashed pretty good and I thought to myself, "Damn, real or not, that's gotta hurt". Anyways, Heenan ... rec.sport.pro-wrestling - 29 Apr 1990 by horr at ecs.umass.edu - View Thread (20 articles) Re: Safety Of Scrotum Rings ... (God, that's gotta hurt!) -- -alex | alex at Atherton.COM | Caution! ... alt.sex - 18 Apr 1990 by Alex Leavens - View Thread (5 articles) Re: MIRACLE MILE ... In Miracle Mile, you DON'T CARE. At least I didn't. Secondly, In another action movie when a cop or someone dies, you say to yourself, "Gee, that's gotta hurt. ... rec.arts.movies - 20 Jun 1989 by operator at compsys.mu.edu - View Thread (31 articles) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 00:28:48 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 19:28:48 -0500 Subject: Karmapa (1955) Message-ID: KARMAPA--65,600 Google hits, 7,300 Google Groups hits While in Kalimpong (Sikkim), I had the pivilege of meeting the 17th incarnation of the "karmapa" of Tibet. "Karmapa" is not in OED. Oy. (GOOGLE) Karmapa the Black Hat Lama of Tibet This is the site of HH the 17th Karmapa Trinlay Thaye Dorje, the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. ... The 17th Karmapa Thaye Dorje, ... www.karmapa.org/ - 40k - 6 Nov 2004 - Cached - Similar pages Kagyu Office: the Home of the Karmapa The official website of His Holiness the Gyalwang Karmapa, maintained by the Kagyu Office. ... here. Karmapa's Birthday Celebrated. On ... www.kagyuoffice.org/ - 52k - 6 Nov 2004 - Cached - Similar pages (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) 1. Books of The Times By ORVILLE PRESCOTT. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jun 21, 1955. p. 29 (1 page) 2. Dalai Lama Reaches Bomdila, Ends Trek; Lowell Thomas Opens Tibet Refugee Fund The Washington Post and Times Herald (1954-1959). Washington, D.C.: Apr 13, 1959. p. A24 (1 page) 3. Hope's Baby Was Easy Stork Special; Royalty Carries On And The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973). Washington, D.C.: Mar 2, 1964. p. B3 (1 page) 4. She's Rubber-Stamped for Heaven By Carolyn Lewis Washington Post Staff Writer. The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973). Washington, D.C.: Jul 13, 1967. p. F7 (1 page) 5. Buddhist Rite Is Performed Here By GEORGE DUGAN. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Sep 22, 1974. p. 42 (1 page) From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 01:46:34 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 20:46:34 -0500 Subject: Weasel Coffee; Asia Pacific Food Expo (Cat Whiskers Tea) Message-ID: ASIA PACIFIC FOOD EXPO Greetings from Singapore. My stopover time here will be well spent. I had no idea, but there's the first annual Asia Pacific Food Expo going on! (GOOGLE) Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry | Activities ... ACTIVITIES. Asia Pacific Food Expo 2004. A Dedicated Regional Food Event Organised by the Industry for the Industry. Organiser: The ... english.sccci.org.sg/index.cfm?GPID=523 - 41k - Cached - Similar pages Welcome to Asia Pacific Food Expo 2004 Participating Companies APFE Events News Update Contact Info. Exhibition Info Conference Events and Schedule Travel and Accomodation Press Releases, ... www.orient-explorer.com/APFC/index.asp - 18k - Cached - Similar pages Singapore Expo - What's Coming Up ... panoramic views. ? back. Asia Pacific Food Expo Public Hall 5 04-Nov-04 to 08-Nov-04 Start Time: 11:00; End Time : 22:00. Show Profile ... www.singapore-expo.com.sg/ events_more.asp?EventID_in=202 - 18k - 6 Nov 2004 - Cached - Similar pages AsiaCuisine: News November ... Asia Pacific Food Expo 2004, Singapore 2004-11-01 Mark your calendar for 4 to 8 November 2004 as the Asia Pacific Food Expo 2004 will be held at the Singapore ... www.asiacuisine.com.sg/eventsnews.php3 - 18k - 6 Nov 2004 - Cached - Similar pages Some products include (from the November 7th SUNDAY TIMES, pg. 6): . Misai Kuching (cat whiskers) Organic Herbal Tea . Skylight Premium Buddha Jump Over The Wall . Las Sevillana Goat's Milk Candy -------------------------------------------------------------- WEASEL COFFEE Also from the November 7th SUNDAY TIMES (Singapore), pg. L30: Called "weasel coffee", it originates from Vietnam where legend has it that the country's most expensive coffee variant is made from beans extracted from weasel droppings. (...) Trung Nguyen Chon (Weasel) (O.T. Now, for a quick Google to see what's legal for me to do here in Singapore. Gotta go.) From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 8 03:53:41 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 22:53:41 -0500 Subject: "Dred" Scott Message-ID: Years ago, I read somewhere or other that Dred Scott's name was actually "Great" Scott. The spelling "Dred" merely reflected the pronunciation of "great" as was the norm in the BE of that time and place. Whether this be true, I have no idea. But anyone who listens to the song, Grinder Man, by John Lee Hooker (available in album form at nearly any record shop) can hear for himself that the blues man clearly pronounces "grinder man" as mutatis mutandis "drinder man." -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 8 04:30:37 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 23:30:37 -0500 Subject: Not in DARE? Message-ID: See in(to) = "look in(to)" Long Way From Texas, recorded 1950, by Sam "lightnin'" Hopkins on Mainstream record 311 I come all the way from Texas just to shake gladhands with you I come all the way from Texas just to shake gladhands with you Yes, but when I SEED IN your smiling face, I didn't know just what to do I ought to been knowing these things for a great long time I ought to been knowing these things for a great long time You know it take me for quite a while 'fore I made it up in my mind -Wilson Gray From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 8 07:04:52 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 02:04:52 -0500 Subject: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <20041108050023.E4222B2564@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: This may or may not have anything to do with the topic: http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20041107 "Unshelved" is a web comic strip set in a library. Yesterday's (Sunday's) strip is a single long panel. - teenage male patron #1, looking offstage (to reader's left): Man, did you see the size of her brain? - teenage male patron #2, ditto: She's too smart for me. I'm going to go study! - librarian #1, in background at information desk: Did I fall through a hole in space time? - librarian #2, ditto: Welcome to Earth Two. Well, *I* like the strip. mark by hand From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 10:02:50 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 05:02:50 -0500 Subject: "Boogieman" and "Bugis" (from Singapore's shopping mall) Message-ID: Greetings from a computer place just outside the Bugis Junction here in Singapore. I'll soon leave those Thai massages behind for endless, mindless hours of parking tickets, as is my New York City destiny. The food court at Bugis Junction is just amazing; one of the best treats I've seen. Maybe I'll get to it later. The late David Shulman did some work on "Colonel Bogey" and golf. This is from a historical marker at the Bugis Junction: ONE IN A SERIES OF BUGIS HERITAGE DISCOVERY POINTS In the mid-seventtenth century, the Bugis were spreading out from Sulawesi to set up trading centres throught the region. Often they had to sail to distant lands and fight indigenous tribes. They rarely lost, which is how they received their reputation as fierce warriors. This is how the first Europeans saw them, and why the name of the Bugis entered into the English langtuage as the dreaded "Boogieman." (GOOGLE) VirtualTourist.com - Ekahau's Singapore Must See Activity Tips ... So feared were the Bugis that the expression, "Beware of the Bugis-man" was coined, later becoming the "Boogieman" of our childhood nightmares. ... www.virtualtourist.com/m/28be5/84b/4/?o=2 - 89k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages GOODNITES Kids Site - Help FAQs - bedwetting site for kids ... ... Whatever you call him, word has it that the tall tale of the Boogie Man probably came from the "bugis" pirates from old-world Indonesia and Malaysia. ... www.goodnites.com/na/kids/help/help_faqs.asp - 30k - Cached - Similar pages languagehat.com: SAFIRE'S BOGEYMAN. ... there might be another level of etymology (real or imputed) to booger/boogieman? ... to South Sulawesi will tell you that 'Bogeyman' comes from Bugis, because they ... www.languagehat.com/archives/001124.php - 19k - Cached - Similar pages (...) Every tourist guide to South Sulawesi will tell you that 'Bogeyman' comes from Bugis, because they were so fearsome and piratical. I always thought this sounded like a crock, but actually looking at the OED it doesn't seem so farfetched (the first reference for the 'goblin' type meaning is 1857 S. OSBORN Quedah ii. 17 Malay pirates..those bogies of the Archipelago.) I should add though, that I have always found Bugis people to be perfectly honourable, and certainly they have never hidden under my bed with the intention of frightening me. Posted by: Anthony at February 5, 2004 07:34 AM (OED) bogey, bogie [Found in literature only recently; old people vouched (1887) for its use in the nursery as early as 1825, but only as proper name (sense 1). Possibly a southern nursery form of bogle, boggle, and boggard, or going back like them to a simpler form which, as mentioned under BOG and BOGLE, may be a variant of bugge, BUG ?terror, bugbear, scarecrow?. But in the absence of evidence, positive statements concerning its relation to these words cannot be made. (That they are connected with the Slavonic bog ?god?, is a mere fancy from the similarity of form, without any evidence.)] 1. As quasi-proper name: The evil one, the devil. 1836-40 BARHAM Ingol. Leg., Witches' Frolic, But hears the words ?Scratch? and ?Old Bogey? and ?Nick?. Ibid. (1840) 322 Then Boguey'd have you sure as eggs is eggs. 1840 GEN. P. THOMPSON Exerc. (1842) V. 88 To admit to evidence such as avow their credence in ?old Bogie?. 1851 THACKERAY Eng. Hum. v. (1858) 239 The people are all naughty and Bogey carries them all off. 1865 E. C. CLAYTON Cruel Fort. III. 85 I'll put out the light and go away, and leave you all by yourself with Bogie. 1879 M. CONWAY Demonol. I. I. iii. 16. 2. A bogle or goblin; a person much dreaded. 1857 S. OSBORN Quedah ii. 17 Malay pirates..those bogies of the Archipelago. 1863 KINGSLEY Water Bab. (1878) 19 On the top of each gate post a most dreadful bogy. 1863 BARING-GOULD Iceland 118 The sheepwalks have got a bad name for bogies. 3. fig. An object of terror or dread; a bugbear. 1865 Daily Tel. 27 Nov. 2/3 Reform is not a bogy to cheat, but a blessing to recognise and regulate. 1878 N. Amer. Rev. 135 Men..who discover bogies in every measure. 4. Criminals' slang. A detective; a policeman. 1924 S. SCOTT Human Side i. 23 Men will listen to the vilest epithets, but call them ?bogey?, ?brassey?, ?copper?, or ?policeman?, and they will be at your throat. 1931 W. F. BROWN in Police Jrnl. Oct. 501 She told a detective (bogey) she knew that Jack was in the brothel (case). 1936 J. CURTIS Gilt Kid 17 One of the bogies from Vine Street reckernizes me. 1960 Observer 24 Jan. 7/2 Suppose..a bogy did get it up for a villain now and again by making sure that some gear was found in his flat? 5. A piece of dried nasal mucus. colloq. 1937 in PARTRIDGE Dict. Slang 853/1 s.v. sweep. 1955 K. AMIS That Uncertain Feeling xii. 158 ?You've got a bogey on your nose. Improves your looks no end.? I was near the mirror... I peeped in and saw the bogey. It was large and vermiform and clung to the wing of my right nostril. Ibid. xiii. 176, I felt my nostrils carefully, testing for bogeys. 1967 D. PINNER Ritual xv. 148 He..removed wax from ears, bogeys from nose, blackheads from chin. 6. An unidentified aircraft; an enemy aeroplane. slang. 1943 WARD-JACKSON Piece of Cake 16 Bogey, a friendly aircraft [corrected in ed. 1945 to:] a suspect aircraft. 1944 Life 17 July 20 Before supper was over this evening, several ?bogeys?as unidentified planes are called under such circumstanceswere seen approaching from different directions. 7. attrib. and Comb., as bogy-man, -word, etc. 1863 KINGSLEY Water Bab. iv. 146 The old German bogy-painters. c1890 Bogey man [see note s.v. BOGEY]. 1912 G. B. SHAW in Christian Globe 22 Feb. 433/4 It was manlier than clinging to Britannia's skirts for protection against the Bogey Man with the triple tiara. 1919 J. L. GARVIN Econ. Found. Peace 112 To confuse or weaken the Allies by using ?Bolshevism? as a bogey-word. 1926 FOWLER Mod. Eng. Usage 559/1 Bogy-haunted creatures who for fear of splitting an infinitive abstain from doing something quite different. 1954 J. R. R. TOLKIEN Fellowship of Ring I. vi. 121 The old bogey-stories Fatty's nurses used to tell him. 1959 Listener 16 Apr. 657/2 Black children were brought up to believe that if they were naughty the white bogy-man would come and gobble them up. Hence bogydom, the domain of Old Bogy. bogyism, the recognition of bogies. bogyphobia, dread of bogies. 1880 Daily Tel. 2 Dec., A sulphurous odour..suggestive of bogeydom. 1876 Athen?um 14 Oct. 495/3 The author seems to be a spiritualist, or, at least, to have a leaning to banshees and bogyism. 1872 LIVINGSTONE in Daily News 29 July, I am not liable to fits of bogiephobia. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 12:53:35 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 07:53:35 -0500 Subject: "Mur/Rum" at Asia Pacific Food Expo Message-ID: Greetings again from Singapore. I leave at about midnight for my 24-hour flight home. The Asia Pacific Food Expo at the Expo Centre (near this airport) was a big success. Products were there to be bought, but most booths gave away free samples. The food was surprisingly normal--no testicles were to be found. I didn't see Indian food or Korean food represented, however. Most of the food was Chinese and Indonesian and Malaysian and Thai. The people attending the Food Expo were of normal weight, with very few fatties. The Food Expo is a good example of what other convention centers can do--notably the Javits Center in New York. MUR/RUM--Polar puffs and cakes (www.polarpuffs-cakes.com) sold "MUR." I was told that, under Islamic standards, "rum" can't be used, so the cake was named "mur." Is that true? B.H.S.--Banana & Honey & Soy Milk smoothie. DRAGON BALL--A puff with ham in it. FLOSS--Duck Floss and Pork Floss and Chicken Floss and Fish Floss were sold all over. You don't get cavities if you floss with duck? TU-TU CAKE--I haven't Googled it yet. HONG KONG CUP CAKE--"A world renowned Hong Kong sponge cake in the shape of a cup." COFFEE ZERACCINO--Ice blended coffee drink. Seen at only one place, so maybe "zerraccino" is a trade name. WIFE BISCUITS/HUSBAND BISCUITS--Seen at one shop. Again, I don't know how standard this is. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 8 14:28:13 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 06:28:13 -0800 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: This is older than 1989, though I can't say by how much. Ten years? Maybe. Twenty? Maybe not. I associate it with baseball and football announcers. JL Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings from the Singapore Airport. I have a 16-hour layover until my 23-hour-55-minute flight to New York. BARRY POPICK/POPKIN--Happens every single time, every single thing I do, over my entire life. It's not just the NY Times (write to corrections for me!). It's not just the NY Sun. It's not just "Dear Abby." The 1996 NY Times piece on me about my research on model Audrey Munson called me "Barry Popick." It was corrected--four years later! After six years of struggle, www.hot-dog.org finally surrendered (in 2001) and admitted the TAD story was an origination myth. I'm "Barry Popick" on that web page to this day. This is not trivial--people do search for your name. THAT'S GOTTAT HURT--12,300 Google hits, 12,800 Google Groups hits I just heard this Fred Shapiro-worthy phrase on an action video. I don't know what he has for it (if anything). It appears to come from professional wrestling. (GOOGLE GROUPS) Summit of E-Wrestling Day 2 ... That's gotta hurt!' Coward: 'Morganna the Kissing Bandit is eliminated.' Vince: 'Well that's one down and six to go, and there's the buzzer again.' Coward ... rec.games.pbm - 28 Dec 1991 by Francois LARAMEE - View Thread (1 article) Conclusion of Re: A Simple Question ... set on a rock. . . **BANG!!>>> Oooh, that's gotta hurt! What happened? The kid had reliable book knowledge. But no matter ... alt.magick - 13 Oct 1991 by Michael Smith - View Thread (1 article) Re: Most Inhibitionless ... UTexas Austin | out there in the starlight, one soul burns tmca at astro.as.utexas.edu | brighter than a thousand suns." - Simple Minds ^ That's *gotta* hurt, too ... alt.sex - 18 Sep 1990 by Jabberwokky - View Thread (13 articles) Re: WWF Theory ... the way. I remember the table was trashed pretty good and I thought to myself, "Damn, real or not, that's gotta hurt". Anyways, Heenan ... rec.sport.pro-wrestling - 29 Apr 1990 by horr at ecs.umass.edu - View Thread (20 articles) Re: Safety Of Scrotum Rings ... (God, that's gotta hurt!) -- -alex | alex at Atherton.COM | Caution! ... alt.sex - 18 Apr 1990 by Alex Leavens - View Thread (5 articles) Re: MIRACLE MILE ... In Miracle Mile, you DON'T CARE. At least I didn't. Secondly, In another action movie when a cop or someone dies, you say to yourself, "Gee, that's gotta hurt. ... rec.arts.movies - 20 Jun 1989 by operator at compsys.mu.edu - View Thread (31 articles) --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 8 15:05:10 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:05:10 -0500 Subject: LA Times, Chicago Tribune digitization by ProQuest Message-ID: The LA Times seems to have halted completely and the Chicago Tribune doesn't go before 1890, so I asked ProQuest about the digitization progress. 2005 seems late. I was hoping that both would be done by the end of December 2004. Barry Popik/Popick/Popkin Hello, Barry, Quick updates: The LA Times isn't exactly stuck (we had planned on finishing the year with 1960 so we're way ahead of schedule); but we have shifted to digitizing the Chicago Tribune more heavily through the rest of this year. LA Times digitization will continue but at a slower pace through the rest of 2004. The pre-1890 Chicago Tribune is being refilmed directly from hardcopy archives held at various repositories. Once filmed, we'll digitize those years. Both papers will be completely digited through 1984 (ASCII for both starts at 1985) in 2005 (probably by July/August). Hope this information helps. Happy hunting! Chris Chris Cowan Vice President, Publishing ProQuest Information & Learning 300 N. Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 Ph: 800-521-0600, ext. 6204 Ph: 734-975-6204 Fax: 734-975-6271 From lesa.dill at WKU.EDU Mon Nov 8 16:08:35 2004 From: lesa.dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:08:35 -0600 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <20041105205513.GA10390@panix.com> Message-ID: What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another barbecue battle might be too much to handle. Lesa Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 03:48:01PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > >>I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland >>term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR >>people. >> >> > >It is in DARE, which labels it "esp. KY". > >Jesse Sheidlower >OED > > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 8 17:10:13 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 11:10:13 -0600 Subject: IMDb as a verb Message-ID: http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1344653,00.html next to last paragraph "IMDb's founder, Col Needham, said he'd heard nothing of the new application his site was finding in LA. "We're very familiar with the term 'IMDb me' as a business term," he said." From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 8 18:25:12 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:25:12 -0500 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 8, 2004, at 9:28 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > This is older than 1989, though I can't say by how much. Ten years? > Maybe. Twenty? Maybe not. > > JL > I agree, though, unfortunately, I can't come up with any kind of real date, either, despite the fact that it once had catchphrase status. You used to hear it on SNL, ca.1982. Joe Piscopo and Billy Crystal had a series of show-opening sketches in which they discussed various ways of inflicting pain on themselves. One would ask something like, "Have you ever used a hacksaw blade to slice the webs of your toes and then sprinkled Tabasco into the cuts?" At some point in the discussion, one of them would comment something like, "Whoa! That's gotta hurt!" But it seems to me that the phrase was already out there. Piscopo and Crystal merely incorporated it into their skits. -Wilson Gray > Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Greetings from the Singapore Airport. I have a 16-hour layover until > my 23-hour-55-minute flight to New York. > > BARRY POPICK/POPKIN--Happens every single time, every single thing I > do, over my entire life. It's not just the NY Times (write to > corrections for me!). It's not just the NY Sun. It's not just "Dear > Abby." The 1996 NY Times piece on me about my research on model Audrey > Munson called me "Barry Popick." It was corrected--four years later! > After six years of struggle, www.hot-dog.org finally surrendered (in > 2001) and admitted the TAD story was an origination myth. I'm "Barry > Popick" on that web page to this day. This is not trivial--people do > search for your name. > > THAT'S GOTTAT HURT--12,300 Google hits, 12,800 Google Groups hits > > I just heard this Fred Shapiro-worthy phrase on an action video. I > don't know what he has for it (if anything). It appears to come from > professional wrestling. > > > (GOOGLE GROUPS) > Summit of E-Wrestling Day 2 > ... That's gotta hurt!' Coward: 'Morganna the Kissing Bandit is > eliminated.' Vince: > 'Well that's one down and six to go, and there's the buzzer again.' > Coward ... > rec.games.pbm - 28 Dec 1991 by Francois LARAMEE - View Thread (1 > article) > > Conclusion of Re: A Simple Question > ... set on a rock. . . **BANG!!>>> Oooh, that's gotta hurt! What > happened? The kid had reliable book knowledge. But no matter ... > alt.magick - 13 Oct 1991 by Michael Smith - View Thread (1 article) > > Re: Most Inhibitionless > ... UTexas Austin | out there in the starlight, one soul burns > tmca at astro.as.utexas.edu > | brighter than a thousand suns." - Simple Minds ^ That's *gotta* > hurt, too ... > alt.sex - 18 Sep 1990 by Jabberwokky - View Thread (13 articles) > > Re: WWF Theory > ... the way. I remember the table was trashed pretty good and I > thought to > myself, "Damn, real or not, that's gotta hurt". Anyways, Heenan ... > rec.sport.pro-wrestling - 29 Apr 1990 by horr at ecs.umass.edu - View > Thread (20 articles) > > Re: Safety Of Scrotum Rings > ... (God, that's gotta hurt!) -- -alex > | alex at Atherton.COM | Caution! ... > alt.sex - 18 Apr 1990 by Alex Leavens - View Thread (5 articles) > > Re: MIRACLE MILE > ... In Miracle Mile, you DON'T CARE. At least I didn't. Secondly, In > another action movie > when a cop or someone dies, you say to yourself, "Gee, that's gotta > hurt. ... > rec.arts.movies - 20 Jun 1989 by operator at compsys.mu.edu - View Thread > (31 articles) > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com > From blemay0 at MCHSI.COM Mon Nov 8 18:54:03 2004 From: blemay0 at MCHSI.COM (Bill Lemay) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 18:54:03 +0000 Subject: Burgoo Message-ID: While not a linguistic source, The Joy of Cooking mentioned in its burgoo recipe that the first syllable receives emphasis. > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Lesa Dill > Subject: Re: Burgoo > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and > Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as > alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another > barbecue battle might be too much to handle. > Lesa > > Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > > >On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 03:48:01PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > > >>I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland > >>term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR > >>people. > >> > >> > > > >It is in DARE, which labels it "esp. KY". > > > >Jesse Sheidlower > >OED > > > > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 8 19:59:57 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:59:57 -0600 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: > > I agree, though, unfortunately, I can't come up with any kind > of real date, either, despite the fact that it once had > catchphrase status. You used to hear it on SNL, ca.1982. Joe > Piscopo and Billy Crystal had a series of show-opening > sketches in which they discussed various ways of inflicting > pain on themselves. One would ask something like, "Have you > ever used a hacksaw blade to slice the webs of your toes and > then sprinkled Tabasco into the cuts?" At some point in the > discussion, one of them would comment something like, "Whoa! > That's gotta hurt!" But it seems to me that the phrase was > already out there. Piscopo and Crystal merely incorporated it > into their skits. > > -Wilson Gray > Willie and Frankie were played by Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest (respectively), during the 1984-85 season of SNL. A transcript of one of their dialogues is here: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84ewillie.phtml This is the only one of their sketches transcribed on the site, and "that's gotta hurt" doesn't appear in it. I remember their catch phrase as being more along the lines of "I hate it when that happens". The phrase "That's gotta hurt" does appear in this skit from 2/10/1990: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/89/89lwaltman.phtml From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 8 21:00:09 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 15:00:09 -0600 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 8 21:30:01 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:30:01 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49744@rdec-exch8.ds.amr dec.army.mil> Message-ID: Nah, that was Li'l Abner. At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: > http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 > >Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. From preston at MSU.EDU Mon Nov 8 21:54:27 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:54:27 -0500 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <110820041854.5715.5ef5@mchsi.com> Message-ID: >What does The Joy of Cooking say about "police"? dInIs >While not a linguistic source, The Joy of Cooking mentioned in its burgoo >recipe that the first syllable receives emphasis. >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Lesa Dill >> Subject: Re: Burgoo >> >>------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and >> Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as >> alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another >> barbecue battle might be too much to handle. >> Lesa >> >> Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> >> >On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 03:48:01PM -0500, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> > >> > >> >>I suspect it's in DARE. It's obviously a South Midland >> >>term, not restricted to the one hamlet visited by the NPR >> >>people. >> >> >> >> >> > >> >It is in DARE, which labels it "esp. KY". >> > >> >Jesse Sheidlower >> >OED >> > >> > -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM Mon Nov 8 22:26:44 2004 From: editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM (Erin McKean) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:26:44 -0600 Subject: David Shulman obit in NY Times (and NY Sun) In-Reply-To: <002d01c4c526$812e97c0$0c21a618@sam> Message-ID: I've put David Shulman's 1976 article, "Antedate Dictionary Citations", up on the VERBATIM web site for those that might be interested in seeing it. http://www.verbatimmag.com. It's the top link. Erin McKean editor at verbatimmag.com From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 9 00:12:59 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:12:59 -0800 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: My best guess is that I first heard it during the 1977 or 1978 AL pennant race. I'd paid little attention to baseball for many years, but watched a lot of Yankee games on WPIX during those truly dramatic seasons. JL Wilson Gray wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Wilson Gray Subject: Re: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Nov 8, 2004, at 9:28 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > This is older than 1989, though I can't say by how much. Ten years? > Maybe. Twenty? Maybe not. > > JL > I agree, though, unfortunately, I can't come up with any kind of real date, either, despite the fact that it once had catchphrase status. You used to hear it on SNL, ca.1982. Joe Piscopo and Billy Crystal had a series of show-opening sketches in which they discussed various ways of inflicting pain on themselves. One would ask something like, "Have you ever used a hacksaw blade to slice the webs of your toes and then sprinkled Tabasco into the cuts?" At some point in the discussion, one of them would comment something like, "Whoa! That's gotta hurt!" But it seems to me that the phrase was already out there. Piscopo and Crystal merely incorporated it into their skits. -Wilson Gray > Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Greetings from the Singapore Airport. I have a 16-hour layover until > my 23-hour-55-minute flight to New York. > > BARRY POPICK/POPKIN--Happens every single time, every single thing I > do, over my entire life. It's not just the NY Times (write to > corrections for me!). It's not just the NY Sun. It's not just "Dear > Abby." The 1996 NY Times piece on me about my research on model Audrey > Munson called me "Barry Popick." It was corrected--four years later! > After six years of struggle, www.hot-dog.org finally surrendered (in > 2001) and admitted the TAD story was an origination myth. I'm "Barry > Popick" on that web page to this day. This is not trivial--people do > search for your name. > > THAT'S GOTTAT HURT--12,300 Google hits, 12,800 Google Groups hits > > I just heard this Fred Shapiro-worthy phrase on an action video. I > don't know what he has for it (if anything). It appears to come from > professional wrestling. > > > (GOOGLE GROUPS) > Summit of E-Wrestling Day 2 > ... That's gotta hurt!' Coward: 'Morganna the Kissing Bandit is > eliminated.' Vince: > 'Well that's one down and six to go, and there's the buzzer again.' > Coward ... > rec.games.pbm - 28 Dec 1991 by Francois LARAMEE - View Thread (1 > article) > > Conclusion of Re: A Simple Question > ... set on a rock. . . **BANG!!>>> Oooh, that's gotta hurt! What > happened? The kid had reliable book knowledge. But no matter ... > alt.magick - 13 Oct 1991 by Michael Smith - View Thread (1 article) > > Re: Most Inhibitionless > ... UTexas Austin | out there in the starlight, one soul burns > tmca at astro.as.utexas.edu > | brighter than a thousand suns." - Simple Minds ^ That's *gotta* > hurt, too ... > alt.sex - 18 Sep 1990 by Jabberwokky - View Thread (13 articles) > > Re: WWF Theory > ... the way. I remember the table was trashed pretty good and I > thought to > myself, "Damn, real or not, that's gotta hurt". Anyways, Heenan ... > rec.sport.pro-wrestling - 29 Apr 1990 by horr at ecs.umass.edu - View > Thread (20 articles) > > Re: Safety Of Scrotum Rings > ... (God, that's gotta hurt!) -- -alex > | alex at Atherton.COM | Caution! ... > alt.sex - 18 Apr 1990 by Alex Leavens - View Thread (5 articles) > > Re: MIRACLE MILE > ... In Miracle Mile, you DON'T CARE. At least I didn't. Secondly, In > another action movie > when a cop or someone dies, you say to yourself, "Gee, that's gotta > hurt. ... > rec.arts.movies - 20 Jun 1989 by operator at compsys.mu.edu - View Thread > (31 articles) > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 01:31:01 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:31:01 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: Message-ID: But wasn't Dogpatch, home of the skonk works, the Little Wonder Specialty Co., and the Sadie Hawkins Day race and dance a hamlet in Kentucky? -Wilson Gray On Nov 8, 2004, at 4:30 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Nah, that was Li'l Abner. > > At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: >> http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 >> >> Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. > > From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 9 01:38:25 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:38:25 -0500 Subject: Burgoo Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lesa Dill" To: Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 11:08 AM Subject: Re: Burgoo > What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and > Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as > alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another > barbecue battle might be too much to handle. > Lesa I can't see any connection etymologically. As for the difference in recipes, I'm from Virginia originally, and I cook a mean Brunswick stew. Most Burgoo recipes I've seen have the following additional ingredients that are missing from the Virginia/Georgia Brunswick Stew: Carrots, celery, beef, cabbage, and perhaps a bit of spice from something such as cayenne. If I read you correctly Lesa, you think that all BBQ has the same taste? We'd need a few months on the road together. I'd take you from the vinegar/red pepper of Eastern NC, my personal favorite, to the more tomato based Western NC, to the three varieties of SC BBQ, including the mustard sauce. Kentucky/Tenn. have an even more tomato based product, and then you can get into the OK/TX sauces. Sam Clements From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 9 02:04:58 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:04:58 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" To: Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 4:00 PM Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 > > Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. > Big problem. According to everything I can find, the current artist, the third to draw the strip, is only that--an artist. The script for the strip is done by a consortium of writers, any one of which could have contributed the term "pop."' SC From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 9 02:21:48 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:21:48 -0500 Subject: "That's gotta hurt!" (1989) Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 13:59:57 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: > >Willie and Frankie were played by Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest >(respectively), during the 1984-85 season of SNL. A transcript of one of >their dialogues is here: >http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84ewillie.phtml > >This is the only one of their sketches transcribed on the site, and "that's >gotta hurt" doesn't appear in it. I remember their catch phrase as being >more along the lines of "I hate it when that happens". > >The phrase "That's gotta hurt" does appear in this skit from 2/10/1990: >http://snltranscripts.jt.org/89/89lwaltman.phtml I vaguely recall "That's gotta hurt" being popularized in the mid- to late '80s by sportscaster Marv Albert in his appearances on "Late Night with David Letterman". Marv would always bring a reel of sports bloopers that he would narrate in his inimitable style. --Ben Zimmer From pds at VISI.COM Tue Nov 9 03:27:52 2004 From: pds at VISI.COM (Tom Kysilko) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:27:52 -0600 Subject: Flop -- Telco Lingo Message-ID: After the area's telephone junction box was taken out by a drunk driver, Qwest employees have spent the last two days putting the pieces together. We have eight lines where I work, and they got most of them right. However, two were not. I wrote this down... Dialed Received xxx-xxxx yyy-yyyy yyy-yyyy ??? and took the note to the crew chief. He handed it to an assistant and said, "You've got a flop here." He repeated this in the course of explaining. He did not say, "flip-flop," which I believe has a specific meaning in that world, ie a circuit governed by a toggle switch or having some other way of achieving either of two states. I don't know if he would have said "flip-flop" if the lines had been completely reversed. I was not about about to ask a man up to his knees in tangled wired. --Tom Kysilko, who wishes that all this recent talk about flip-flops had been a flop. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 9 04:07:22 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 23:07:22 -0500 Subject: Pauline Kael quote about Nixon Message-ID: I'm assuming Fred knows the StraightDope on this. A poster over at the Straight Dope Board tonight said that Pauline Kael was supposed to have said "I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." True/False? Sam Clements From jprucher at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 9 04:33:59 2004 From: jprucher at YAHOO.COM (Jeff Prucher) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:33:59 -0800 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: That's my recollection, too. Although I think the related themepark -- Dogpatch, U.S.A. -- was in Arkansas. Sure is confoozin'. Jeff --- Wilson Gray wrote: > > But wasn't Dogpatch, home of the skonk works, the Little Wonder > Specialty Co., and the Sadie Hawkins Day race and dance a hamlet in > Kentucky? > > -Wilson Gray > > On Nov 8, 2004, at 4:30 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------- > > > > Nah, that was Li'l Abner. > > > > At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: > >> http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 > >> > >> Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. > > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 9 06:23:58 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 01:23:58 -0500 Subject: Nine-yard shroud? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I just picked up a copy of Dave Wilton's new book "Word Myths". I see a section on the good old "nine yards" including (p. 35) a quotation from Manly Wade Wellman (1958) -- the same quotation which appears in HDAS (v. 2, p. 667) -- based on the idea of nine yards being a traditional quantity of cloth required for a shroud (in Appalachian folklore and/or practice). HDAS refers to "the fact that nine yards is a customary length for a burial shroud", and Wilton refers to "the traditional length of a burial shroud in Appalachian custom". I've been looking through regional folklore books a little bit, and so far I'm unable to find any documentation of this traditional nine-yard shroud. This notion is mentioned in the story in question, all right, but it is after all a fantasy story. I believe Wellman included some real folklore in his stories, but I believe he also made up some of his 'folklore' out of, uh, whole cloth. [One of Wellman's strengths as a writer, I think, is his ability to make such inventions seem authentic. In at least one case, he stated that he had invented a myth for a story and had subsequently received letters from persons who had heard of this myth previously (not a unique event, of course).] Does anyone here have any knowledge or documentation which would distinguish a real tradition from an invention by Wellman himself in this case? Can anyone suggest a widely-available reference book or other work to consult? Incidentally, in the story, the reference is not explicitly to the length of a winding-cloth; rather it is said that the only type of suit which requires nine yards of cloth is a shroud. "Shroud" here apparently means a burial garment, and it's not clear whether it's a regular suit of clothes, something resembling a regular suit, or some other kind of cloth wrapper (all of these have been widely used). -- Doug Wilson From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Tue Nov 9 07:19:32 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 01:19:32 -0600 Subject: Burgoo Message-ID: Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 10:08:35 -0600 From: Lesa Dill Subject: Re: Burgoo What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another barbecue battle might be too much to handle. A quick look at http://onelook.com suggests that the name might have been transferred from an entirely different food. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=burgoo Main Entry: bur?goo Pronunciation: 'b&r-"g?, (")b&r-' Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural burgoos Etymology: origin unknown 1 : oatmeal gruel 2 : hardtack and molasses cooked together 3 a : a stew or thick soup of meat and vegetables orig. served at outdoor gatherings b : a picnic at which burgoo is served -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 9 11:28:27 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 06:28:27 -0500 Subject: Pauline Kael quote about Nixon In-Reply-To: <007e01c4c611$9d8a5990$0c21a618@sam> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Sam Clements wrote: > I'm assuming Fred knows the StraightDope on this. > > A poster over at the Straight Dope Board tonight said that Pauline Kael was > supposed to have said > > "I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." I don't have anything in my files on this, although I am familiar with it and believe it to be authentic. I'll see what I can come up with. There is another and more interesting Nixon-era quote about whose source I have no idea. It was something to the effect that a few years after the 1972 election no one would admit to having voted for Nixon. I predict much the same phenomenon will now happen with regard to Bush. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From einstein at FROGNET.NET Tue Nov 9 11:47:44 2004 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 06:47:44 -0500 Subject: Pauline Kael quote about Nixon Message-ID: I think the quote is more apt abt Truman, i.e. "I don't know how Truman won since everyone I knew voted for Dewey." I remember hearing this as a kid in 4th grade! From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 9 14:11:33 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 09:11:33 EST Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: In a digest dated 11/9/04 12:03:35 AM Eastern Standard Time, LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU quotes: > Nah, that was Li'l Abner. > > At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: > > http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 > > > >Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. If memory serves, Al Capp was careful NEVER to identify the location of Dogpatch. Presumably he felt that Li'l Abner would have a more universal appeal if Dogpatch were never identified with one geographical area. Note that Lockheed's secret aircraft development facility, which acquired the name "Skunk Works", was in Los Angeles, not an area usually identified with backwoods folks. One possible slip on Al Capp's part: in the statue which regularly showed up in the strip, General Jubilation T. Cornpone is wearing a uniform that, if memory serves, was that of the Confederate Army. There was a "Senator Phogbound" who was a regular character in the Li'l Abner strip. Was he the Senator from Dogpatch? If so, Dogpatch was a state (but where was the other Senator?) Anyway, "us" Kentuckians liked to claim that Dogpatch was in Kentucky. I went to Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky, and the school's logo was a drawing of Lonesome Polecat from the Li'l Abner strip that Mr. Capp gave permission to use (and I do not doubt personally drew). The school's athletic teams were the "Redskins". Ah, those pre-Politically Correct days, when a goofy drawing of what was not yet called a "Native American" could be prominently posted on the outside wall of the school. In case anyone is interested, the name "Seneca" comes not from the Roman philosopher but from nearby Seneca Park, one of a number of municipal parks designed by Frederic Law Olmstead and named after Indian tribes. Olmstead, as well as being a landscape architect, was a journalist who before the Civil War wrote a well-known book about the South (with much discussion of slavery), so our Politically Incorrect school name had a very tenuous connection with Emancipation and therefore with the civil rights and PC movements. A related Al Capp-ism "Skunk Works", where Lonesome Polecat and a Caucasian character whose name escapes me brewed up "Kickapoo joy juice." MWCD10 says (page 1101 column 2) "fr. the _Skonk Works_, illicit distilery in the comic strip _Li'l Abner_ by Al Capp (ca. 1974)". That the Skonk Works is a distillery is a deduction on Merriam-Webster's part, since the Skonk Works as drawn in the strip consisted of a large kettle over a fire, with no sign of a still. If I can find a certain book which is hiding from me, I will challenge that date. Oddly, MWCD11 merely lists "Skunk Works" as a "service mark". - Jim Landau Aside to Wilson Gray: I believe I said earlier that my copy of Clausewitz's "On War" was AWOL. Sunday I attended a talk by a chaplain who is stationed with the troops in Iraq. In a list of items to send to the troops, he listed non-fiction books, particularly on military history (he said they are swamped with paperback fiction.) So I went through my library looking for military history books that I haven't read and, lo and behold, that copy of Clausewitz patriotically showed up and volunteered. Anyway, this is an abridged version of the 1908 Colonel J. J. Graham translation, reprinted by Penguin (Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044427-0, edited by Anatol Rapoport). Page 119 "War is a mere continuation of policy by other means." (Question: Am I correct that a leading zero in an ISBN means a book published in the United States? This book, according to the reverse of the title page, was "set, printed, and bound in Great Britain"). From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 15:16:28 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 10:16:28 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 9, 2004, at 9:11 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a digest dated 11/9/04 12:03:35 AM Eastern Standard Time, > LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU quotes: > >> Nah, that was Li'l Abner. >> >> At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: >>> http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 >>> >>> Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. > > If memory serves, Al Capp was careful NEVER to identify the location of > Dogpatch. Presumably he felt that Li'l Abner would have a more > universal appeal if > Dogpatch were never identified with one geographical area. Note that > Lockheed's secret aircraft development facility, which acquired the > name "Skunk > Works", was in Los Angeles, not an area usually identified with > backwoods folks. > > One possible slip on Al Capp's part: in the statue which regularly > showed up > in the strip, General Jubilation T. Cornpone is wearing a uniform > that, if > memory serves, was that of the Confederate Army. > > There was a "Senator Phogbound" who was a regular character in the > Li'l Abner > strip. Was he the Senator from Dogpatch? If so, Dogpatch was a state > (but > where was the other Senator?) > > Anyway, "us" Kentuckians liked to claim that Dogpatch was in Kentucky. > I > went to Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky, and the school's > logo was a > drawing of Lonesome Polecat from the Li'l Abner strip that Mr. Capp > gave > permission to use (and I do not doubt personally drew). The school's > athletic teams > were the "Redskins". Ah, those pre-Politically Correct days, when a > goofy > drawing of what was not yet called a "Native American" could be > prominently > posted on the outside wall of the school. > > In case anyone is interested, the name "Seneca" comes not from the > Roman > philosopher but from nearby Seneca Park, one of a number of municipal > parks > designed by Frederic Law Olmstead and named after Indian tribes. > Olmstead, as well > as being a landscape architect, was a journalist who before the Civil > War > wrote a well-known book about the South (with much discussion of > slavery), so our > Politically Incorrect school name had a very tenuous connection with > Emancipation and therefore with the civil rights and PC movements. > > A related Al Capp-ism "Skunk Works", where Lonesome Polecat and a > Caucasian > character whose name escapes me brewed up "Kickapoo joy juice." > MWCD10 says > (page 1101 column 2) "fr. the _Skonk Works_, illicit distilery in the > comic > strip _Li'l Abner_ by Al Capp (ca. 1974)". That the Skonk Works is a > distillery > is a deduction on Merriam-Webster's part, since the Skonk Works as > drawn in > the strip consisted of a large kettle over a fire, with no sign of a > still. If > I can find a certain book which is hiding from me, I will challenge > that date. > Oddly, MWCD11 merely lists "Skunk Works" as a "service mark". > > - Jim Landau > > Aside to Wilson Gray: I believe I said earlier that my copy of > Clausewitz's > "On War" was AWOL. Sunday I attended a talk by a chaplain who is > stationed > with the troops in Iraq. In a list of items to send to the troops, he > listed > non-fiction books, particularly on military history (he said they are > swamped > with paperback fiction.) So I went through my library looking for > military > history books that I haven't read and, lo and behold, that copy of > Clausewitz > patriotically showed up and volunteered. > > Anyway, this is an abridged version of the 1908 Colonel J. J. Graham > translation, reprinted by Penguin (Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: > Penguin Books > Ltd, 1968, ISBN 0-14-044427-0, edited by Anatol Rapoport). Page 119 > "War is a > mere continuation of policy by other means." > > (Question: Am I correct that a leading zero in an ISBN means a book > published in the United States? This book, according to the reverse > of the title > page, was "set, printed, and bound in Great Britain"). > The white guy's name was/is? (I've been under the impression that the strip died with Al Capp, but that's merely an assumption on my part; I don't know f' sho') "Big Barnsmell." I agree that the general wore Confederate grey. But isn't the term "skonk works" way, way, way older than 1974? Or does the date refer to the term "*Skunk* Works"? Do you remember Bashington T. Bullmoose? "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for the U.S.A." Wolfbane? The Wolf Girl? What was the name of the guy who always wore a zoot suit with the drape shape and the reet pleat and had the power of the whammy? And Olmsted was really quite a good writer as well as the king of American landscape architecture. -Wilson Gray From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Tue Nov 9 15:36:11 2004 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 10:36:11 -0500 Subject: latest college slang Message-ID: I'm looking for examples of recent college slang for an upcoming On Language column. Any recommendations? (If so, please send them to me at phille at nytimes.com.) Thanks very much, Elizabeth From gorion at GMAIL.COM Tue Nov 9 16:31:06 2004 From: gorion at GMAIL.COM (Orion Montoya) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 11:31:06 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: <-881533190721893796@unknownmsgid> Message-ID: > (Question: Am I correct that a leading zero in an ISBN means a book > published in the United States? This book, according to the reverse of the title > page, was "set, printed, and bound in Great Britain"). The first number indicates the language spoken in the country of publication -- though it happens that both 0 and 1 apply to English-speaking countries. The Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed., section 1.31) has a pretty good discussion of ISBNs in general, though I have yet to find a comprehensive list of the language codes used. I don't want to pay 40 CHF for a PDF of ISO 2801 (the ISBN standard), which I assume will have it. O. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 9 16:23:32 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 11:23:32 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: <038A220F-31EF-11D9-89EC-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Could well be--I was just funnin'! At 08:31 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: >But wasn't Dogpatch, home of the skonk works, the Little Wonder >Specialty Co., and the Sadie Hawkins Day race and dance a hamlet in >Kentucky? > >-Wilson Gray > >On Nov 8, 2004, at 4:30 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>Nah, that was Li'l Abner. >> >>At 04:00 PM 11/8/2004, you wrote: >>> http://joshreads.com/index.php?p=99 >>> >>>Actually, I thought he lived in the Ozarks. >> From RonButters at AOL.COM Tue Nov 9 17:07:10 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:07:10 EST Subject: Speaking the date in Charleston, SC Message-ID: Anyone have any information about this? I'm intrigued. -------------------------------- Mr. Butters, My name is Mark Strazzabosco. Would you please elaborate on a curious way of saying the Date by older white woman in Charleston? They would say today's date as: The one the one, the eight, the 2 the 0 the four. Where do you suppose this originated from. Is it Gulah? Any info on this would be greatly appreciated. ? From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 9 17:09:55 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:09:55 -0500 Subject: Pauline Kael quote about Nixon In-Reply-To: <007e01c4c611$9d8a5990$0c21a618@sam> Message-ID: On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Sam Clements wrote: > A poster over at the Straight Dope Board tonight said that Pauline Kael was > supposed to have said > > "I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him." Here's a definitive answer. Pauline Kael spoke at the MLA conference in 1972. The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1972, p. 33, quotes her as follows: "'I live in a rather special world,' Miss Kael said, continuing: 'I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.'" Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 19:17:20 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 13:17:20 -0600 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: What was the > name of the guy who always wore a zoot suit with the drape > shape and the reet pleat and had the power of the whammy? > Eagle Eye McFleegle? From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 20:18:08 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:18:08 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Yes! Evil-Eye Fleagle! Thanks! Now, what about the square-jawed Dick Tracy parody who always got his arse shot off, but was never even wounded, let alone killed. (When I was in the War, we used to sing a British anti-war song whose only line I can remember is, "I don't want to get me arse shot off." The line, "I don't want to go war," may have preceded or followed it.) -Wilson On Nov 9, 2004, at 2:17 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > What was the >> name of the guy who always wore a zoot suit with the drape >> shape and the reet pleat and had the power of the whammy? >> > > Eagle Eye McFleegle? > From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 9 20:24:21 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:24:21 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: <788F0594-328C-11D9-A12F-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Fearless Fosdick of course. Capp had a way with names. My favorite was the Russian Sabre dancer Lopya Headoff. dInIs >Yes! Evil-Eye Fleagle! Thanks! Now, what about the square-jawed Dick >Tracy parody who always got his arse shot off, but was never even >wounded, let alone killed. (When I was in the War, we used to sing a >British anti-war song whose only line I can remember is, "I don't want >to get me arse shot off." The line, "I don't want to go war," may have >preceded or followed it.) > >-Wilson > >On Nov 9, 2004, at 2:17 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Mullins, Bill" >>Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >> What was the >>>name of the guy who always wore a zoot suit with the drape >>>shape and the reet pleat and had the power of the whammy? >>> >> >>Eagle Eye McFleegle? From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 20:20:11 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 14:20:11 -0600 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: That would be Fearless Fosdick. > -----Original Message----- > From: Wilson Gray [mailto:wilson.gray at RCN.COM] > Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 2:18 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Yes! Evil-Eye Fleagle! Thanks! Now, what about the > square-jawed Dick Tracy parody who always got his arse shot > off, but was never even wounded, let alone killed. (When I > was in the War, we used to sing a British anti-war song whose > only line I can remember is, "I don't want to get me arse > shot off." The line, "I don't want to go war," may have > preceded or followed it.) > > -Wilson > > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 20:47:58 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:47:58 -0500 Subject: Al Capp Message-ID: Thanks, guys! Anybody recall the name of the punch, based on her innate goodness, that allowed Mammy Yokum to defeat Evil-Eye's "Double Whammy"? Was it the "Good Night, Irene!"? A little more on topic, was it Capp who invented or popularized the word "whammy" or does it predate him? -Wilson From eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU Tue Nov 9 20:59:26 2004 From: eulenbrg at U.WASHINGTON.EDU (J. Eulenberg) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:59:26 -0800 Subject: Al Capp In-Reply-To: <200411092048.iA9Km2CA008898@mxe3.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: What was the Kick-a-Poo Joy Juice for? Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Al Capp > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Thanks, guys! Anybody recall the name of the punch, based on her innate > goodness, that allowed Mammy Yokum to defeat Evil-Eye's "Double > Whammy"? Was it the "Good Night, Irene!"? > > A little more on topic, was it Capp who invented or popularized the > word "whammy" or does it predate him? > > -Wilson > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 21:08:07 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:08:07 -0600 Subject: Al Capp Message-ID: Mammy did have a "Good Night Irene" punch, I don't know how effective it was against Evil Eye. All these questions and more are answered at http://www.dogpatchusa.com/ 1st OED cite for Whammy is 1940, from a book J. R. TUNIS Kid from Tomkinsville. 2nd cite is 1951, from Lil Abner. "An evil influence or hex . From the 1950s, often with reference to the comic strip Li'l Abner (see quot. 1951), esp. in phr. a double whammy and varr. Hence, an intense or powerful look, etc.; something effective, upsetting, problematic, etc. " Fantasy artist Frank Frazetta did Sunday strip artwork throughout the 1950s on Lil Abner. These have been collected into three books: Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Sundays, 1954-55; vol. 2 1956-57; vol 3 1958 - 59. > -----Original Message----- > From: Wilson Gray [mailto:wilson.gray at RCN.COM] > Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 2:48 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Al Capp > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Al Capp > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Thanks, guys! Anybody recall the name of the punch, based on > her innate goodness, that allowed Mammy Yokum to defeat > Evil-Eye's "Double Whammy"? Was it the "Good Night, Irene!"? > > A little more on topic, was it Capp who invented or > popularized the word "whammy" or does it predate him? > > -Wilson > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 21:17:35 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 15:17:35 -0600 Subject: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) Message-ID: > 1st OED cite for Whammy is 1940, from a book J. R. TUNIS Kid > from Tomkinsville. 2nd cite is 1951, from Lil Abner. "An > evil influence or hex . From the 1950s, often with reference > to the comic strip Li'l Abner (see quot. 1951), esp. in phr. > a double whammy and varr. Hence, an intense or powerful look, > etc.; something effective, upsetting, problematic, etc. " > Sporting News, 8/10/1939, p. 1 col 2: "By playing only .333 ball the past week, losing four and winning two of the games they played August 1 to August 6, includsive, the Reds lost four and a half games from their first-place margin, causing many superstitious fans to wonder if President Powel Crosley, Jr., and General Manager Warren Giles put the whammy on their team by getting ready to increase the Crosley Field seating capacity." Is their an email address to which antedatings and other citations can be sent to the OED? Or is their web page the only electronic way to submit? (I only ask because the web page is more cumbersome than an email, plus I have a record copy of an email if I send it that way). From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 9 21:22:18 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:22:18 -0500 Subject: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B4974F@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 09, 2004 at 03:17:35PM -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: > > Is their an email address to which antedatings and other citations can be > sent to the OED? oed3 at oup.com But in general, I pick up most of the antedatings that people post here. Still, if you're willing, better to copy in the above address. Jesse Sheidlower OED From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 9 21:24:42 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:24:42 -0500 Subject: Al Capp In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 9, 2004, at 3:59 PM, J. Eulenberg wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "J. Eulenberg" > Subject: Re: Al Capp > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > What was the Kick-a-Poo Joy Juice for? > > Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg > Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that anybody ever did anything with it. The skonk works simply provided Big Barnsmell and Lonesome Polecat with jobs and accounted for their stunning B.O. The "joy" in the name implied that drinking it would "take you higher." But I can't recall with certainty whether anyone ever drank it. -Wilson Gray > On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Wilson Gray >> Subject: Al Capp >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> --------- >> >> Thanks, guys! Anybody recall the name of the punch, based on her >> innate >> goodness, that allowed Mammy Yokum to defeat Evil-Eye's "Double >> Whammy"? Was it the "Good Night, Irene!"? >> >> A little more on topic, was it Capp who invented or popularized the >> word "whammy" or does it predate him? >> >> -Wilson >> > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 9 21:34:01 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 13:34:01 -0800 Subject: The curious grammar of Ohio: revised version Message-ID: a revised and expanded version of this material has now been posted to the Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001633.html From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Nov 9 22:12:41 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 16:12:41 -0600 Subject: Al Capp's way with names Message-ID: Yes, he did. And not to forget: the student group whose name was the acronym SWINE (Students Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything). And then there was "Joanie Phonie"--which could only have referred to folk-singer Joan Baez. Ms. Baez was so sure the reference was to her that she went to court to obtain a cease-and-desist order (or something to that effect). But the judge ruled that free speech works both ways and refused to tell Al Capp to stop. Gerald Cohen > ---------- > From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Dennis R. Preston > Sent: Tuesday, November 9, 2004 2:24 PM > Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect > > dInIs > From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Tue Nov 9 22:39:04 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 14:39:04 -0800 Subject: Al Capp's way with names In-Reply-To: Message-ID: And don't forget the Little Orphan Annie sendup Sweet Fanny Goony, a comic strip-within-a-comic-strip that alternated with Fearless Fosdick, in the days before Capp became a rabid right-winger. I'll never forget the "quote" in the title panel of one episode: Whether you're rich Or whether you're poor It's always nice to have money. (Old proverb) Peter Mc. --On Tuesday, November 9, 2004 4:12 PM -0600 "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" wrote: > Yes, he did. And not to forget: the student group whose name was the > acronym SWINE (Students Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything). And > then there was "Joanie Phonie"--which could only have referred to > folk-singer Joan Baez. Ms. Baez was so sure the reference was to her that > she went to court to obtain a cease-and-desist order (or something to > that effect). But the judge ruled that free speech works both ways and > refused to tell Al Capp to stop. > > Gerald Cohen > >> ---------- >> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Dennis R. Preston >> Sent: Tuesday, November 9, 2004 2:24 PM >> Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect >> > > >> dInIs >> ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 9 23:19:29 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 18:19:29 -0500 Subject: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B4974F@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Mullins, Bill wrote: > Sporting News, 8/10/1939, p. 1 col 2: > "By playing only .333 ball the past week, losing four and winning two of the > games they played August 1 to August 6, includsive, the Reds lost four and a > half games from their first-place margin, causing many superstitious fans to > wonder if President Powel Crosley, Jr., and General Manager Warren Giles put > the whammy on their team by getting ready to increase the Crosley Field > seating capacity." Nice antedating. I hope pointing out an earlier occurrence doesn't discourage the fine research you are doing: 1936 _N.Y. Times_ 5 July S2 There is only one team of the Dodger variety. "That's one too many," said Mr. Brannick gloomily. "They put the whammy on us." Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 9 23:23:47 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 17:23:47 -0600 Subject: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) Message-ID: I wish I'd found yours, if only because it was less typing!! > -----Original Message----- > From: Fred Shapiro [mailto:fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU] > Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 5:19 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: whammy antedating (was Al Capp) > > On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Mullins, Bill wrote: > > > Sporting News, 8/10/1939, p. 1 col 2: > > "By playing only .333 ball the past week, losing four and > winning two > > of the games they played August 1 to August 6, includsive, the Reds > > lost four and a half games from their first-place margin, > causing many > > superstitious fans to wonder if President Powel Crosley, Jr., and > > General Manager Warren Giles put the whammy on their team > by getting > > ready to increase the Crosley Field seating capacity." > > Nice antedating. I hope pointing out an earlier occurrence > doesn't discourage the fine research you are doing: > > 1936 _N.Y. Times_ 5 July S2 There is only one team of the > Dodger variety. > "That's one too many," said Mr. Brannick gloomily. "They put > the whammy on us." > > Fred Shapiro > From lesa.dill at WKU.EDU Tue Nov 9 23:51:19 2004 From: lesa.dill at WKU.EDU (Lesa Dill) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 17:51:19 -0600 Subject: Burgoo In-Reply-To: <005c01c4c5fc$ce861260$0c21a618@sam> Message-ID: Never would I think all barbecues taste the same although I'm partial to the variety from West Tennessee--hickory smoked and pulled with or without coleslaw piled on the sandwich and with a sauce that is vinegary and peppery with a bit of tomato base. What I meant to imply was that I think there are as many Brunswick Stew and Burgoo recipes as there are barbecue recipes and the argument that might follow would involve who has the best or first or correct or whatever Brunswick Stew/ Burgoo recipe. I've had Brunswick stew with ground beef/ground meat in it as well as a bunch of veggies although not cabbage or celery that I remember. I've also seen Burgoo without ground meat. Hey, any chance you'd be willing to share that Virginia Brunswick Stew recipe? I've been looking for a good one for years! And as far as going on the road for months to sample BBQ, I'm game--no pun intended. Lesa On Mon, 8 Nov 2004 20:38:25 -0500 Sam Clements wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Lesa Dill" > To: > Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 11:08 AM > Subject: Re: Burgoo > > > > What I want to know is the relationship between Brunswick Stew and > > Burgoo--etymologically or culinarily??? I've had both and they seem as > > alike as the different states' barbecue. I hope not since another > > barbecue battle might be too much to handle. > > Lesa > > I can't see any connection etymologically. > > As for the difference in recipes, I'm from Virginia originally, and I cook a > mean Brunswick stew. > > Most Burgoo recipes I've seen have the following additional ingredients that > are missing from the Virginia/Georgia Brunswick Stew: > > Carrots, celery, beef, cabbage, and perhaps a bit of spice from something > such as cayenne. > > If I read you correctly Lesa, you think that all BBQ has the same taste? > > We'd need a few months on the road together. I'd take you from the > vinegar/red pepper of Eastern NC, my personal favorite, to the more tomato > based Western NC, to the three varieties of SC BBQ, including the mustard > sauce. > > Kentucky/Tenn. have an even more tomato based product, and then you can get > into the OK/TX sauces. > > Sam Clements From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Nov 10 00:50:54 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 19:50:54 -0500 Subject: Flop -- Telco Lingo In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.1.20041108205651.0255d478@pop.visi.com> Message-ID: > He handed it to an assistant and >said, "You've got a flop here." He repeated this in the course of >explaining. He did not say, "flip-flop," which I believe has a specific >meaning in that world, ie a circuit governed by a toggle switch or having >some other way of achieving either of two states. I don't know if he would >have said "flip-flop" if the lines had been completely reversed. I was not >about about to ask a man up to his knees in tangled wired. >--Tom Kysilko ~~~~~~~ I forwarded this post to a tech who has been working for the past 5 years for Ameritech (now SBC). This was the reply: "Understand the phenomenon, but haven't heard the term. Nor do I know of any special meaning for the term "flip-flop, though I can guess at one that would make sense. Within my tenure I have noticed that some terms seem older, i.e., are in use by techs who've been around longer. I've only known one tech who transfered from a different telco, and he was known for using a term that the Springfield techs considered foreign (and of course mocked him for)." A. Murie From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 10 03:46:18 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 22:46:18 -0500 Subject: Double whammy (1946) In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041109004623.03203090@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: From N'archive: ---------- _The Landmark_ (Statesville NC), 21 Nov. 1946: p. 2, col. 7: <> ---------- -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 10 04:49:43 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 23:49:43 -0500 Subject: Double whammy (1945) In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041109223636.031f7df0@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: From Paper of Record: ---------- _The Sporting News_ (St. Louis MO), 27 Sep. 1945: p. 6, col. 2: <> ---------- -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 10 07:09:35 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 02:09:35 -0500 Subject: Leslie Howard and the "gay doorman" Message-ID: I see from the archives that there has been extensive discussion on the shifting senses of the term "gay" in the first half of the 20th century. Quoting a 1999 post from Ron Butters: I have found that most such uses of GAY before the earlier 1940s mean 'homosexual' only to latter-day viewers but did not mean 'homosexual' to the person using the term at the time (though in the late 1930s GAY probably did have a queer-subculture meaning as 'homosexual' for a coterie in New York and perhaps other big cities in the US). So I was surprised to see the following in a recent Entertainment Weekly review of the new _Gone With the Wind_ DVD: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/dvd/0,6115,767420_2_0_,00.html Also included are historian Rudy Behlmer's exhaustive commentary track and the 1989 doc "The Making of a Legend," which showcases hilarious Scarlett wannabe screen tests (pip-squeaky Jean Arthur was a finalist?) and costume fittings for miserable costars Gable and Leslie Howard ? at one point Howard supposedly bemoaned looking like a "gay doorman up at the Beverly Wilshire." I'd imagine that the documentary is quoting the reminiscences of a costume designer well after the fact, so this isn't the most reliable source. But could Leslie Howard have been familiar with the subcultural sense of "gay" in the late '30s? Or is it possible that Howard simply meant that the doorman in question was 'decadent and fashion-conscious', as "gay" was often construed to mean in the '20s and '30s? --Ben Zimmer From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 10 07:15:59 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 01:15:59 -0600 Subject: tremblor -- antedating Message-ID: tremblor: An earthquake or earth tremor. (OED 1913) from the front cover of _Popular Mechanics_, June 1906 online at: http://popularmechanics.com/albums/index.phtml?mode=view&album=1906&pic=1906 06.jpg&dispsize=400&start=0 "seismograph record of the tremblor" [re: the San Francisco earthquake] From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Nov 10 08:14:32 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 03:14:32 EST Subject: Imported from Brooklyn; Gerald Cohen on NPR Message-ID: Just got back. Everything's a mess in this tiny apartment. No time to clean--more parking tickets in a few hours. IMPORTED FROM BROOKLYN--I just bought at the local supermarket some eggplant parmigiana from "JOHN'S GOURMET Good Food with a Twist." Don't know what the twist is. The package has: "CHEF PREPARED IMPORTED FROM BROOKLYN." Can they say this? Can they even joke about this? "Imported" is a legal term about the product, meaning that it does not come from the United States. Nothing else about the package is jokey. NPR yesterday: Remembrances Remembering Word Sleuth David Shulman All Things Considered, November 8, 2004 ? David Shulman, known as the Sherlock Holmes of American language, dies in Brooklyn at the age of 91. He found the origins of thousands of words for the Oxford English Dictionary, including "The Great White Way," "Big Apple," "doozy," "hoochie-coochie," and "hot dog." NPR's Michele Norris talks with Gerald Cohen, professor of foreign languages at University of Missouri. http://www.npr.org/lightningcast/index.html?audioURL=http://www.npr.org/dmg/dm g.php?prgCode=ATC&showDate=08-Nov-2004&segNum=19&NPRMediaPref=WM&getAd=1& ext=.asx I answered my phone messages. Victory Memorial Hospital didn't call me back. DAVID KAHN ("The Codebreakers"). (516) 487-7181. His answering machine says that he's in Poland until the end of the week. MARTY REISMAN ("The Money Player"). (212) 758-6768. Marty said that Shulman's obituaries failed to mention that David was a champion table tennis player, going to the Nationals in the 1930s. Marty had no burial/legal information.. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Nov 10 09:31:51 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 04:31:51 EST Subject: Singapore cuisine (top ten dishes) Message-ID: OT: MORE "BARRY POPICK"--In a review of THE BANANA SCULPTOR, THE PURPLE LADY AND THE ALL NIGHT SWIMMER: HOBBIES, COLLECTING AND OTHER PASSIONATE PURSUITS (2002), the Wall Street Journal found the story of "Barry Popick" to be poignant. I wrote in to say that this sounded to me like the story the Wall Street Journal wrote about "Barry Popik" in 2001. My letter was not printed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- SINGAPORE CUISINE This would normally be on my food web site, but I can't find anyone to pay (for any price) to help me set it up. I'm not even going to bother checking with OED. EAT! had a display at the Asia Food Expo on Sunday. EAT! (Singapore), August 2004, cover: WHAT MAKES A DISH SINGAPOREAN? Pg. 10: In fact, we are so spoilt for choice that the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) ca,e up with not one but 10 must-try dishes. In no particular order of importance, they are: Crab--Chilli Crab and Black Pepper Crab, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Fish Head Curry, Satay, Bak Kut Teh, Roti Prata, Laksa, Char Kway Teow, Fried Carrot Cake, and Rojak.If the smattering array does not get your mouth watering, maybe you will prefer Nasi Lemak, Mee Rebus (For you math fans out there--ed.), Nasi Briyani, Curry puff, Fried Hokkien Mee or Popiah? The list goes on. UNIQUELY SINGAPORE: YOUR ESSENTIAL SINGAPORE GUIDE www.visitsingapore.com Singapore Tourism Board February 2004 edition Pg. 36: BREAKFAST SPECIALS _Kaya toast with a cup of local coffee_ _Kaya_ is a sweet egg-and-coconut jam that is spread geneoursly over toasted bread. Eat the toast with hard-boiled eggs and add a dash of black soya sauce for extra taste! _Roti prata_ and _teh tarik_ _Roti prata) is a crispy, crusty South Indian pancake, made with or without eggs, and served with a bowl of thick curry gravy. Pg. 37: _Teh tarik_ ("tarik" is a Malay word for "pull") is tea mixed with both evaporated and sweet condensed milk where it is "pulled" from one mug to another to create a perfect blend of tea and milk with a wonderful light creamy froth. _Bak kut teh_ and rice This is a Chinese dish--pork ribs cooked with five spices, garlic and pepper in a tasty soup that is served with a choice of rice or fried dough fritters. _Bak kut teh_ can be accompanied by Chinese tea to heighten its flavour. _Nasi lemak_ _Nasi lemak_ is a hearty meal comprising coconut-flavored rice, a slice of omelette, anchoviesm a slice of cucumber and some chilli paste, often uniquely packed in brown paper or banana leaf. 10 LOCAL FAVOURITES 1. Hainanese chicken rice--Steamed chicken served with fragrant rice cooked in chicken stock. 2. _Laksa_--Rice noodles in coconut curry gravy with shrimp, egg, chicken and cockles as garnishing. 3. _Char kway teow_--Broad white noodles fried with dark sweet sauce, bean sprouts, fish cake, clams and Chinese sausage. 4. Hokkien prawn _mee_--Vermicelli andf yellow noodles fried with prawns, sliced cuttlefish and pork bits. 5. _Murtabak_--a local version of pizza stuffed with minced mutton or chicken away inside and served with curry. Pg. 38: 6. Fish head curry--a huge fish head and vegetables cooked in curry and served with rice. Have a glass of "calamansi" or local lime juice to go with it. 7. _Satay_--meat kababs served with rice cake, cucumber and peanut gravy. 8. _Rojak_--a local salad comprising a mixture of fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers, bean sprouts, pineapple, white radish, fried crullers, dried bean curd, sometimes even mango and cuttlefish, which are all tossed into a bowl and stirred in a prawn paste, topped off with peanuts. 9. _Nonya kueh_--a local dessert born out of a fusion of Chinese and Malay cultures which comes in an assortment of shapes, flavours and colours! Common ingredients include glutinous rice, tapioca, pandari, and tropical fruits like banana, durian and coconut! 10. Chilli crab--Hard-shell crabs cooked in thick gravy with a tomato and chilli base. Best eaten with bread soaked in the gravy. Don't be afraid to use your hands! This dish is usually ordered wuth other seafood dishes. Down your food with a glass of fresh fruit juice or fresh coconut water. On a hot day, you should also end your meal with a local cold dessert like _ice kacang_ or _chendol_. _Ice kacang_ is a mound of grated ice, smothered with different sweet syrups with a base made of jelly, red beans, corn and attap seeds. _Chendol_ is a coconut milk drink mixed with brown sugar (_gula melaka_), green starch strips and red beans. From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Wed Nov 10 14:07:57 2004 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 06:07:57 -0800 Subject: tremblor -- antedating In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49755@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: Is this an antedating of a misspelling of temblor, does it indicate how the word was originaly spelled - temblor being a later modification, or did the two spellings peacefully coexist? --- "Mullins, Bill" wrote: > tremblor: An earthquake or earth tremor. (OED 1913) > > from the front cover of _Popular Mechanics_, June > 1906 online at: > http://popularmechanics.com/albums/index.phtml?mode=view&album=1906&pic=1906 > 06.jpg&dispsize=400&start=0 > > "seismograph record of the tremblor" [re: the San > Francisco earthquake] > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Wed Nov 10 14:09:09 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:09:09 -0500 Subject: Singapore cuisine (top ten dishes) Message-ID: Barry's menus are sometimes very mouth-watering, at least for me. I've never been to Singapore, but having lived in or visited South India till the Fifties, I can relate to some of the items on the menu. However, here's a linguistic comment to take the edge off the curry. "Prata" is better known as "parata," esp. in N. India. The second "a" is the longest (or the accented one if you like), so the word gets syncopated into two syllables, like "creer" for "career" in rapid conversational style. Keep watering mouths, Barry! TOM www.paikeday.net ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 4:31 AM Subject: Singapore cuisine (top ten dishes) > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: Singapore cuisine (top ten dishes) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > OT: MORE "BARRY POPICK"--In a review of THE BANANA SCULPTOR, THE PURPLE > LADY > AND THE ALL NIGHT SWIMMER: HOBBIES, COLLECTING AND OTHER PASSIONATE > PURSUITS > (2002), the Wall Street Journal found the story of "Barry Popick" to be > poignant. I wrote in to say that this sounded to me like the story the > Wall Street > Journal wrote about "Barry Popik" in 2001. My letter was not printed. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > -------------------------------------------- > SINGAPORE CUISINE > > This would normally be on my food web site, but I can't find anyone to pay > (for any price) to help me set it up. > > I'm not even going to bother checking with OED. > > EAT! had a display at the Asia Food Expo on Sunday. > > > EAT! (Singapore), August 2004, cover: > WHAT MAKES A DISH SINGAPOREAN? > Pg. 10: > In fact, we are so spoilt for choice that the Singapore Tourism Board > (STB) > ca,e up with not one but 10 must-try dishes. In no particular order of > importance, they are: Crab--Chilli Crab and Black Pepper Crab, Hainanese > Chicken Rice, > Fish Head Curry, Satay, Bak Kut Teh, Roti Prata, Laksa, Char Kway Teow, > Fried > Carrot Cake, and Rojak.If the smattering array does not get your mouth > watering, maybe you will prefer Nasi Lemak, Mee Rebus (For you math fans > out > there--ed.), Nasi Briyani, Curry puff, Fried Hokkien Mee or Popiah? The > list goes on. > > > UNIQUELY SINGAPORE: > YOUR ESSENTIAL SINGAPORE GUIDE > www.visitsingapore.com > Singapore Tourism Board > February 2004 edition > > Pg. 36: > BREAKFAST SPECIALS > _Kaya toast with a cup of local coffee_ > _Kaya_ is a sweet egg-and-coconut jam that is spread geneoursly over > toasted > bread. Eat the toast with hard-boiled eggs and add a dash of black soya > sauce > for extra taste! > > _Roti prata_ and _teh tarik_ > _Roti prata) is a crispy, crusty South Indian pancake, made with or > without > eggs, and served with a bowl of thick curry gravy. > Pg. 37: > _Teh tarik_ ("tarik" is a Malay word for "pull") is tea mixed with both > evaporated and sweet condensed milk where it is "pulled" from one mug to > another to > create a perfect blend of tea and milk with a wonderful light creamy > froth. > > _Bak kut teh_ and rice > This is a Chinese dish--pork ribs cooked with five spices, garlic and > pepper > in a tasty soup that is served with a choice of rice or fried dough > fritters. > _Bak kut teh_ can be accompanied by Chinese tea to heighten its flavour. > > _Nasi lemak_ > _Nasi lemak_ is a hearty meal comprising coconut-flavored rice, a slice of > omelette, anchoviesm a slice of cucumber and some chilli paste, often > uniquely > packed in brown paper or banana leaf. > > 10 LOCAL FAVOURITES > > 1. Hainanese chicken rice--Steamed chicken served with fragrant rice > cooked > in chicken stock. > > 2. _Laksa_--Rice noodles in coconut curry gravy with shrimp, egg, chicken > and > cockles as garnishing. > > 3. _Char kway teow_--Broad white noodles fried with dark sweet sauce, bean > sprouts, fish cake, clams and Chinese sausage. > > 4. Hokkien prawn _mee_--Vermicelli andf yellow noodles fried with prawns, > sliced cuttlefish and pork bits. > > 5. _Murtabak_--a local version of pizza stuffed with minced mutton or > chicken > away inside and served with curry. > > Pg. 38: > 6. Fish head curry--a huge fish head and vegetables cooked in curry and > served with rice. Have a glass of "calamansi" or local lime juice to go > with it. > > 7. _Satay_--meat kababs served with rice cake, cucumber and peanut gravy. > > 8. _Rojak_--a local salad comprising a mixture of fruits and vegetables > such > as cucumbers, bean sprouts, pineapple, white radish, fried crullers, dried > bean curd, sometimes even mango and cuttlefish, which are all tossed into > a bowl > and stirred in a prawn paste, topped off with peanuts. > > 9. _Nonya kueh_--a local dessert born out of a fusion of Chinese and Malay > cultures which comes in an assortment of shapes, flavours and colours! > Common > ingredients include glutinous rice, tapioca, pandari, and tropical fruits > like > banana, durian and coconut! > > 10. Chilli crab--Hard-shell crabs cooked in thick gravy with a tomato and > chilli base. Best eaten with bread soaked in the gravy. Don't be afraid to > use > your hands! This dish is usually ordered wuth other seafood dishes. > > Down your food with a glass of fresh fruit juice or fresh coconut water. > On a > hot day, you should also end your meal with a local cold dessert like _ice > kacang_ or _chendol_. _Ice kacang_ is a mound of grated ice, smothered > with > different sweet syrups with a base made of jelly, red beans, corn and > attap seeds. > > _Chendol_ is a coconut milk drink mixed with brown sugar (_gula melaka_), > green starch strips and red beans. > From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Wed Nov 10 14:42:42 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:42:42 EST Subject: Al Capp Message-ID: Lonesome Polecat's partner at making Kickapoo Joy Juice was Hairless Joe. See for example http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/g1epc/tov/2419100719/p1/article.jhtml which says "Hairless Joe and Lonesome Polecat (brewers of Kickapoo Joy Juice)". This source deduces (M-W please note) that the Skunk Works was a brewery, not a distillery. The sight gag about the name "Hairless Joe" was that Joe had considerable hair (and if I remember correctly a big blond beard). Big Barnsmell (and I seem to recall a relative of his, called something Barnsmell) was a different character in the Li'l Abner strip. The whammy character was Evil Eye Fleagle. Like many Capp characters, he was a parody of a real person. The version I have heard (and I cannot give references) is that there was a sleazy gym hanger-on in or around the Jazz Age who purported to put the evil eye on various persons. This man went by the pseudonym of "Evil Eye Floogle" or something like that. A famous sportswriter, I canot recall who, took this person and gave him national prominence, so much prominence that Al Capp considered him fodder for an oft-used parody. I once read a short interview of the real Evil Eye, in which he explained how he pulled one of his whammies (waiting until the victim had eaten a dinner of his favorite food, oysters or something like that, which always gave him indigestion) and then Evil Eye post facto claimed to have cursed the victim. This interview, if I remember correctly, was in John Scarne's autobiography. A Google search fails to turn up any trace of the original Evil Eye, showing that yes it is possible to be a famous person and still not appear in Google. Yes, it makes sense that General Jubilation T. Cornpone would be shown in a Confederate uniform, as he was a caricature of the Southern glorification of Confederate generals. (Aside: the Confederacy produced a number of great generals, but Jefferson Davis in his entire administration had only two civilians worth the powder to blow them to Gehenna: Judah P. Benjamin and the lesser-known Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory.) Al Capp stopped drawing the Li'l Abner strip in 1977, two years before his death. - Jim Landau From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 10 15:09:56 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:09:56 -0500 Subject: Leslie Howard and the "gay doorman" In-Reply-To: <4688.69.142.143.59.1100070575.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: At 2:09 AM -0500 11/10/04, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >I see from the archives that there has been extensive discussion on the >shifting senses of the term "gay" in the first half of the 20th century. >Quoting a 1999 post from Ron Butters: > > I have found that most such uses of GAY before the > earlier 1940s mean 'homosexual' only to latter-day > viewers but did not mean 'homosexual' to the person > using the term at the time (though in the late 1930s > GAY probably did have a queer-subculture meaning as > 'homosexual' for a coterie in New York and perhaps > other big cities in the US). > >So I was surprised to see the following in a recent Entertainment Weekly >review of the new _Gone With the Wind_ DVD: > > http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/dvd/0,6115,767420_2_0_,00.html > Also included are historian Rudy Behlmer's exhaustive > commentary track and the 1989 doc "The Making of a > Legend," which showcases hilarious Scarlett wannabe > screen tests (pip-squeaky Jean Arthur was a finalist?) > and costume fittings for miserable costars Gable and > Leslie Howard ? at one point Howard supposedly bemoaned > looking like a "gay doorman up at the Beverly Wilshire." > >I'd imagine that the documentary is quoting the reminiscences of a costume >designer well after the fact, so this isn't the most reliable source. But >could Leslie Howard have been familiar with the subcultural sense of "gay" >in the late '30s? Or is it possible that Howard simply meant that the >doorman in question was 'decadent and fashion-conscious', as "gay" was >often construed to mean in the '20s and '30s? > My money would be on Leslie Howard having bemoaned the possibility of looking like "a [gay] doorman up at the Beverly Wilshire", with some other adjective actually used--the occurrence of "gay" in the quote being transparent or de re rather than verbatim. Larry From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 10 16:00:28 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 10:00:28 -0600 Subject: Imported from Brooklyn; Gerald Cohen on NPR Message-ID: NPR transcript: HEADLINE: Gerald Cohen remembers David Shulman, his friend and co-researcher on the origin of the word `hot dog' ANCHORS: MICHELE NORRIS MICHELE NORRIS, host: David Shulman was described as the Sherlock Holmes of American language. His sleuthing unearthed the first use of thousands of words and phrases, including the origins of `The Big Apple,' `hoochie-coochie' and `The Great White Way.' David Shulman died last week in New York City at the age of 91. Gerald Cohen is a professor of foreign languages at the University of Missouri in Rolla. He knew David Shulman for 25 years and collaborated with him on determining the origin of the term `hot dog.' Professor Cohen, thanks for being with us. Professor GERALD COHEN (University of Missouri): Oh, happy to. NORRIS: David Shulman contributed more than 5,000 words and phrases to the Oxford English Dictionary, and he was something of a self-taught etymologist. But that title seems almost too precise, too sterile to describe the passion and the eccentricity that fueled his pursuit of language. Prof. COHEN: Well, yes, I would agree with that. There's an enormous amount of material, information, culture and so forth wrapped up in words. And when you deal with a word, you're dealing with the building blocks of all of that. NORRIS: You know, it's one thing to love language, to love the way it sounds, as it rolls off your tongue, to love to listen to it. But to actually search for the origins of a word or a phrase--it's a certain kind of person who's willing to roll up their sleeves and do that kind of work. Prof. COHEN: Well, it's a combination of a certain investigative spirit, plus an appreciation for history. What we have isn't simply here. It developed. It came from somewhere. And anybody who is involved in history I think could understand why somebody might be interested in the history of language. NORRIS: You worked with him in trying to determine the origins of the word `hot dog.' Prof. COHEN: Yes, that is correct. Well, first of all, David Shulman insisted that it had to come from college slang, and in so doing, he was disagreeing with two other interpretations out there. He was able to trace back the term `hot dog' to Yale 1895. It was part of the irreverent humor that college students have mixed in with a little bit of bad taste, which college students sometimes have, so they came up with the term `hot dog.' It referred to the 19th century belief that dog meat could turn up in sausages, and as a matter of fact, that belief has a basis in fact. So this was back in 1895. Within five years the term had spread to at least 30 other universities, so it was solidly rooted in college slang. And from there it gradually spread and became accepted. NORRIS: Can you tell us a little bit about how he worked? Prof. COHEN: Yes, in detail. You get out the old magazines, you get out the old books, you find something which is interesting, you get a lead and you follow through and you spend five, six hours sitting in the library. And you do this day after day, year after year, and gradually you have quite a volume of work accomplished. NORRIS: What was his greatest accomplishment? What did he see as his greatest accomplishment? Prof. COHEN: I'm sure that he would want to be remembered for the antedatings. He loved it. And the--you may say Miller time for him was when he would come up with an earlier attestation than had been noticed before in the dictionary. NORRIS: Thanks so much for talking to us, Professor. Prof. COHEN: OK. Happy to. NORRIS: Professor Gerald Cohen of the University of Missouri speaking to us about his friend, the wordsmith David Shulman. He'll soon publish a book about the origins of the term `hot dog' that credits David Shulman and another word hunter, Barry Popik, as authors. (Soundbite of music) ROBERT SIEGEL (Host): You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Wed Nov 10 16:59:50 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:59:50 -0500 Subject: Al Capp's way with names Message-ID: Dennis Preston writes: "Capp had a way with names. My favorite was the Russian Sabre dancer Lopya Headoff." This may be a traditional joke or a variant on one. When I was a freshman in college (Boston University, 1959) I was standing at the counter of a campus eatery behind a singularly vacuous looking co-ed. The counterman asked her where she was from. Philadelphia. Oh, I know a rabbi in Philadelphia, Rabbi Kutcherkokoff -- do you know him? No. I got it, at least, and the counterman tipped me a wink. And as a parallel, I cite the radio comedian of the 1930s who played a Greek (I think) character named Parkykarkas (viz., park your carcass). This actor was so identified with this role that he officially changed his name to Parkykarkas. (Details on demand -- I know where I can look this guy up, the correct spelling of his radio name and his original name, but it's not handy right now.) GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998. From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Wed Nov 10 16:56:12 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 08:56:12 -0800 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: Can anyone tell me when the expression "Right on!" entered American speech? I'm a journalist and author wondering if it would be appropriate to use that expression in dialog taking place in April, 1968. Thanks, Kathy Seal KATHY SEAL 310-452-2769 Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) www.Kathyseal.net From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Nov 10 17:14:27 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:14:27 -0500 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: <007701c4c746$2f7cc240$6a00a8c0@DJLFPF41> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 08:56:12AM -0800, Kathy Seal wrote: > > Can anyone tell me when the expression "Right on!" entered >American speech? I'm a journalist and author wondering if it >would be appropriate to use that expression in dialog taking >place in April, 1968. It would probably not be appropriate, unless one of the interlocutors happens to be Bobby Seale or someone like that. If you can't move the scene to mid-1970 or later, I wouldn't use this expression if you're concerned with historical accuracy. Jesse Sheidlower Oxford English Dictionary From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Wed Nov 10 17:15:18 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 09:15:18 -0800 Subject: "On the ground" redux Message-ID: Awhile ago there was a discussion of the figurative use of "on the ground." For any of you who missed it, there was a great example this morning on NPR. In a report on a new agreement over the Darfur region of Sudan, the news reader (female, I forget who), said, "The no-fly zone will be a significant element on the ground." This ALMOST works literally, but with the word "element," it seems to me, not quite. Peter Mc. ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From slang at ABECEDARY.NET Wed Nov 10 17:42:09 2004 From: slang at ABECEDARY.NET (Jonathon Green) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:42:09 -0000 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: It's certainly in the 1968 edition of _Current Slang_ III:2, subtitled 'The Slang of Watts'. I think Jesse might be being a trifle restrictive; I definitely recall being very well aware of the term in mid-late 1969, certainly in the context of working on the London 'underground press', albeit at that stage for the short-lived UK edition of a still relatively radical Rolling Stone. In other words, we were far, both lit. and fig., from the Black Panthers. We probably picked it up through the old UPS (the Underground Press Syndicate, via which all such papers circulated material). Jonathon Green From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 10 19:27:22 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:27:22 -0500 Subject: John Simpson on David Shulman Message-ID: To add to the tributes to David Shulman, let me post to the list (with John's permission) a comment made in an e-mail to me from John Simpson, chief editor of the OED, after I had forwarded to him the New York Times obituary on David. It is interesting to see that David was sending contributions to the OED up to the very end. Fred Shapiro ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Fred, Thanks very much for this (I'm just back from a conference). It's very sad - he'll never receive the letter I wrote to him the day before he died, thanking him for his latest batch of contributions. With best wishes, John From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Wed Nov 10 21:42:07 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:42:07 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as "Dogpatch, Kentucky." I don't recall the state being mentioned in the later years of the strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement park was in Arkansas. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Wilson Gray Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 8:31 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect But wasn't Dogpatch, home of the skonk works, the Little Wonder Specialty Co., and the Sadie Hawkins Day race and dance a hamlet in Kentucky? -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 10 22:35:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:35:46 -0500 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 10, 2004, at 12:42 PM, Jonathon Green wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathon Green > Subject: Re: "Right on" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > It's certainly in the 1968 edition of _Current Slang_ III:2, subtitled > 'The Slang of Watts'. I think Jesse might be being a trifle > restrictive; I > definitely recall being very well aware of the term in mid-late 1969, > certainly in the context of working on the London 'underground press', > albeit at that stage for the short-lived UK edition of a still > relatively > radical Rolling Stone. In other words, we were far, both lit. and fig., > from the Black Panthers. We probably picked it up through the old UPS > (the Underground Press Syndicate, via which all such papers circulated > material). > > Jonathon Green > I'm with Jonathon on this one. The phrase, "right on," occurs in the play (there was a musical version starring Muhammad Ali and staged in San Francisco; I'm talking about the original play, which was staged in Los Angeles), "Big-Time Buck White," starring nobody that anybody ever heard of. I'm not sure when the play was written - I saw it in 1968 - but it was definitely in print by 1969 (published by Black Cat Books, a subsidiary of Grove Press). And, given that the author is Joseph Dolan Tuotti, judging by his name, it's also rather unlikely that he was a Panther. Historical note. For the record, the Black Panthers did not have a serious presence in Watts or in any other section of Los Angeles. The greater Los Angeles area was the territory of the US(A) - the United Slaves (of America). "Whe'evuh we *ah*, US *is*!" [I've always loved this slogan for the way that it puns on the grammar of "Negro dialect."] Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of California, Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. -Wilson Gray From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Wed Nov 10 22:41:57 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:41:57 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: John Baker wrote: >A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as >"Dogpatch, >Kentucky." I don't recall the state being mentioned in the >later years of the >strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement >park was in Arkansas. Coming in late to this discussion, please forgive this intrusion: Based on a fairly careful reading (some years ago) of the first three years of Li'l Abner dailies, I don't remember seeing any mention of Kentucky as the site of Dogpatch. Capp seems to go to great pains to generalize 'the mountains of the South' in various forms, rather than being specific. In many ways, Capp deliberately sought to control public reaction/beliefs concerning Li'l Abner. Course, I could have missed it, or it could have occurred in a Sunday strip (I haven't seen many Sundays; don't even know when Sundays began for this strip). If you have a citation for a specific date for this (or a secondary source), John, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd post it. (I have the first three years of dailies handy, so I can quickly check such a reference for those years.) For years, I've believed that Capp deliberately did not specify a state, and everything I seen supported that, but I'm happy to be corrected by appropriate documentation. Thanks, Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Wed Nov 10 22:57:58 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 14:57:58 -0800 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: These are fascinating answers. So if "right on" existed in 1968 in dialect, is there any way of finding out whether white students would have used it yet? Clearly they did later on. Kathy KATHY SEAL 310-452-2769 Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) www.Kathyseal.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 2:35 PM Subject: Re: "Right on" > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: "Right on" > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > On Nov 10, 2004, at 12:42 PM, Jonathon Green wrote: > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Jonathon Green > > Subject: Re: "Right on" > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------- > > > > It's certainly in the 1968 edition of _Current Slang_ III:2, subtitled > > 'The Slang of Watts'. I think Jesse might be being a trifle > > restrictive; I > > definitely recall being very well aware of the term in mid-late 1969, > > certainly in the context of working on the London 'underground press', > > albeit at that stage for the short-lived UK edition of a still > > relatively > > radical Rolling Stone. In other words, we were far, both lit. and fig., > > from the Black Panthers. We probably picked it up through the old UPS > > (the Underground Press Syndicate, via which all such papers circulated > > material). > > > > Jonathon Green > > > > I'm with Jonathon on this one. The phrase, "right on," occurs in the > play (there was a musical version starring Muhammad Ali and staged in > San Francisco; I'm talking about the original play, which was staged in > Los Angeles), "Big-Time Buck White," starring nobody that anybody ever > heard of. I'm not sure when the play was written - I saw it in 1968 - > but it was definitely in print by 1969 (published by Black Cat Books, a > subsidiary of Grove Press). And, given that the author is Joseph Dolan > Tuotti, judging by his name, it's also rather unlikely that he was a > Panther. > > Historical note. For the record, the Black Panthers did not have a > serious presence in Watts or in any other section of Los Angeles. The > greater Los Angeles area was the territory of the US(A) - the United > Slaves (of America). "Whe'evuh we *ah*, US *is*!" [I've always loved > this slogan for the way that it puns on the grammar of "Negro > dialect."] Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I > heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of California, > Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. > > -Wilson Gray From preston at MSU.EDU Wed Nov 10 23:06:28 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:06:28 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect In-Reply-To: Message-ID: If it ain't Kaintucky, I shore gone lose some of my my HPQ (Hillbilly Pretense Quotient), and I may even have to retitle some articles I done published. dInIs >John Baker wrote: > >>A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as >>"Dogpatch, >Kentucky." I don't recall the state being mentioned in the >>later years of the >strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement >>park was in Arkansas. > >Coming in late to this discussion, please forgive this intrusion: Based on >a fairly careful reading (some years ago) of the first three years of Li'l >Abner dailies, I don't remember seeing any mention of Kentucky as the site >of Dogpatch. Capp seems to go to great pains to generalize 'the mountains >of the South' in various forms, rather than being specific. In many ways, >Capp deliberately sought to control public reaction/beliefs concerning Li'l >Abner. > >Course, I could have missed it, or it could have occurred in a Sunday strip >(I haven't seen many Sundays; don't even know when Sundays began for this >strip). > >If you have a citation for a specific date for this (or a secondary >source), John, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd post it. (I have the >first three years of dailies handy, so I can quickly check such a reference >for those years.) > >For years, I've believed that Capp deliberately did not specify a state, >and everything I seen supported that, but I'm happy to be corrected by >appropriate documentation. > >Thanks, > >Michael McKernan, Ph.D. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Wed Nov 10 23:52:39 2004 From: t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU (Terry Irons) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:52:39 -0500 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: Dennis, your HPQ is fine. Even though Capp may not mention Kentucky, he does more than once refer to members of the Tolliver family in Lil' Abner strips. For those who may not know, the Martin-Tolliver feud, not as well known as the Hatfield-McCoy feud but certainly bloodier and longer, took place after the War of Northern Aggression in Rowan County, Kentucky. -- Virtually, Terry (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) Terry Lynn Irons t.irons at morehead-st.edu Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164 Snail Mail: UPO 604 Morehead, KY 40351 (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*) From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Thu Nov 11 00:02:04 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:02:04 -0500 Subject: "On the ground" redux In-Reply-To: <2147483647.1100078118@[10.218.201.115]> Message-ID: Peter A. McGraw writes: >Awhile ago there was a discussion of the figurative use of "on the ground." >For any of you who missed it, there was a great example this morning on >NPR. In a report on a new agreement over the Darfur region of Sudan, the >news reader (female, I forget who), said, "The no-fly zone will be a >significant element on the ground." This ALMOST works literally, but with >the word "element," it seems to me, not quite. ~~~~~~~ Speaking of NPR, Carl Castle this morning said "Yasir Arafat lays (seriously ill, in a coma, or sthg sim)." I do from time to time hear oddities or (er, harrumph) non-standard usages from some of the other newsreaders on NPR, I can't remember hearing such a one from Castle before. A. Murie ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 00:14:12 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:14:12 -0500 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:42:09 -0000, Jonathon Green wrote: >It's certainly in the 1968 edition of _Current Slang_ III:2, subtitled >'The Slang of Watts'. I think Jesse might be being a trifle restrictive; I >definitely recall being very well aware of the term in mid-late 1969, >certainly in the context of working on the London 'underground press', >albeit at that stage for the short-lived UK edition of a still relatively >radical Rolling Stone. In other words, we were far, both lit. and fig., > from the Black Panthers. We probably picked it up through the old UPS >(the Underground Press Syndicate, via which all such papers circulated >material). Another way that many people might have become familiar with "Right on", by early 1969 at least, is through James Brown songs. The single "Give It Up Or Turn It Loose" (released in January 1969, peaking at #15 on the pop charts and #1 on the R&B charts) has James Brown exhorting, "Get it together, right on, right on." --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 11 00:45:11 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:45:11 -0800 Subject: "On the ground" redux In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 10, 2004, at 4:02 PM, Alison Murie wrote: > Speaking of NPR, Carl Castle this morning said "Yasir Arafat lays > (seriously ill, in a coma, or sthg sim)." ... believe it or not, the man's last name is Kasell. see geoff pullum's april foolishness on the spelling of this reporter's name: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001020.html From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 11 01:57:35 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 20:57:35 -0500 Subject: tremblor -- antedating In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The OED gives Spanish "temblor" (1876) as the original form and gives the origin of "tremblor" as a cross of "temblor" with English "trembler." I had to look it up, if no one else was going to. I was completely unaware of the existence of "tremblor" until now. -Wilson Gray On Nov 10, 2004, at 9:07 AM, James Smith wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: James Smith > Subject: Re: tremblor -- antedating > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Is this an antedating of a misspelling of temblor, > does it indicate how the word was originaly spelled - > temblor being a later modification, or did the two > spellings peacefully coexist? > > > > --- "Mullins, Bill" wrote: > >> tremblor: An earthquake or earth tremor. (OED 1913) >> >> from the front cover of _Popular Mechanics_, June >> 1906 online at: >> > http://popularmechanics.com/albums/index.phtml? > mode=view&album=1906&pic=1906 >> 06.jpg&dispsize=400&start=0 >> >> "seismograph record of the tremblor" [re: the San >> Francisco earthquake] >> > > > ===== > James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything > South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued > jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively > |or slowly and cautiously. > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. > www.yahoo.com > From dwhause at JOBE.NET Thu Nov 11 01:47:08 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:47:08 -0600 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: I don't remember use of this expression, but in 64-5, at least in Ann Arbor when I was flirting with them, the left white radicals seemed to have cordial relations with the black radicals. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathy Seal" These are fascinating answers. So if "right on" existed in 1968 in dialect, is there any way of finding out whether white students would have used it yet? Clearly they did later on. Kathy From my.cache at GMAIL.COM Thu Nov 11 02:34:43 2004 From: my.cache at GMAIL.COM (Towse) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:34:43 -0800 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:35:46 -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I > heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of California, > Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. Karenga is more widely known as the guy who invented Kwanzaa. Sal -- Ye olde swarm of links: thousands of links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious From jprucher at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 03:21:53 2004 From: jprucher at YAHOO.COM (Jeff Prucher) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:21:53 -0800 Subject: snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect Message-ID: --- Michael McKernan wrote: > > John Baker wrote: > > >A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as > >"Dogpatch, >Kentucky." I don't recall the state being mentioned in the > >later years of the >strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement > >park was in Arkansas. > > Coming in late to this discussion, please forgive this intrusion: Based on > a fairly careful reading (some years ago) of the first three years of Li'l > Abner dailies, I don't remember seeing any mention of Kentucky as the site > of Dogpatch. Capp seems to go to great pains to generalize 'the mountains > of the South' in various forms, rather than being specific. In many ways, > Capp deliberately sought to control public reaction/beliefs concerning Li'l > Abner. > > Course, I could have missed it, or it could have occurred in a Sunday strip > (I haven't seen many Sundays; don't even know when Sundays began for this > strip). > > If you have a citation for a specific date for this (or a secondary > source), John, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd post it. (I have the > first three years of dailies handy, so I can quickly check such a reference > for those years.) This may not be much to go on, but Denis Kitchen, the publisher of the Li'l Abner reprints, says: "Very early in the continuity Capp once referred to Dogpatch being in Kentucky, but he was careful afterwards to keep its location generic, probably to avoid cancellations from offended subscribing newspapers in Kentucky." (Website here: http://www.deniskitchen.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=S&Category_Code=bios.dogpatch) Natcherly, we might still want to see some hard evidence of this. Jeff Prucher __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Thu Nov 11 03:49:45 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 22:49:45 -0500 Subject: Kentucky it was! Message-ID: Jeff Prucher wrote: >This may not be much to go on, but Denis Kitchen, the publisher of the Li'l >Abner reprints, says: "Very early in the continuity Capp once referred to >Dogpatch being in Kentucky, but he was careful afterwards to keep its location >generic, probably to avoid cancellations from offended subscribing newspapers >in Kentucky." Thanks to everyone who's chimed in on this, I stand corrected. Capp did refer to 'Dogpatch, Kentucky', in a dialogue box at the beginning of day '9' in 1934 (the strip began running in August, but I'm not sure if this represents August 9, since the numbers seem to be consecutive--i.e., no breaks for Sundays). This strip can be found on the top of page 17 of Vol. 1 of Kitchen's reprints (1934-5). Also, in 1937, Capp did a promotional book through his United Features Syndicate, which offered a comic strip format 'origin story' for Li'l Abner, which shows himself as an unhandsome prototype of Li'l Abner, hitchhiking on a 'walking trip through the Kentucky Mountains' and he then depicts the 'hillbilly people there, the prototypes of Li'l Abner...' This trip is supposedly at least a partially-true story; it happened when he was 15, rather than the paunchy, roughly unshaven hobo-like adult as he portrays himself in this comic strip version. The actual Li'l Abner strip drawings weren't begun until years later, when he was in NYC. I have to agree with what Kitchen says about being generic afterward (for whatever reasons). Capp's original circulation was something like just 8 newspapers, so he probably figured he'd not get caught in that early slip-up of specifying KY. Thanks again. I'm glad I've finally gotten that straight! Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Thu Nov 11 04:01:20 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 23:01:20 -0500 Subject: Kentucky it was! Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael McKernan" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 10:49 PM Subject: Kentucky it was! >> Thanks to everyone who's chimed in on this, I stand corrected. > > Capp did refer to 'Dogpatch, Kentucky', in a dialogue box at the beginning > of day '9' in 1934 (the strip began running in August, but I'm not sure if > this represents August 9, since the numbers seem to be consecutive--i.e., > no breaks for Sundays). > > This strip can be found on the top of page 17 of Vol. 1 of Kitchen's > reprints (1934-5). > > > Also, in 1937, Capp did a promotional book through his United Features > Syndicate, which offered a comic strip format 'origin story' for Li'l > Abner, which shows himself as an unhandsome prototype of Li'l Abner, > hitchhiking on a 'walking trip through the Kentucky Mountains' and he then > depicts the 'hillbilly people there, the prototypes of Li'l Abner...' > > This trip is supposedly at least a partially-true story; it happened when > he was 15, rather than the paunchy, roughly unshaven hobo-like adult as he > portrays himself in this comic strip version. The actual Li'l Abner strip > drawings weren't begun until years later, when he was in NYC. > > I have to agree with what Kitchen says about being generic afterward (for > whatever reasons). Capp's original circulation was something like just 8 > newspapers, so he probably figured he'd not get caught in that early > slip-up of specifying KY. > > Thanks again. I'm glad I've finally gotten that straight! > > Michael McKernan, Ph.D. > In a June, 1936 strip, Capp has a character pull a "county directory" at random, and it is titled "Dogpatch County, Kentucky" Sam Clements From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Nov 11 04:45:53 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 23:45:53 -0500 Subject: Kentucky it was! Message-ID: The early strips, at least, seem to make Dogpatch's Kentucky location clear. In addition to the initial reference to "Dogpatch, Kentucky" in the 9th strip, in August 1934, there is a similar reference on December 4, 1934; a newspaper story about Daisy Mae on February 12, 1936, is entitled "Perfect American Beauty Found in Kentucky Hills"; and Li'l Abner buys a train ticket to "Dogpatch, Kaintucky" on February 14, 1936. There may be other references; these are just what I noticed with a quick look through the first two volumes of the collected daily strips. John Baker From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Thu Nov 11 05:03:21 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:03:21 -0500 Subject: Kentucky it was! Again! Message-ID: Sam Clements wrote: > >In a June, 1936 strip, Capp has a character pull a "county directory" at >random, and it is titled "Dogpatch County, Kentucky" Right again, and it turns out that this reference to 'Dogpatch County, Kentucky' or simply, 'Dogpatch, Kentucky' occurs on several days in the continuity, 06/26/1936, 06/27/1936 (p.88 in Kitchen's Vol. 2); 07/01/1936 (p.89); and 07/03/1936 (p,90) So I stand four-times corrected, and again, my thanks! Anymore? (Where were all of you eagle-eyes when I could have used this information eight years ago? Oh, well, better late than never.) I do appreciate it. Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 11 06:13:08 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:13:08 -0600 Subject: "On the ground" redux Message-ID: >Awhile ago there was a discussion of the figurative use of "on the ground." >For any of you who missed it, there was a great example this morning on >NPR. In a report on a new agreement over the Darfur region of Sudan, the >news reader (female, I forget who), said, "The no-fly zone will be a >significant element on the ground." This ALMOST works literally, but with >the word "element," it seems to me, not quite. > >Peter Mc. To me the incongruous part is comparing "on the ground" to a "no-fly zone". One is several thousand feet above the other. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 06:24:33 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 01:24:33 -0500 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:47:08 -0600, Dave Hause wrote: >I don't remember use of this expression, but in 64-5, at least in Ann Arbor >when I was flirting with them, the left white radicals seemed to have >cordial relations with the black radicals. And the white radicals clearly borrowed many of their slogans and catchphrases from the black radicals. The question is, when did "Right on" cross over? Some indication might be given by Garry Trudeau's comic strip "Bull Tales", the precursor to "Doonesbury" that appeared in the Yale Daily News from Autumn 1968 to Spring 1970. The strips are available online, and "Right on" appears in two of them (alongside "All power to the people" and other Black Pantherisms): http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/retro/yale/yale68.html http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/retro/yale/yale79.html These strips aren't dated on the website, but it's safe to say that they appeared during the 1969-70 academic year, when the trial of Bobby Seale and other Black Panthers in New Haven led to the massive May Day campus protests. (Both strips feature campus radical "Megaphone Mark" Slackmeyer.) --Ben Zimmer From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 11 06:52:05 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:52:05 -0600 Subject: "Right on" Message-ID: Harvard Crimson November 08, 1969 "They discussed the war, United Fruit, General Motors, and Bobby Seale, and handed out copies of Right On, a radical high school newspaper published by the Massachusetts Liberation Front." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Nov 11 07:02:57 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 02:02:57 EST Subject: Roti John Message-ID: O.T., MISC. So I wake up, take a shower, and I'm about to go to work when the phone rings. It's Victory Memorial Hospital getting back to me. And I say to them, a man is 91 years old, he lives in a nursing home, he's been to this hospital six times, and nobody figures out that he might die and have to be buried? He left no instructions to anyone? The hospital had no information at all, just my phone number. He spent all this time on poetry, and he couldn't have helped me out here? This will have to go to the courts for six months just to bury him? So I go to work. The clock on the wall has the wrong time. Fall back. Over a week ago. No one changes the clocks. Then, I use the date/time stamp. It says November 9th. I get that changed. The time was off and didn't move, but that can't be changed. I usually get assigned to the coffin room, a small, illegal area without windows or emergency exits or fresh air. There is a fan. I notice that it's now broken. The room is sweltering from the heat system. You wouldn't want a dog to sit in a place like this for ten minutes. "There's no other fan," I'm told. "You don't need a fan. Welcome back!" The computer asks me to change three passwords. The city's awful computer system (parking tickets is about as simple as things come) breaks down. I re-boot the system. It breaks down again. I re-boot the system. It breaks down again. This happens all day. "Volume has picked up since after the election," I'm told. "We're getting out of here after 7 p.m. again." Which means 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m., with a half-hour lunch. "It's good you didn't quit. Your mother would want to see you do this. Did you have a nice vacation?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- ROTI JOHN--1,280 Google hits, 53 Google Groups hits (not in OED) (GOOGLE) Roti John... Roti John. ... John! So my father named this dish Roti John!" explained Norhayati, daughter of Shukor, who created Roti John in the 1970s. ... www.chennaionline.com/food/recipes/recipes14.asp - 29k - Cached - Similar pages The foreigners would always ask him to fry up an onion omelette, which they would eat with a side order of bread. They ate so much of it, and so often, that Shunkor decided to create a "two-in-one" dish for them. He added the bread as the omelette was cooking, and the result was a delicious omelette-topped slab of French bread, which came with a special-chilli sauce. It went down well with the foreign clientele, and the locals, and Shukor needed a name for it. Since it had been created for foreigners, it was named after them too. "In those days, we addressed all ang mohs (foreigners) as John! John! So my father named this dish Roti John!" explained Norhayati, daughter of Shukor, who created Roti John in the 1970s.And the rest, as they say, is history. MALAY FOOD ... On the other hand, Roti John (John?s Bread) was said to have been inspired by a homesick tourist named John who, so the story goes, was in search of a ... library.thinkquest.org/11518/food/malay.htm - 5k - Cached - Similar pages In Singapore, the highlight of Malay cuisine is Satay, thought by some to have been derived from the Arab ?kebah? but with a character all its own. Satay has even spawned two Chinese versions: Satay Chelop and Nonya Pork Satay as well as the hawker dish Satay Bee Hoon. On the other hand, Roti John (John?s Bread) was said to have been inspired by a homesick tourist named John who, so the story goes, was in search of a sandwich. a helpful hawker sliced up a loaf of French bread, clapped in a mixture of minced mutton and onion and dipped the whole in beaten egg which he fried until crisp. If the tourist named John was bemused, locals took to Roti John and it is now a staple at Muslim food stalls. It is more likely, however, that Roti John is an adaptation of Murtabak, an Indian Muslim dish which is the Asian answer to Italian pizza. Loca Favourities ... Roti John A local Malay delight, Roti John is made by halving long bread then spreading eggs and cooked delectable minced mutton over the two halves before ... www.newasia-singapore.gen.in/food/local.html - 5k - Cached - Similar pages [PDF] Food in Malaysia File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat Your browser may not have a PDF reader available. Google recommends visiting our text version of this document. ... Food in Malacca Page 5 of 5 http://www.hotelreservation.com.my/food.htm 7/4/04 OTHER GOOD FOOD Roti John Putri Erra Roti John, Food court next to the old ... www.tourism-melaka.com/MelakaFoodGuide.pdf - Similar pages BruDirect - Tourist Info ... They're as delicious as those you'll find in established fast food outlets. Or try out 'Roti John'-the Malay version of the Big Mac. ... www.brudirect.com/BruneiInfo/ info/brudirect__TourInfo.htm - 27k - Cached - Similar pages A City for the Senses ... Rumor had it that the adjoining Taman Serasi Food Center, a collection of stalls famous for roti john (crisp egg, onion and minced lamb omelets with chile sauce ... www.latimes.com/la-031702singapore,0,574355.story - Similar pages Singapore unofficial food ...Mee Goreng ... Now if anyone has a good recipe for Roti John or 'John Bread' please send that to me, its my next big craving! Good Luck Jay. Contributed by - Jay ... www.makantime.com/others1.htm - 5k - Cached - Similar pages Best Food in Singapore ... Prawn Noodle: Yi Sheng at Hawker Center next to Safra Bukit Merah behind IKEA. Roti John: Shukor stall No. 9 Taman Serasi Food Center. ... www.geocities.com/Tokyo/ Courtyard/9049/singapore/food.htm - 7k - Cached - Similar pages Catcha Singapore - Maps ... to both tourists and locals. Other types of food worth trying are Mee Goreng, Roti John and Murtabak. Open on Mondays to Fridays ... www1.catcha.com.sg/content. phtml?15&010&&eatsatay1.txt - 19k - Cached - Similar pages Sprinting through Singapore ... You?d be spoilt for choice from the satay (barbequed skewered meat on sticks) and mee goreng (fried noodles) to roti John (pan-fried baguette with egg and ... www.expatsingapore.com/sprinting.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages Get For Me Singapore A LAST LOOK AT TAMAN SERASI HAWKER CENTRE ... ... This means that the hawker centre where the island's best roti-john is to be found will exist no more, except in print in our history books and here on the ... www.getforme.com/previous220801_ ALastLookAtTamanSerasiHawkerCentre.htm - 86k - Cached - Similar pages Singapore Hotels - Short stopover for those who have only one or ... ... This sprawling food centre will allow you to sample some unique dishes such as Indian roti john and murtabak, Hokkien popiah, spicy sambal stingray and Malay ... www-singapore.com/shortstopover/culturevulture.html - 39k - Cached - Similar pages Asia : Southeast Asia : Singapore : In Depth : Food & Drink ... peanut sauce. Another popular dish is roti john, minced mutton and onion in French bread that?s dipped in egg and fried. Nasi ... www.frommers.com/destinations/singapore/0077020880.html - 40k - Cached - Similar pages (GOOGLE GROUPS) From: Sandra (alexsandra28 at Yyahoo.com) Subject: Roti John .. minced meat on bread This is the only article in this thread View: Original Format Newsgroups: uk.food+drink.indian Date: 2002-01-15 03:27:21 PST Good day to all, I searched for this recipe, found it in malay and translated it. It'scalled Roti John. There are many stories behind the name of this dish,basically how a westerner named John missed his bread with burgers andtrying to adapt to an asian country, created Roti John. Roti John existedway before MacDonalds and other fast food centres came into existence in ourcountry.This simple bread and minced meat is normally made in Indian stalls makingRoti Prata or in malay stalls. Roti John (minced meat on french loaf) Ingredients 500 gm. minced meat 2 eggs, beaten 1 french loaf, divide into 2, sliced thru salt to taste curry powder chilli powder turmeric powder 1 big onion, chopped finely (Note: IMO, 500 gm minced meat is a bit too much). Method: In a heated wok, add minced meat, chopped onion, curry, chilly and tumericpowder. Cook it dry. Add salt to taste. Onto the bread, on the white of the bread, spread beaten egg, then place thecooked minced meat mixture. Place the bread face down on to a flat pan or griddle. Press the bread downso every area is touching the griddle. 2 or 3 minutes later check whetherit's cooked. If so, slide a flate spatula under the bread and transfer toplate, minced meat side facing up. Garnish with salads and cucumber and a dash of tomato or chilli sauce. Other variations: Some people mix the cooked minced meat mixture, after it has cooled down,with the egg mixture. Spreading it on sliced french loaf, then onto hotgriddle. Garnishing is the same. I am a bit tired of cooking, so I hope to make Roti John on of these nites.Hope you will enjoy this too, Sandra Re: Which is the Best Bicycle Shop Here ? I heard a version of the Roti John story: It was invented by a Malay foodstall in Sembawang many years ago. In those good old days ... soc.culture.singapore - Mar 5, 2001 by Vince - View Thread (13 articles) Re: 100 best foods in Singapore ... Open till around 3am b.. Yes! Adam Road Hawker center is very much alive and kicking. It also serves one of the best ROTI JOHN in town! ... sg.marketplace - Oct 16, 2000 by ShiYing - View Thread (2 articles) From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 14:45:37 2004 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 06:45:37 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? 1) She's the one than whom I am better. It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a preposition and a conjunction in her November column. Ed __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Thu Nov 11 15:30:27 2004 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (Vida J Morkunas) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 07:30:27 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111144537.91987.qmail@web20428.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? >1) She's the one than whom I am better. No, I don't - and I've never heard anyone express themselves that way. >It sounds like ass to me. The above doesn't sound good, either ;) >But Barbara Wallraff at the The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a preposition and a conjunction in her November column. I look forward to what others have to say about this. From dave at WILTON.NET Thu Nov 11 16:02:34 2004 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:02:34 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111144537.91987.qmail@web20428.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf > Of Ed Keer > Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 6:46 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Than > > > Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > > 1) She's the one than whom I am better. > > It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the > The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. > She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a > preposition and a conjunction in her November column. This is a near perfect example of the prescriptivist fallacy, that rules govern language rather than describe it. A sentence is not grammatical because it comports to a set of rules set down in a manual or logically derived from other rules (as opposed to derived directly from examples). Rather a sentence is grammatical because it comports with the way that people use the language. You would never hear someone use this construction and it takes a native English speaker a minute or two to parse it and determine what the intended meaning is. It is a most unnatural construction. A real English speaker would say "She is the one who I am better than." Or better, albeit with a slight change in emphasis, "I'm better than her." --Dave Wilton dave at wilton.net http://www.wilton.net From cdtsociety at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 16:30:18 2004 From: cdtsociety at YAHOO.COM (jim wolf) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:30:18 -0800 Subject: Continental Divide Message-ID: I am interested in discovering very early uses of the term "Continental Divide." "Divide" as a designation for the separation of watersheds goes back at least to the first part of the nineteenth century. There were also many other terms in use for the Continental Divide, such as "backbone of the continent" or "dividing ridge." And there was even a reference to "where the waters divide" in an overland journal of the 1840s. So far, the earliest mention of the precise term "Continental Divide" is in Government documents of 1866 and 1867. And it doesn't show up on maps until at least 1873. Can anyone locate any "Continental Divide" reference, on documents or maps, earlier than these? Jim Wolf (James R. Wolf, cdtsociety at yahoo.com) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Thu Nov 11 16:57:41 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 10:57:41 -0600 Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: <20041108020427.H26427@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: I did not see the entire news report, but apparently Chicago buses are showing ads with the headline: Read Books! Get Brain! and if I saw it correctly, the illustration shows a shapely female from behind, bending over a pile of books! Barbara >This may or may not have anything to do with the topic: >http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20041107 > >"Unshelved" is a web comic strip set in a library. Yesterday's (Sunday's) >strip is a single long panel. > > - teenage male patron #1, looking offstage (to reader's left): Man, did you >see the size of her brain? > - teenage male patron #2, ditto: She's too smart for me. I'm going to go >study! > - librarian #1, in background at information desk: Did I fall through a >hole in space time? > - librarian #2, ditto: Welcome to Earth Two. > >Well, *I* like the strip. > >mark by hand From Bapopik at AOL.COM Thu Nov 11 17:13:19 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:13:19 EST Subject: Otah; Shulman burial Message-ID: SHULMAN BURIAL I just got a call from the St. Nicholas Home that it's 10 a.m. tomorrow, at the Baronhurst Cemetery on Staten Island (718) 698-0162. I was also given (718) 377-8610 Ian. I'll skip work. Hopefully, they'll fire me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- OTAH OTAH + SINGAPORE--1,090 Google hits, 44 Google Groups hits "Otah" is not in the revised OED. The editors must not get out much. (GOOGLE) Otah Singapore Recipes. Otah. Imagine fresh, de-boned mackerel marinated with coconut milk, freshly ground chilli, onions, lemon grass, blue ginger and turmeric... ... www.chennaionline.com/hotelsandtours/ recipes/recipes/recipes16.asp - 51k - Cached - Similar pages Singapore on a Full Stomach ... Among these are otah-otah, (a fish paste flavored with chili and wrapped in a ... touch, with a pungent smell so potent it is forbidden in Singapore's subway system ... www.voxunity.com/feyemine/ magazine/articles/singapore.htm - 13k - Cached - Similar pages eBizAsiaLink.com - My big fat Singapore otah ... Wednesday, May 07, 2003. My big fat Singapore otah. By Sheila Wan For the uninitiated, otah is a stick of mackerel that has been mixed ... www.ebizasialink.com/tbuzz. asp?ArticleID=2256&SID=152 - 50k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages Fish Otah Outlets - Nam San Mackerel Otah - Nam San Food ... Order Singapore No. 1 Mackerel Fish Banana Leaf Otah Now ! ... Nam San Otah has many outlets throughout Singapore to serve you. Look for the Nam San Otah Logo. ... www.namsan-otah.com/outlets.html - 10k - Cached - Similar pages Welcome to Singapore Food Expo 2004 ... Nam San?s ?Otah Otah? is a regular feature in the menus of international hotels, restaurants and caf? chains in Singapore. ... www.singaporefoodexpo.org.sg/ html/merchant-namsanmark.html - 14k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages (GOOGLE GROUPS) NY Times : Snacker's Paradise: Devouring Singapore's Endless ... ... occasionally) their male counterparts, the Babas, is unique to Singapore, Malacca and ... Three of them shot our lights out: otah-otah, spicy sticks of mackerel ... soc.culture.malaysia - Sep 11, 2003 by Yap Yok Foo - View Thread (1 article) From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 11 18:18:25 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:18:25 -0500 Subject: Otah; Shulman burial In-Reply-To: <45.1b08c7cd.2ec4f7af@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 11, 2004 at 12:13:19PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > SHULMAN BURIAL > > I just got a call from the St. Nicholas Home that it's 10 a.m. tomorrow, at > the Baronhurst Cemetery on Staten Island (718) 698-0162. I was also given (718) > 377-8610 Ian. Unfortunately I'm out of town and won't be able to attend. Jesse Sheidlower OED From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 18:20:24 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:20:24 -0500 Subject: Otah; Shulman burial Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:13:19 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >SHULMAN BURIAL > >I just got a call from the St. Nicholas Home that it's 10 a.m. tomorrow, >at the Baronhurst Cemetery on Staten Island (718) 698-0162. I was also >given (718) 377-8610 Ian. Just to clarify, the name and address of the cemetery is: Baron Hirsch Cemetery 1126 Richmond Ave Staten Island, NY 10314 Here's a link to Mapquest: . --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 18:39:41 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:39:41 -0500 Subject: Otah Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:13:19 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >OTAH > >OTAH + SINGAPORE--1,090 Google hits, 44 Google Groups hits > >"Otah" is not in the revised OED. The editors must not get out much. > >(GOOGLE) >Otah >Singapore Recipes. Otah. Imagine fresh, de-boned mackerel marinated with >coconut milk, freshly ground chilli, onions, lemon grass, blue ginger and >turmeric... This is more commonly known in Malay/Indonesian as (pronounced /ota? ota?/), a reduplicated form of 'brain'. (The mushy quality of the fish paste resembles beef brain, I presume.) --Ben Zimmer From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Thu Nov 11 18:14:47 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:14:47 -0500 Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Whatever works. . . . At 10:57 AM 11/11/2004 -0600, you wrote: >I did not see the entire news report, but apparently Chicago buses >are showing ads with the headline: Read Books! Get Brain! and if I >saw it correctly, the illustration shows a shapely female from >behind, bending over a pile of books! > >Barbara > >>This may or may not have anything to do with the topic: >>http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20041107 >> >>"Unshelved" is a web comic strip set in a library. Yesterday's (Sunday's) >>strip is a single long panel. >> >> - teenage male patron #1, looking offstage (to reader's left): Man, did you >>see the size of her brain? >> - teenage male patron #2, ditto: She's too smart for me. I'm going to go >>study! >> - librarian #1, in background at information desk: Did I fall through a >>hole in space time? >> - librarian #2, ditto: Welcome to Earth Two. >> >>Well, *I* like the strip. >> >>mark by hand From pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU Thu Nov 11 18:50:55 2004 From: pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU (Peter A. McGraw) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 10:50:55 -0800 Subject: "On the ground" redux In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B4975E@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: --On Thursday, November 11, 2004 12:13 AM -0600 "Mullins, Bill" wrote: >> Awhile ago there was a discussion of the figurative use of "on the >> ground." For any of you who missed it, there was a great example this >> morning on NPR. In a report on a new agreement over the Darfur region >> of Sudan, the news reader (female, I forget who), said, "The no-fly zone >> will be a significant element on the ground." This ALMOST works >> literally, but with the word "element," it seems to me, not quite. >> >> Peter Mc. > > To me the incongruous part is comparing "on the ground" to a "no-fly > zone". One is several thousand feet above the other. Exactly. That's why it was amusing, and why it could only have been intended figuratively (i.e., on site, where the real action is, etc.). ***************************************************************** Peter A. McGraw Linfield College McMinnville, Oregon ******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************ From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 11 18:58:56 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:58:56 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2004, at 9:45 AM, Ed Keer wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Ed Keer > Subject: Than > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > > 1) She's the one than whom I am better. This appears to be the kind of construction up with which Winston Churchill would not have put. -Wilson Gray > > It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the > The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. > She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a > preposition and a conjunction in her November column. > > Ed > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. > www.yahoo.com > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 11 19:18:19 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:18:19 -0500 Subject: Otah In-Reply-To: <42550.69.142.143.59.1100198381.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: At 1:39 PM -0500 11/11/04, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:13:19 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >>OTAH >> >>OTAH + SINGAPORE--1,090 Google hits, 44 Google Groups hits >> >>"Otah" is not in the revised OED. The editors must not get out much. >> >>(GOOGLE) >>Otah >>Singapore Recipes. Otah. Imagine fresh, de-boned mackerel marinated with >>coconut milk, freshly ground chilli, onions, lemon grass, blue ginger and >>turmeric... > >This is more commonly known in Malay/Indonesian as (pronounced >/ota? ota?/), a reduplicated form of 'brain'. (The mushy quality >of the fish paste resembles beef brain, I presume.) > ...suggesting a revised version of those NYC bus ads: Read books. Get otak. L From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 19:21:05 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:21:05 -0800 Subject: Than Message-ID: I do. But it is awkward. St. Anselm was famous for saying (in translation) something like "God is He than Whom nothing can be greater." JL Ed Keer wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Ed Keer Subject: Than ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? 1) She's the one than whom I am better. It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the The Atlantic Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. She uses it as evidence that "than" is both a preposition and a conjunction in her November column. Ed __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 11 19:40:50 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:40:50 -0500 Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2004, at 11:57 AM, Barbara Need wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Barbara Need > Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with > metonymy > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I did not see the entire news report, but apparently Chicago buses > are showing ads with the headline: Read Books! Get Brain! and if I > saw it correctly, the illustration shows a shapely female from > behind, bending over a pile of books! > > Barbara Shapely female? From behind, you say? And bending over? Perhaps it was meant to attract the attention of those of us whose patron is Aphrodite Kallipyge, the goddess of the fine behind. -Wilson "Baby Got Back That Azz Up" Gray > >> This may or may not have anything to do with the topic: >> http://www.overduemedia.com/archive.aspx?strip=20041107 >> >> "Unshelved" is a web comic strip set in a library. Yesterday's >> (Sunday's) >> strip is a single long panel. >> >> - teenage male patron #1, looking offstage (to reader's left): Man, >> did you >> see the size of her brain? >> - teenage male patron #2, ditto: She's too smart for me. I'm going >> to go >> study! >> - librarian #1, in background at information desk: Did I fall >> through a >> hole in space time? >> - librarian #2, ditto: Welcome to Earth Two. >> >> Well, *I* like the strip. >> >> mark by hand > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 11 19:47:37 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:47:37 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111144537.91987.qmail@web20428.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2004, at 6:45 AM, Ed Keer wrote: > Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > > 1) She's the one than whom I am better. > > It sounds like ass to me. But Barbara Wallraff at the The Atlantic > Monthly seems to think it's grammatical. She uses it as evidence that > "than" is both a preposition and a conjunction in her November > column. there are two issues here, both of long standing in the usage literature. the first is whether "than" can be used as a preposition as well as a conjunction; this pretty much comes down to whether the manuals require nominative case for pronouns understood as subjects ("years older than I" -- "than" as conjunction) or allow accusative case ("years older than me" -- "than" as preposition). MWDEU notes that the conjunction/preposition dispute has been going on for more than two centuries and observes that both usages can be found in speech and writing of all sorts, Garner's Modern American Usage accepts preposition "than" only in the most relaxed, informal contexts, requiring conjunction syntax everywhere else. (me, i think this is nutty advice, but the point is that even garner grudgingly admits some prepositional uses.) against this background, you'd expect the sticklers to insist on "than who". but fronted "than" + NP looks an *awful* lot like PP fronting, and (probably as a result of this fact) even the stickliest sticklers require "whom" in this case. MWDEU notes that Lowth 1762 insisted that "than" was always a conjunction, *except in this one context*, where it had to be a preposition (and govern the accusative) -- a systematic exception that MWDEU suggests arose from the authority of Milton in Paradise Lost ("Beelzebub... than whom, Satan except, none higher sat"). Garner quotes the OED as stating that "than whom" "is universally recognized instead of _than who_". in a fit of common sense, however, he labels "than whom" awkward, "essentially a literary idiom". what we're supposed to use instead, he does not say. surely not "the one than who I am better". and if "than" is always supposed to be a conjunction in formal writing, then "the one who I am better than" would be utterly impossible there; english has stranded prepositions (even garner concedes this), but not stranded *conjunctions*. the implied advice is to reword so as to avoid the problem entirely. i have no problem with "the one who I am better than", but then i'm happy with prepositional "than", stranded prepositions, *and* fronted nominative "who". your mileage might vary. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 11 20:35:19 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:35:19 -0600 Subject: Continental Divide Message-ID: This doesn't beat your govt documents, but is early . . . _Rocky Mountain News_, (Denver, CO), Sept 15 1869, p.2 "First, it is eveident that this pest spreads over a large extent of territory, being found in an east and west direction from the summit of the continental divide to the Missouri river, and north and sout from central New Mexico to the Black Hills." > -----Original Message----- > From: jim wolf [mailto:cdtsociety at YAHOO.COM] > Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 10:30 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Continental Divide > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: jim wolf > Subject: Continental Divide > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > I am interested in discovering very early uses of the term > "Continental Divide." > > "Divide" as a designation for the separation of watersheds > goes back at least to the first part of the nineteenth > century. There were also many other terms in use for the > Continental Divide, such as "backbone of the continent" or > "dividing ridge." And there was even a reference to "where > the waters divide" in an overland journal of the 1840s. > > So far, the earliest mention of the precise term "Continental Divide" > is in Government documents of 1866 and 1867. And it doesn't > show up on maps until at least 1873. > > Can anyone locate any "Continental Divide" reference, on > documents or maps, earlier than these? > > Jim Wolf > > (James R. Wolf, cdtsociety at yahoo.com) > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. > www.yahoo.com > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:17:18 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:17:18 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <8A6271CE-341A-11D9-97C8-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: At 11:47 AM -0800 11/11/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: >against this background, you'd expect the sticklers to insist on "than >who". but fronted "than" + NP looks an *awful* lot like PP fronting, >and (probably as a result of this fact) even the stickliest sticklers >require "whom" in this case. MWDEU notes that Lowth 1762 insisted that >"than" was always a conjunction, *except in this one context*, where it >had to be a preposition (and govern the accusative) -- a systematic >exception that MWDEU suggests arose from the authority of Milton in >Paradise Lost ("Beelzebub... than whom, Satan except, none higher >sat"). > >Garner quotes the OED as stating that "than whom" "is universally >recognized instead of _than who_". in a fit of common sense, however, >he labels "than whom" awkward, "essentially a literary idiom". what >we're supposed to use instead, he does not say. surely not "the one >than who I am better". and if "than" is always supposed to be a >conjunction in formal writing, then "the one who I am better than" >would be utterly impossible there; english has stranded prepositions >(even garner concedes this), but not stranded *conjunctions*. the >implied advice is to reword so as to avoid the problem entirely. > I suspect that what makes the Milton-type example somewhat more natural than the one Ed opened this thread with, She's the one than whom I am better. is precisely the emptiness of the comparison clause. So compare the Beelzebub example with Beelzebub...than whom Satan sat higher. --somewhat worse, right? Milton's original is "about" Beelzebub, and is essentially equivalent to the proposition that Beelzebub sat the highest of all (except Satan), while Milton-Prime's example is largely about Satan, just as the Atlantic's example is about me (rather than, or in addition to, about her). This seems to be a factor in the comparative acceptability of these admittedly somewhat stilted (but some more stilted than others) examples. I'm reminded of Kuno's observation about the differential acceptability of *That's a child who I know {a/the} family who's willing to adopt (?)That's a child who I know nobody who's willing to adopt [= that's an unadoptable child] Checking out my speculation on google, I find a couple dozen naturalish-sounding examples for "than whom nobody", e.g. Executive producer Tom Fontana, than whom nobody on television is more pomo-intertextual, includes so many inside jokes that I'm sure I missed half of... Rush Limbaugh, than whom nobody has a larger radio audience, It was, of course, Jean, than whom nobody could invest a sniff with a deeper or richer range of meaning. Paul Bocuse, than whom nobody could be finer, From this distinguished kin came Richard, who later succeeded him, than whom nobody was braver or more generous Checking under "than whom I...", a quick glance suggests that most are of the related form "than whom I know nobody better"--if we eliminate the irrelevant ones (e.g. those with a sentence break before "I"). Not surprisingly, the first two hits are for the example from The Atlantic cited by Ed. larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:20:44 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:20:44 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111192105.62829.qmail@web53901.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 11:21 AM -0800 11/11/04, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >I do. But it is awkward. > >St. Anselm was famous for saying (in translation) something like >"God is He than Whom nothing can be greater." > >JL > but less awkward than e.g. "The Yankees are one of the 29 teams than which the Red Sox are greater": "is He than Whom nothing is Xer" = "is the Xest". From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 11 21:20:45 2004 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:20:45 -0800 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <8A6271CE-341A-11D9-97C8-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: --- "Arnold M. Zwicky" wrote: > i have no problem with "the one who I am better > than", but then i'm > happy with prepositional "than", stranded > prepositions, *and* fronted > nominative "who". your mileage might vary. > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > Thanks Arnold, I figured you would have the skinny on this. I too am happy with "the one who I am better than". I was entertaining an idea that you could analyze "than" as always a conjunction, with the accusative case of bare "subjects" accounted for by default case along the lines of what I guess you have to say about: Who wants ice cream? Me But as you point out the stranding pretty much knocks that down. Still, the pie-piped version sounds ungrammatical to me, not merely "literary". Maybe I'm just too illiterate. Ed __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:52:07 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:52:07 -0500 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: <83c876b104111018341d805027@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: At 6:34 PM -0800 11/10/04, Towse wrote: >On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:35:46 -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > >> Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I >> heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of California, >> Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. > >Karenga is more widely known as the guy who invented Kwanzaa. > > School pride* forces me to add that when Ron Karenga (as he was then known) invented Kwanzaa (which, given Swahili penultimate stress principles, "should" be stressed on the second of the three /a/s), it was during his days (and mine) at UCLA around 1966-68. (*School pride hasn't yet forced me to get around to making alumni contributions, so they'll have to settle for what they can get.) larry From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:53:37 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:53:37 -0800 Subject: "laud" as a dative alternation verb Message-ID: Jennifer Ludden, on NPR's Morning Edition, 11/11/04, of Yasser Arafat: "...but Palestinians lauded him a hero". this moves "laud" into one of the subtypes of dative alternation verbs (Levin, English Verb Classes and Alternations, section 2.1), specifically the "non-alternating double object" subtype (Levin, (119) on p. 47), lacking a prepositional alternative. by its semantics, "laud" seems to straddle three of levin's subsubtypes: Appoint verbs: designate, ordain, proclaim, elect,... Dub verbs: call, decree, pronounce, term,... Declare verbs: adjudge, declare, judge,... but syntactically it looks like an Appoint verb, which can take an "as" complement: designate/ordain/proclaim/elect him (as) a representative compare: laud/praise/celebrate/honor him as a hero. a google search on "lauded him" -as -for pulls up no examples parallel to the Arafat example. i judge the other praise verbs to be even worse than "laud" in the double-object construction, but then what do i know? anyone have similar examples? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:54:13 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:54:13 -0500 Subject: Otah Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:35:19 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: >This doesn't beat your govt documents, but is early . . . > >_Rocky Mountain News_, (Denver, CO), Sept 15 1869, p.2 >"First, it is eveident that this pest spreads over a large extent of >territory, being found in an east and west direction from the summit of the >continental divide to the Missouri river, and north and sout from central >New Mexico to the Black Hills." The Making of America database has citations from around the same time: Report of J. Ross Browne on the mineral resources of the states and territories west of the Rocky Mountains. [1867] Washington, Gov't print. off., 1868. Then follows the Snowy range, or the range with its system of parks - the crest or sierra of the mountain mass - while "over the range" includes all west of the continental divide. Preliminary field report of the United States Geological survey of Colorado and New Mexico. Washington, Gov't print. off., 1869. In a belt, of which it would be difficult to define the limits, but which may be generally stated as lying east and west of the great continental divide as far as the gneiss or granite extends, and reaching north and south as far as investigation has made the Rocky Mountain chain known to us, lie the ores of the precious, and some of the baser, metals. --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 11 21:58:07 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 16:58:07 -0500 Subject: Continental Divide Message-ID: [Sorry-- ignore posting with the wrong subject line.] On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 14:35:19 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: >This doesn't beat your govt documents, but is early . . . > >_Rocky Mountain News_, (Denver, CO), Sept 15 1869, p.2 >"First, it is eveident that this pest spreads over a large extent of territory, being found in an east and west direction from the summit of the continental divide to the Missouri river, and north and sout from central New Mexico to the Black Hills." The Making of America database has citations from around the same time: Report of J. Ross Browne on the mineral resources of the states and territories west of the Rocky Mountains. [1867] Washington, Gov't print. off., 1868. Then follows the Snowy range, or the range with its system of parks - the crest or sierra of the mountain mass - while "over the range" includes all west of the continental divide. Preliminary field report of the United States Geological survey of Colorado and New Mexico. Washington, Gov't print. off., 1869. In a belt, of which it would be difficult to define the limits, but which may be generally stated as lying east and west of the great continental divide as far as the gneiss or granite extends, and reaching north and south as far as investigation has made the Rocky Mountain chain known to us, lie the ores of the precious, and some of the baser, metals. --Ben Zimmer From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 12 01:06:43 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:06:43 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <20041111144537.91987.qmail@web20428.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > >1) She's the one than whom I am better. I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly recommend it. [But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.] -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Fri Nov 12 01:05:43 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:05:43 -0500 Subject: "laud" as a dative alternation verb Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:53:37 -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: >Jennifer Ludden, on NPR's Morning Edition, 11/11/04, of Yasser Arafat: >"...but Palestinians lauded him a hero". > >this moves "laud" into one of the subtypes of dative alternation verbs >(Levin, English Verb Classes and Alternations, section 2.1), >specifically the "non-alternating double object" subtype (Levin, (119) >on p. 47), lacking a prepositional alternative. by its semantics, >"laud" seems to straddle three of levin's subsubtypes: > Appoint verbs: designate, ordain, proclaim, elect,... > Dub verbs: call, decree, pronounce, term,... > Declare verbs: adjudge, declare, judge,... >but syntactically it looks like an Appoint verb, which can take an "as" >complement: > designate/ordain/proclaim/elect him (as) a representative >compare: > laud/praise/celebrate/honor him as a hero. > >a google search on > "lauded him" -as -for >pulls up no examples parallel to the Arafat example. i judge the other >praise verbs to be even worse than "laud" in the double-object >construction, but then what do i know? anyone have similar examples? I coaxed these examples out of Google: ----------- Some call for the conductor?s job; others laud him a hero. http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/iraq_conflict/article/0,1406,KNS_9217_1838406,00.html Chris Tarrant: while I'm not ready to laud him a superstar... http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/archives/2003season/outsidethebox02.html The man gets a couple grand for waking up in the morning, and we need to laud him a hero for auctioning off some of his signed gear for a donation? http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=wkCt7.15562$c8.2130064 at news1.rdc1.nj.home.com And a heart-throb to boot: magazine polls lauded him the 'next big thing'. http://www.joemcfadden.net/pressroom/press17.html So the actor and the director praised Tim on his doughnut-gettingness and lauded him the best doughnut-getter. http://www.mcafy.com/leaf/j041702.htm The Japanese Government lauded her the Best Artist of the Year in 1988. http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/199812/14/1214155.htm This situation is reminiscent of the whole Jessica Lynch case, where some lauded her a hero... http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=WKidnbb5Np3F6aLdRVn-vg at texas.net This book is getting a poor response, to the dismay of those who laud Clinton a hero. http://www.redrightandblue.com/phpnuke/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=94 It's been a roller coaster ride for the Fame Academy champion with some lauding him a top-notch song writer... http://www.davidfans.co.uk/newsblog/index.php?cat=3 Rall summed up Tillman as both an "idiot" and a "sap" while newspaper editors across the country are foolishly lauding him a "hero." http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1675&dept_id=18168&newsid=11452247&PAG=461&rfi=9 Are people right for lauding him a genius? http://therazer.mindsay.com/2003/ ----------- In addition, there are 38 hits on Google for "lauded a hero" (e.g., "John Kennedy was lauded a hero for his actions on PT-109"). This suggests that the passive construction is more acceptable to some, perhaps because the two objects of the verb do not appear consecutively. --Ben Zimmer From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Nov 12 02:16:39 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:16:39 -0500 Subject: Pico de Gallo (1962) Message-ID: I've discussed "pico de gallo" before, but I didn't post this citation at that time. The revised OED should add this, but I don't know what date OED currently has. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Other 55 -- No Title Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 7, 1962. p. H17 (1 page): _MY BEST RECIPE_ _Salad Relish_ _Cools Off_ _Fiery Latin_ "Following our marriage," writes Mrs. Robert Merpado of San Marino, "my Mexican husband's gentle complaints concerning the American meat-and-potato diet led to the inevitable why-don't-you go-back-to-your-mother's-cooking attitude of a wife." "However, upon each visit to his parents' home, I gained a new appreciation for an unending list of delightful Latin dishes mingled with American variations. "Of these, my favorite salad is this very simple one which lends zest to tamales, frijoles and any number of Mexican main dishes." PICO DE GALLO (Comb of the Rooster) 2 medium-size tomatoes 1 large avocado 1 medium-size cucumber, pared 1 teaspoon garlic salt 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons lemon juice Dice tomatoes, avocado and cucumber; toss together lightly and refrigerate until just before serving. At table, add garlic salt, oil and lemon juice. Mix carefully to avoid mashing. Serves 8. Our children always come back for seconds--and we adults are not far behind! Served icy-cold, this salad-relish provides a crunchy accent to a menu of enchiladas, sour dough rolls, and Mexican hot chocolate that is appealing to the most Anglo gourmet. MRS. ROBERT MERCADO 1535 Rubio Dr., San Marino From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 12 02:42:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:42:49 -0500 Subject: "Right on" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2004, at 4:52 PM, Laurence Horn wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Laurence Horn > Subject: Re: "Right on" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > At 6:34 PM -0800 11/10/04, Towse wrote: >> On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 17:35:46 -0500, Wilson Gray >> wrote: >> >>> Maulana Ron Karenga, the Huey Newton of US, was, the last I >>> heard, a professor of sociology at the State University of >>> California, >>> Long Beach. Huey Newton, of course, is dead. >> >> Karenga is more widely known as the guy who invented Kwanzaa. >> >> > > School pride* forces me to add that when Ron Karenga (as he was then > known) invented Kwanzaa (which, given Swahili penultimate stress > principles, "should" be stressed on the second of the three /a/s), it > was during his days (and mine) at UCLA around 1966-68. > > (*School pride hasn't yet forced me to get around to making alumni > contributions, so they'll have to settle for what they can get.) > > larry > Were you there for the big campus shoot-out between the Panthers and US that ended the battle for hegemony over the LA area? I was taking an evening course in Zen Buddhism that day. Needless to say, I learned more about the battle from the Times than I did from having been there. Better safe than sorry. And you're right. He was just plain "Ron Karenga" for years. If I had to guess, I'd say that he didn't give himself the title of "maulana" till he got hired at Long Beach. -Wilson From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 12 02:49:20 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:49:20 -0500 Subject: Than In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041111200142.032029a0@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: What does 'grammatical' mean? dInIs >>Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? >> >>1) She's the one than whom I am better. > >I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly >recommend it. > >[But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.] > >-- Doug Wilson -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 12 04:30:38 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:30:38 -0800 Subject: Than Message-ID: It means if you mark it on a student paper, the student will bitch about it till you're forced to admit he was right all along.. JL "Dennis R. Preston" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" Subject: Re: Than ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What does 'grammatical' mean? dInIs >>Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? >> >>1) She's the one than whom I am better. > >I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly >recommend it. > >[But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.] > >-- Doug Wilson -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 12 04:47:30 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 23:47:30 -0500 Subject: "laud" as a dative alternation verb In-Reply-To: <6124.69.142.143.59.1100221543.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: > >Jennifer Ludden, on NPR's Morning Edition, 11/11/04, of Yasser Arafat: > >"...but Palestinians lauded him a hero". > > > >this moves "laud" into one of the subtypes of dative alternation verbs > >(Levin, English Verb Classes and Alternations, section 2.1), > >specifically the "non-alternating double object" subtype (Levin, (119) > >on p. 47), lacking a prepositional alternative. by its semantics, > >"laud" seems to straddle three of levin's subsubtypes: > > Appoint verbs: designate, ordain, proclaim, elect,... > > Dub verbs: call, decree, pronounce, term,... > > Declare verbs: adjudge, declare, judge,... > >but syntactically it looks like an Appoint verb, which can take an "as" > >complement: > > designate/ordain/proclaim/elect him (as) a representative > >compare: > > laud/praise/celebrate/honor him as a hero. > > > >a google search on > > "lauded him" -as -for > >pulls up no examples parallel to the Arafat example. i judge the other > >praise verbs to be even worse than "laud" in the double-object > >construction, but then what do i know? anyone have similar examples? > >I coaxed these examples out of Google: .... It's perfectly logical. First, "hail" means about the same as "call" (e.g., "hail a cab", or "Lt. Uhura, open a hailing frequency"). We are familiar with "hail him as a hero" in the tired English of the past ... but the "as" is clearly superfluous in the vibrant post-literate English of the New Millennium: if we can "call him a hero" we can "hail him a hero", right? And there are 45 unique Google hits for <<"hailed him a hero">> for example. Then since "laud" means about the same as "hail" in this context we can also "laud him a hero", right? Soon there will be many Google hits for this too. -- Doug Wilson From db.list at PMPKN.NET Fri Nov 12 14:33:21 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:33:21 -0500 Subject: Continental Divide Message-ID: From: Benjamin Zimmer : [Sorry-- ignore posting with the wrong subject line.] 'T'sokay--i just figured you must have been looking up early spelling variants for Utah. FWIW, i've seen Ootah before for it. David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From mailinglist at JIMMYMULLAN.COM Fri Nov 12 14:34:42 2004 From: mailinglist at JIMMYMULLAN.COM (James Mullan) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:34:42 -0500 Subject: "....that for a game of soldiers": Origin, please? Message-ID: On moving to England several decades ago, I encountered the somewhat quaint expression, seemingly used there only: "[insert preferred expletive] that for a game of soldiers", such as in the following example: Q. "Are you going to (say) Coventry to watch the football match?" A. "[insert preferred expletive] that for a game of soldiers, Coventry's a dump, and their team are a bunch of wankers". I've since wondered about the origin of the term, and ask for earliest references, original usages, pointers, please, if such be available. TIA Jimmy From jancarsho at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 12 14:52:21 2004 From: jancarsho at YAHOO.COM (J C) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 06:52:21 -0800 Subject: Followup: Re: "Brain" as Slang for "Oral Sex": fun with metonymy Message-ID: I have been told that smart girls give good brain! --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Fri Nov 12 16:51:20 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 11:51:20 -0500 Subject: "....that for a game of soldiers": Origin, please? Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:34:42 -0500, James Mullan wrote: >On moving to England several decades ago, I encountered the somewhat quaint >expression, seemingly used there only: > >"[insert preferred expletive] that for a game of soldiers", such as in the >following example: > >Q. "Are you going to (say) Coventry to watch the football match?" >A. "[insert preferred expletive] that for a game of soldiers, Coventry's a >dump, and their team are a bunch of wankers". > >I've since wondered about the origin of the term, and ask for earliest >references, original usages, pointers, please, if such be available. No idea about the origin, but the expression is mentioned in a recent article by Alan Dundes, "Much Ado About 'Sweet Bugger All': Getting to the Bottom of a Puzzle in British Folk Speech" _Folklore_ 113(1):35-49 (April 2002). Dundes glosses "Bugger this (Stuff that) for a game of soldiers" as "I'm fed up and not happy with the plans for the further conduct of this operation, reminiscent of a futile military exercise." Another variation on the theme mentioned by Dundes is "Bugger this/that for a lark." Google also turns up "...for a joke", "...for a laugh", and even "...for a bunch of bananas" (used in the movie _Notting Hill_). --Ben Zimmer From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Fri Nov 12 19:03:35 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:03:35 EST Subject: Than Message-ID: In a message dated > Thu, 11 Nov 2004 20:06:43 -0500, > From: "Douglas G. Wilson" prescriptivizes or perhaps > prosciptivizes: > > >Does anyone find this sentence grammatical? > > > >1) She's the one than whom I am better. > > I guess I would call it grammatical although I wouldn't particularly > recommend it. > > [But then I'm one than whose most persons' grammar is better.] In 10th grade English we were given the following sentence to diagarm: "Artists than whom the world has never seen better, men endowed with the spirit's best gift, found their natural method of expression in the simplicity and clarity which are the gift of the unclouded reason." (from Edith Hamilton _The Greek Way_) As I recall, the correct solution was to consider "than...better" to be a prepositional phrase modifying "Artists", with "than" as the preposition and "whom the world has never seen better" as a noun clause functioning as the object of the preposition. The noun clause has a transitive verb "has seen" with "whom" as the direct object and "better" as an adjective modifying "whom". This explains why it is "than whom..." instead of "than who..." because "whom" is a direct object and therefore the accusative form of who/whom should be used. By this analysis Douglas WIlson should have said "I'm one than WHOM most persons have better grammar". Not only is "whose" an adjective, or adjectival preposition, which lacks an object, but he is implying a comparison between "grammar" (an impersonal noun) and "whose" (which refers to a person, or sometimes an animal. Also "person's" should have been "persons'". If we get prescriptivist, we should go whole hog. I miss diagramming sentences. It made for clear explanations of a lot of complicated grammatical situations. Specifically, for me diagramming made the entire who-whom business clear. Granted it is a prescriptivist tool, but it was a nice tool. Diagramming, unfortunately in my opinion, has gone out of fashion. My kids were never taught it. Their middle school English teacher agrees with me that it is a loss, but he can't change fashion all by himself. - Jim Landau From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Fri Nov 12 19:33:56 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:33:56 -0500 Subject: Than Message-ID: Actually, I miss diagramming sentences too, but it was my observation that it was only a partially effective pedagogical tool, because a significant portion of the students had trouble making an intuitive connection between written language and schematic diagrams. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of James A. Landau Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 2:04 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Than I miss diagramming sentences. It made for clear explanations of a lot of complicated grammatical situations. Specifically, for me diagramming made the entire who-whom business clear. Granted it is a prescriptivist tool, but it was a nice tool. Diagramming, unfortunately in my opinion, has gone out of fashion. My kids were never taught it. Their middle school English teacher agrees with me that it is a loss, but he can't change fashion all by himself. - Jim Landau From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Fri Nov 12 22:48:34 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 14:48:34 -0800 Subject: Than Message-ID: Interestingly, German requires nominative after 'als' (than), e.g. Er ist grosser als ICH, but Norwegian requires objective "Han er storer enn MEG. (diacritics ignored). I have wondered for some time whether English was influenced by Norwegian, but objective use would have to be about a 1000 years old. Doesn't sound like it is. I don't find the sentence in the original query grammatical and I had never heard of 'than' being a preposition. I have trouble accepting it as such. Does the use of the objective case after 'than' mean that 'than' must be a preposition? I don't think so. If so, what about '...between you and I"? Is 'between' no longer a preposition because a nominative follows? I don't miss diagramming sentences. It seemed useless to me as a kid and now that I have a PHD in Philology, I still can't see much use in it. The only thing I ever learned was how to plan so that I could get the whole tree on the paper. Ironically, I was very good at it. That's just my personal take. I was shocked two days ago in German class when one student said "We should diagram sentences." I'm not sure what she wants from it. Fritz Juengling >I miss diagramming sentences. It made for clear explanations of a lot of >complicated grammatical situations. Specifically, for me diagramming >made the >entire who-whom business clear. Granted it is a prescriptivist tool, but it was a nice tool. Diagramming, unfortunately in my opinion, has gone out of fashion. My kids were never taught it. Their middle school English teacher agrees with me that it is a loss, but he can't change fashion all by himself. - Jim Landau From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 13 02:58:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 21:58:10 -0500 Subject: Remember this thread? Message-ID: Found on this site: Clitoris ? Little/bald man in the boat. ? Sugared almond ? Remote control (can never find it when you need it) ? Pearltongue (Chiefly black term) -Wilson Gray From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sat Nov 13 07:19:48 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 01:19:48 -0600 Subject: Remember this thread? Message-ID: During the credits to the movie "Grumpy Old Men," Burgess Meredith goes through a litany of such sayings. The one I remember best is "riding the skin boat to tuna town." > -----Original Message----- > From: Wilson Gray [mailto:wilson.gray at RCN.COM] > Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 8:58 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Remember this thread? > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Remember this thread? > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Found on this site: > > > > Clitoris > Little/bald man in the boat. > Sugared almond > Remote control (can never find it when you need it) > Pearltongue (Chiefly black term) > > -Wilson Gray > From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Sat Nov 13 16:28:53 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 11:28:53 -0500 Subject: IE root of Skt. "udaya"? Message-ID: Could some Indo-Europeanist or Sanskrit scholar among us tell me what is the IE root of the Sanskrit word "udaya" (a going up; rising, as in Monier-Williams Dictionary). The shortened "Uday" is a common given name among Indians (cf. Uday Shankar) and maybe even other area languages, as in "Uday," the late Saddam's son. I would also like to know if there are cognates in English. The IE root must be in AHD4's Appendix. My problem is locating it! Trying to help an Uday from Poone, India. Thanks. TOM PAIKEDAY From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Nov 13 20:25:37 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 14:25:37 -0600 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") Message-ID: I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, "Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not only geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he came across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting signs. One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in language? Gerald Cohen University of Missouri-Rolla > ---------- > From: American Name Society on behalf of Marc Picard > Reply To: American Name Society > Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 > To: ANS-L at LISTSERV.BINGHAMTON.EDU > Subject: Re: Redundancy > > On 04-11-13, at 10:08 am, Christopher K. Starr wrote: > > Dear Friends: > Perhaps one of the real linguists out there (my credentials say I'm an entomologist) would care to confirm or refute my idle suspicion that the place name East Timor is redundant, as in (imaginary examples, as far as I know) South Yugoslavia, North Beijing or East Tokyo. > > From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Sat Nov 13 20:31:28 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 12:31:28 -0800 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") Message-ID: I"m a writer and not a linguist and I don't know about the Law of Least Effort but I've observed that doubling up on meaning (as in (shudder) "very unique") is a common way for people to add emphasis -- because it lengthens the expression -- express themselves forcefully, and provide color and adornment. I like "ink pen" for example because it summons up the image of the ink flowing from the pen, especially the extra "nk" sound it provides. Pen all by itself is kind of lonely and short, much less poetic. KATHY SEAL 310-452-2769 Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) www.Kathyseal.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" To: Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 12:25 PM Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, "Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. > > But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not only geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he came across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting signs. One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." > I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in language? > > Gerald Cohen > University of Missouri-Rolla > > > ---------- > > From: American Name Society on behalf of Marc Picard > > Reply To: American Name Society > > Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 > > To: ANS-L at LISTSERV.BINGHAMTON.EDU > > Subject: Re: Redundancy > > > > On 04-11-13, at 10:08 am, Christopher K. Starr wrote: > > > > Dear Friends: > > Perhaps one of the real linguists out there (my credentials say I'm an entomologist) would care to confirm or refute my idle suspicion that the place name East Timor is redundant, as in (imaginary examples, as far as I know) South Yugoslavia, North Beijing or East Tokyo. > > > > From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Nov 13 21:11:52 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 15:11:52 -0600 Subject: ink-pen Message-ID: My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share with ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing with an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. Gerald Cohen > ---------- > From: Michael McKernan > Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 2:58 PM > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard > Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > > Gerald Cohen wrote: > > >Another of his favorite redundancies was "an ink pen." > > Well, in a rural area, someone might occasionally feel a need to distinguish this item from a 'hog pen' or a 'sheep pen', etc., and urbanites might even know of that very human form of pen, the still common 'play pen'. > > Michael McKernan, Ph.D. > > > > > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 13 21:17:21 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 16:17:21 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 13, 2004, at 3:25 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, > "Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, > one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. > > But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much > beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now > deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not only > geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he came > across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting signs. > One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female > waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." I think that, in this case, Prof. Beveridge misheard "ink pin," once used by speakers of certain dialects, including those of Outstate Missouri, to prevent confusion with "straight pin," "bowling pin," "clothes pin," "safety pin," etc. With the introduction of the ballpoint "pin," "ink pin" has fallen out of use. How sayest thou, dInIs? -Wilson Gray > I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do > these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in language? > > Gerald Cohen > University of Missouri-Rolla > >> ---------- >> From: American Name Society on behalf of Marc Picard >> Reply To: American Name Society >> Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 >> To: ANS-L at LISTSERV.BINGHAMTON.EDU >> Subject: Re: Redundancy >> >> On 04-11-13, at 10:08 am, Christopher K. Starr wrote: >> >> Dear Friends: >> Perhaps one of the real linguists out there (my credentials say >> I'm an entomologist) would care to confirm or refute my idle >> suspicion that the place name East Timor is redundant, as in >> (imaginary examples, as far as I know) South Yugoslavia, North >> Beijing or East Tokyo. >> >> > From preston at MSU.EDU Sat Nov 13 21:34:01 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 16:34:01 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: <67F04472-35B9-11D9-8835-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: Wison, Of course you're right; since 'pen' and 'pin' are homophones in much of the country (pert nigh all of the red states), ink pen (pronounced [pIn] is not redundant. It keeps is straight from 'straight pin,' also commonly said. It also wouldn't be redundant, by the way, even in [E] pronouncing areas if redundant is strictly interpreted (although the pragmatic separation from pig pen etc... is apparently sufficient keep some of those who write to this list from shuddering. I jest love it when y'all shudder at the normal practices of human language in some speech community other than your own. Lets us sociolinguistic know we've got work for a long, long time. dInIs >On Nov 13, 2004, at 3:25 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" >>Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >> I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, >>"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, >>one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. >> >> But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much >>beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now >>deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not only >>geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he came >>across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting signs. >>One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female >>waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." > >I think that, in this case, Prof. Beveridge misheard "ink pin," once >used by speakers of certain dialects, including those of Outstate >Missouri, to prevent confusion with "straight pin," "bowling pin," >"clothes pin," "safety pin," etc. With the introduction of the >ballpoint "pin," "ink pin" has fallen out of use. > >How sayest thou, dInIs? > >-Wilson Gray > >>I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do >>these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in language? >> >> Gerald Cohen >> University of Missouri-Rolla >> >>>---------- >>>From: American Name Society on behalf of Marc Picard >>>Reply To: American Name Society >>>Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 >>>To: ANS-L at LISTSERV.BINGHAMTON.EDU >>>Subject: Re: Redundancy >>> >>>On 04-11-13, at 10:08 am, Christopher K. Starr wrote: >>> >>>Dear Friends: >>> Perhaps one of the real linguists out there (my credentials say >>>I'm an entomologist) would care to confirm or refute my idle >>>suspicion that the place name East Timor is redundant, as in >>>(imaginary examples, as far as I know) South Yugoslavia, North >>>Beijing or East Tokyo. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Sat Nov 13 22:11:56 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 17:11:56 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: --On Saturday, November 13, 2004 3:11 PM -0600 "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" wrote: > My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share with > ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing with > an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. > I associate "ink pen" with the pin/pen merger region, so that the actual contrast isn't with "pig pen" but with "hair pin". From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 13 22:18:42 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 17:18:42 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The first time I heard someone say "ink pen" was here in Knoxville, shortly after I came to UT (Fall 1974). The moment was memorable, for I was in Glocker, which housed the computer center - back in the days when if one wanted to use a computer one went to a computer center or a special laboratory. I asked for something at the and was told that I would have to sign for it - then told that there was an "ink pen" I could use. Now that we have moved bayond that stage and are often signing on a screen instead of a piece of paper, some campus offices - and the UT Federal Credit Union - have signs asking that one using "the inkless pen." I assume that that term - inkless pen - is standard everywhere, but I have not yet seen it anywhere except on the UT campus. Bethany From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Sat Nov 13 23:22:32 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 18:22:32 -0500 Subject: ink-pen Message-ID: Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >The first time I heard someone say "ink pen" was here in Knoxville, >shortly after I came to UT (Fall 1974). The moment was memorable, for I >was in Glocker, which housed the computer center - back in the days when >if one wanted to use a computer one went to a computer center or a special >laboratory. I asked for something at the and was told that >I would have to sign for it - then told that there was an "ink pen" I >could use. After some thought, I've realized that my own familiarity with the term 'ink pen' comes from my early elementary school education in a Catholic parochial school (1957-62), where the nuns required us to write most assignments using what we commonly called an 'ink pen' (rather than ballpoint). We had two alternatives: the (then) old-fashioned 'fountain pen,' which had a mechanism for taking up ink refills from an ink bottle; or the new-fangled (and more popular with us) 'catridge pen', which was refilled by using small, plastic, ink cartridges. (Both of these qualified as 'ink pens', while the forbidden 'ballpoint' pen did not, even though we might argue that it also contained ink.) The nuns never felt a need to explain God's abhorrence of ballpoints, to my knowledge. (We were allowed--perhaps required, I can't remember--to use pencil for mathmatics and perhaps some other writing activities). I doubt that this strictly-enforced code was specific to that particular school (in Washington, D.C.), but rather, expect that nuns everywhere (or at least the Sisters of St. Joseph) required it. If it proves otherwise, my belief system will need yet another adjustment... I could go on to discuss how only certain colors of ink were acceptable, while others, such as the 'peacock blue' which we much prefered, were forbidden shortly after their introduction, but that's another story. Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 00:03:18 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 19:03:18 EST Subject: High five Message-ID: So help me, I found a metaphorical use of that expression. A manager was trying to explain his company's policy on sexual harrassment. After a little stumbling, he summed it up in one metaphor: "High fives are fine, but you have to watch out for the low fives!" - James A. Landau From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 14 00:15:20 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 19:15:20 -0500 Subject: IE root of Skt. "udaya"? In-Reply-To: <007901c4c99d$ddfe1040$9fc56395@paikeday> Message-ID: >Could some Indo-Europeanist or Sanskrit scholar among us tell me what is the >IE root of the Sanskrit word "udaya" (a going up; rising, as in >Monier-Williams Dictionary). The shortened "Uday" is a common given name >among Indians (cf. Uday Shankar) and maybe even other area languages, as in >"Uday," the late Saddam's son. > >I would also like to know if there are cognates in English. The IE root must >be in AHD4's Appendix. My problem is locating it! In case no scholar replies, I will make my naive guess FWIW. I think the AH Dictionary of IE Roots (AHDIER) is about the same as the AHD4 appendix. "Udaya" looks like "ud-" + "aya". "Aya" = "going" (this appears in the Apte Sanskrit dictionary on-line for example). This presumably is from the IE root given as *ei-(1) = "to go" in the AHDIER (p. 22), in the extended form (#4) *ya [with a-macron]. "Ud-" is presumably from IE *ud-, = "up, out" in the AHDIER (p. 94). Each of these parts has plenty of English cognates, but I don't see an English cognate for the combination right away. Possibly the Russian verb "vyyti" = "go out" [perfective] is a 'full' cognate? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 00:15:31 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 19:15:31 EST Subject: Sunday Gravy Message-ID: SUNDAY GRAVY--3,410 Google hits, 158 Google Groups hits Will "Sunday gravy" be in the next DARE? I was browsing through ARTHUR SCHWARTZ'S NEW YORK CITY FOOD (2004) at the local bookstore. It's $45. Didn't buy it. There's not anything new in the entire book. The food entries on my web site (which is, of course, free) are better than his entire book of re-hashed stories. I read on Amazon.com that he's "the official Big Apple foodie." Official? Nevertheless, Schwartz does, briefly, mention "Sunday gravy." It's an Italian term, but is it also regional to the Northeast? (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) 23 June 1942, WASHINGTON POST, pg. 8: And the fact that artists of this caliber, who came with Gene Ford's excellent company from the Capitol Theater, were willing to give up their Sunday gravy and chicken and jump out to Walter Reed during their well-earned lunchtime, is proof that the theater is going its bit in the wide open camps,... 26 December 1946, WASHINGTON POST, pg. 6: I don't know why, but invariably I'm not wearing a white shirt when I foul off a forkful of mashed potatoes, which reminds me that I might ask the maid to try to make the Sunday gravy match my pearl-buttoned brown shirt. 3 November 1999, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. F6: Mr.Ruggerio grew up in Brooklyn, where pork neck bones are considered essential to the sauce, or the Sunday gravy, as it is known. "In an Italian-American household, most people don't know a ragu," he said. "They call it a gravy or a sauce." (GOOGLE) Sicilian Culture: Food: Sunday Gravy ... Please support this site by shopping at . The Food: Sunday Gravy ... About The Sunday Gravy: This, believe it or not, is actually an authentic SiciIian dish. ... www.sicilianculture.com/food/gravy.htm - 14k - Cached - Similar pages The Food: Sunday Gravy INGREDIENTS 1 small 6-ounce of Tomato Paste 1 28-ounce can of Tomatoes (save can to fill with cold water) Oregano 3-5 Fresh Basil Leaves Salt & Pepper Served over Spaghetti or other pasta of your choice > About The Sunday Gravy: This, believe it or not, is actually an authentic > SiciIian dish. And I am almost sure everyone is familiar with the most > common Sicilian/Italian tradition of Sunday Gravy. While most call it sauce, to > us it was always called gravy, and it was red, never the brown stuff you put > on turkey. (GOOGLE GROUPS) Re: Sunday Gravy I'm looking for a great old-time "Sunday Gravy" recipe - the kind that grandma used to make back when she lived in Italy. Please post. ... rec.food.cooking - Jun 27, 2003 by Nexis - View Thread (5 articles) The Sopranos Sunday Gravy The Sopranos Sunday Gravy A recipe from The Sopranos Family Cookbook: Makes about 8 cups For the sauce 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 pound meaty pork neck bones or ... rec.food.recipes - Oct 12, 2003 by A1 WBarfieldsr - View Thread (1 article) Ruggerio Meatballs and Tomato Gravy ... Brown he meatballs in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and proceed with the recipe for the famous Sunday gravy or simply submerge them in your favorite tomato sauce ... rec.food.recipes - Dec 9, 1999 by Betty E. Kohler - View Thread (1 article) Re: Sauce or Gravy ... For some it's just "gravy," for others it's "red gravy," and for others, it's a special sauce served on sundays, so it's "sunday gravy." One can find dozens ... ne.food - Sep 18, 2000 by Peter Cohen - View Thread (27 articles) Meraviglioso! ... If you've tasted better meatballs than these.... you're a shitty cook. Next lesson: Homemade Sunday Gravy (or "sauce", for those of you not in the Northeast). rec.sport.football.fantasy - Jun 5, 2003 by Dave - View Thread (32 articles) War of the Cuisines (was Waitrons) ... or uniquely American ethnic cuisine that the US offers: New England clam chowder Manhattan clam chowder Chili Fajitas She-crab soup Sunday gravy Alder-planked ... alt.gothic - Jun 2, 2004 by Bob - View Thread (82 articles) Re: traditional Sunday lunch ... for most of the US New England states: Sunday = Roast Beef ...>> For many Italian-American families, the Sunday mid-day meal was "Sunday Gravy," an elaborate ... rec.food.historic - Feb 20, 2002 by Combat Lit - View Thread (26 articles) From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 14 00:22:13 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 19:22:13 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 13, 2004, at 4:11 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: ink-pen > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share > with > ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing > with an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. > > Gerald Cohen "Ink" would be needed for clarification, if someone had asked the writer whether he was using an ink-pen or a ballpoint-pen. -Wilson Gray >> ---------- >> From: Michael McKernan >> Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 2:58 PM >> To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard >> Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") >> >> Gerald Cohen wrote: >> >>> Another of his favorite redundancies was "an ink pen." >> >> Well, in a rural area, someone might occasionally feel a need to >> distinguish this item from a 'hog pen' or a 'sheep pen', etc., and >> urbanites might even know of that very human form of pen, the still >> common 'play pen'. >> >> Michael McKernan, Ph.D. >> >> >> >> >> > From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Sun Nov 14 01:18:24 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 20:18:24 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > >>The first time I heard someone say "ink pen" was here in Knoxville, >>shortly after I came to UT (Fall 1974). The moment was memorable, for I >>was in Glocker, which housed the computer center - back in the days when >>if one wanted to use a computer one went to a computer center or a special >>laboratory. I asked for something at the and was told that >>I would have to sign for it - then told that there was an "ink pen" I >>could use. > >After some thought, I've realized that my own familiarity with the term >'ink pen' comes from my early elementary school education in a Catholic >parochial school (1957-62), where the nuns required us to write most >assignments using what we commonly called an 'ink pen' (rather than >ballpoint). We had two alternatives: the (then) old-fashioned 'fountain >pen,' which had a mechanism for taking up ink refills from an ink bottle; >or the new-fangled (and more popular with us) 'catridge pen', which was >refilled by using small, plastic, ink cartridges. (Both of these qualified >as 'ink pens', while the forbidden 'ballpoint' pen did not, even though we >might argue that it also contained ink.) The nuns never felt a need to >explain God's abhorrence of ballpoints, to my knowledge. (We were >allowed--perhaps required, I can't remember--to use pencil for mathmatics >and perhaps some other writing activities). I doubt that this >strictly-enforced code was specific to that particular school (in >Washington, D.C.), but rather, expect that nuns everywhere (or at least the >Sisters of St. Joseph) required it. If it proves otherwise, my belief >system will need yet another adjustment... > >I could go on to discuss how only certain colors of ink were acceptable, >while others, such as the 'peacock blue' which we much prefered, were >forbidden shortly after their introduction, but that's another story. > >Michael McKernan, Ph.D. ~~~~~~~~ I don't remember that we used "ink pen" in public grade school (1937-42), but we did have "ink paper" on which we wrote (to distinguish it from the "pencil paper," rather like newsprint). The pens we used, supplied, as everything else was, by the school, were straight dip pens with very fine points which we dipped into the inkwells on our desks and conveyed, dripping, to the paper to scratch a few more words, before repeating the exercise. We had regular penmanship drills with these instruments of frustration. Inkwells typically collected bits of fuzz picked up by the scratchy nibs and deposited in the well on the next dip. Most of us probably owned regular fountain pens (in those days with rubber ink bladders inside which were refilled by a lever mechanismin the pen barrel), but were not allowed to use them in school. I think I saw my first ballpoint pen in 1946. A. Murie ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> ~@:> From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 01:44:31 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 20:44:31 EST Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) Message-ID: I ran across this (perhaps Fred Shapiro-worthy): http://www.livejournal.com/users/teegerthelemur/friends Random sayings I found on a website...... "I'm off like a bride's nightgown" "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawn mower" "Busier than a one legged cat tryin' to bury shit on a marble floor." "Well cut off my legs and call me shorty!" "Sounds like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples." http://www.barrypopik.com/ I've done some of these, but not all. MANURE SALESMAN + SAMPLES--71 Google hits, 63 Google Groups hits LEGS + CALL ME SHORTY--787 Google hits, 330 Google Groups hits (GOOGLE GROUPS)("manure salesman") Re: Barker and sex ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of samples!" - Joel (MST3K) * --- alt.horror - Aug 21, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (10 articles) MST'ing "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" ... Robin C. Kwong ("er) "Hey, can you speak up? You sound like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples." --Joel, "Rocket Attack USA" alt.tv.mst3k - Jul 8, 1992 by roberta chi-woon kwong - View Thread (4 articles) Re: SMEG, not smegma ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of samples!" - Joel (MST3K) * --- I'm ... alt.tv.red-dwarf - Jun 16, 1992 by D N Crow - View Thread (23 articles) Re: puma ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of samples!" - Joel (MST3K) * --- By ... alt.tv.mst3k - May 5, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (6 articles (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) Mountain Democrat Friday, April 16, 1999 Placerville, California ...The reasoning reminds me of a MANURE SALESMAN with a mouthful of the.. (GOOGLE GROUPS) ("call me shorty") Re: That Hotel in the Keys that's underwater...You know the one. ... Well cut off my legs, and call me shorty!!!! : Key Largo, even. I will be less hasty abt poking fun at the idea. I have to ask... ... alt.fishing - Mar 8, 1991 by Alan Barrow - View Thread (3 articles) Re: Return values in pipelines echo "Cut off mee legs an' call me shorty if it ain't wrong! Lessee:" I see the Dutch have been trying to internationalise their error messages... ... comp.unix.questions - Aug 24, 1990 by Richard Tobin - View Thread (5 articles) (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) Helena Independent Friday, August 04, 1939 Helena, Montana ...bucks you ran cut off my legs and CALL ME SHORTY William Powell. back fit work.....BfcUCVR 1M MOW WOUI.U YOU KNOW RUALJZE ME MAY THAY HOW CAM AP6HSON WlTW ANY.. Pg. 10, col. 1 (HARRISON IN HOLLYWOOD by Paul Harrison): Hollywood, Aug. 3.--Short takes: When the standing of the Ritz Brothers were offered $50 each for some stunt doubling, Sam Canter, one of the three, said, "For 50 bucks you can cut off my legs and call me Shorty!" Reno Evening Gazette Saturday, June 22, 1940 Reno, Nevada ...endorsing "Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY." cases, the songs the.....human being among all the millions who CALL this water-girt island their hoME .. Lime Springs Herald Thursday, November 07, 1940 Lime Springs, Iowa ...Hegland. Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY Harold Munkel. Night. Send ME .....for hones and cows with good hides. CALL as for yoar small nlfiiiila too.. Daily Gleaner Thursday, December 01, 1949 Kingston, Kingston ...Players LaMEnt Cut Off My Lew And CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop a m You've Got ME.....Be a Lesson To You SoMEthing Tells ME Jubilee MExican Swing Satchel Mouth.. Daily Gleaner Monday, December 05, 1949 Kingston, Kingston ...LaMEnt Cut Off.My Lew And-CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop You've Got ME .....Family Solitude Thanks a Million ME And ME Brother Bill Savoy Blues LoVe.. Daily Times News Thursday, November 02, 1967 Burlington, North Carolina ...In Free Well, Cut Off My Legs And CALL ME SHORTY This may appear to be a chorus.....coach should have a chauffeur he can CALL his own. Paul Dietzel, recuperating.. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) 1. 'You Are What You Eat' Adage Is the Long and Short of It By Ida Jean Kain. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Jun 16, 1947. p. B5 (1 page) : _CUT OFF MY BREAD AND CALL ME SHORTY_ 2. Actor With Guitar HOWARD THOMPSON.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 4, 1958. p. 15 (1 page): AS the lad himself might say, cut my legs off and call me Shorty! Elvis Presley can act. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 02:02:25 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 21:02:25 EST Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating" Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/magazine/14ONLANGUAGE.html?pagewanted=2 ON LANGUAGE Lexicographer By ERIN McKEAN Published: November 14, 2004 I've wanted to be a lexicographer since I was 8. (...) I polled, in a highly unscientific manner, my colleagues in the Dictionary Society of North America, and I found that lexicographers in this country do have a common qualification for the jobs they hold or have held: they have all been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Several lexicographers, including Wendalyn Nichols and Enid Pearsons (both formerly of Random House), Orin Hargraves (a freelance lexicographer who has worked for Oxford and other houses) and Debbie Sawczak (formerly of the Canadian Gage dictionaries) answered newspaper ads that in essence said, "Lexicographers Wanted: Will Train." Joanne Despres (senior editor at Merriam-Webster), Ed Gates (who also worked at Merriam on the Third International), Daniel Barron (late of Longman) and Peter Gilliver (of the O.E.D.) also responded to job postings, some literally put up on bulletin boards. The late, much-missed Rima McKinzey (a freelance "pronster," also known as a pronunciation editor, or orthoepist) was recommended for a job at Random House by one of her professors, Arthur Bronstein; Steve Kleinedler (senior editor at American Heritage) took a class from Richard Spears (a slang lexicographer) at Northwestern University, which led to freelance work. Robert Parks (of Wordsmyth) taught a Politics and Language class and was called in as a consultant for a company making electronic dictionaries in Japan while there on a Fulbright; Robert Wachal (who has edited a dictionary of abbreviations and acronyms for American Heritage) taught linguistics and was "scouted" by a publisher while giving a paper at a Dictionary Society meeting. Grant Barrett, a journalist, volunteered to be the Web master for the American Dialect Society, which led indirectly to his becoming the project editor for the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. (...) However accidental the beginning of their careers as lexicographers, once well dug in, most never want to do anything else. They find, as Thomas Paikeday (editor of The User's Webster dictionary) put it, that "lexicography suits my scholarship, skills and even my temperament." In the dozen years that I have been working on dictionaries, the suspicions of my 8-year-old self have only been confirmed: it's the best job in the world, and well worth trying for. Erin McKean is the editor in chief, U.S. dictionaries, for Oxford University Press, and the editor of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly. Last week, William Safire says he was ''electionating.'' From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 14 02:44:14 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 21:44:14 -0500 Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) In-Reply-To: <3jv1nd$fur59@mx14.mrf.mail.rcn.net> Message-ID: On Nov 13, 2004, at 8:44 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I ran across this (perhaps Fred Shapiro-worthy): > > > http://www.livejournal.com/users/teegerthelemur/friends > Random sayings I found on a website...... > > "I'm off like a bride's nightgown" > "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawn mower" In the Army in the '50's, "Your ass is grass, etc." was a common saying (still?) used by Basic-Training cadre. > "Busier than a one legged cat tryin' to bury shit on a marble floor." > "Well cut off my legs and call me shorty!" As a child in Texas, I used to hear a variant: "Lordy, Lordy, nineteen-forty! Cut my legs and call me 'Shorty'!" Sheriff Mike Shaw, a character on the old "Tom Mix" radio show, used to say, "Well, bow my legs and call me "Bandy!" -Wilson Gray > "Sounds like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples." > http://www.barrypopik.com/ > > > I've done some of these, but not all. > > MANURE SALESMAN + SAMPLES--71 Google hits, 63 Google Groups hits > LEGS + CALL ME SHORTY--787 Google hits, 330 Google Groups hits > > > (GOOGLE GROUPS)("manure salesman") > Re: Barker and sex > ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of > samples!" - > Joel (MST3K) * --- > alt.horror - Aug 21, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (10 > articles) > > MST'ing "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" > ... Robin C. Kwong ("er) "Hey, can you speak up? You sound like a > manure > salesman with a mouthful of samples." --Joel, "Rocket Attack USA" > alt.tv.mst3k - Jul 8, 1992 by roberta chi-woon kwong - View Thread (4 > articles) > > Re: SMEG, not smegma > ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of > samples!" - > Joel (MST3K) * --- I'm ... > alt.tv.red-dwarf - Jun 16, 1992 by D N Crow - View Thread (23 articles) > > Re: puma > ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of > samples!" - > Joel (MST3K) * --- By ... > alt.tv.mst3k - May 5, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (6 > articles > > > (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) > Mountain Democrat Friday, April 16, 1999 Placerville, California > ...The reasoning reminds me of a MANURE SALESMAN with a mouthful of > the.. > > > > (GOOGLE GROUPS) ("call me shorty") > Re: That Hotel in the Keys that's underwater...You know the one. ... > Well cut off my legs, and call me shorty!!!! : Key Largo, even. I > will be less hasty abt poking fun at the idea. I have to ask... ... > alt.fishing - Mar 8, 1991 by Alan Barrow - View Thread (3 articles) > > Re: Return values in pipelines > echo "Cut off mee legs an' call me shorty if it ain't wrong! Lessee:" > I see > the Dutch have been trying to internationalise their error messages... > ... > comp.unix.questions - Aug 24, 1990 by Richard Tobin - View Thread (5 > articles) > > > (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) > Helena Independent Friday, August 04, 1939 Helena, Montana > ...bucks you ran cut off my legs and CALL ME SHORTY William Powell. > back fit > work.....BfcUCVR 1M MOW WOUI.U YOU KNOW RUALJZE ME MAY THAY HOW CAM > AP6HSON > WlTW ANY.. > Pg. 10, col. 1 (HARRISON IN HOLLYWOOD by Paul Harrison): > Hollywood, Aug. 3.--Short takes: When the standing of the Ritz > Brothers were > offered $50 each for some stunt doubling, Sam Canter, one of the > three, said, > "For 50 bucks you can cut off my legs and call me Shorty!" > > Reno Evening Gazette Saturday, June 22, 1940 Reno, Nevada > ...endorsing "Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY." cases, the songs > the.....human being among all the millions who CALL this water-girt > island their hoME > .. > > Lime Springs Herald Thursday, November 07, 1940 Lime Springs, Iowa > ...Hegland. Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY Harold Munkel. Night. > Send ME > .....for hones and cows with good hides. CALL as for yoar small > nlfiiiila > too.. > > Daily Gleaner Thursday, December 01, 1949 Kingston, Kingston > ...Players LaMEnt Cut Off My Lew And CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop a m > You've > Got ME.....Be a Lesson To You SoMEthing Tells ME Jubilee MExican Swing > Satchel > Mouth.. > > Daily Gleaner Monday, December 05, 1949 Kingston, Kingston > ...LaMEnt Cut Off.My Lew And-CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop You've Got ME > .....Family Solitude Thanks a Million ME And ME Brother Bill Savoy > Blues LoVe.. > > Daily Times News Thursday, November 02, 1967 Burlington, North > Carolina > ...In Free Well, Cut Off My Legs And CALL ME SHORTY This may appear to > be a > chorus.....coach should have a chauffeur he can CALL his own. Paul > Dietzel, > recuperating.. > > > (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) > 1. 'You Are What You Eat' Adage Is the Long and Short of It > By Ida Jean Kain. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: > Jun 16, > 1947. p. B5 (1 page) : > _CUT OFF MY BREAD AND CALL ME SHORTY_ > > 2. Actor With Guitar > HOWARD THOMPSON.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: > Jul 4, > 1958. p. 15 (1 page): > AS the lad himself might say, cut my legs off and call me Shorty! Elvis > Presley can act. > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 14 05:04:09 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 00:04:09 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:25 PM -0600 11/13/04, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, >"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia >arose, one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that >country. > > But here's another (non-onomastic) item on redundancy. A much >beloved professor of geology at my campus (Tom Beveridge; now >deceased) used to travel around the state (Missouri) studying not >only geology but also collecting anything else of interest that he >came across.. He was particularly fond of collecting interesting >signs. One, in a restaurant, was an advertisement to hire a "female >waitress." Another of his favorite reodundancies was "an ink pen." >I forget the rest. But (and here I'm just wondering out loud) how do >these examples jibe with the supposed Law of Least Effort in >language? > As a frequent defender (and exploiter) of the Law of Least Effort I was going to point out that "ink pen" is likely to occur in areas where "pen" and "pin" are neutralized, and thus the avoidance of redundancy (and of synonymy) is going to be constrained by the avoidance of homonymy when the context doesn't disambiguate. (Cf. Bloomfield and Bolinger on e.g. "light-colored" vs. "lightweight".) The most extreme defenders of least effort-based principles in language use and language change--Zipf, Martinet, etc.--were always quite explicit about the fact that least effort does not operate unchecked, or communication would consist of one word, presumably pronounced [@], with infinitely many meanings. "female waitress" does seem pretty redundant, but less so if you don't parse -ess as [+ female]. Cf. German "Prinzessin", "Hindin" [lit., 'female princess', 'female doe'], or of course Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three different plural markers. larry From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 14 06:15:04 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 01:15:04 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >different plural markers. I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from "cild"? -- Doug Wilson From hpst at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Nov 14 10:24:19 2004 From: hpst at EARTHLINK.NET (Page Stephens) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 05:24:19 -0500 Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) Message-ID: Wilson's reply brings to mind Moe Bandy's song "Bandy the Rodeo Clown". Page Stephens ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" To: Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 9:44 PM Subject: Re: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > On Nov 13, 2004, at 8:44 PM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM >> Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- >> -------- >> >> I ran across this (perhaps Fred Shapiro-worthy): >> >> >> http://www.livejournal.com/users/teegerthelemur/friends >> Random sayings I found on a website...... >> >> "I'm off like a bride's nightgown" >> "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawn mower" > > In the Army in the '50's, "Your ass is grass, etc." was a common saying > (still?) used by Basic-Training cadre. > >> "Busier than a one legged cat tryin' to bury shit on a marble floor." >> "Well cut off my legs and call me shorty!" > > As a child in Texas, I used to hear a variant: "Lordy, Lordy, > nineteen-forty! Cut my legs and call me 'Shorty'!" > Sheriff Mike Shaw, a character on the old "Tom Mix" radio show, used to > say, "Well, bow my legs and call me "Bandy!" > > -Wilson Gray > >> "Sounds like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples." >> http://www.barrypopik.com/ >> >> >> I've done some of these, but not all. >> >> MANURE SALESMAN + SAMPLES--71 Google hits, 63 Google Groups hits >> LEGS + CALL ME SHORTY--787 Google hits, 330 Google Groups hits >> >> >> (GOOGLE GROUPS)("manure salesman") >> Re: Barker and sex >> ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of >> samples!" - >> Joel (MST3K) * --- >> alt.horror - Aug 21, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (10 >> articles) >> >> MST'ing "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" >> ... Robin C. Kwong ("er) "Hey, can you speak up? You sound like a >> manure >> salesman with a mouthful of samples." --Joel, "Rocket Attack USA" >> alt.tv.mst3k - Jul 8, 1992 by roberta chi-woon kwong - View Thread (4 >> articles) >> >> Re: SMEG, not smegma >> ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of >> samples!" - >> Joel (MST3K) * --- I'm ... >> alt.tv.red-dwarf - Jun 16, 1992 by D N Crow - View Thread (23 articles) >> >> Re: puma >> ... You sound like a manure salesman * * with a mouth full of >> samples!" - >> Joel (MST3K) * --- By ... >> alt.tv.mst3k - May 5, 1992 by Cindy Ketterling - View Thread (6 >> articles >> >> >> (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) >> Mountain Democrat Friday, April 16, 1999 Placerville, California >> ...The reasoning reminds me of a MANURE SALESMAN with a mouthful of >> the.. >> >> >> >> (GOOGLE GROUPS) ("call me shorty") >> Re: That Hotel in the Keys that's underwater...You know the one. ... >> Well cut off my legs, and call me shorty!!!! : Key Largo, even. I >> will be less hasty abt poking fun at the idea. I have to ask... ... >> alt.fishing - Mar 8, 1991 by Alan Barrow - View Thread (3 articles) >> >> Re: Return values in pipelines >> echo "Cut off mee legs an' call me shorty if it ain't wrong! Lessee:" >> I see >> the Dutch have been trying to internationalise their error messages... >> ... >> comp.unix.questions - Aug 24, 1990 by Richard Tobin - View Thread (5 >> articles) >> >> >> (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) >> Helena Independent Friday, August 04, 1939 Helena, Montana >> ...bucks you ran cut off my legs and CALL ME SHORTY William Powell. >> back fit >> work.....BfcUCVR 1M MOW WOUI.U YOU KNOW RUALJZE ME MAY THAY HOW CAM >> AP6HSON >> WlTW ANY.. >> Pg. 10, col. 1 (HARRISON IN HOLLYWOOD by Paul Harrison): >> Hollywood, Aug. 3.--Short takes: When the standing of the Ritz >> Brothers were >> offered $50 each for some stunt doubling, Sam Canter, one of the >> three, said, >> "For 50 bucks you can cut off my legs and call me Shorty!" >> >> Reno Evening Gazette Saturday, June 22, 1940 Reno, Nevada >> ...endorsing "Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY." cases, the songs >> the.....human being among all the millions who CALL this water-girt >> island their hoME >> .. >> >> Lime Springs Herald Thursday, November 07, 1940 Lime Springs, Iowa >> ...Hegland. Cut Off My Heels and CALL ME SHORTY Harold Munkel. Night. >> Send ME >> .....for hones and cows with good hides. CALL as for yoar small >> nlfiiiila >> too.. >> >> Daily Gleaner Thursday, December 01, 1949 Kingston, Kingston >> ...Players LaMEnt Cut Off My Lew And CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop a m >> You've >> Got ME.....Be a Lesson To You SoMEthing Tells ME Jubilee MExican Swing >> Satchel >> Mouth.. >> >> Daily Gleaner Monday, December 05, 1949 Kingston, Kingston >> ...LaMEnt Cut Off.My Lew And-CALL ME SHORTY Harlem Stop You've Got ME >> .....Family Solitude Thanks a Million ME And ME Brother Bill Savoy >> Blues LoVe.. >> >> Daily Times News Thursday, November 02, 1967 Burlington, North >> Carolina >> ...In Free Well, Cut Off My Legs And CALL ME SHORTY This may appear to >> be a >> chorus.....coach should have a chauffeur he can CALL his own. Paul >> Dietzel, >> recuperating.. >> >> >> (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) >> 1. 'You Are What You Eat' Adage Is the Long and Short of It >> By Ida Jean Kain. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: >> Jun 16, >> 1947. p. B5 (1 page) : >> _CUT OFF MY BREAD AND CALL ME SHORTY_ >> >> 2. Actor With Guitar >> HOWARD THOMPSON.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: >> Jul 4, >> 1958. p. 15 (1 page): >> AS the lad himself might say, cut my legs off and call me Shorty! Elvis >> Presley can act. >> From hpst at EARTHLINK.NET Sun Nov 14 12:25:47 2004 From: hpst at EARTHLINK.NET (Page Stephens) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 07:25:47 -0500 Subject: ink-pen Message-ID: Does anyone except myself remember the records by The Two Black Crows (Moran and Mack) who had a farm in Africka. One of them had a pig whom he called Ink because he was always running out of the pen. Page Stephens ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" To: Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 7:22 PM Subject: Re: ink-pen > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: ink-pen > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > On Nov 13, 2004, at 4:11 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" >> Subject: Re: ink-pen >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- >> -------- >> >> My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share >> with >> ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing >> with an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. >> >> Gerald Cohen > > "Ink" would be needed for clarification, if someone had asked the > writer whether he was using an ink-pen or a ballpoint-pen. > > -Wilson Gray > >>> ---------- >>> From: Michael McKernan >>> Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 2:58 PM >>> To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard >>> Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") >>> >>> Gerald Cohen wrote: >>> >>>> Another of his favorite redundancies was "an ink pen." >>> >>> Well, in a rural area, someone might occasionally feel a need to >>> distinguish this item from a 'hog pen' or a 'sheep pen', etc., and >>> urbanites might even know of that very human form of pen, the still >>> common 'play pen'. >>> >>> Michael McKernan, Ph.D. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 14 14:44:02 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 09:44:02 EST Subject: NY Times bastardizes "Ol' Dirty Bastard" Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/arts/music/14ODB.html?oref=login O.D.B., Controversial Rap Artist, Dies at 35 By THOMAS J. LUECK Published: November 14, 2004 Russell T. Jones, the rap artist known as O.D.B., collapsed and died yesterday at a recording studio in Manhattan, the police said. Mr. Jones, a 35-year-old native of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, was a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan and made a large imprint on rap music in the 1990's. (GOOGLE NEWS) DEAD 'DIRTY BASTARD' New York Post, NY - 6 hours ago November 14, 2004 -- Revered, troubled and often outlandish rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard mysteriously collapsed and died yesterday at a Manhattan recording studio ... Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard dies suddenly Reuters Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard Dead in New York Reuters Ol' Dirty Bastard dies in recording studio CBC News Billboard - MTV.com - all 305 related ? Oh come on, New York Times! Jon Stewart has said the name. Saturday Night Live has said the name. It's met television's standards. A quick check of the New York Times since 1996 shows that the word "bastard" has been used. There are 329 hits. This is the first page of results: Also heard: Pierce my ears and call me drafty. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 14 19:38:28 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 14:38:28 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041114005950.03206260@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 1:15 AM -0500 11/14/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >>different plural markers. > >I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? >Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from "cild"? > No, I was thinking of OE, in which "childe" occurs as a plural along with "childer" and the slightly later "child(e)ren". Larry From suzanne at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 14 19:56:52 2004 From: suzanne at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Suzanne Evans Wagner) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 14:56:52 -0500 Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) In-Reply-To: <200411141907.OAA09819@babel.ling.upenn.edu> from "Mullins, Bill" at Nov 14, 2004 01:07:50 pm Message-ID: My family in the UK say "Slap my thigh and call me Mildred." From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 14 22:01:45 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 17:01:45 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >At 1:15 AM -0500 11/14/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >>>different plural markers. >> >>I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? >>Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from "cild"? >No, I was thinking of OE, in which "childe" occurs as a plural along >with "childer" and the slightly later "child(e)ren". However many plural markers "children" has, the dialectal/nonstandard form "childrens" (shown in DARE for example) has one more, I think. -- Doug Wilson From preston at MSU.EDU Sun Nov 14 23:06:15 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 18:06:15 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041114165812.031f5060@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: Ain't DARE got "childrenses"? (Not a possessive.) One more. dInIs >>At 1:15 AM -0500 11/14/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>>Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >>>>different plural markers. >>> >>>I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? >>>Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from "cild"? >>No, I was thinking of OE, in which "childe" occurs as a plural along >>with "childer" and the slightly later "child(e)ren". > >However many plural markers "children" has, the dialectal/nonstandard form >"childrens" (shown in DARE for example) has one more, I think. > >-- Doug Wilson -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 15 00:13:24 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 18:13:24 -0600 Subject: "Cut off my legs and call me shorty" (1939) Message-ID: Also heard: "Slap my ass and call me Sally". From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Mon Nov 15 00:43:22 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:43:22 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Ain't DARE got "childrenses"? (Not a possessive.) One more. > >dInIs > > > >>>At 1:15 AM -0500 11/14/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>>>Eng. "children", with what are historically (but not transparently) three >>>>>different plural markers. >>>> >>>>I see only two. Or is [zero] counted as one of the plural markers somehow? >>>>Or was there in OE or some ancestral tongue a singular distinct from >>>>"cild"? >>>No, I was thinking of OE, in which "childe" occurs as a plural along >>>with "childer" and the slightly later "child(e)ren". >> >>However many plural markers "children" has, the dialectal/nonstandard form >>"childrens" (shown in DARE for example) has one more, I think. >> >>-- Doug Wilson ~~~~~~~~~ I wonder where "chirdren" fits into all this....? I hear it often enough that I don't think it's just idiosyncratic. AM From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Mon Nov 15 01:14:58 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 20:14:58 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") Message-ID: Someone wrote: >>> I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, >>>"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, >>>one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. I live in a place known as 'Westminster West, Vermont.' This cumbersome place name denotes the west parish (or west village) of the Town of Westminster, VT, a town along the Connecticut River, in Windham CO (southeastern VT). Some 19th century sources refer to this place as 'West Westminster,' and some (recently arrived) residents nowadays say 'West West.' Most of the population of the Town of Westminster (3,210 in 2000 census) live in the central village, 'Westminster', which has the Town Hall, Post Office, central school, etc.). Another Town of Westminster population center is 'North Westminster', which geographically and socially is connected more closely to the community/village of Bellows Falls, VT (which is a population center within the Town of Rockingham, VT). There is some audible tension between old-timers and newcomers, based on pronunciation of 'Westminster,' since the old-timers invariably pronounce an additional vowel sound, something like Wes-min-iss-tuh', while recent arrivals tend to pronounce 'as spelled': West'-min-ster (or West-min'-ster). (This holds true for Westminster West and North Westminster, as well.) FAIR WARNING: increasingly extraneous comments follow. Please feel free to trash this without reading it! Of course, the original choice of name for Westminster town(ship) was not based on it being the site of a western church building, but merely an importation of a long-established place name from England. But when a clear geographic and demographic distinction developed between the western part of this town, which consists of high, hilly terrain, separated by a very steep ridge line from the bottom-lands of the main riverside community, and with this western area's population somewhat centered on its own parish Congregational church, the Westminster West (or West Westminster) label was chosen, despite its high degre of audible redundancy. One might wonder why the west didn't develop an independent place name. (The adjacent Town of Rockingham, VT, (total population 5,309), mentioned above, includes the villages of Bellows Falls, VT (population 3,165), Saxtons River (519), and a smaller population center simply called Rockingham (no census data available). These three communities could reasonably have been named 'East Rockingham' (Bellows Falls); 'West Rockingham (Saxtons River); and North Rockingham (Rockingham). Instead, with Bellows Falls taking its name from a falls or rapids of the Connecticut River, and Saxtons River taking its name from a river (which joins the Connecticut just south of Bellows Falls), the awkwardness of East/West/North compound forms was avoided. Westminster did develop an alternative name for its 'North Westminster' community: 'Gageville,' which was named for a small mill/manufacturing area along the Saxtons River, (but in the Town of Westminster). The official name, however,is North Westminster, used for such institutions as water and sewer systems, and a fire district. Complicating all of this, for Westminster West residents, the US Postal Service delivers mail to this part of town through the Putney, VT (town immediately south of Westminster) Post Office, rather than through the Westminster Post Office, so Westminster West uses the Putney zip code (05346) rather than Westminster's (05158) Many pieces of mail are misdirected due to this, and package delivery services such as UPS or FEDEX are often confused (or pretend to be) by the 05346 zip code coexisting in Putney, Westminster West (and also Dummerston, VT). Not only that, but Westminster West telephones use the 'Putney' prefix (387-XXXX) rather than the Westminster prefix. Until deregulation, the phone company actually charged toll rates for calls from Westminster West to Westminster (or North Westminster), and vice versa. Further complicating all of this, for some people, is the location of the regional high school, (officially, Windham [County] Northeast Supervisory Union High School] which brings together students from Rockingham, Westminster, and the several other towns in this northeast quadrant of the county. This school is physically located in the Town of Westminster (closer to North Westminster than to the main village, Westminster), but it is generally referred to as 'Bellows Falls High School', (i.e., its sports teams and other groups are known as the 'Bellows Falls Terriers', etc.) This is because Bellows Falls (and its immediate neighbor, North Westminster) constitute a locally-significant urbanized area, with stores, banks, and a broad range of services (and employment opportunities) compared to the surrounding villages which lack most or all of such facilities. While Bellows Falls is, by U.S.A. standards, a small village, it locally functions as the central 'town' of the area, somewhat in conjuction with North Walpole, New Hampshire, which is just across the Connecticut River. (But I won't go THERE, this is far enough!) Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Mon Nov 15 02:50:34 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 20:50:34 -0600 Subject: New York Brand Texas Toast Message-ID: I'm not sure where New York Brand Texas Toast is made, but the company's headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio. If I recall correctly, Texas Style Hawaiian Bread comes from Chicago. -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA Mon Nov 15 03:33:56 2004 From: thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA (Thomas Paikeday) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:33:56 -0500 Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating" Message-ID: Since even Google asks, Did you mean "electional", "electioning", etc., I think Safire's assistant may want to answer the question about "electionating". I for one don't get it, but am curious to learn more. Perhaps Safire meant to say "electioneering"? t.m.p. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2004 9:02 PM Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating" > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: Erin's column, Safire "electionating" > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/magazine/14ONLANGUAGE.html?pagewanted=2 > > ON LANGUAGE > > Lexicographer > > By ERIN McKEAN > > Published: November 14, 2004 > > I've wanted to be a lexicographer since I was 8. > > (...) > > I polled, in a highly unscientific manner, my colleagues in the Dictionary > Society of North America, and I found that lexicographers in this country > do > have a common qualification for the jobs they hold or have held: they have > all > been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Several > lexicographers, including Wendalyn Nichols and Enid Pearsons (both > formerly of Random > House), Orin Hargraves (a freelance lexicographer who has worked for > Oxford and > other houses) and Debbie Sawczak (formerly of the Canadian Gage > dictionaries) > answered newspaper ads that in essence said, "Lexicographers Wanted: Will > Train." Joanne Despres (senior editor at Merriam-Webster), Ed Gates (who > also > worked at Merriam on the Third International), Daniel Barron (late of > Longman) and > Peter Gilliver (of the O.E.D.) also responded to job postings, some > literally > put up on bulletin boards. The late, much-missed Rima McKinzey (a > freelance > "pronster," also known as a pronunciation editor, or orthoepist) was > recommended for a job at Random House by one of her professors, Arthur > Bronstein; Steve > Kleinedler (senior editor at American Heritage) took a class from Richard > Spears (a slang lexicographer) at Northwestern University, which led to > freelance > work. Robert Parks (of Wordsmyth) taught a Politics and Language class and > was > called in as a consultant for a company making electronic dictionaries in > Japan while there on a Fulbright; Robert Wachal (who has edited a > dictionary of > abbreviations and acronyms for American Heritage) taught linguistics and > was > "scouted" by a publisher while giving a paper at a Dictionary Society > meeting. > Grant Barrett, a journalist, volunteered to be the Web master for the > American > Dialect Society, which led indirectly to his becoming the project editor > for > the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. > > (...) > > However accidental the beginning of their careers as lexicographers, once > well dug in, most never want to do anything else. They find, as Thomas > Paikeday > (editor of The User's Webster dictionary) put it, that "lexicography suits > my > scholarship, skills and even my temperament." In the dozen years that I > have > been working on dictionaries, the suspicions of my 8-year-old self have > only > been confirmed: it's the best job in the world, and well worth trying for. > > Erin McKean is the editor in chief, U.S. dictionaries, for Oxford > University > Press, and the editor of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly. Last week, > William > Safire says he was ''electionating.'' > From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 03:57:14 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 22:57:14 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: A question from a friend in Boston: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty feet away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t or d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have come from? ===================== -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 15 05:31:21 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Until ca.1961, I never heard the glottal stop used by anyone, black or white, except in British movies. But, in 1961, when I was in the Army, I buddied up with a bruthuh from Fuquay Springs, NC, which is somewhere in the Raleigh-Durham area. He used a glottal stop in seemingly as many environments as any Cockney. When I tried to question him about it, he would become defensive and reply, "Man, I don? use no glo?al stop!" I concluded that this was probably a speech defect of some kind, since he seemed to be utterly unaware of it. If I had known then what I know now, I would spoken to him using glottal stops myself to see what his reaction was. In any case, the use of glottal stops by BE speakers didn't come to my attention again until rap music became popular. I've since heard the glottal stop used by many, many rappers. Then I noticed that on trash TV - Jerry, Maury, et al. - not only BE speakers but also Latino-English speakers, whose speech patterns appear to be based on those of BE rather than those of standard English, and even some white speakers who talked black were all using the glottal stop. However the glottal stop came to be used by rappers - I doubt that they all come from North Carolina - IMO, the glottal stop seems to have become an in-group marker of the rap culture and, unfortunately, seems to be spreading like wildfire. I first noted its use by kids in Roxbury (the Harlem of Boston, as it were) about ten years ago. I haven't noticed its use by West-Coast blacks, yet, but I figure that it's only a matter of time. Many years ago, I read an article by Labov in which he claimed that "I'ma" for "I'm going to" was spreading among BE speakers. I don't use that form myself and I'd never heard any other black person use it, either. So, I dismissed this claim as just more bullshit from The Man. You can imagine my surprise, shock, and chagrin when I finally did hear a black person say "I'ma" and that person turned out to be none other than one of my own brothers, a Federal judge in California. What I'm getting at here as that my opinion WRT the BE glottal stop may be as worthy of respect as my opinion WRT "I'ma." -Wilson Gray On Nov 14, 2004, at 10:57 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" > Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > A question from a friend in Boston: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American > teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty > feet > away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). > > And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic > artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or > younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t > or > d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have > come > from? > > ===================== > > -- Mark > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Nov 15 05:38:43 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:38:43 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <20041114225557.Y75484@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: --On Sunday, November 14, 2004 10:57 PM -0500 "Mark A. Mandel" wrote: > A question from a friend in Boston: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American > teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty feet > away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). > > And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic > artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or > younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t or > d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have come > from? > > ===================== > > -- Mark > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] I've heard this often from callers to NY sports talk radio who have no overt AAVE phonology (other than this, if it *is* AAVE). -- Alice Faber afaber at panix.com From mckernan at LOCALNET.COM Mon Nov 15 06:24:08 2004 From: mckernan at LOCALNET.COM (Michael McKernan) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 01:24:08 -0500 Subject: OUT OF SIGHT Message-ID: Having done my best to search the ADS-L archives for previous discusion of the expression 'out of sight,' and coming up with nothing useful, I, a newcomer to the list, but brash enought to already have chimed in on numerous occasions (and to have been corrected on several, thanks!) post the following query: Can anyone tell me the earliest use of the expression 'out of sight' in its non-literal meaning of 'extraordinary' or 'particularly special'? I ask because I have been working on an 1890s personal diary from small-town Missouri, USA, which contains an interesting amount of slang and ideomatic expressions, including several uses of this 'out of sight' expression as a positive descriptor of various items or events which the diarist felt were particularly remarkable. NB: this is not the 'out of sight, out of mind' aphoristic formulation which I have typically encountered when searching for 'out of sight.' Nor is it a usage which means anything like the literal 'unseeable' meaning. Here is one example from the diary: >Fri., Nov. 26, 1897 >It was chocolate bonbon, some of her own make, and it was just out of sight! My own reaction to this phrase is too colored by my memories of it as what seemed to be a proprietary expression of youth/counterculture in the late 1960s and early 1970s to be very objective... Thanks in advance for your help. Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Mon Nov 15 11:51:16 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 06:51:16 -0500 Subject: OUT OF SIGHT Message-ID: 1876, in HDAS. If you don't have the two volumes of HDAS, you need to get them. Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael McKernan" To: Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 1:24 AM Subject: OUT OF SIGHT > Having done my best to search the ADS-L archives for previous discusion of > the expression 'out of sight,' and coming up with nothing useful, I, a > newcomer to the list, but brash enought to already have chimed in on > numerous occasions (and to have been corrected on several, thanks!) post > the following query: > > Can anyone tell me the earliest use of the expression 'out of sight' in its > non-literal meaning of 'extraordinary' or 'particularly special'? > > I ask because I have been working on an 1890s personal diary from > small-town Missouri, USA, which contains an interesting amount of slang and > ideomatic expressions, including several uses of this 'out of sight' > expression as a positive descriptor of various items or events which the > diarist felt were particularly remarkable. > > NB: this is not the 'out of sight, out of mind' aphoristic formulation > which I have typically encountered when searching for 'out of sight.' Nor > is it a usage which means anything like the literal 'unseeable' meaning. > > Here is one example from the diary: > > >Fri., Nov. 26, 1897 > >It was chocolate bonbon, some of her own make, and it was just out of sight! > > My own reaction to this phrase is too colored by my memories of it as what > seemed to be a proprietary expression of youth/counterculture in the late > 1960s and early 1970s to be very objective... > > Thanks in advance for your help. > > > > Michael McKernan, Ph.D. > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 15 14:15:19 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:15:19 EST Subject: Bronx Indian (1934?) Message-ID: I found this for "Bronx Indian" (="Brooklyn Indian"=Jew). It's earlier than the HDAS. However, Newspaperarchive won't open up the page. What gives? (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) Indiana Evening Gazette Friday, October 05, 1934 Indiana, Pennsylvania ...to me he adds: "Say, don't let those BRONX INDIANS know that I went up five.. WWW.BARRYPOPIK.COM-- I've added about twenty more items over the weekend, such as songs, "Polar Bears," "Swing Street," "Irish Riviera," "Beefsteak," "Manicotti," "Reuben Sandwich," "Vichyssoise," "Tiffany Network," "Twofer," "Vaudeville," "Manhattan Silver," "NYPD & FDNY," "Coney Island whitefish," and "Saturday Night Live." I'd like to add the above. From db.list at PMPKN.NET Mon Nov 15 14:46:43 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:46:43 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: From: "Mark A. Mandel" : A question from a friend in Boston: : ---------- Forwarded message ---------- : I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American : teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty : feet away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). : And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic : artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or : younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of : t or d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have : come from? : ===================== No idea where it comes from, but it's not limited to African-Americans--my white self does it, too. David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From fitzke at MICHCOM.NET Mon Nov 15 14:57:14 2004 From: fitzke at MICHCOM.NET (Bob Fitzke) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:57:14 -0500 Subject: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") Message-ID: Mr. Mac: I have an old friend from Bellows Falls. On the off chance you may know her I'm writing to ask for her address. Her name is now Shirley Minarchan. She was originally Shirley Grey. Her hometown is BF but I knew her and her late husband when they lived in Lansing, MI. Thanks Bob Fitzke You do not reason a man out of something he was not reasoned into --- Jonathon Swift People are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts---Sen. Dan Moynihan An atheist is a person with no invisible means of support---John Buchan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael McKernan" To: Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 8:14 PM Subject: Re: Redundancy--(in defense of "South Yugoslavia") > Someone wrote: > >>>> I'd like to speak out in defense of "South Yugoslavia." Sure, >>>>"Yug-" in Slavic means "South," but once the country Yugoslavia arose, >>>>one could be in the north, south, east, or west of that country. > > I live in a place known as 'Westminster West, Vermont.' This cumbersome > place name denotes the west parish (or west village) of the Town of > Westminster, VT, a town along the Connecticut River, in Windham CO > (southeastern VT). > > Some 19th century sources refer to this place as 'West Westminster,' and > some (recently arrived) residents nowadays say 'West West.' Most of the > population of the Town of Westminster (3,210 in 2000 census) live in the > central village, 'Westminster', which has the Town Hall, Post Office, > central school, etc.). Another Town of Westminster population center is > 'North Westminster', which geographically and socially is connected more > closely to the community/village of Bellows Falls, VT (which is a > population center within the Town of Rockingham, VT). > > There is some audible tension between old-timers and newcomers, based on > pronunciation of 'Westminster,' since the old-timers invariably pronounce > an additional vowel sound, something like Wes-min-iss-tuh', while recent > arrivals tend to pronounce 'as spelled': West'-min-ster (or > West-min'-ster). (This holds true for Westminster West and North > Westminster, as well.) > > FAIR WARNING: increasingly extraneous comments follow. Please feel free > to > trash this without reading it! > > Of course, the original choice of name for Westminster town(ship) was not > based on it being the site of a western church building, but merely an > importation of a long-established place name from England. But when a > clear geographic and demographic distinction developed between the western > part of this town, which consists of high, hilly terrain, separated by a > very steep ridge line from the bottom-lands of the main riverside > community, and with this western area's population somewhat centered on > its > own parish Congregational church, the Westminster West (or West > Westminster) label was chosen, despite its high degre of audible > redundancy. One might wonder why the west didn't develop an independent > place name. > > (The adjacent Town of Rockingham, VT, (total population 5,309), mentioned > above, includes the villages of Bellows Falls, VT (population 3,165), > Saxtons River (519), and a smaller population center simply called > Rockingham (no census data available). These three communities could > reasonably have been named 'East Rockingham' (Bellows Falls); 'West > Rockingham (Saxtons River); and North Rockingham (Rockingham). Instead, > with Bellows Falls taking its name from a falls or rapids of the > Connecticut River, and Saxtons River taking its name from a river (which > joins the Connecticut just south of Bellows Falls), the awkwardness of > East/West/North compound forms was avoided. > > Westminster did develop an alternative name for its 'North Westminster' > community: 'Gageville,' which was named for a small mill/manufacturing > area > along the Saxtons River, (but in the Town of Westminster). The official > name, however,is North Westminster, used for such institutions as water > and sewer systems, and a fire district. > > Complicating all of this, for Westminster West residents, the US Postal > Service delivers mail to this part of town through the Putney, VT (town > immediately south of Westminster) Post Office, rather than through the > Westminster Post Office, so Westminster West uses the Putney zip code > (05346) rather than Westminster's (05158) Many pieces of mail are > misdirected due to this, and package delivery services such as UPS or > FEDEX > are often confused (or pretend to be) by the 05346 zip code coexisting in > Putney, Westminster West (and also Dummerston, VT). Not only that, but > Westminster West telephones use the 'Putney' prefix (387-XXXX) rather than > the Westminster prefix. Until deregulation, the phone company actually > charged toll rates for calls from Westminster West to Westminster (or > North > Westminster), and vice versa. > > Further complicating all of this, for some people, is the location of the > regional high school, (officially, Windham [County] Northeast Supervisory > Union High School] which brings together students from Rockingham, > Westminster, and the several other towns in this northeast quadrant of the > county. This school is physically located in the Town of Westminster > (closer to North Westminster than to the main village, Westminster), but > it > is generally referred to as 'Bellows Falls High School', (i.e., its sports > teams and other groups are known as the 'Bellows Falls Terriers', etc.) > This is because Bellows Falls (and its immediate neighbor, North > Westminster) constitute a locally-significant urbanized area, with stores, > banks, and a broad range of services (and employment opportunities) > compared to the surrounding villages which lack most or all of such > facilities. While Bellows Falls is, by U.S.A. standards, a small village, > it locally functions as the central 'town' of the area, somewhat in > conjuction with North Walpole, New Hampshire, which is just across the > Connecticut River. (But I won't go THERE, this is far enough!) > > Michael McKernan, Ph.D. From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 16:26:05 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:26:05 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: <20041114050148.64BB6B2478@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Gerald Cohen says: >>>>> My thanks to Michael McKernan for his reply below, which I now share with ads-l. His point is well made, and yet if someone says he's writing with an ink-pen, "ink" here is not really needed for clarification. <<<<< That's assuming that every time someone says "ink pen", he's constructing the phrase analytically. But if it has become lexicalized, it's just going to roll off his tongue as automatically as "PIN number" or "ATM machine". -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 16:30:27 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:30:27 -0500 Subject: ink-pen In-Reply-To: <20041114050148.64BB6B2478@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Michael McKernan says: >>>>> After some thought, I've realized that my own familiarity with the term 'ink pen' comes from my early elementary school education in a Catholic parochial school (1957-62), where the nuns required us to write most assignments using what we commonly called an 'ink pen' (rather than ballpoint). We had two alternatives: the (then) old-fashioned 'fountain pen,' which had a mechanism for taking up ink refills from an ink bottle; or the new-fangled (and more popular with us) 'catridge pen', which was refilled by using small, plastic, ink cartridges. (Both of these qualified as 'ink pens', while the forbidden 'ballpoint' pen did not, even though we might argue that it also contained ink.) <<<<< Where I heard the term "ink pen", Harlan County, Kentucky, Summer 1965, I am pretty sure that it referred to any pens, including ballpoint pens. -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 16:36:07 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:36:07 -0500 Subject: wag 'carry/lug/haul' Message-ID: A friend from, I think, North Carolina, uses the verb "wag" in a way I've never seen before and can't find in OED or Merriam-Webster. She puts it in scare quotes, suggesting that she considers it a slang or dialect usage. It occurs to me (as a WAG :-)) that it could be a back formation from "wagon". Note that she uses the verb twice in this paragraph, scare-quoted only the first time. > I was thinking about asking you about the parking situation at your house. > I can fly, but I'd rather drive. If you have parking space at your house, > I could leave my car there and then "wag" my stuff via the trolley/subway > to your house. The cost to park at the hotel is outrageous. Now if Mark > could come and meet us to wag our stuff on occasion, especially at the end > of convention, that would be wonderful!!! -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 15 16:56:49 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 11:56:49 -0500 Subject: NY Times bastardizes "Ol' Dirty Bastard" In-Reply-To: <20041115050009.10B3FB25CF@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Barry, don't you mean "bowdlerizes"? -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From preston at MSU.EDU Mon Nov 15 17:03:14 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:03:14 -0500 Subject: NY Times bastardizes "Ol' Dirty Bastard" In-Reply-To: <20041115115628.R2083@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: >Mark, Wadn't it a joke? dInIs >Barry, don't you mean "bowdlerizes"? > >-- Mark >[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages Wells Hall A-740 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA Office: (517) 353-0740 Fax: (517) 432-2736 From Vocabula at AOL.COM Mon Nov 15 17:24:21 2004 From: Vocabula at AOL.COM (Robert Hartwell Fiske) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:24:21 EST Subject: Arnold Zwicky et al. aside ... Message-ID: However curmudgeonly, Mr. Fiske betrays a bluff humanitarian spirit. ... [Fiske] wants to save [the English language]. And he knows that he can count on little help. Dictionaries "have virtually no standards, offer scant guidance, and advance only misunderstanding." His own flogging of Merriam-Webster's is one of the many pleasures of this lovely, sour, virtuous book. -- Erich Eichman in Wall Street Journal (Nov. 12) The Dictionary of Disagreeable English -- it's an annoying, amusing book. Robert Hartwell Fiske Editor and Publisher The Vocabula Review http://www.vocabula.com/ The Vocabula Review 10 Grant Place Lexington, MA 02420 _________________________ Buy a book from Vocabula and receive a free subscription to Vocabula: http://www.vocabula.com/specialoffer/ Now Available: "Vocabula Bound": http://www.vocabula.com/VRebooksBound.asp and "The Dictionary of Disagreeable English": http://www.vocabula.com/VRebooksDisagree.asp New in Vocabula: Cacolloquium (http://www.vocabula.com/popups/VRCacolloquium.aspx) and The Vocabula Quizzes (http://www.vocabula.com/VRquizzes.asp) From jeb4c4 at MIZZOU.EDU Mon Nov 15 18:14:19 2004 From: jeb4c4 at MIZZOU.EDU (Beckman, Jennifer Elizabeth (UMC-Student)) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:14:19 -0600 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Glottal stops in contractions are *very* common in eastern Missouri but were unknown to me before I started college at the University of Missouri-Columbia in '95. (I had lived in the "Quad Cities" [Iowa], Chicago, Madison, WI, and Omaha, NE before moving to a small town in western Missouri [1.5 hours southeast of KC] in '87, where the feature does *not* occur. Very interestingly [to me, at least], other [primarily South Midlands] features of eastern and western [rural] Missouri English seem to be shared--the glottal stop in contractions is a glaring exception.) From: "Mark A. Mandel" : A question from a friend in Boston: : ---------- Forwarded message ---------- : I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American : teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty : feet away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). : And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic : artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or : younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of : t or d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have : come from? : ===================== No idea where it comes from, but it's not limited to African-Americans--my white self does it, too. David Bowie From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 15 18:48:06 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:48:06 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:38 AM -0500 11/15/04, Alice Faber wrote: >--On Sunday, November 14, 2004 10:57 PM -0500 "Mark A. Mandel" > wrote: > >>A question from a friend in Boston: >> >>---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> >>I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American >>teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty feet >>away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). >> >>And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic >>artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or >>younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t or >>d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have come >>from? >> >>===================== >> >>-- Mark >>[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > >I've heard this often from callers to NY sports talk radio who have no >overt AAVE phonology (other than this, if it *is* AAVE). > Indeed. And I've also heard it in Connecticut, as the counterpart of the phenomenon we discussed a couple of months ago in voiceless examples, as in "kitten", "mitten", "New Britain", etc. But this is perhaps restricted to this particular voiced context; I don't think I've heard it with "hidden", where "a [hI?In] message" would be perceived as the implausible "hittin' message". Arnold can probably explain all this (if anyone can). larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 15 19:44:06 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:44:06 -0500 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls Message-ID: 1) Watch (perhaps) for next weekend's "On Language" column in the NYT Magazine. 2) Following our discussion of the metonymy of "get brain" (and the metaphor of "hanging brains") in class today, one student volunteered "get dome" as a related expression from rap songs. (Well, another student brought up "get medulla", but he confessed he was just jivin'.) I just checked google and sure enough, while there aren't a huge number of relevant hits, there was one supporting his datum. (As against the "skull" version, this involves metaphor rather than second-order metonymy I take it--and do we know whether the dome is associated with the shape of brains or of other body parts?) I assume that "give dome" is also possible, but I didn't locate any instances. larry P.S. I infer from this and other posting that "-cc" for "-ck" is part of the conventionalized orthography in this genre (along with the -z plural and "u" for the second person); lots of instances of "dicc", for example. =============================== http://www.raptalk.net/bb/showthread.php?t=4805&page=3 01-20-2003, 10:18 AM MistaDrawmuh Mr. Arrogant ------------------------------------------------------------------------ i use to never go down town........ but now, i graduated with a 4.0 from TWATLICC ACADAMY...... im puerto rican, i got big lips n a big tongue, i cant help but use em... i use to always get dome ..... andthen go str8 to fuccn..... but now, i licc it first..... liccin it first gets u better dome, she wana give u what u gave her...... From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Nov 15 19:59:02 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:59:02 -0500 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 02:44:06PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote: > > I assume that "give dome" is also possible, but I didn't locate any > instances. Larry, Larry. You need to extend your searches based on other aspects of this orthography. Arnold would certainly criticize you if you looked for "givin_g_ dome". So, if you try "givin dome": * Givin dome to fags * U da greatest a[t] givin dome * More inspiring than your mother givin dome * u ridin ya dads BRONCO she givin DOME down south * you in the street givin dome fo crack Actually, even "giving dome" turns up a few examples: * I have run into some girls who like giving dome for a little while but very very few like to give it til the end * how to satisfy a man, whom we think is worth satisfying....this includes giving dome, head, and love below the belt * they say vancouver is gay friendly, i saw Ohm giving dome in back of his sugar daddy's bently Jesse "I'm going back to work now" Sheidlower OED From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 15 20:08:05 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:08:05 -0500 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls In-Reply-To: <20041115195902.GA10895@panix.com> Message-ID: At 2:59 PM -0500 11/15/04, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: Good point, Jesse, I guess I quit prematurely after my search on "give dome" turned up such (I assume) irrelevant hits on the first page as "London urged to give Dome to New York" UK Muppets give Dome a hand I'll never give Dome Wars up. You can take my copy of Giants, Black and White or Baldur's Gate II before I'll let you erase this 2 MB folder. etc. I wonder if the penultimate posting below suggests that giving dome =/= giving head. larry >On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 02:44:06PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote: >> >> I assume that "give dome" is also possible, but I didn't locate any >> instances. > >Larry, Larry. You need to extend your searches based on other aspects >of this orthography. Arnold would certainly criticize you if you >looked for "givin_g_ dome". So, if you try "givin dome": > >* Givin dome to fags > >* U da greatest a[t] givin dome > >* More inspiring than your mother givin dome > >* u ridin ya dads BRONCO she givin DOME down south > >* you in the street givin dome fo crack > > >Actually, even "giving dome" turns up a few examples: > >* I have run into some girls who like giving dome for a little >while but very very few like to give it til the end > >* how to satisfy a man, whom we think is worth >satisfying....this includes giving dome, head, and love below >the belt > >* they say vancouver is gay friendly, i saw Ohm giving dome in >back of his sugar daddy's bently > >Jesse "I'm going back to work now" Sheidlower >OED From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Nov 15 20:17:09 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:17:09 -0500 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 03:08:05PM -0500, Laurence Horn wrote: > At 2:59 PM -0500 11/15/04, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > > I wonder if the penultimate posting below suggests that giving dome > =/= giving head. (i.e. "how to satisfy a man, whom we think is worth satisfying....this includes giving dome, head, and love below the belt") I take it to be a list of synonymies. This is almost the complete post from a message board, the topic under discussion being whether black women like to perform fellatio. There's nothing in the post or the rest of the thread to suggest that there is a distinction. I enjoyed the "whom". Jesse Sheidlower From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 15 20:58:21 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:58:21 -0500 Subject: wag 'carry/lug/haul' In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Damn, Mark! I've been meaning to submit this word, myself! I've known it my whole life. But, since I have no documentation for it and I've been raked over the coals for submitting stuff that only I knew about, I kept putting it off. In any case, I definitely have your back on this one! Among black [I hate to have to keep specifying the speaker's race, but those who are old enough remember the really bad old days, when merely being in the presence of a white person, male or female, with the wrong expression on his face could cost a black man his ass] women in East Texas, it pretty much replaces "tote," which is guy-talk. A man _totes_ , whereas a woman _wags_ a load of groceries home, _wags_ a child in her arms, _wags_ a bag of laundry on her back, etc. I can't swear that women didn't also use "tote," but I can say that males didn't/don't? use "wag" with the meaning of "bear, carry, tote," etc. Your friend may be using quotes because "wag" is chick-talk. Probably not, but wouldn't it be far out if that was the case?! -Wilson Gray On Nov 15, 2004, at 11:36 AM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" > Subject: wag 'carry/lug/haul' > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > A friend from, I think, North Carolina, uses the verb "wag" in a way > I've > never seen before and can't find in OED or Merriam-Webster. She puts > it in > scare quotes, suggesting that she considers it a slang or dialect > usage. It > occurs to me (as a WAG :-)) that it could be a back formation from > "wagon". > > Note that she uses the verb twice in this paragraph, scare-quoted only > the > first time. > >> I was thinking about asking you about the parking situation at your >> house. >> I can fly, but I'd rather drive. If you have parking space at your >> house, >> I could leave my car there and then "wag" my stuff via the >> trolley/subway >> to your house. The cost to park at the hotel is outrageous. Now if >> Mark >> could come and meet us to wag our stuff on occasion, especially at >> the end >> of convention, that would be wonderful!!! > > > > -- Mark A. Mandel > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Nov 15 22:15:04 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:15:04 -0800 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 15, 2004, at 10:48 AM, Laurence Horn wrote: > At 12:38 AM -0500 11/15/04, Alice Faber wrote: >> --On Sunday, November 14, 2004 10:57 PM -0500 "Mark A. Mandel" >> wrote: >> >>> A question from a friend in Boston: >>> >>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >>> >>> I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American >>> teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty >>> feet >>> away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). >>> >>> And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic >>> artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or >>> younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of >>> t or >>> d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have >>> come >>> from? >>> >>> ===================== >> >> I've heard this often from callers to NY sports talk radio who have no >> overt AAVE phonology (other than this, if it *is* AAVE). >> > Indeed. And I've also heard it in Connecticut, as the counterpart of > the phenomenon we discussed a couple of months ago in voiceless > examples, as in "kitten", "mitten", "New Britain", etc. But this is > perhaps restricted to this particular voiced context; I don't think > I've heard it with "hidden", where "a [hI?In] message" would be > perceived as the implausible "hittin' message". Arnold can probably > explain all this (if anyone can). background: most (though not all) u.s. speakers have a glottalish (glottalized in some way, or just a glottal stop) variant of /t/ after an accented syllable and before syllabic n (mitten, cotton,...), and also in syllable-final position (hat, hothead, fitness,...). these two phenomena are probably related: /t/ in an accented syllable before syllabic n is syllabified with the preceding syllable, and so gets syllable-final allophony. (in contrast, /t/ after an accented syllable and before other syllabics is [depending on your religion] ambisyllabic or syllabified entirely with the following syllable, and so gets a voiced allophone, [d] or a voiced tap or whatever.) meanwhile, syllable-final /d/ in american dialects is weakly voiced. in some dialects -- notably african-american, but also some southern and south midlands varieties (i don't understand the geographical/social pattern, but the variant does seem to be spreading) -- syllable-final /d/ is in fact glottalized, in one way or another, and as a result is fully devoiced. (this is a subtle racial indicator, largely unrecognized by everybody involved, in the speech of african americans who are otherwise fluently bidialectal.) now to negative inflection for bases ending in /d/ (didn't, couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't, hadn't). while there are good arguments (due to geoff pullum and me) that these are single inflected words, they are nonetheless transparently analyzable into two meaningful parts, an auxiliary verb ending in /d/ and a negative element /nt/, and so can be seen as subject to a syllable division reflecting this analysis, with syllable-final glottalization in the first part as a result. other occurrences of /d/ followed by syllabic n, even in "wooden" and "hidden", are not so clearly analyzable. that's an account of the historical origin of a medial glottalish element in "didn't" etc. i suspect, however, that once the glottalish variants were produced, they became lexicalized: in effect, "did" in "didn't" etc. were interpreted as having an alternant ending in /t/ rather than /d/. (this would allow, by the way, for different developments for different auxiliaries, and even for some modest extension to other analyzable words, like "wooden".) lexicalization is suggested by the fact that the correlation between syllable-final glottalization (in general) and medial glottalization in contracted negatives looks very poor to me. a medial glottalish element in "didn't" is widespread (but not universal) in AAVE, or at least the AAVE of the last forty years or so, and is attested in lots of places (mostly deep south, but now south midlands and elsewhere) for white speakers; my impression is that for southern speakers, black and white, it is at best very modestly related to social class. but surely this one has been studied... and probably discussed in the pages of American Speech. does anyone remember, or is anyone able to figure out how to search for it? arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), once again ignorant From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 16 00:29:36 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 19:29:36 -0500 Subject: Getting an extra syllable? Message-ID: Is it just me? Or are pronunciations like winter-y single-ly jungle-y babble-ing snuggle-ly bundle-ing double-ing bungle-ing etc. becoming more common? -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 16 01:15:27 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 20:15:27 -0500 Subject: New day, old topic Message-ID: Jesse Sheidlower wrote that: "[T]he topic under discussion [is] whether black women like to perform fellatio." This was also a much-discussed topic 'mongst the bruz & cuz in 1954 and probably in 1904. too. In my day, in the '50's, we didn't even have any slang terms for it, since all such terms in the local BE were gay-specific. We borrowed the terms used by our white contemporaries. We had "dome" in those days, but it meant "head" only in the literal sense, as in "get one's dome combed" = get a haircut. [Damn! Just heard the band's name pronounced "Led Zepple-in" on the History Channel!] -Wilson Gray From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 16 02:31:25 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:31:25 -0800 Subject: New day, old topic In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 15, 2004, at 5:15 PM, Wilson Gray wrote: > ... [Damn! Just heard > the band's name pronounced "Led Zepple-in" on the History Channel!] this is just *so* wrong. arnold From abaragona at SPRYNET.COM Tue Nov 16 02:44:51 2004 From: abaragona at SPRYNET.COM (Alan Baragona) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 21:44:51 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: I have always used this glottal stop pronunciation, not only in "didn't" but in "isn't" in place of the [z]. I'm white, born and brought up in urban North Carolina, but the rest of my family is from New Jersey. I remember a childhood friend, an Air Force brat who had lived abroad, remarking that he had never heard anyone pronounce [i?nt]. It is not particularly a North Carolina feature, so I think I got it from my family. Alan Baragona ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alice Faber" To: Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 12:38 AM Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Alice Faber > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > --On Sunday, November 14, 2004 10:57 PM -0500 "Mark A. Mandel" > wrote: > > > A question from a friend in Boston: > > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > > > I was on the Green Line, and there were a couple of African-American > > teenage girls talking loudly to one another (they were about twenty feet > > away, almost out of sight, but I could hear every word they said). > > > > And it occurred to me as I was listening that there's a linguistic > > artifact that I've only heard from urban African-Americans my age or > > younger, mostly girls. It's a sort of glottal stop used in place of t or > > d; eg. di-unt instead of didn't. Do you know where this might have come > > from? > > > > ===================== > > > > -- Mark > > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > > I've heard this often from callers to NY sports talk radio who have no > overt AAVE phonology (other than this, if it *is* AAVE). > > -- > Alice Faber > afaber at panix.com From dwhause at JOBE.NET Tue Nov 16 02:58:04 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 20:58:04 -0600 Subject: more on heads, brains, and skulls Message-ID: >>From an anatomic viewpoint, the skull, the diaphragm, and the bladder are spoken of as having domes. Certainly the brain has that upper shape, but it is usually spoken of as 'the convexity' and I don't think I've ever heard 'dome' applied here. Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laurence Horn" (As against the "skull" version, this involves metaphor rather than second-order metonymy I take it--and do we know whether the dome is associated with the shape of brains or of other body parts?) I assume that "give dome" is also possible, but I didn't locate any instances. larry From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 16 03:01:09 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 19:01:09 -0800 Subject: Fwd: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > From: Arnold M. Zwicky > Date: November 15, 2004 6:51:20 PM PST > To: Alan Baragona > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > > On Nov 15, 2004, at 6:44 PM, Alan Baragona wrote: > >> I have always used this glottal stop pronunciation, not only in >> "didn't" but >> in "isn't" in place of the [z]. I'm white, born and brought up in >> urban >> North Carolina, but the rest of my family is from New Jersey. >> I remember a childhood friend, an Air Force brat who had lived abroad, >> remarking that he had never heard anyone pronounce [i?nt]. >> It is >> not particularly a North Carolina feature, so I think I got it from my >> family. > > i was pretty sure this was out there, but didn't want to risk > predicting it. wonderful, in any case, it's just a combination of the > /d/ for /z/ in "isn't" (and "wasn't"), which *has* been studied for > sure, with the glottalish realization of syllable-final /d/ that i > mentioned in my earlier posting. cool. > > arnold > From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 16 03:25:40 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:25:40 -0500 Subject: Yiddish with Dick and Jane Message-ID: While this link is an advertisment for a book, I found it amusing, and I don't think anyone will be put out. http://www.vidlit.com/yidlit/yidlit.html Sam Clements From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 16 05:46:50 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 00:46:50 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: > >In any case, the use of glottal stops by BE speakers didn't come to my >attention again until rap music became popular. I've since heard the >glottal stop used by many, many rappers. Then I noticed that on trash >TV - Jerry, Maury, et al. - not only BE speakers but also >Latino-English speakers, whose speech patterns appear to be based on >those of BE rather than those of standard English, and even some white >speakers who talked black were all using the glottal stop. However the >glottal stop came to be used by rappers - I doubt that they all come >from North Carolina - IMO, the glottal stop seems to have become an >in-group marker of the rap culture and, unfortunately, seems to be >spreading like wildfire. I first noted its use by kids in Roxbury (the >Harlem of Boston, as it were) about ten years ago. I haven't noticed >its use by West-Coast blacks, yet, but I figure that it's only a matter >of time. In recent years the exaggeratedly glottalized "Oh no you/he/she di[?]n't" (as a response of outrage, or mock outrage) has become a hackneyed catchphrase. My sense is that the expression had its origin in hiphop and then started turning up on those "trash TV" shows in the late '90s (with appropriate hand gestures and head-bobbing). From there it became a source of mockery for white Americans, as in this bit from Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" (April 2002): ------------- http://snltranscripts.jt.org/01/01pupdate.phtml Tina Fey: (nods head) Bill Clinton - Bill Clinton revealed in Newsweek that he is getting a new chocolate lab to replace his dog, Buddy. Bill says, with Hillary away in D.C., he just needs another bitch in the house. Jimmy Fallon: Oh, snap! Oh, yes, you did! Tina Fey: (gets up from her chair and starts flapping arms) Oh, no! Oh, no, you didn't! Oh, snap! OKAYYYYY! [etc.] ------------- There are examples of "oh no you didn't" on the Usenet newsgroups alt.rap and rec.music.hip-hop about ten years back: ------------- Date: 1994/04/20 Message-ID: <94110.191901SCW112 at psuvm.psu.edu> Newsgroup: alt.rap In article <1994Apr20.214045.27522 at random.ccs.northeastern.edu>, nickman at ccs.neu.edu (Jeff Nicolai) says: > >- Chuck D. from Public Enemy is from a middle class family in >Long Island. As an 'oppressed' rapper from the ghetto........ >he ain't Shit!!!! oh no you didn't... ------------- Date: 1995/08/03 Message-ID: <030895.10035334596.n at frontier.canrem.com> Newsgroup: rec.music.hip-hop >Da Brat and Latifah are lesbians. Please don't deny it... UH, oh no you DIDN'T! Latifah I ain't care aboutm but, but tha Brat? That's cold man, that's cold. ------------- Of course, we can't know how these examples were meant to be pronounced, but this example from 1993 has a pronunciation spelling indicating glottalization: ------------- From: Enuma Olanrewaju Ogunyemi Subject: Re: Black labels Date: 1993/09/07 Message-ID: <26irmb$gu9 at senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> Newsgroup: alt.rap Again you are being unnecessarily rude. BTW a lot of English folk don't think Americans speak proper English, so using statements like "Webster and the rest of reasonable (no you di'int!!) society" doesn't mean much outside the U.S. ------------- Such glottalized pronunciation spellings became more common in the late '90s: ------------- Date: 1998/11/13 Message-ID: <19981113002102.07786.00000858 at ng-fq1.aol.com> Newsgroup: alt.music.ska >abba or erasure > >blech!! my ears are already starting to bleed just thinking about >it!! get a mop, quick! oh NO he di-ent!! ------------- Date: 1999/10/19 Message-ID: <380D2CA4.51F0F7B at pacbell.net> Newsgroup: alt.music.prince 3 chains o' gold oh no he DI'INT! ------------- Date: 1999/10/24 Message-ID: <38137c26.490249861 at news-server> Newsgroups: rec.arts.mystery >And what do sluices, which are used in placer gold mining have >to do with books? Is this another weird Americanism? OH NO HE DI'NT ------------- By now, of course, the catchphrase is well and truly played out. --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 16 06:14:46 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:14:46 -0800 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <30365.69.142.143.59.1100584010.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: On Nov 15, 2004, at 9:46 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: > In recent years the exaggeratedly glottalized "Oh no you/he/she > di[?]n't" > (as a response of outrage, or mock outrage) has become a hackneyed > catchphrase. My sense is that the expression had its origin in hiphop > and > then started turning up on those "trash TV" shows in the late '90s > (with > appropriate hand gestures and head-bobbing). From there it became a > source of mockery for white Americans... just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an intervocalic glottalish bit. i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a catchphrase. arnold From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 16 06:29:53 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 01:29:53 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >intervocalic glottalish bit. I'm sure that's right for , , . I suppose that , , tend to refer to pronunciations with more or less of a glottal stop ... probably still not reliably though. -- Doug Wilson From db.list at PMPKN.NET Tue Nov 16 14:29:22 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:29:22 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" : background: most (though not all) u.s. speakers have a glottalish : (glottalized in some way, or just a glottal stop) variant of /t/ after : an accented syllable and before syllabic n (mitten, cotton,...), and : also in syllable-final position (hat, hothead, fitness,...). these : two phenomena are probably related: /t/ in an accented syllable before : syllabic n is syllabified with the preceding syllable, and so gets : syllable-final allophony. (in contrast, /t/ after an accented : syllable and before other syllabics is [depending on your religion] . ^^^^^^^^ : ambisyllabic or syllabified entirely with the following syllable, and : so gets a voiced allophone, [d] or a voiced tap or whatever.) Is it too much of an admission of cluelessness to say that i can't tell whether this is a typo for "region" or a non-typo? (FWIW, i'm cheering for non-typo--watching linguists argue about syllabification certainly *is* similar to watching people argue about points of religious dogma, after all. Not to mention that the idea of Buddhists and Taoists having different syllabification rules is nothing if not smile-at-able.) David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 16 16:28:57 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 11:28:57 EST Subject: ink-pen Message-ID: In a message dated Sat, 13 Nov 2004 18:22:32 -0500, Michael McKernan complained > After some thought, I've realized that my own familiarity with the term > 'ink pen' comes from my early elementary school education in a Catholic > parochial school (1957-62), where the nuns required us to write most > assignments using what we commonly called an 'ink pen' (rather than > ballpoint). We had two alternatives: the (then) old-fashioned 'fountain > pen,' which had a mechanism for taking up ink refills from an ink bottle; > or the new-fangled (and more popular with us) 'catridge pen', which was > refilled by using small, plastic, ink cartridges. (Both of these qualified > as 'ink pens', while the forbidden 'ballpoint' pen did not, even though we > might argue that it also contained ink.) The nuns never felt a need to > explain God's abhorrence of ballpoints, to my knowledge. (We were > allowed--perhaps required, I can't remember--to use pencil for mathmatics > and perhaps some other writing activities). I doubt that this > strictly-enforced code was specific to that particular school (in > Washington, D.C.), but rather, expect that nuns everywhere (or at least the > Sisters of St. Joseph) required it. If it proves otherwise, my belief > system will need yet another adjustment... In the sixth grade, in public school in Louisville KY, we were required to have and use fountain pens. There is a reason. A ball-point pen can only write a line of a single width. On the other hand (bad saying. Few people are ambidextrous) a fountain pen, in the hands (well, writing hand) of a moderately skilled penman ("penperson"?) can write lines of varying width and even fill in solid areas. That's why fountain pens survive in this era of ballpoints---writing done in a fountain pen looks better, and you can do calligraphy with a fountain pen (or with any pen that has a nib). Of course, few people nowadays care about calligraphy (except for things like weddings, for which they hire professional calligraphers). As for the term "ink pen", some people might use that term to distinguish a fountain pen (or even a ballpoint!) from a Magic Marker, which is sometimes (and accurately) called a "felt pen". Granted, a felt pen, like a ballpoint, uses ink. "Inkless pen" is a term I have never met. The thing you poke at a touch-sensitive computer screen (e.g. with a Palm-Pilot) is in my experience called a "stylus". - James A. Landau PS. The only SSJ I have ever met was Sr. Barbara Anne Foos, whom I fondly remember as a superb math teacher. She never said anything about what writing utensils to use in her class. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 16 16:45:00 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 11:45:00 EST Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: In a message dated Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500, Wilson Gray writes: > Until ca.1961, I never heard the glottal stop used by anyone, black or > white, except in British movies. Di?nt you ever hear anyone say "uh-oh" when something went wrong or use "uh-uh" (sometimes spelt "unh-uh") as a negative mumble? MWCD10 has "uh-oh" dated with a surprisingly late 1971 as pronounced "usu with strong glottal stops before the vowels) and "uh-uh" dated as "ca. 1924" as pronounced "two [nasal] m's or two [nasal] n's preceded by glottal stops". English, the only Indo-European language to have dispensed with gutturals in recorded history, is also the first Indo-European language to introduce glottal stops! > I first noted its use by kids in Roxbury (the > Harlem of Boston, as it were) about ten years ago. "How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea/ or my cousin in Rox-bur-ee?" so Charlie on the MTA was African-American? > one of my own brothers, a Federal judge in California. an ambiguity here: is the Honorable Judge the son of your father and/or mother? (can't find the reference): I don't doubt your are right about Frederick Law Olmstead. I have not read any of his work, and I could not remember when mentioning him whether he was considered an Abolitionist or merely a reporter. An interesting rumor I heard yesterday: Cheney is going to resign as Vice President and Bush is going to appoint Colin Powell in his place. Highly unlikely, I think---had Powell been interested in elective office, he would have run for something back in the 1990's. I must say that Powell would make a better President than either Bush II or Kerry. - James A. Landau From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Tue Nov 16 17:53:20 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:53:20 -0800 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <034701c4cbe8$ab9e5c70$f0fbaa84@BOWIE> Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 6:29 AM, David Bowie wondered: > From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" > > ... (in contrast, /t/ after an accented > : syllable and before other syllabics is [depending on your religion] > . ^^^^^^^^ > : ambisyllabic or syllabified entirely with the following syllable... > > Is it too much of an admission of cluelessness to say that i can't tell > whether this is a typo for "region" or a non-typo? not a typo. i was referring to the intense disagreements over ambisyllabicity. all that was important for my discussion, though, was the difference between syllabifying the t as the coda of the preceding syllable and any other syllabification. arnold From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 16 19:30:41 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:30:41 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 11:45 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a message dated Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500, Wilson Gray > writes: > >> Until ca.1961, I never heard the glottal stop used by anyone, black >> or >> white, except in British movies. > > Di?nt you ever hear anyone say "uh-oh" when something went wrong or use > "uh-uh" (sometimes spelt "unh-uh") as a negative mumble? MWCD10 has > "uh-oh" dated > with a surprisingly late 1971 1971?! Must be a typo. > as pronounced "usu with strong glottal stops > before the vowels) and "uh-uh" dated as "ca. 1924" as pronounced "two > [nasal] m's > or two [nasal] n's preceded by glottal stops". In the 'hood, if someone answers "Uh-uh" to a greeting, - e.g. "Ssup?" "Uh-uh!" - it's roughly equivalent to Jewish "Don't ask!" Of course I'm used to hearing that and more. But if I could end the occurrence of glottal stops in those places in which I'm *not* accustomed to hearing them, e.g. glo?al ge?in di?n't, etc. I would. But this attitude is stereotypical from generation to generation. My grandparents went to their graves saying "wheel," though all around them people of my generation were saying "bicycle" or simply "bike." If the old folk even had a word for "motorcycle," I never heard it. Are you familiar with the song, "Cool for Cats"? The first time that I heard it, it sounded like an unending stream of glottal stops. But, after I became accustomed to hearing it, I found that I had to listen quite carefully to hear the few glottal stops that actually occur. Perhaps the use of glottal stops in the new environments will die out. If not, I'm certain that I will. > > English, the only Indo-European language to have dispensed with > gutturals in > recorded history, is also the first Indo-European language to introduce > glottal stops! > >> I first noted its use by kids in Roxbury (the >> Harlem of Boston, as it were) about ten years ago. > > "How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea/ or my cousin in > Rox-bur-ee?" > so Charlie on the MTA was African-American? The areas in which blacks are required/permitted to live shift over time in any large city. At one time, Beacon Hill, currently the most elite area of the city of Boston, was the colored part of town. That's how the oldest standing African-American house of worship came to be located on Beacon Hill. And it's also the reason that the Roxbury Latin School, an elite prep school, is no longer actually located in Roxbury. > >> one of my own brothers, a Federal judge in California. > > an ambiguity here: is the Honorable Judge the son of your father and/or > mother? The son of my mother. [Oh. Okay, I got it. Jim, you sly devil, you!] > > (can't find the reference): I don't doubt your are right about > Frederick Law > Olmstead. I have not read any of his work, and I could not remember > when > mentioning him whether he was considered an Abolitionist or merely a > reporter. As I recall, he merely reported what he saw, without going all abolitionist about it. (In the late '70's, I believe it was, he suddenly became hip and that's when I read his stuff.) If you have any spare time, read him. He's almost on a level with Mark Twain in his ability to make things that he merely observed riveting. > > An interesting rumor I heard yesterday: Cheney is going to resign as > Vice > President and Bush is going to appoint Colin Powell in his place. > Highly > unlikely, I think I agree, but it is interesting to contemplate for a plethora of reasons. -Wilson Gray > ---had Powell been interested in elective office, he would have run > for something back in the 1990's. I must say that Powell would make a > better > President than either Bush II or Kerry. > > - James A. Landau > From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 16 19:51:04 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:51:04 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <00B67262-3806-11D9-8F1B-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: To paraphrase the much-maligned (because of his uppity speech) Kerry, "Would that he were!" And the "he" can refer to either Bush or Cheney. At 02:30 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >>An interesting rumor I heard yesterday: Cheney is going to resign as >>Vice President and Bush is going to appoint Colin Powell in his place. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 16 20:00:17 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:00:17 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: First language English acquisition people always cite "uh oh" as an early utterance of babies, and they note that early words with final stops often substitute the glottal stop instead. I have no reason to think it would be any different with little black children, unless someone can cite evidence to the contrary. (Roger Brown's landmark _A First Language_ (1973) notes this in the productions of his three case studies, Adam, Eve, and Sarah; Adam was black.) At 11:45 AM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >In a message dated Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:31:21 -0500, Wilson Gray > writes: > > > Until ca.1961, I never heard the glottal stop used by anyone, black or > > white, except in British movies. > >Di?nt you ever hear anyone say "uh-oh" when something went wrong or use >"uh-uh" (sometimes spelt "unh-uh") as a negative mumble? MWCD10 has >"uh-oh" dated >with a surprisingly late 1971 as pronounced "usu with strong glottal stops >before the vowels) and "uh-uh" dated as "ca. 1924" as pronounced "two >[nasal] m's >or two [nasal] n's preceded by glottal stops". > >English, the only Indo-European language to have dispensed with gutturals in >recorded history, is also the first Indo-European language to introduce >glottal stops! From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 16 20:13:21 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:13:21 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: This deleted tap [dInt] or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do most people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps in formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: >just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >intervocalic glottalish bit. > >i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >catchphrase. > >arnold From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 16 21:02:43 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:02:43 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > This deleted tap [dInt] This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. -Wilson Gray > or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, > and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do > most > people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps in > formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) > > At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: > >> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >> intervocalic glottalish bit. >> >> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >> catchphrase. >> >> arnold > From gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Nov 16 21:29:22 2004 From: gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU (Matthew Gordon) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 15:29:22 -0600 Subject: gobsmack Message-ID: Any Brits here? I heard Jeff Greenfield, an American CNN political analyst, say something like "These numbers gobsmacked the pollsters." I've only ever heard this word used in the passive (e.g. I was gobsmacked.). Is this active voice form really used or is this (as I suspect) a misuse by an anglophilic American? From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 16 22:01:39 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:01:39 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:14:46 -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > >just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >intervocalic glottalish bit. > >i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >catchphrase. At least as far as the catchphrase is concerned, the exaggerated glottalization seems to require something along the lines of [dI?In?] or [dI?En?] (with at least secondary stress on the second syllable), as opposed to [dI?@n?] or [dI?n-?] (where [n-] represents syllabic [n]). I believe this is what the pronunciation spellings of "di-int" and "di-ent" are supposed to represent. Even when the intervocalic consonant remains a voiced tap, the vowel of the second syllable in the stressed form of "didn't" often sounds like [I] or [E] when spoken by young East Coasters. --Ben Zimmer From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 16 22:09:30 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 17:09:30 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but alas, I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I didn't really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" from somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use of "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville, but I don't recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now Labov claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old days! At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>This deleted tap [dInt] > >This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the >day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be >approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," >used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I >didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the >use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone >claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a >kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. > >-Wilson Gray > >> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, >>and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do >>most >>people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps in >>formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) >> >>At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: >> >>>just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >>>used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >>>simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >>>intervocalic glottalish bit. >>> >>>i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >>>glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >>>not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >>>catchphrase. >>> >>>arnold From jester at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 16 21:46:37 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:46:37 -0500 Subject: gobsmack In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 16, 2004 at 03:29:22PM -0600, Matthew Gordon wrote: > Any Brits here? > I heard Jeff Greenfield, an American CNN political analyst, say something > like "These numbers gobsmacked the pollsters." I've only ever heard this > word used in the passive (e.g. I was gobsmacked.). > Is this active voice form really used or is this (as I suspect) a misuse by > an anglophilic American? 1991 _Daily Star_ 24 Dec. 33/1 There's Kenny Dalglish, for example. Old Smiler himself gobsmacked us all when he hurtled out of Anfield in '91 blaming the stress of it all for his unexpected exit. 1991 `J. GASH' _Great California Game_ (1992) iii. 25 The exhibition gobsmacked me. [a UK source, despite the title] 2000 _Sunday Times_ 27 Aug. (News Review section) 2/7, I was on the road a great deal doing personal appearances or opening supermarkets or turning up on chatshows like Wogan, Aspel or Woman's Hour, invitations that absolutely gobsmacked me. Jesse Sheidlower OED From lvonschn at WISC.EDU Wed Nov 17 00:06:11 2004 From: lvonschn at WISC.EDU (Luanne von Schneidemesser) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:06:11 -0600 Subject: Laurence Urdang-DSNA Award Message-ID: I hope you don't mind my taking the opportunity to remind Dictionary Society of North America members (and for others, it's not too late to pay your dues). . . . Don't forget that the deadline for applying for the Laurence Urdang-DSNA Award for 2005 is December 1. We welcome applications of up to $2,500. Please send your application to DSNA President David Jost. More information is on the DSNA website, URL below. Thanks to Laurence Urdang, DSNA Fellow, for his support of lexicography. Best, Luanne Luanne von Schneidemesser Executive Secretary Dictionary Society of North America University of Wisconsin-Madison 6129 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St. Madison WI 53706 http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dsna/index.html From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 02:05:42 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:05:42 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but > alas, > I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I > didn't > really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" > from > somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use of > "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. -Wilson > but I don't > recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A > colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the > "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now Labov > claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift > southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old > days! > > At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> This deleted tap [dInt] >> >> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the >> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be >> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," >> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I >> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the >> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone >> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a >> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. >> >> -Wilson Gray >> >>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, >>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do >>> most >>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps >>> in >>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) >>> >>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: >>> >>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. >>>> >>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an >>>> intervocalic >>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this >>>> is >>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >>>> catchphrase. >>>> >>>> arnold > From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Wed Nov 17 02:09:12 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 18:09:12 -0800 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. started referring to police as "pigs"? KATHY SEAL 310-452-2769 Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) www.Kathyseal.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 6:05 PM Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > -------- > > > > As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but > > alas, > > I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I > > didn't > > really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" > > from > > somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use of > > "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville > > During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School > Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if > Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the > Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single > basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. > > -Wilson > > > but I don't > > recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A > > colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the > > "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now Labov > > claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift > > southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old > > days! > > > > At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: > >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >> > >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header > >>> ----------------------- > >>> Sender: American Dialect Society > >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan > >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>> -- > >>> -------- > >>> > >>> This deleted tap [dInt] > >> > >> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the > >> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be > >> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," > >> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I > >> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the > >> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone > >> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a > >> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. > >> > >> -Wilson Gray > >> > >>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, > >>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do > >>> most > >>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps > >>> in > >>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) > >>> > >>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: > >>> > >>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often > >>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is > >>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an > >>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. > >>>> > >>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an > >>>> intervocalic > >>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this > >>>> is > >>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a > >>>> catchphrase. > >>>> > >>>> arnold > > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 02:24:41 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:24:41 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 16, 2004, at 9:09 PM, Kathy Seal wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Kathy Seal > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. > started > referring to police as "pigs"? > > > KATHY SEAL > 310-452-2769 > Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, > 2001) > www.Kathyseal.net My guess is 1965. I *know* that it was before 1969, since, by then, local high-school all-stars had begun to play an annual flag-football game against the younger local cops in a game which was called the "Pig Bowl." This was in Sacramento, CA. -Wilson Gray > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wilson Gray" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 6:05 PM > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Wilson Gray >> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> ---- > ----- >> >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>> ----------------------- >>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> -- >>> -------- >>> >>> As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but >>> alas, >>> I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I >>> didn't >>> really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" >>> from >>> somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use >>> of >>> "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville >> >> During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School >> Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if >> Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the >> Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single >> basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. >> >> -Wilson >> >>> but I don't >>> recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A >>> colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the >>> "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now >>> Labov >>> claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift >>> southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old >>> days! >>> >>> At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: >>>> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>>> >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >>>>> ----------------------- >>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society >>>>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan >>>>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> -- >>>>> -- >>>>> -------- >>>>> >>>>> This deleted tap [dInt] >>>> >>>> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the >>>> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be >>>> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I >>>> never," >>>> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I >>>> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about >>>> the >>>> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone >>>> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a >>>> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. >>>> >>>> -Wilson Gray >>>> >>>>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, >>>>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do >>>>> most >>>>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps >>>>> in >>>>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) >>>>> >>>>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is >>>>>> often >>>>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap >>>>>> is >>>>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >>>>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. >>>>>> >>>>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an >>>>>> intervocalic >>>>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this >>>>>> is >>>>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >>>>>> catchphrase. >>>>>> >>>>>> arnold >>> > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 17 04:39:19 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:39:19 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <30755.69.142.143.59.1100642499.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: At 5:01 PM -0500 11/16/04, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:14:46 -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky > wrote: >> >>just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often >>used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is >>simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an >>intervocalic glottalish bit. >> >>i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic >>glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this is >>not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a >>catchphrase. > >At least as far as the catchphrase is concerned, the exaggerated >glottalization seems to require something along the lines of [dI?In?] or >[dI?En?] (with at least secondary stress on the second syllable), as >opposed to [dI?@n?] or [dI?n-?] (where [n-] represents syllabic [n]). I >believe this is what the pronunciation spellings of "di-int" and "di-ent" >are supposed to represent. Right; that's what makes it perceptually a lot like the "Connecticut" [but not just Connecticut] rendering of "(New) Britain", "kitten", "mitten", etc., all with a secondarily stressed -[In]. > >Even when the intervocalic consonant remains a voiced tap, the vowel of >the second syllable in the stressed form of "didn't" often sounds like [I] >or [E] when spoken by young East Coasters. > exactly--but let me throw out a purely speculative WAG. (This isn't inconsistent with the factors Arnold brings up but might reinforce them.) It's been suggested (by Bolinger, and more recently me in a Linguist List thread a few years ago) that it's not an accident that medial glottal stops occur in both "uh-oh" and "unh-unh", where the latter rendering is intended to represent the open-mouth version of the disagreement marker (the counterpart of the agreement/assent marker "uh-huh", which crucially has no medial [?]). The closed-mouth version of the disagreement/denial/rejection marker, which I won't even try to represent, also contains a medial glottal stop, and (like uh-oh and unh-unh) high tone-low tone. The generalization seems to be that medial intervocalic [?] (not, of course, the [?] showing up before initial vowels) is associated with negation, especially in conjunction with the high/low tone sequence. (Note that the open- and closed-mouth affirmative/assent markers, uh-huh and m-hm, both have low-high tone sequences as well as medial voiceless vowel (i.e. [h]) or voiceless nasal in place of [?].) (Arguably, although this is even more speculative, it could be claimed that both the [?] and the high-low sequence are partially iconic representations of the semantic effect of negation.) Now "didn't" is pretty negative too, which may (I did say this was speculative) have motivated speakers to assimilate it to the pattern of those voiceless "kitten" words that have the medial [?], even though the voiced [d] means it "should" (ceteris paribus) pattern with words like "hidden" and "wooden", which as Arnold and I have noted don't transform to -[?In] in the same way. Any buyers? larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 17 04:52:05 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:52:05 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: P.S. on my line on unh-unh, uh-oh, didn't, etc., I just realized I should have been a bit less obscure in my terminology. Of course "uh-oh" isn't a negation in the normal propositional sense; I was alluding (following Bolinger) to the negative affect associated with situations in which "uh-oh" is uttered--in the words of AHD4, "to express alarm, foreboding, or dismay." larry From kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET Wed Nov 17 05:03:11 2004 From: kathyseal at ADELPHIA.NET (Kathy Seal) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:03:11 -0800 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: Wow, that's early on. Thank you. Kathy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wilson Gray" > > > > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. > > started > > referring to police as "pigs"? > > > > > > My guess is 1965. I *know* that it was before 1969, since, by then, > local high-school all-stars had begun to play an annual flag-football > game against the younger local cops in a game which was called the "Pig > Bowl." This was in Sacramento, CA. > > -Wilson Gray > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Wilson Gray" > > To: > > Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 6:05 PM > > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > > > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail > > header ----------------------- > >> Sender: American Dialect Society > >> Poster: Wilson Gray > >> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> ---- > > ----- > >> > >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >> > >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header > >>> ----------------------- > >>> Sender: American Dialect Society > >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan > >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>> -- > >>> -------- > >>> > >>> As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but > >>> alas, > >>> I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I > >>> didn't > >>> really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" > >>> from > >>> somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use > >>> of > >>> "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville > >> > >> During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School > >> Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if > >> Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the > >> Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single > >> basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. > >> > >> -Wilson > >> > >>> but I don't > >>> recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A > >>> colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the > >>> "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now > >>> Labov > >>> claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift > >>> southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old > >>> days! > >>> > >>> At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: > >>>> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header > >>>>> ----------------------- > >>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society > >>>>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan > >>>>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>>>> -- > >>>>> -- > >>>>> -------- > >>>>> > >>>>> This deleted tap [dInt] > >>>> > >>>> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the > >>>> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be > >>>> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I > >>>> never," > >>>> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I > >>>> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about > >>>> the > >>>> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone > >>>> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a > >>>> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. > >>>> > >>>> -Wilson Gray > >>>> > >>>>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, > >>>>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do > >>>>> most > >>>>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps > >>>>> in > >>>>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) > >>>>> > >>>>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is > >>>>>> often > >>>>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap > >>>>>> is > >>>>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an > >>>>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an > >>>>>> intervocalic > >>>>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this > >>>>>> is > >>>>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a > >>>>>> catchphrase. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> arnold > >>> > > From sussex at UQ.EDU.AU Wed Nov 17 05:22:26 2004 From: sussex at UQ.EDU.AU (Prof. R. Sussex) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:22:26 +1000 Subject: gobsmack In-Reply-To: <200411170501.iAH51Pcc063196@mailhub2.uq.edu.au> Message-ID: Re transitive "gobsmack": All of Jesse Sheidlower's quoted examples have a light pronoun object: 1991 _Daily Star_ 24 Dec. 33/1 There's Kenny Dalglish, for example. Old Smiler himself gobsmacked us all when he hurtled out of Anfield in '91 blaming the stress of it all for his unexpected exit. 1991 `J. GASH' _Great California Game_ (1992) iii. 25 The exhibition gobsmacked me. [a UK source, despite the title] 2000 _Sunday Times_ 27 Aug. (News Review section) 2/7, I was on the road a great deal doing personal appearances or opening supermarkets or turning up on chatshows like Wogan, Aspel or Woman's Hour, invitations that absolutely gobsmacked me. This suggests that the transitive use is a bit uncomfortable. It feels less natural with a heavy object: ?.. invitations that absolutely gobsmacked the five distinguished members present ... Certainly in Australian use - which copies British in this - the -ed formation is dominant, and the back-formed "gobsmack" is relatively more restricted. Roly Sussex -- Roly Sussex Professor of Applied Language Studies School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies The University of Queensland Brisbane Queensland 4072 AUSTRALIA University's CRICOS provider number: 00025B Office: Greenwood 434 (Building 32) Phone: +61 7 3365 6896 Fax: +61 7 3365 6799 Email: sussex at uq.edu.au Web: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/profiles/sussex.html School's website: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/slccs/ Applied linguistics website: http://www.uq.edu.au/slccs/AppliedLing/ Language Talkback ABC radio: Web: http://www.cltr.uq.edu.au/languagetalkback/ Audio: from http://www.abc.net.au/hobart/stories/s782293.htm ********************************************************** From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 17 05:45:06 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:45:06 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:39:19 -0500, Laurence Horn wrote: >It's been suggested (by Bolinger, and more recently me in a Linguist >List thread a few years ago) that it's not an accident that medial >glottal stops occur in both "uh-oh" and "unh-unh", where the latter >rendering is intended to represent the open-mouth version of the >disagreement marker (the counterpart of the agreement/assent marker >"uh-huh", which crucially has no medial [?]). The closed-mouth >version of the disagreement/denial/rejection marker, which I won't >even try to represent, also contains a medial glottal stop, and (like >uh-oh and unh-unh) high tone-low tone. The generalization seems to >be that medial intervocalic [?] (not, of course, the [?] showing up >before initial vowels) is associated with negation, especially in >conjunction with the high/low tone sequence. (Note that the open- >and closed-mouth affirmative/assent markers, uh-huh and m-hm, both >have low-high tone sequences as well as medial voiceless vowel (i.e. >[h]) or voiceless nasal in place of [?].) (Arguably, although this >is even more speculative, it could be claimed that both the [?] and >the high-low sequence are partially iconic representations of the >semantic effect of negation.) Now "didn't" is pretty negative too, >which may (I did say this was speculative) have motivated speakers to >assimilate it to the pattern of those voiceless "kitten" words that >have the medial [?], even though the voiced [d] means it "should" >(ceteris paribus) pattern with words like "hidden" and "wooden", >which as Arnold and I have noted don't transform to -[?In] in the >same way. > >Any buyers? Sure, I'll buy it, especially since the stereotypical purveyor of "oh no you/he/she [dI?In]" might very well accompany the catchphrase with other medial-glottal forms like "uh-uh", "nuh-uh", and "mm-mm" to underscore the speaker's astonishment/outrage towards a provocative statement. --Ben Zimmer From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Wed Nov 17 06:28:07 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:28:07 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached mainstream in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that point.] Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kathy Seal" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 9:09 PM Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. started > referring to police as "pigs"? > > > KATHY SEAL > 310-452-2769 > Coauthor, Motivated Minds: Raising Children to Love Learning (Holt, 2001) > www.Kathyseal.net > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Wilson Gray" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 6:05 PM > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Wilson Gray > > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > > On Nov 16, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > > ----------------------- > > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > > > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > -------- > > > > > > As Wilson knows, I lived in St. Louis for 10 years (in the '60s), but > > > alas, > > > I was so cocooned by St. Louis U and Wash U (as we called it) that I > > > didn't > > > really tune into the local dialect(s). But I do recall "No I never" > > > from > > > somewhere during that era. I was struck by my distant cousins' use of > > > "sody pop" on the other side of the river, in Collinsville > > > > During my four years of high school, the Collinsville High School > > Cahoks (rhymes with "Jayhawks," i.e. "Cayhawks"; people said that, if > > Collinsville had a heart, it would give up its team nickname to the > > Cahokia, IL, HS; Collinsville had no heart ) won every single > > basketball game that they played against us, at home or away. > > > > -Wilson > > > > > but I don't > > > recall "youse" (though my Baltimore in-laws used it all the time). A > > > colleague's wife here in Athens but originally from St. Louis has the > > > "for/far" homophony (or maybe reversal? I'll listen again). Now Labov > > > claims St. Louis is a "corridor" extending the Northern Cities Shift > > > southward (maybe to Cincinnati too), but it wasn't back in the old > > > days! > > > > > > At 04:02 PM 11/16/2004, you wrote: > > >> On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > >> > > >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > >>> ----------------------- > > >>> Sender: American Dialect Society > > >>> Poster: Beverly Flanigan > > >>> Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >>> -- > > >>> -------- > > >>> > > >>> This deleted tap [dInt] > > >> > > >> This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the > > >> day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be > > >> approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never," > > >> used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I > > >> didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the > > >> use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone > > >> claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a > > >> kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect. > > >> > > >> -Wilson Gray > > >> > > >>> or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota, > > >>> and I assume it's widespread. I glottalize intervocalically, as do > > >>> most > > >>> people I know here in Ohio. Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps > > >>> in > > >>> formal speech? (D = flap, n is syllabic.) > > >>> > > >>> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote: > > >>> > > >>>> just a warning... the spelling (or similar things) is often > > >>>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is > > >>>> simply deleted. not the same thing as a pronunciation with an > > >>>> intervocalic glottalish bit. > > >>>> > > >>>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an > > >>>> intervocalic > > >>>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all. this > > >>>> is > > >>>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a > > >>>> catchphrase. > > >>>> > > >>>> arnold > > > > From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 17 06:56:21 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:56:21 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <005401c4cc6e$9c25fa60$2724a618@sam> Message-ID: >Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached mainstream >in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that point.] Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the 1960's US college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 17 07:00:12 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 02:00:12 -0500 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:03:11 -0800, Kathy Seal wrote: >> > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. >> > started referring to police as "pigs"? >> >> My guess is 1965. I *know* that it was before 1969, since, by then, >> local high-school all-stars had begun to play an annual flag-football >> game against the younger local cops in a game which was called the "Pig >> Bowl." This was in Sacramento, CA. > >Wow, that's early on. Thank you. Berkeley students were calling police "pigs" as early as the Sproul Hall Sit-In of December 1964. From the Free Speech Movement Archives: http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1v19p3vr/ Summary of the Sproul Hall Sit In and Arrests Police officers were apparently goaded by the passive courage demonstrated by most students. They were called "commies," "pigs," "whores" and other similar names. It's unclear from this, however, if "pig" was already a specific epithet for a police officer or just a general term of abuse. In any case, I don't think it was really popularized until the rise of the Black Panthers in 1967-68, in slogans like "off the pig(s)". --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 17 08:20:31 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:20:31 -0500 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 02:00:12 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >Berkeley students were calling police "pigs" as early as the Sproul Hall >Sit-In of December 1964. From the Free Speech Movement Archives: > > http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt1v19p3vr/ > Summary of the Sproul Hall Sit In and Arrests > > Police officers were apparently goaded by the passive courage > demonstrated by most students. They were called "commies," > "pigs," "whores" and other similar names. > >It's unclear from this, however, if "pig" was already a specific epithet >for a police officer or just a general term of abuse. Ah, never mind. Now that I reread this section, it seems clear that the police officers were calling the students "pigs" and not vice versa! --Ben Zimmer From abaragona at SPRYNET.COM Wed Nov 17 13:46:17 2004 From: abaragona at SPRYNET.COM (Alan Baragona) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 08:46:17 -0500 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: In his 1973 book, Revolutionary Suicide, Huey Newton claimed that it was illegal in the 60s to curse a police officer, so the Panthers started using insults like "pig" and "cracker" that were offensive but not obscene or profane. Whether the Panthers even knew about earlier uses of "pig" is not clear, but it seems perfectly possible that this was sui generis and coincidental. Alan Baragona ----- Original Message ----- From: "Benjamin Zimmer" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 2:00 AM Subject: Re: Police as "pigs" > > In any case, I > don't think it was really popularized until the rise of the Black Panthers > in 1967-68, in slogans like "off the pig(s)". > > --Ben Zimmer From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Nov 17 14:07:29 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:07:29 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041117015448.031fae60@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached mainstream > >in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that point.] > > Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the 1960's US > college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. Jesse "too lazy to look things up right now" Sheidlower OED From jester at PANIX.COM Wed Nov 17 14:33:07 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:33:07 -0500 Subject: gobsmack In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 03:22:26PM +1000, Prof. R. Sussex wrote: > Re transitive "gobsmack": > > All of Jesse Sheidlower's quoted examples have a light pronoun object: > > 1991 _Daily Star_ 24 Dec. 33/1 There's Kenny Dalglish, for > example. Old Smiler himself gobsmacked us all when he hurtled > out of Anfield in '91 blaming the stress of it all for his > unexpected exit. > > 1991 `J. GASH' _Great California Game_ (1992) iii. 25 The > exhibition gobsmacked me. [a UK source, despite the title] > > 2000 _Sunday Times_ 27 Aug. (News Review section) 2/7, I was on > the road a great deal doing personal appearances or opening > supermarkets or turning up on chatshows like Wogan, Aspel or > Woman's Hour, invitations that absolutely gobsmacked me. [...] > This suggests that the transitive use is a bit uncomfortable. It > feels less natural with a heavy object: > ?.. invitations that absolutely gobsmacked the five > distinguished members present ... > > Certainly in Australian use - which copies British in this - the -ed > formation is dominant, and the back-formed "gobsmack" is relatively > more restricted. Googling does turn up some examples of transitive _gobsmack_ with non-pronomial objects: * Bush's long awaited speech on the Middle East gobsmacked the world. [from a message board] * Its success has completely gobsmacked the duo. [from an Australian newspaper] * They've gobsmacked the world of golf. [a British golf magazine] * This has really gobsmacked the Aussies. [something from NZ] * Oh, and if you still don't know the origin of his surreal "When the seagulls follow the trawler" statement that so gobsmacked the world's media, look no further... * Murdoch gobsmacked the market by announcing blithely that he expected to lose #100 million a year for 10 years. [NZ source] Clearly this is not very common, but examples do exist. A few heavy transitive examples with _gobsmacking_: * After gobsmacking the Sunday bikers on a couple of beauty spot jaunts its next public outing was... * His characters are not spectacularly well-drawn, but are serviceable, malleable pawns in the bigger game of gobsmacking the reader. * JUPITERS on the Gold Coast has been gobsmacking the gourmets for TEN BIG YEARS! [Aussie] * Will the now apparently neutral to positive portrayal in the media end up gobsmacking the objecting Senators when some one nails them with the question... Best, Jesse Sheidlower OED From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 17 14:40:11 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:40:11 -0500 Subject: Hartered Message-ID: In the minutes of a club I belong to, but whose business meetings I do not attend, I read that a motion had been "moved, seconded, and Hartered", evidently abbreviated in later parts of the minutes as "MSH". I wrote to the clerk to ask what this meant, and here is his reply: >>>>> >From (Section 3.2(2) of NESFA's Standing Rules): Any motion made and passed with only non-substantive objections shall be denoted as: Moved, Seconded, and Hartered. [8/71, memorializing Mr. Harter's practice of voting against virtually all motions; cf. Section A.15(2).] <<<<< Obviously an in-joke, so it won't belong in the dictionaries, but I thought my fellow word freaks here would enjoy it. -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 17 15:23:04 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:23:04 -0600 Subject: gobsmack Message-ID: >From the OED: 1987 Melody Maker 24 Oct. 18/4 It's this act, or variations thereupon, with which she has been gobsmacking the punters in a recent cluster of Personal Appearances in gay clubs, straight clubs and kids clubs . From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 17 15:24:24 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:24:24 -0600 Subject: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: OED: 1874 HOTTEN Slang Dict. 253 Pig, a policeman; an informer. The word is now almost exclusively applied by London thieves to a plain-clothes man, or a nose . 1967 C. DRUMMOND Death at Furlong Post v. 63, I had to give the local P.C. a lift. I dropped the pig at Packenham. 1970 Times 7 Aug. 4/7 Pig is slang for a policeman and the defence says that the word pig was scrawled over the doors of the house after the killings. > > > > > > Do you know when in the sixties college students, activists, etc. > > > started > > > referring to police as "pigs"? > > > > > > > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 17 16:16:01 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:16:01 -0600 Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" Message-ID: >From LA Times, re: a sexual harrasment suit involving the writers of "Friends": "There is an unwritten rule that what is said in the writers' room stays in the writers' room, said Bob Stevens, who has written for television for 20 years." http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-me-friends13nov13.story > -----Original Message----- > From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] > Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 12:12 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS-- 5,100 Google hits, 345 Google Groups > hits WHAT HAPPENS IN LAS VEGAS--389 Google hits, 46 Google Groups hits > > The speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, > is being accused of buying a $1,500 luxury suite in Las Vegas > for only $109. The place was owned by Caesars Entertainment, > a company that was seeking approval to build a casino in New York. > > 13 September 2004, NEW YORK SUN, pg. 9, col. 5: > Sometimes, it turns out, that happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas. > > I've covered a similar phrase before.about football locker > rooms, where a posting often says: "What happens here stays here." > From goranson at DUKE.EDU Wed Nov 17 16:33:27 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:33:27 -0500 Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" In-Reply-To: <200411171616.iAHGGTXr022519@gibson.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: In theonion.com today: "What Happens at Yucca Mountain Stays at Yucca Mountain" S. Goranson From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Wed Nov 17 16:37:22 2004 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 11:37:22 -0500 Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49772@rdec-exch8.ds.amr dec.army.mil> Message-ID: And from New York Magazine, "While the culture of the paper assiduously practices omert?? what happens in the newsroom stays in the newsroom? Miller is cause for reporters to break the code of silence." http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index.html Not "me" Miller, Judy Miller. Kathleen Miller Assistant to William Safire (At least until Dec. 30) The New York Times At 11:16 AM 11/17/2004, you wrote: > From LA Times, re: a sexual harrasment suit involving the writers of >"Friends": > >"There is an unwritten rule that what is said in the writers' room stays in >the writers' room, said Bob Stevens, who has written for television for 20 >years." > >http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-me-friends13nov13.story > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Bapopik at AOL.COM [mailto:Bapopik at AOL.COM] > > Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 12:12 AM > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > > Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" > > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > > ----------------------- > > Sender: American Dialect Society > > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > > Subject: "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" > > -------------------------------------------------------------- > > ----------------- > > > > WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS-- 5,100 Google hits, 345 Google Groups > > hits WHAT HAPPENS IN LAS VEGAS--389 Google hits, 46 Google Groups hits > > > > The speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, > > is being accused of buying a $1,500 luxury suite in Las Vegas > > for only $109. The place was owned by Caesars Entertainment, > > a company that was seeking approval to build a casino in New York. > > > > 13 September 2004, NEW YORK SUN, pg. 9, col. 5: > > Sometimes, it turns out, that happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas. > > > > I've covered a similar phrase before.about football locker > > rooms, where a posting often says: "What happens here stays here." > > From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 17 18:16:04 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:16:04 -0500 Subject: wag Message-ID: Some info from our friend in North Carolina: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- I tried to do some research but I can't find any dictionary that defines "wag" in the way I used it nor any history. It must be a southern colloquialism. I don't ever remember using this term until I moved to North Carolina. Here it means to carry/drag something heavy or cumbersome. ---------- end of forwarded message ---------- -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 18:22:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:22:46 -0500 Subject: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: From: wilson.gray at rcn.com Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Date: November 17, 2004 12:35:12 PM EST To: bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu On Nov 17, 2004, at 12:45 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Benjamin Zimmer > Subject: Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 23:39:19 -0500, Laurence Horn > > wrote: > >> It's been suggested (by Bolinger, and more recently me in a Linguist >> List thread a few years ago) that it's not an accident that medial >> glottal stops occur in both "uh-oh" and "unh-unh", where the latter >> rendering is intended to represent the open-mouth version of the >> disagreement marker (the counterpart of the agreement/assent marker >> "uh-huh", which crucially has no medial [?]). The closed-mouth >> version of the disagreement/denial/rejection marker, which I won't >> even try to represent, also contains a medial glottal stop, and (like >> uh-oh and unh-unh) high tone-low tone. The generalization seems to >> be that medial intervocalic [?] (not, of course, the [?] showing up >> before initial vowels) is associated with negation, especially in >> conjunction with the high/low tone sequence. (Note that the open- >> and closed-mouth affirmative/assent markers, uh-huh and m-hm, both >> have low-high tone sequences as well as medial voiceless vowel (i.e. >> [h]) or voiceless nasal in place of [?].) (Arguably, although this >> is even more speculative, it could be claimed that both the [?] and >> the high-low sequence are partially iconic representations of the >> semantic effect of negation.) Now "didn't" is pretty negative too, >> which may (I did say this was speculative) have motivated speakers to >> assimilate it to the pattern of those voiceless "kitten" words that >> have the medial [?], even though the voiced [d] means it "should" >> (ceteris paribus) pattern with words like "hidden" and "wooden", >> which as Arnold and I have noted don't transform to -[?In] in the >> same way. >> >> Any buyers? > > Sure, I'll buy it, especially since the stereotypical purveyor of "oh > no > you/he/she [dI?In]" might very well accompany the catchphrase with > other > medial-glottal forms like "uh-uh", "nuh-uh" "Nuh-uh"?! Oh, no you didn't! -Wilson Gray > , and "mm-mm" to underscore the > speaker's astonishment/outrage towards a provocative statement. > > --Ben Zimmer > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 18:51:15 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:51:15 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 17, 2004, at 1:16 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Some info from our friend in North Carolina: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > I tried to do some research but I can't find any dictionary that > defines > "wag" in the way I used it nor any history. It must be a southern > colloquialism. I don't ever remember using this term until I moved to > North > Carolina. Here it means to carry/drag something heavy or cumbersome. I can't say for certain whether "wag" is used when something is dragged. But "heavy or cumbersome" - absolutely! It could be two shopping bags full of groceries, one in each hand, or it could be a three-year-old, say, that still wants to be carried everywhere like a baby or a week's worth of laundry, etc. or almost anything else that forces the use of both arms, though a baby could be wagged in only one arm, since the other arm would be carrying a bottle, a blanket or other baby-type stuff. What about the used-only-by-women aspect? Is that true in NC, too? -Wilson > > ---------- end of forwarded message ---------- > > -- Mark A. Mandel > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Wed Nov 17 19:03:32 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:03:32 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <20041117181418.BD2EA23C96A@spf7.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: Possibly unrelated, but connected to groceries: Google shows several Wag-A-Bag convenience stores, in Texas and other Southern locales. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- Important: This email message and any attached files contain information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or telephone, of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without making any copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- On Nov 17, 2004, at 1:16 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Some info from our friend in North Carolina: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > I tried to do some research but I can't find any dictionary that > defines > "wag" in the way I used it nor any history. It must be a southern > colloquialism. I don't ever remember using this term until I moved to > North > Carolina. Here it means to carry/drag something heavy or cumbersome. > > ---------- end of forwarded message ---------- > > -- Mark A. Mandel > [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] > From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 17 21:39:30 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:39:30 -0500 Subject: gobsmack In-Reply-To: <200411170501.AAA22206@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Thanks to Jesse for the quotations. But, as a Brit (a Londoner, FWIW), the active use of *gobsmack* isn't in my dialect; my first reaction to seeing the active use was that it was indeed a misuse by an Anglophilic American, but I suppose not entirely. I still don't think it's very common, though. Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Wed Nov 17 21:53:27 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:53:27 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 17, 2004, at 2:03 PM, Erik Hoover wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Erik Hoover > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Possibly unrelated, but connected to groceries: > > Google shows several Wag-A-Bag convenience stores, in Texas and other > Southern locales. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - I'd guess that these are probably related. My late grandmother most often used the term with reference to "wagging" home from the Safeway, the Piggly-Wiggly, and/or the A&P, all of which were located "uptown," i.e. downtown, two shopping bags loaded with groceries. -Wilson Gray > ------------- > Important: > This email message and any attached files contain information intended > for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is > addressed > and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, > confidential > and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the > intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, > disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal > restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or > telephone, > of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without > making any copies. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > On Nov 17, 2004, at 1:16 PM, Mark A. Mandel wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: "Mark A. Mandel" >> Subject: Re: wag >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> - >> -------- >> >> Some info from our friend in North Carolina: >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> >> I tried to do some research but I can't find any dictionary that >> defines >> "wag" in the way I used it nor any history. It must be a southern >> colloquialism. I don't ever remember using this term until I moved to >> North >> Carolina. Here it means to carry/drag something heavy or cumbersome. >> >> ---------- end of forwarded message ---------- >> >> -- Mark A. Mandel >> [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] >> > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 17 22:56:19 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 16:56:19 -0600 Subject: bolograph antedate Message-ID: bolograph (OED 1903) S. P. Langley, _Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory of the Smithsonian Institution, Volume I_, Government Printing Office, 1900, p. 38. online at: http://ads.harvard.edu/books/saoann/ "In the fall of 1895 a very considerable number of bolographs were taken under conditions not materially different from those of June, 1895." From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Nov 17 23:12:11 2004 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:12:11 -0600 Subject: gobsmack Message-ID: It seems like the story is very much like "flabbergast". I find the active/transitive use of this verb odd, but a quick lexis/nexis search turned up some examples. Still, those examples are far outnumbered by the passive/adjectival use which sounds a lot more familiar to me. Regardless, any use of "gobsmack" by an American strikes me as painfully Anglophilic. -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Damien Hall Sent: Wed 11/17/2004 3:39 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: gobsmack Thanks to Jesse for the quotations. But, as a Brit (a Londoner, FWIW), the active use of *gobsmack* isn't in my dialect; my first reaction to seeing the active use was that it was indeed a misuse by an Anglophilic American, but I suppose not entirely. I still don't think it's very common, though. Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 18 01:00:39 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 17:00:39 -0800 Subject: Not a Word! -- revised version Message-ID: a revised and somewhat expanded version of this ADS-L posting of mine is now available on Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001652.html arnold From jancarsho at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 18 03:31:00 2004 From: jancarsho at YAHOO.COM (J C) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:31:00 -0800 Subject: PLEASE DO NOT DELETE Message-ID: I HOPE I DO NOT HEAR OF ANYONE BREAKING THIS ONE OR SEE DELETED This is a ribbon for soldiers fighting in Iraq. Pass it on to everyone and pray. Something good will happen to you tonight at 11:11 PM. This is not a joke. Someone will either call you or will talk to you online and say that they love you. Do not break this chain. Send this to 13 people in the next 15 minutes Go. SLEEP LAST NIGHT? Bed a little lumpy... Toss and turn any... Wish the heat was higher... Maybe the a/c wasn't on... Had to go to the john... Need a drink of water... ? ? ? Scroll down Yes... It is like that! Count your blessings, pray for them, Talk to your Creator and the next time when... the other car cuts you off and you must hit the brakes, or you have to park a little further from Walmart than you want to be, or you're served slightly warm food at the restaurant, or you're sitting and cursing the traffic in front of you, or the shower runs out of hot water, Think of them.... Protecting your freedom! DO NOT DELETE-PLS PASS ON-Message from Iraq The proud warriors of Baker Company wanted to do something to pay tribute To our fallen comrades. So since we are part of the only Marine Infantry Battalion left in Iraq the one way that we could think of doing that is By taking a picture of Baker Company saying the way we feel. It would be awesome if you could find a way to share this with our fellow countrymen. I was wondering if there was any way to get this into your papers to let the world know that "WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN" and are proud to serve our country." Semper Fi 1stSgt Dave Jobe The attached photo was forwarded from one of the last U.S. Marine companies in Iraq. They would like to have it passed to as many people as possible, to let the folks back home know that they remember why they're there and that they remember those who've been lost. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Discover all that?s new in My Yahoo! From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 18 03:36:44 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:36:44 -0500 Subject: greengrocer's apostrophe of the week Message-ID: Ad in the current Stop and Shop circular (New England-based grocery chain): Cohen's Hor's d'Oeuvres $7.99 Cocktail Franks, Eggroll or Assorted --just the thing for enjoying the holidays with your bordello bubbe... larry From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Thu Nov 18 05:07:55 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 21:07:55 -0800 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Have seen no evidence that post-'66 usage of "pig" is in any way continuous with the 19th century usage. The cites are just not there. JL Jesse Sheidlower wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Jesse Sheidlower Subject: Re: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached mainstream > >in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that point.] > > Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the 1960's US > college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. Jesse "too lazy to look things up right now" Sheidlower OED --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Discover all that?s new in My Yahoo! From douglas at NB.NET Thu Nov 18 07:30:35 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 02:30:35 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <1CF9CA2F-38E3-11D9-A3CE-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: MW3 shows this "wag" (v.t. [1b]) = "dialect: to carry or haul with difficulty : LUG ". Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: <<"... You just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker is a black man in the boonies of the eastern Appalachians, I reckon maybe in NC. [Wellman's fiction set in Appalachia is full of such things: "air" for "any", never "might" but always "might could", etc., etc.] -- Doug Wilson From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 18 12:20:48 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 07:20:48 -0500 Subject: greengrocer's apostrophe of the week In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Good sighting larry, and reminiscent of the alternatives us jolly teenagers had (back in the day): Whores de Ovaries and Horses' Doovers. What wags we were! dInIs >Ad in the current Stop and Shop circular (New England-based grocery chain): > >Cohen's >Hor's d'Oeuvres $7.99 >Cocktail Franks, Eggroll or Assorted > >--just the thing for enjoying the holidays with your bordello bubbe... > >larry -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From db.list at PMPKN.NET Thu Nov 18 13:39:39 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 08:39:39 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: From: Jesse Sheidlower : On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: :: somebody else wrote: ::: Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached ::: mainstream in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that ::: point.] :: Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the :: 1960's US college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... : I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional : coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. Of course, even if the Black Panther(s) who came up with the epithet *thought* that it was a new coinage, it may not have been. Linguistic items have a way of remaining below the surface, unnoticed, only to burst into consciousness without any of the vectors for it realizing they weren't coming up with something completely new. David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From preston at MSU.EDU Thu Nov 18 14:03:49 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:03:49 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: <069c01c4cd74$0eb28f20$f0fbaa84@BOWIE> Message-ID: David, A good point, and related to a common old misunderstanding of the Society's most serious endeavor: The Word of the Year. It need not be brand spanking new; it is a word which has come to unusual prominence in that year. I hope we have got around this by recently declaring a subcategory for Brand-new Word of the Year (which may, of course, go on to win Word of the Year). dInIs (who is in a fractious mood this year and is honing his Word-of-the-Year debating skills to a fine edge) >From: Jesse Sheidlower >: On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >:: somebody else wrote: > >::: Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached >::: mainstream in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that >::: point.] > >:: Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the >:: 1960's US college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... > >: I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional >: coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. > >Of course, even if the Black Panther(s) who came up with the epithet >*thought* that it was a new coinage, it may not have been. Linguistic items >have a way of remaining below the surface, unnoticed, only to burst into >consciousness without any of the vectors for it realizing they weren't >coming up with something completely new. > >David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx > Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the > house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is > chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 14:32:28 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:32:28 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 2:30 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > MW3 shows this "wag" (v.t. [1b]) = "dialect: to carry or haul with > difficulty : LUG My grandmother died before the use of grocery carts had penetrated into the piney woods of ETx. I wonder whether she would have continued to use "wag" to describe the action. > -- Theodore Garrison> The above is a perfect example of the way that this word is used in ETx. > > Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: <<"... > You > just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker is a black man So, in some parts of the country, "wag" *is* used by male speakers. I was wondering about that. > in the boonies of the eastern Appalachians, I reckon maybe in NC. > [Wellman's > fiction set in Appalachia is full of such things: "air" for "any", > never > "might" but always "might could", etc., etc.] I'm familiar with Manly Wade through his writings in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction way back when. Unfortunately, we never bonded. -Wilson Gray > > -- Doug Wilson > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 14:55:01 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 09:55:01 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 8:39 AM, David Bowie wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: David Bowie > Subject: Re: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > From: Jesse Sheidlower > : On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 01:56:21AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > :: somebody else wrote: > > ::: Of course, pig=police goes back to the 1800's. It just reached > ::: mainstream in the 1960's, as opposed to being invented at that > ::: point.] > > :: Is it certain that the 19th-century slang was continuous with the > :: 1960's US college slang? Partridge thinks so, but .... > > : I thought ( useless suggestions) that it has been an intentional > : coinage by the Black Panthers, not based on the earlier use. > > Of course, even if the Black Panther(s) who came up with the epithet > *thought* that it was a new coinage, it may not have been. Linguistic > items > have a way of remaining below the surface, unnoticed, only to burst > into > consciousness without any of the vectors for it realizing they weren't > coming up with something completely new. > > David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx > Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the > house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is > chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. I agree. A lot of "modern" black slang is just a recycled or exaggerated (WRT pronunciation) version of old-time black Southern country talk. Of course, now that I've made this claim, I can't think of any examples to back it up. Well, thangs be that way. Oh! That's an example right there! -Wilson Gray > From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Thu Nov 18 15:09:56 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 10:09:56 -0500 Subject: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) Message-ID: Not just black Southern country talk. My parents, in southern Kentucky, used "triflin'" to refer to an unreliable person. Many years later, I was surprised to find the word again, in the same sense, in contemporary songs by black singers. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Wilson Gray Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 9:55 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: pig as college slang(was "di?nt" (with glottal stop) I agree. A lot of "modern" black slang is just a recycled or exaggerated (WRT pronunciation) version of old-time black Southern country talk. Of course, now that I've made this claim, I can't think of any examples to back it up. Well, thangs be that way. Oh! That's an example right there! -Wilson Gray > From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Nov 18 16:44:15 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 11:44:15 -0500 Subject: wag Message-ID: I forgot to mention the negative "nary," as in "nary a one." In general use yet? Isn't "any" in AppEng "ary"? Or are both "air" and "ary" used? Native speakers?? At 02:30 AM 11/18/2004, you wrote: >MW3 shows this "wag" (v.t. [1b]) = "dialect: to carry or haul with >difficulty : LUG compelled to wag her baby brother around with her -- Theodore Garrison>". > >Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: <<"... You >just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker is a black man in >the boonies of the eastern Appalachians, I reckon maybe in NC. [Wellman's >fiction set in Appalachia is full of such things: "air" for "any", never >"might" but always "might could", etc., etc.] > >-- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Thu Nov 18 16:43:14 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 11:43:14 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041118022237.031fd950@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: Isn't "any" in AppEng "ary"? Or are both "air" and "ary" used? Native speakers?? At 02:30 AM 11/18/2004, you wrote: >MW3 shows this "wag" (v.t. [1b]) = "dialect: to carry or haul with >difficulty : LUG compelled to wag her baby brother around with her -- Theodore Garrison>". > >Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: <<"... You >just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker is a black man in >the boonies of the eastern Appalachians, I reckon maybe in NC. [Wellman's >fiction set in Appalachia is full of such things: "air" for "any", never >"might" but always "might could", etc., etc.] > >-- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Thu Nov 18 17:23:34 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 12:23:34 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041118114341.031b4cb0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: >I forgot to mention the negative "nary," as in "nary a one." In general >use yet? > >Isn't "any" in AppEng "ary"? Or are both "air" and "ary" used? Native >speakers?? MW3 for example shows "air" as a variant of "ary". In this Wellman fiction "nair" often appears where others would use "never", and in some other contexts too, presumably = "nary". The speakers seem to be natives, but they're fictional .... -- Doug Wilson From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 18 18:29:34 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 10:29:34 -0800 Subject: Fwd: Police as "pigs" Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > From: Arnold M. Zwicky > Date: November 18, 2004 10:23:03 AM PST > To: Alan Baragona > Subject: Re: Police as "pigs" > > > On Nov 17, 2004, at 5:46 AM, Alan Baragona wrote: > >> ...Whether the Panthers even knew about earlier uses of "pig" is not >> clear, but it seems perfectly possible that this was sui generis and >> coincidental. > > i don't care whether "sui generis" was intentional or inadvertent; > it's wonderful. > > arnold (zwicky, not that oinker ziffel) > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 18:46:29 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:46:29 -0500 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 12:23 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: wag > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> I forgot to mention the negative "nary," as in "nary a one." In >> general >> use yet? >> >> Isn't "any" in AppEng "ary"? Or are both "air" and "ary" used? >> Native >> speakers?? > > MW3 for example shows "air" as a variant of "ary". > > In this Wellman fiction "nair" Where I'm from, ETx, folk say - or said, 50 years ago - "nair one" in place of "none." It's pronounced [nae @n], with nasalization of the vowels and stress on [ae]. They also say, instead of "ain't got no more," "ain't got nair 'nother one" pronounced [nae@ n^dn], also with nasalization of [ae@], but not of [^]. Stress falls on [^]. Note that these are not alternants but are the only forms used with the relevant meanings. (For the record, I haven't actually lived in Texas since the 'Forties and haven't even visited there since the 'Seventies. DARE lists only one, presumably white, informant from my birthplace of Marshall. So, I figure, what the hell? Can't hurt. May help.) -Wilson Gray > often appears where others would use > "never", and in some other contexts too, presumably = "nary". > > The speakers seem to be natives, but they're fictional .... > > -- Doug Wilson > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Thu Nov 18 18:49:02 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:49:02 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Police as "pigs" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 10:29 AM -0800 11/18/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: >Begin forwarded message: > >>From: Arnold M. Zwicky >>Date: November 18, 2004 10:23:03 AM PST >>To: Alan Baragona >>Subject: Re: Police as "pigs" >> >> >>On Nov 17, 2004, at 5:46 AM, Alan Baragona wrote: >> >>>...Whether the Panthers even knew about earlier uses of "pig" is not >>>clear, but it seems perfectly possible that this was sui generis and >>>coincidental. >> >>i don't care whether "sui generis" was intentional or inadvertent; >>it's wonderful. >> >>arnold (zwicky, not that oinker ziffel) Indeed. Reminded me of the old "Sooey Generous" appeal (illustrated with a pig) from Linguist List a few years back. (Googling, I find a number of other hits on this, including an eponymous William Matthews poem, described as a paean to a pig. What I was really looking for, of course, was an inadvertent use, i.e. an eggcorn, of this form, ? la "bonified" and "social moray(s)", but no such luck. larry From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Nov 18 19:28:33 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:28:33 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20greengrocer's=20apo?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?strophe=20of=20the=20week?= Message-ID: Larry H'Orn and Denni's are two funny drazzel's From RonButters at AOL.COM Thu Nov 18 19:41:12 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:41:12 EST Subject: deracinate Message-ID: According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard borrowed it directly from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the Variorium Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin form, which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to figure out which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and track record. But what am wondering is as follows: 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? 2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? I realize that this is not an AMERICAN English question, but then Shakespeare was really an American, wasn't he? Just born in the wrong palce? From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Thu Nov 18 19:59:23 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:59:23 -0500 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_greengrocer's_apostrophe_of_t?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?he_week?= In-Reply-To: <1e9.2f257b13.2ece51e1@aol.com> Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 14:28, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > Larry H'Orn and Denni's are two funny drazzel's Sluts? Oh, wait, one z in "drazel." Grant Barrett From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 20:12:47 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:12:47 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 2:41 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM > Subject: deracinate > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by > Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard > borrowed it directly > from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the > Variorium > Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin > form, > which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to > figure out > which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and > track record. > But what I am wondering is as follows: > > 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? > 2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? > > I realize that this is not an AMERICAN English question, but then > Shakespeare > was really an American, wasn't he? Just born in the wrong place? > 1) I don't. 2) I don't have a Latin reference handy, but it certainly seems as unlikely to me as it does to you. I'd expect DERADICINAT-US/-A/-UM or even DERACINAT-US/-A/-UM, depending upon the relevant period in the history of Latin, before I'd expect DERAXINAT-US/-A/-UM. In any case, I'd think that any decent dictionary could supply the correct Latin root, whether Shakespeare coined the word or Virgil did. -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 20:18:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:18:46 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it Message-ID: 1) Go to www.google.com 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" 4) Read the "error message" carefully. Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired soon. Anonymous via Wilson Gray From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Thu Nov 18 20:30:40 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:30:40 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: <0D29F56F-399F-11D9-B7C4-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: --On Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:18 PM -0500 Wilson Gray wrote: > 1) Go to www.google.com > 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) > 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" > 4) Read the "error message" carefully. > > Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired > soon. > Actually, no. Somebody in England has a sense of humour. The site is actually an ad for anti-Bush t-shirts (sold through cafepress) and book (with links to the British Amazon site). -- Alice Faber Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 faber at haskins.yale.edu From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Thu Nov 18 20:32:28 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:32:28 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: <20041118201648.BA3C523C7AD@spf7.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: I feel obligated to let everyone on this list know that this phenomenon is not a result of sly humor on the part of Google or its staff. It is a form of Google-bombing (q.v.). Erik ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- Important: This email message and any attached files contain information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or telephone, of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without making any copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- On Nov 18, 2004, at 3:18 PM, Wilson Gray wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: WOT, but worth it > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > 1) Go to www.google.com > 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) > 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" > 4) Read the "error message" carefully. > > Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired > soon. > > Anonymous > > via Wilson Gray > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Thu Nov 18 20:33:28 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:33:28 -0600 Subject: chillaxin' Message-ID: http://www.illinimedia.com/di/comics/index.php?id=1536 From jester at PANIX.COM Thu Nov 18 21:22:55 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:22:55 -0500 Subject: Still more to read, Message-ID: This project brought to you by the NEH and LoC: The first of what's expected to be 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922 will be available in 2006. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/11/17/oldnewspapers.ap/index.html Jesse Sheidlower OED From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 18 21:23:22 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:23:22 -0800 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: <8D9280A4F17A130192F843CA@[130.132.95.94]> Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 12:30 PM, Alice Faber wrote: > --On Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:18 PM -0500 Wilson Gray > wrote: > >> ...Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired >> soon. >> > > Actually, no. Somebody in England has a sense of humour. The site is > actually an ad for anti-Bush t-shirts (sold through cafepress) and book > (with links to the British Amazon site). and the site's been around for *months*. arnold From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 21:24:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:24:10 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 3:30 PM, Alice Faber wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Alice Faber > Subject: Re: WOT, but worth it > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > I noticed the misspelling, "humour." However, I didn't click on any of > the embedded links - not a good idea, ever - so I didn't see that it > was just more spam, even though it was my wife who forwarded it to me. > Obviously, she didn't click on any of the embedded links, either. > In any case, however, please accept my apologies. -Wilson Gray > --On Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:18 PM -0500 Wilson Gray > wrote: > >> 1) Go to www.google.com >> 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) >> 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" >> 4) Read the "error message" carefully. >> >> Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired >> soon. >> > > Actually, no. Somebody in England has a sense of humour. The site is > actually an ad for anti-Bush t-shirts (sold through cafepress) and book > (with links to the British Amazon site). > > > -- > Alice Faber > Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 > T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 > faber at haskins.yale.edu > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 21:27:04 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:27:04 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 3:32 PM, Erik Hoover wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Erik Hoover > Subject: Re: WOT, but worth it > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > Yes. Unfortunately, I found that out too late. My apologies to all. -Wilson Gray > I feel obligated to let everyone on this list know that this phenomenon > is not a result of sly humor on the part of Google or its staff. It is > a form of Google-bombing (q.v.). > > Erik > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > Important: > This email message and any attached files contain information intended > for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is > addressed > and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, > confidential > and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the > intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, > disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal > restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or > telephone, > of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without > making any copies. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > On Nov 18, 2004, at 3:18 PM, Wilson Gray wrote: > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header >> ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: Wilson Gray >> Subject: WOT, but worth it >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> - >> -------- >> >> 1) Go to www.google.com >> 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) >> 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" >> 4) Read the "error message" carefully. >> >> Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired >> soon. >> >> Anonymous >> >> via Wilson Gray >> > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Thu Nov 18 22:08:03 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 14:08:03 -0800 Subject: more grandtheftendo Message-ID: Developed for the fans by a fan, I've taken the time to make it as comfortable as possible. From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Thu Nov 18 22:10:29 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:10:29 -0600 Subject: wag In-Reply-To: <20041118143242.07EAC47D826@smtpin-1.iphouse.net> Message-ID: Wilson Gray wrote: > On Nov 18, 2004, at 2:30 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >> Manly Wade Wellman, _The Lost and the Lurking_ (1981), p. 72: >> <<"... You just let me wag your stuff back here. ....">>. Speaker >> is a black man > > > So, in some parts of the country, "wag" *is* used by male speakers. I > was wondering about that. Or was used by male speakers. According to the International Speculative Fiction Data Base, Wellman was born in 1903. His personal knowledge of such things and/or the reference works he used might well date from before you were born. My great-grandmother came to the US right after WW I, speaking three living languages (and perhaps Hebrew). She never learned English; she lived in a NYC neighborhood where everyone spoke Yiddish. My great-grandfather had to learn English; he owned a newsstand, and he had to communicate with customers. It seems likely to me that English-speaking men might similarly have to learn a more generally-used dialect of English, while women in the same group might not. (I'm not a linguist, but I suspect that there's been at least one study of this.) And after a while, certain words in that group's dialect might become thought of as women's words; and boys growing up with that perception would avoid using such words. (And that's something I'm _certain_ has been studied.) -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 22:30:16 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 17:30:16 -0500 Subject: Say what? Message-ID: A newsreader, "And, in local news, a house infected with rats!" -Wilson Gray From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Thu Nov 18 23:03:44 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 17:03:44 -0600 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: <20041118201851.6F60C47D9F7@smtpin-1.iphouse.net> Message-ID: Wilson Gray wrote: > 1) Go to www.google.com > 2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DO NOT hit return button) > 3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search" > 4) Read the "error message" carefully. > > Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be fired > soon. Or someone running that site knew how to design a page so Google would find it first. It comes up first in a search on that phrase. -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions http://seeingfutures.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Thu Nov 18 23:17:12 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 18:17:12 -0500 Subject: Say what? Addendum. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 5:30 PM, Wilson Gray wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Say what? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > A newsreader, "And, in local news, a house infected with rats!" > > -Wilson Gray > It turns out that a lonely old lady was collecting the rats. And yes, they were wild, alley rats and not the tame, white, laboratory kind. -WG From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 19 00:54:29 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:54:29 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: <60.48f0ed27.2ece54d8@aol.com> Message-ID: >According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >borrowed it directly >from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the Variorium >Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin form, >which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to figure out >which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and track >record. >But what am wondering is as follows: > >1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? 1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. 2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". "Deraxinate" or the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. -- Doug Wilson From einstein at FROGNET.NET Fri Nov 19 01:13:21 2004 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 20:13:21 -0500 Subject: wag Message-ID: Dan Goodman wrote: "My great-grandmother came to the US right after WW I, speaking three living languages (and perhaps Hebrew). She never learned English; she lived in a NYC neighborhood where everyone spoke Yiddish. My great-grandfather had to learn English; he owned a newsstand, and he had to communicate with customers. It seems likely to me that English-speaking men might similarly have to learn a more generally-used dialect of English, while women in the same group might not. (I'm not a linguist, but I suspect that there's been at least one study of this.)" My first wife's parents came here from Bavaria after WW1 and their experience was exactly the opposite. Both started as house servants ("in service" they used to say) and later he worked as a machinist and she a seamstress for Jay Thorpe, then a fashionable 57th St dressmaker. His English was rougher and less assimilated than hers, because of the work environment where she got to talk with the multinational seamstresses and occasionally the upscale clientele while he could continue to use German or hadn't much practice talking with Americans. I think it's not gender but the type of work one does that is the important variable. From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 19 02:01:15 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:01:15 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041118194940.031f1e80@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >>Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >>borrowed it directly >>from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the Variorium >>Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin form, >>which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to >>figure out >>which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and track >>record. >>But what am wondering is as follows: >> >>1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >>2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? > >1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. > >2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". "Deraxinate" or >the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. > >-- Doug Wilson I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: (1) as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? (2) in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) formations from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique (genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc. But why would one ever expect "rax"? larry From RonButters at AOL.COM Fri Nov 19 02:42:15 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:42:15 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20deracinate?= Message-ID: In a message dated 11/18/04 9:01:49 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > >>According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by > >>Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard > >>borrowed it directly > >>from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the Variorium > >>Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the Latin > form, > >>which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to > >>figure out > >>which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and track > >>record. > >>But what?? am wondering is as follows: > >> > >>1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? > >>2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? > > > >1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. > > > >2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". "Deraxinate" or > >the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. > > > >-- Doug Wilson > > I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: > (1)? as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", > not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? > (2)? in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) formations > from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique > (genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". > Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin > reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". > Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and > not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc.? But why would one ever expect > "rax"? > > larry > > Thanks for all the help. I'll pass it on to Professor Williams. 'm not sure why the Shakespeareans thought "deraxinate" would be the right derivation from the Latin. Maybe I misread my colleague's note. What he said to me was "Why would Shakespeare have coined a term with a 'c' and not an 'x'?" Maybe what he meant was "Why 'deracinate' and not 'deradixate' or 'deradixinate'?" From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 19 04:00:06 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:00:06 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 9:01 PM, Laurence Horn wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Laurence Horn > Subject: Re: deracinate > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>> According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >>> Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >>> borrowed it directly >>> from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the >>> Variorium >>> Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the >>> Latin form, >>> which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to >>> figure out >>> which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and >>> track >>> record. >>> But what am wondering is as follows: >>> >>> 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >>> 2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? >> >> 1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. >> >> 2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". >> "Deraxinate" or >> the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. >> >> -- Doug Wilson > > I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: > (1) as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", Actually, the root is "radic-." "Radix," i.e. "radic-s," is the nominative case. > not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? Nope. It would be "deradic(in)ate." > (2) in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) formations > from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique > (genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". > Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin > reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". > Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and > not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc. But why would one ever expect > "rax"? > > larry > The lack of a classical education? A wild guess? The feeling that, inasmuch as no one studies Latin anymore, one can fake it? -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 19 04:15:13 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:15:13 -0500 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_deracinate?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 9:42 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM > Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20deracinate?= > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In a message dated 11/18/04 9:01:49 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: > > >> At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>> According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >>>> Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >>>> borrowed it directly >>>> from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the >>>> Variori= > um >>>> Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the >>>> Latin=20 >> form, >>>> which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to >>>> figure out >>>> which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and >>>> track >>>> record. >>>> But what=A0=A0 am wondering is as follows: >>>> >>>> 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >>>> 2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? >>> >>> 1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. >>> >>> 2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". >>> "Deraxinate" o= > r >>> the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. >>> >>> -- Doug Wilson >> =20 >> I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: >> (1)=A0 as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", >> not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? >> (2)=A0 in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) >> formations >> from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique >> (genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". >> Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin >> reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". >> Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and >> not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc.=A0 But why would one ever expect >> "rax"? >> =20 >> larry >> =20 >> =20 > > Thanks for all the help. I'll pass it on to Professor Williams. 'm not > sure=20 > why the Shakespeareans thought "deraxinate" would be the right > derivation fr= > om=20 > the Latin. Maybe I misread my colleague's note. What he said to me was > "Why=20 > would Shakespeare have coined a term with a 'c' and not an 'x'?" Maybe > what=20= > he=20 > meant was "Why 'deracinate' and not 'deradixate' or 'deradixinate'?" > Maybe Shakespeare had a reasonable command of Latin morphology? -Wilson Gray From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Fri Nov 19 04:49:20 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:49:20 -0500 Subject: slow boat to china Message-ID: Supposedly Frank Loesser wrote the song of this name in 1948. I can find a Washington Post column by Bill Gold in December, 1947 which says: "As the old proberb says, I'd like to get him on a slow boat to China." I can find nothing earlier using Proquest or Newspaperarchive. Was there truly an earlier proverb, or perhaps the song actually came out in very late 1947 but has a publishing date of 1948. Sam Clements From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Fri Nov 19 07:46:26 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:46:26 -0500 Subject: slow boat to china Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:49:20 -0500, Sam Clements wrote: >Supposedly Frank Loesser wrote the song of this name in 1948. > >I can find a Washington Post column by Bill Gold in December, 1947 which >says: > >"As the old proberb says, I'd like to get him on a slow boat to China." > >I can find nothing earlier using Proquest or Newspaperarchive. > >Was there truly an earlier proverb, or perhaps the song actually came out in >very late 1947 but has a publishing date of 1948. Loesser claimed to have written "On a Slow Boat to China" in 1945 -- he even presented evidence to this effect in a court case when he was accused of plagiarizing a song published in 1947 (Robert E. Overman's "Wonderful You"). http://library.law.columbia.edu/music_plagiarism/069/069.html In the ruling (in favor of Loesser), it's stated that Loesser obtained an unpublished copyright on the song in May 1948 and a published copyright in September 1948. But perhaps Loesser was circulating the song between 1945 and 1948, allowing Bill Gold to pick up the expression. Or, alternatively, Loesser and Gold borrowed it from some other source. --Ben Zimmer From t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU Fri Nov 19 13:37:31 2004 From: t.irons at MOREHEAD-ST.EDU (Terry Irons) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:37:31 -0500 Subject: CEDL Minority Scholar Survey Message-ID: Colleagues, I am forwarding the following message from Malcah Yeager. CEDL Minority Scholar Survey The Linguistic Society of America?s Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics (CEDL) is conducting a survey of minority scholars in the field to determine how the recruitment and retention of minority linguists might be improved. We are, therefore, asking undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members in linguistics who are members of minority groups in the US to participate in this survey. For the purposes of this survey, the term 'minority' refers to "members of racial and ethnic groups in the US that have been historically disenfranchised in the US and are traditionally underrepresented in higher education in general, and in linguistics in particular." This includes, but is not limited to African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans. To download the survey, please visit the CEDL website at http://www.lsadc.org/committees/index.php?aaa=ethnic.htm . The completed survey should be returned no later than Dec. 1, 2004 to mreynolds at lsadc.org or by snail mail to Maggie Reynolds; The Linguistic Society of America; 1325 18th Street, NW, Suite 211; Washington, D.C. 20036-6501. If you have any questions regarding the survey itself, please contact Tracey Weldon, the 2004 CEDL chair, at weldont at gwm.sc.edu. ------------------------------------------- Tracey L. Weldon, Assistant Professor English Department/Linguistics Program The University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 29208 Phone: (803) 777-2074 Fax: (803) 777-9064 weldont at gwm.sc.edu ----- End forwarded message ----- ******************** Malcah Yaeger-Dror Cognitive Sciences -- Psych Bldg University of AZ Tucson, AZ 85721 www.u.arizona.edu/~malcah/ (h) 520-325-3272 (o) 520-626-3569 (fax) 520-621-9306 *********************** From db.list at PMPKN.NET Fri Nov 19 13:44:56 2004 From: db.list at PMPKN.NET (David Bowie) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:44:56 -0500 Subject: greengrocer's apostrophe of the week Message-ID: From: "Dennis R. Preston" : Good sighting larry, and reminiscent of the alternatives us jolly : teenagers had (back in the day): : Whores de Ovaries : and : Horses' Doovers. I grew up with "Horse Devours". : What wags we were! What? You got dragged around on the ground? Who knew?! David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Fri Nov 19 13:46:55 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:46:55 -0500 Subject: WOT, but worth it In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 18, 2004, at 4:23 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky" > Subject: Re: WOT, but worth it > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Nov 18, 2004, at 12:30 PM, Alice Faber wrote: > >> --On Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:18 PM -0500 Wilson Gray >> wrote: >> >>> ...Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will probably be >>> fired >>> soon. >>> >> >> Actually, no. Somebody in England has a sense of humour. The site is >> actually an ad for anti-Bush t-shirts (sold through cafepress) and >> book >> (with links to the British Amazon site). > > and the site's been around for *months*. > > arnold Yes. I really should have known better. Again, I apologize to all. -Wilson Gray From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 19 14:09:16 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 09:09:16 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_deracinate?= In-Reply-To: <9C3B39BE-39E1-11D9-B7C4-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: At 11:15 PM 11/18/2004, you wrote: >On Nov 18, 2004, at 9:42 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > >>---------------------- Information from the mail header >>----------------------- >>Sender: American Dialect Society >>Poster: RonButters at AOL.COM >>Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20deracinate?= >>----------------------------------------------------------------------- >>-------- >> >>In a message dated 11/18/04 9:01:49 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes: >> >> >>>At 7:54 PM -0500 11/18/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>>>>According to the OED, the word DERACINATE was apparently coined by >>>>>Shakespeare, who used it first in Henry V, v,ii, 47. I say the bard >>>>>borrowed it directly >>>>>from French; my colleague George Williams, who is working on the >>>>>Variori= >>um >>>>>Shakespeare, seems surprised that Shakespeare did not borrow the >>>>>Latin=20 >>>form, >>>>>which would be DERAXINATE. I will leave it to the Shakespeareans to >>>>>figure out >>>>>which is most likely from the point of view of the bard's mind and >>>>>track >>>>>record. >>>>>But what=A0=A0 am wondering is as follows: >>>>> >>>>>1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? >>>>>2. Does DERAXINATE feel as unlikely to ADS-ers as it does to me? >>>> >>>>1. No, but apparently the French verb dates from the 13th century. >>>> >>>>2. A Latin equivalent also exists in English: "eradicate". >>>>"Deraxinate" o= >>r >>>>the like doesn't seem right in any language, at a glance. >>>> >>>>-- Doug Wilson >>>=20 >>>I don't have my Latin dictionary on me, but two comments: >>>(1)=A0 as I recall, the Latin root for root, radish, etc. is "radix", >>>not "rax", so wouldn't it be (at worst) "deradix(in)ate"? >>>(2)=A0 in any case, the stem for Romance (and hence English) >>>formations >>>from Latin is typically not the nominative form but the oblique >>>(genitive/accusative/dative/ablative), which here is "radic-". >>>Checking AHD4, I find that in fact there was a Late Latin >>>reconstruction of the noun based on that stem, viz. "ra:dici:na". >>>Thus we have radical, radish, eradicate (as Doug mentions), etc. and >>>not radixal, radix, eradixate, etc.=A0 But why would one ever expect >>>"rax"? >>>=20 >>>larry >>>=20 >>>=20 >> >>Thanks for all the help. I'll pass it on to Professor Williams. 'm not >>sure=20 >>why the Shakespeareans thought "deraxinate" would be the right >>derivation fr= >>om=20 >>the Latin. Maybe I misread my colleague's note. What he said to me was >>"Why=20 >>would Shakespeare have coined a term with a 'c' and not an 'x'?" Maybe >>what=20= >>he=20 >>meant was "Why 'deracinate' and not 'deradixate' or 'deradixinate'?" > >Maybe Shakespeare had a reasonable command of Latin morphology? > >-Wilson Gray Yes, he supposedly had "a little Latine and lesse Greeke," as I recall from my medieval and Renaissance studies at SLU. From preston at MSU.EDU Fri Nov 19 14:41:43 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 09:41:43 -0500 Subject: greengrocer's apostrophe of the week In-Reply-To: <097201c4ce3d$f609f0b0$f0fbaa84@BOWIE> Message-ID: >Or gently toted home in the arms of our loved ones. dInIs >From: "Dennis R. Preston" > >: Good sighting larry, and reminiscent of the alternatives us jolly >: teenagers had (back in the day): > >: Whores de Ovaries > >: and > >: Horses' Doovers. > >I grew up with "Horse Devours". > >: What wags we were! > >What? You got dragged around on the ground? Who knew?! > >David Bowie http://pmpkn.net/lx > Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the > house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is > chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 19 15:36:28 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:36:28 -0500 Subject: CEDL minority scholar survey Message-ID: Forwarded for Malcah Yaeger-Dror: -------- CEDL Minority Scholar Survey The Linguistic Society of America?s Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics (CEDL) is conducting a survey of minority scholars in the field to determine how the recruitment and retention of minority linguists might be improved. We are, therefore, asking undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members in linguistics who are members of minority groups in the US to participate in this survey. For the purposes of this survey, the term 'minority' refers to "members of racial and ethnic groups in the US that have been historically disenfranchised in the US and are traditionally underrepresented in higher education in general, and in linguistics in particular." This includes, but is not limited to African Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans. To download the survey, please visit the CEDL website at http://www.lsadc.org/committees/index.php?aaa=ethnic.htm . The completed survey should be returned no later than Dec. 1, 2004 to mreynolds at lsadc.org or by snail mail to Maggie Reynolds; The Linguistic Society of America; 1325 18th Street, NW, Suite 211; Washington, D.C. 20036-6501. If you have any questions regarding the survey itself, please contact Tracey Weldon, the 2004 CEDL chair, at weldont at gwm.sc.edu. ------------------------------------------- Tracey L. Weldon, Assistant Professor English Department/Linguistics Program The University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 29208 Phone: (803) 777-2074 Fax: (803) 777-9064 weldont at gwm.sc.edu From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Nov 19 15:43:05 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:43:05 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re=3A_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re=3A_deracinate?= Message-ID: > > > >Maybe Shakespeare had a reasonable command of Latin morphology? > > > >-Wilson Gray > > Yes, he supposedly had "a little Latine and lesse Greeke," as I > recall from > my medieval and Renaissance studies at SLU. -- Beverly Flanigan > What Shakespeare had was "little Latine and lesse Greeke," not "a little Latin". This was a remark by Ben Jonson, another Elizabethan poet and playwright, who was a notable scholar of Latin and Greek, though with probably not much more formal education than Shakespeare had. If I recall the story correctly, Jonson was brought up as a bricklayer, and was discovered when young by someone who spotted him spending his coffee break reading a Greek text. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hololwness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). > From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 19 16:15:59 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:15:59 -0500 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_=A0_=A0_=A0_Re:_deracinate?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hey, you're right! My memory is faulty after 40 years. . . . At 10:43 AM 11/19/2004, you wrote: > > > > > >Maybe Shakespeare had a reasonable command of Latin morphology? > > > > > >-Wilson Gray > > > > Yes, he supposedly had "a little Latine and lesse Greeke," as I > > recall from > > my medieval and Renaissance studies at SLU. -- Beverly Flanigan > > > >What Shakespeare had was "little Latine and lesse Greeke," not "a little >Latin". This was a remark by Ben Jonson, another Elizabethan poet and >playwright, who was a notable scholar of Latin and Greek, though with >probably not much more formal education than Shakespeare had. If I recall >the story correctly, Jonson was brought up as a bricklayer, and was >discovered when young by someone who spotted him spending his coffee break >reading a Greek text. > >GAT > >George A. Thompson >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern >Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. > >"We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hololwness, treachery, >and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, >Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). > > > From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 19 17:12:53 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:12:53 -0600 Subject: blobology Message-ID: I was in a discussion with a radar engineer this morning. He was talking about an experiment he wanted to do, in which a radar would be used to observe several targets, and he wanted to distinguish between them. The targets were at the limits of the range of the radar. "I don't think it'll work. It's all blobology," he said. From gsanders at FORWARD.COM Fri Nov 19 19:29:37 2004 From: gsanders at FORWARD.COM (Gabriel Sanders) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:29:37 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays Message-ID: I'm working on a story about the phrase "Merry Chrismukkah," which seems to have been coined by the writers of the FOX teen drama "The OC." In this light, I've been thinking about holiday greetings generally and "Happy Holidays" in particular. Does anyone happen to know its earliest use? And has anyone ever been wished a "Merry Chrismukkah"? From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Fri Nov 19 20:00:31 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:00:31 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041119193616.F0D6E23C880@spf7.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: The earliest Usenet groups cite Google has for Chrismukah is November 1999. link: http://groups.google.com/groups? q=Chrismukah+1300&start=50&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&scoring=d&selm=382A1BFC.77 2D4C95%40earthlink.net&rnum=61&filter=0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- Important: This email message and any attached files contain information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or telephone, of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without making any copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- On Nov 19, 2004, at 2:29 PM, Gabriel Sanders wrote: > Chrismukkah From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Fri Nov 19 20:05:28 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:05:28 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041119200040.CEF9B7AF39@spf6-3.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: Sorry, Chrismukkah 1996. http://groups.google.com/groups? q=Chrismukkah&start=100&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&scoring=d&selm=599idk%2458u%4 0engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM&rnum=150&filter=0 The 1999 cite is for one 'k' Chrismukah. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- Important: This email message and any attached files contain information intended for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or telephone, of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without making any copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------- On Nov 19, 2004, at 3:00 PM, Erik Hoover wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Erik Hoover > Subject: Re: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > The earliest Usenet groups cite Google has for Chrismukah is November > 1999. > > > link: > > http://groups.google.com/groups? > q=Chrismukah+1300&start=50&hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&scoring=d&selm=382A1BFC.7 > 7 > 2D4C95%40earthlink.net&rnum=61&filter=0 > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > Important: > This email message and any attached files contain information intended > for the exclusive use of the individual or entity to whom it is > addressed > and may contain information that is proprietary, privileged, > confidential > and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the > intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any viewing, copying, > disclosure or distribution of this information may be subject to legal > restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender, by email or > telephone, > of any unintended recipients and delete the original message without > making any copies. > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > - > ------------- > On Nov 19, 2004, at 2:29 PM, Gabriel Sanders wrote: > >> Chrismukkah > From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 19 20:05:39 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:05:39 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: Message-ID: You've got to check all spellings: 19 Dec. 1996: "Re: Happy Chrismukkah Greetingsaa!" http://groups.google.com/groups? selm=19961219182300.NAA18961%40ladder01.news.aol.com Grant Barrett On Nov 19, 2004, at 15:00, Erik Hoover wrote: > The earliest Usenet groups cite Google has for Chrismukah is November > 1999. From grinchy at GRINCHY.COM Fri Nov 19 20:08:45 2004 From: grinchy at GRINCHY.COM (Erik Hoover) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:08:45 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041119200542.F3E6C76BBF@spf6-1.us4.outblaze.com> Message-ID: > You've got to check all spellings: > Indeed. Haste made waste. Erik From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Fri Nov 19 20:11:22 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:11:22 -0500 Subject: dirty words in dictionaries revisted Message-ID: A few of you perhaps have perhaps been each morning eagerly opening your emails hoping to see the final word on the astonishing appearance in a schoolboy's Latin Dictionary from the late 19th century of the word "cunt" offered, along with "strumpet", as a translation of the word "cunnus". I first posted about this in I believe March. The dictionary was "The Handy Dictionary of the Latin and English Languages", published by David McKay, of 610 South Washington Square, Philadelphia. My copy isn't dated, but some library's record dates it to "188?". This may not be the final word; it may be only the hemi-demi-semi-final word. But. . . . The earliest appearance of this definition I have found is in "A New Dictionary of the Latin and English languages, with an appendix of Latin geographical, historical, and mythological proper names". London, New York, George Routledge and Sons, [1878] [1 v.] 16 cm. I have seen the Harvard copy of this book. The title page doesn't carry a date, and has in pencil "187?". It was received by Harvard as a gift in 1911. The specific publication date comes from the Yale library record. (RLIN records CTYADHL6331-B & MAHGARR93213-B) The 3rd floor reference room of the NYPL has "A New Dictionary of the Latin and English Languages; with an appendix of Latin geographical, historical, and mythological proper names". Leipzig, B. Tauchnitz, 1885. This date is from the title page, and the definition of "cunnus" is present. However, the Routledge edition had a note facing the title page (the verso of the half-title page, is I believe the technical designation) "Printed for George Routledge and Sons by Bernard Tauschnitz, Leipzig", so there may have been a Tauschnitz edition before the Routledge one or simultaneous with it, and the manuscript may have originated in Germany. I see by RLIN that the Metropolitan Museum of ARt has an edition from Tauchnitz dated 1881 and described as the 3rd edition. The plates were used in the early 20th century to produce "Burt's Latin-English Dictionary in two parts: Latin-English, English-Latin". Rev. and enl. New York: A. L. Burt Co., [19--] 198, 212 pp.; 16 cm. This is at the NYPL, and contains the definition. I saw through ABEBooks that there were booksellers with copies of the McKay edition that dated from 1938, 1946 and 1950. Alan J. Miller, Bookseller (1158 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10029-6917 alan at alansbooks.com) kindly responded to my email to him about the 1950 printing. Zane W. Gray (BOOKSELLERS, 11 Alice Trail, Fairfield, PA, U.S.A., 17320-8288 doddm at blazenet.net) checked the 1938 and 1946 printings. All three contain the definition. The dictionary was reset by "D. McKay" of New York in the early 1960s to produce a "Handy Dictionary of the Latin and English Languages", revised by S. C. (Sidney Chawner) Woodhouse. The book was at least sufficiently revised to eliminate the whole entry for "cunnus" -- a quick glance shows only a few minor changes otherwise. There is a copy of this at NYU. A dirty mind is a joy forever, but when I first posted this I offered those who wanted a philological justification the thought that this dictionary might represent the earliest appearance in print of the word in an American source. This is still may be the case, even though now it seems that the book didn't originate in America, and perhaps not in the English-speaking world. None the less, it is remarkable that the dictionary was published and distributed with this definition in the U. S., beginning in the dark reign of Anthony Comstock, evidently without attracting notice. Presumably at least one or two of the college boys who sniggered over this entry in the 1870s and 1880s grew up to be dour Latin masters, and yet this entry stood for at least 70 years before it was censored. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 19 20:49:19 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:49:19 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <003701c4ce6e$1bd513d0$3402a8c0@forward1.forward.com> Message-ID: To follow-up: With two citations, it's been shown that the writers/creators/producers/characters on "The OC" did not coin "Merry Chrismukkah." We know this because the "The Best Chrismukkah Ever" episode first aired December 3, 2003; even given lead times on episode production, I doubt the scripts were done too long before that. The earliest cite we've found with only cursory searching is 1996. There are also many other cites under various spellings between 1996 and 2003. So, either thousands of people--including writers for "The OC"--coined the word independently, or else it was already in circulation. [Of course, this is all true only if you take coin to mean "to invent; to neologize." The reason I add that caveat is that I keep seeing a non-literal use of "to coin (a word)" when what is really meant is "to say something cleverly" or even "to call a thing something other than its name." It's similar to when people say "to coin a phrase" after something which has, of course, been said before that moment.] On Nov 19, 2004, at 14:29, Gabriel Sanders wrote: > I'm working on a story about the phrase "Merry Chrismukkah," which > seems to have been coined by the writers of the FOX teen drama "The > OC." In this light, I've been thinking about holiday greetings > generally and "Happy Holidays" in particular. Does anyone happen to > know its earliest use? And has anyone ever been wished a "Merry > Chrismukkah"? Grant Barrett -- Project Editor, "Historical Dictionary of American Slang," Oxford University Press -- Editor, Double-Tongued Word Wrester, http://www.doubletongued.org/ -- Webmaster, American Dialect Society, http://www.americandialect.org/ From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Fri Nov 19 21:06:11 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:06:11 -0600 Subject: swift boat Message-ID: Earliest use?? >From _All Hands_ (Bureau of Naval Personnel magazine), Jan 1966, p. 29 (caption of photo): " "SWIFT BOAT" is name given to the new PCF (patrol craft, fast) 50-footers which arrived in Vietnam recently as part of the Coastal Surveillance Force." From gcohen at UMR.EDU Sat Nov 20 02:38:58 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:38:58 -0600 Subject: dialectal "from the home" referring to a woman's maiden name Message-ID: I'm sending this along without yet having checked DARE. ******** A student of mine was born in Kansas but married a man in Freeburg, Missouri, a town in Osage County, about 40 miles north of the University of Missouri-Rolla. She frequently hears statements of the type "She was a Welshmeyer from home," or "She was a Jones from home" and at first interpreted "home" here to be a place-name. She was surprised to hear of so many women coming from the town of Home. Then someone straightened her out. "She was [e.g.] a Welshmeyer from home" meant "Her maiden name was Welshmeyer." Then there's the dialectal use of the phrase "right away" that she had to get used to. It means "whenever I get around to it." So she was at first troubled when people in town would tell her that they'll do something right away, and she'd be waiting for them to do it right away, but then they acted as if there was no hurry at all. In time she was clued in.. Gerald Cohen University of Missouri-Rolla From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sat Nov 20 03:38:21 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 21:38:21 -0600 Subject: Antedating of "bathing beauty" (1897) Message-ID: In 1889, the W. S. Kimball tobacco company issued as sales premiums a set of chromolithographed color trading cards entitled "Beautiful Bathers' Cards". This was a reformatted reissue of an earlier set entitled "Fancy Bathers". They both feature pictures of women in bathing suits at various beaches. In 1889, the Kinney Brothers company issued a similar set entitled "Surf Beauties". >--------------------- Information from the mail header >----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: Sam Clements >Subject: Antedating of "bathing beauty" (1897) >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > >M-W and OED have 1920. =20 > >Using Proquest, Chicago Tribune, Sept 26, 1897. (Advertisement) p.40: > >>>Clark-ST. Dime Museum/Monday, Sept.27, 1897/Bates, the MUCH MARRIED = >MAN,in a New Role/ Bates and The Bathers/ (picture of Bates and the = >Beauties--ed.) > >BOLD, BAD BIGAMIST/Bossing Bathing Beauties./ The famous Englewood = >Divorcee as Director of the Aquatic Carnival of Lovely Lady Swimming = >Experts from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and = >Chicago./ > >The Only and Original Rosa and the Little Egypt Midway Dancers.<< > >SC > From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 20 05:41:23 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 00:41:23 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:49:19 -0500, Grant Barrett wrote: >To follow-up: With two citations, it's been shown that the >writers/creators/producers/characters on "The OC" did not coin "Merry >Chrismukkah." We know this because the "The Best Chrismukkah Ever" >episode first aired December 3, 2003; even given lead times on episode >production, I doubt the scripts were done too long before that. The >earliest cite we've found with only cursory searching is 1996. There >are also many other cites under various spellings between 1996 and >2003. So, either thousands of people--including writers for "The >OC"--coined the word independently, or else it was already in >circulation. Also, in the late '90s there was a widely circulated piece of net-humor in the form of a mock press release announcing the "corporate merger" of Christmas and Hanukkah into Chrismukkah. According to this site, the joke began circulating in 1998: http://www.chrismukkah.com/misc/learn_about_chrismukkah.tpl The Usenet archive has versions of the press release back to 1999 at least (with some variations, e.g., whether the spokesman sings "Oy, Come all Ye Faithful" or "Oy Vey, Come all Ye Faithful"). -- Ben Zimmer From nunberg at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Nov 20 06:08:04 2004 From: nunberg at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Geoffrey Nunberg) Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:08:04 -0800 Subject: "curl up with a good book" Message-ID: I've been trying to find out when people started talking about "curling up with a good book." The phrase doesn't show up in the MOA collection or the UVa mod. Eng. text collection, and the earliest cite I've been able to find is from the NYT, Aug 29, 1926: "We read that he [Gene Tunny] takes a day off from training and curls up with a good book." But I'd have thought this goes back further than that. Geoff Nunberg From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 20 06:34:28 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 01:34:28 -0500 Subject: slow boat to china Message-ID: On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 02:46:26 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:49:20 -0500, Sam Clements >wrote: > >>Supposedly Frank Loesser wrote the song of this name in 1948. >> >>I can find a Washington Post column by Bill Gold in December, 1947 which >>says: >> >>"As the old proberb says, I'd like to get him on a slow boat to China." >> >>I can find nothing earlier using Proquest or Newspaperarchive. >> >>Was there truly an earlier proverb, or perhaps the song actually came out >>in very late 1947 but has a publishing date of 1948. > >Loesser claimed to have written "On a Slow Boat to China" in 1945 -- he >even presented evidence to this effect in a court case when he was accused >of plagiarizing a song published in 1947 (Robert E. Overman's "Wonderful >You"). > >http://library.law.columbia.edu/music_plagiarism/069/069.html Found this in the book _A Most Remarkable Fella_ (1993, 2000) by Frank's daughter Susan Loesser, via Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" feature: "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" was a well-known phrase among poker players, referring to a person who lost steadily and handsomely. My father turned it into a romantic song, placing the title in the mainstream of catch-phrases in 1947. (p. 62) http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0634009273/?v=search-inside&keywords=slow+boat --Ben Zimmer From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 20 07:08:02 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 02:08:02 -0500 Subject: slow boat to china In-Reply-To: <39140.69.142.143.59.1100932468.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: > "I'd like to get you on a slow boat to China" was a > well-known phrase among poker players, referring to a > person who lost steadily and handsomely. And that's just how it was used in the 1947 example in the "Washington Post"! "On a slow boat to China" = "For a long time on a ship" = "In a long series of card games". Much more natural than the romantic concept in the song! -- Doug Wilson From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Sat Nov 20 13:04:50 2004 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (paulzjoh) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 07:04:50 -0600 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Here in North Central Ar. we here "of the home" in reference to someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. > > From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 20 14:02:19 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:02:19 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <419F40F2.1030102@mtnhome.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, paulzjoh wrote: >Here in North Central Ar. we here "of the home" in reference to someone >living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. ? Bethany From goranson at DUKE.EDU Sat Nov 20 14:06:35 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:06:35 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <200411201402.iAKE2M0K006712@ayrton.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: here-->hear? Quoting "Bethany K. Dumas" : > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, paulzjoh wrote: > > >Here in North Central Ar. we here "of the home" in reference to someone > >living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. > > ? > > Bethany > From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 20 14:21:52 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:21:52 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <1100959595.419f4f6b97606@webmail.duke.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Stephen Goranson wrote: >here-->hear? I wondered? Or is it >here --> here are "of the home" The choices seem to be: Here in North Central Ar. we hear "of the home" in reference to someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. and Here in North Central Ar. we hear are "of the home" in reference to someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read on the radio. Bethany From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sat Nov 20 16:24:52 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:24:52 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE Ohio, in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase "from home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home funeral, without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others recognize this? At 09:21 AM 11/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: >On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Stephen Goranson wrote: > > >here-->hear? > >I wondered? Or is it > > >here --> here are "of the home" > >The choices seem to be: > >Here in North Central Ar. we hear "of the home" in reference to >someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read >on the radio. > >and > >Here in North Central Ar. we hear [here?] are "of the home" in reference to >someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read >on the radio. > >Bethany From AAllan at AOL.COM Sat Nov 20 20:29:37 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:29:37 EST Subject: News flash: New location for ADS annual meeting Message-ID: It's official: the Annual Meeting now will be at the Marriott Oakland Center City, across the bay from San Francisco. For information on reservations, registration, and transportation, see the website of our host, the Linguistic Society of America. You can go directly to http://www.lsadc.org/annmeet/index.html A strike at the previously arranged San Francisco hotel prompted this move. Maggie Reynolds, executive director of LSA, has worked overtime during the past weeks to make the change possible. All sessions and times of ADS meetings remain as planned. I'll be posting the full schedule shortly on ADS-L and sending it for posting on our website. - Allan Metcalf, ADS executive secretary From AAllan at AOL.COM Sat Nov 20 20:57:53 2004 From: AAllan at AOL.COM (AAllan at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 15:57:53 EST Subject: Program for ADS Annual Meeting Message-ID: Here's our full program complete with hotel information. In case there is a problem with the typography, you'll soon find it posted on the ADS website. Full information on the luncheon will be announced next week. See you in Oakland! - Allan Metcalf, Executive Secretary 11.20.04 American Dialect Society Annual Meeting 2005 Oakland, California At the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America All sessions will be held at the Marriott Oakland City Center 1001 Broadway Oakland, CA 94607 510-451-4000 The hotel features an exercise room, heated outdoor pool and a full service business center. It?s across the street from Oakland?s Chinatown in one direction and the Old Oakland Historic District in the other. Rooms at the Marriott are available at the special rate of $95 per night, single or double. Call 1-800-991-7249 between 6 a,m. and 11 p.m. Pacific Standard Time and ask for the ?LSA 2005 Annual Meeting? rate. Reservations are subject to availability if received after December15. Thursday, January 6, 2005 All sessions in Rooms 210-211, Marriott Oakland City Center Session 1: Usage, Labeling, and Lexicons, 10:00-11:30 a.m. Chair: Edward Finegan, Univ. of Southern California. 1. ?Toni Morrison?s Genius Puts Her in the Grammar/Usage Spotlight.? Arnold Zwicky, Stanford Univ. 2. ?Gendered Aspects of Lexicographic Labeling.? Katherine Martin, Oxford English Dictionary. 3. ?Representations of Southern Speech in Folk Dictionaries.? Sarah Hilliard , Duke Univ. Session 2: Talkin? and Testifyin?; Using Large Corpora, 1:00?2:30 p.m. Chair: Jesse Sheidlower, Oxford Univ. Press. 4. ?Evidence on the History of Prosodic Rhythm in African American English.? Erik R. Thomas and Phillip M. Carter, North Carolina State Univ. 5. ?Testifyin Performance and Ideology in a Black Church.? Andrea Kortenhoven, Stanford Univ. 6. ?Dialect Coding for Large Corpora.? Malcah Yaeger-Dror, Univ. of Arizona; J.P. Campbell, W.M. Campbell, P. A. Torres-Carrasquillo, and D. A. Reynolds, all of MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Session 3: Southern Dialects?Black and White, 3:00?5:00 p.m. Chair: Beverly Flanigan, Ohio University. 7. ?Dialect and the Spread of Country Music: the Case of ?Alabama.? ? Catherine Evans Davies, Univ. of Alabama. 8. ? ?Talking White? at the Apollo: African-American Narrative Comedians Portraying the Middle-class Establishment.? Jacquelyn Rahman, Miami Univ. of Ohio. 9. ?The Shifting Significance of Postvocalic R-Lessness in Southern African-American English.? Kristy D?Andrea, North Carolina State Univ. 10. ?On the Shifting Social Significance of Receding Dialect Variables: The Case of Static Locative to.? Jeannine Carpenter, North Carolina State Univ. and Duke Univ., and Janelle Vadnais, North Carolina State Univ. Session 4: Special Presentation, 5:15?6:15 p.m. 11. Voices of North Carolina. Video that will be aired on PBS, featuring Outer Banks speech, Appalachian speech, metropolitan speech (Charlotte), Lumbee English, African American English in terms of dialects, as well as the state of the Cherokee language and Spanish. Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State Univ. Friday, January 7 Council meeting in Room 212, Marriott Oakland City Center Executive Council Meeting, 8:30?10:30 a.m. Open meeting; all members welcome. Presiding: ADS President Michael Montgomery, U. of South Carolina. Sessions in Rooms 210-211, Marriott Oakland City Center Words of the Year Nominations, 10:30 a.m.?12:00 noon. Open meeting of the New Words committee; ADS members and friends welcome. Chair, Wayne Glowka, Georgia College and State University. This meeting reviews nominations for Words of the Year 2004. Final candidates will be identified in preparation for the vote at 5:30 p.m. Session 5: Language Contact, 1:30?3:30 p.m. Chair: Kathryn Remlinger, Grand Valley State Univ. 12. ?Another Look at the Copula in Caribbean Creoles.? James A. Walker, York Univ., Toronto, and Miriam Meyerhoff, Univ. of Edinburgh. 13. ?When Speech Islands Collide.? Steve Hartman Keiser, Marquette Univ. 14. ?What Happened to Texas German?? Hans C. Boas, Univ. of Texas, Austin. 15. ?Spanish Dialect Contact in South Texas: Variable Subject Personal Pronoun Use by Puerto Ricans in San Antonio.? Robert Bayley, Carlos Martin V?lez-Salas, Belinda Schouten, and Norma C?rdenas, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio. Session 6: Special Session, 3:45?5:15 p.m.: The Atlanta Survey Project. Chair: William A. Kretzschmar, Jr., Univ. of Georgia. 16. ?Introduction to the Atlanta Survey Project.? Sonja Lanehart and William A. Krtetzschmar, Jr., Univ. of Georgia. 17. ?The Atlanta Survey Project Interview.? Betsy Barry, Univ. of Georgia. 18. ?Fixed-Format Elicitation in the Atlanta Survey Project.? Iyabo Osiapem, Univ. of Georgia, 19. ?Vowel Formant Characteristics from the Atlanta Survey Project.? Mi-Ran Kim and Nicole Kong, Univ. of Georgia. 20. ?Publication of Full Interviews from the Atlanta Survey Project.? William A. Kretzschmar, Jr., Univ. of Georgia. Words of the Year Vote, 5:30?6:30 p.m. Reception in Toppers Rooftop Ballroom, Marriott Oakland City Center Bring-Your-Own-Book Exhibit and Reception, 6:30?7:30 p.m. Saturday, January 8 Sessions in Rooms 210-211, Marriott Oakland City Center Annual Business Meeting, 8:30?9:30 a.m. Session 7: Regional Phonology, 9:45?11:45 a.m. Chair: Connie Eble, Univ. of North Carolina. 21. ?A First Approach to Regional Phonetic Variation in Canadian English.? Charles Boberg, McGill Univ. 22. ?Acoustic Characteristics of Utah?s card/cord Merger.? David Bowie, Univ. of Central Florida. 23. ?Upper Midwest Obstruent Variation: There?s More of It Than You Might Think.? Thomas Purnell, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; Joseph Salmons, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; Dilara Tepeli, Univ. Bonn; Jennifer Mercer, Univ. of Wisconsin. 24. ?You So Don?t Talk Like Me: Exploring Southern California Sound Changes Across Generations.? Allyn Partin Hernandez, Northridge, Calif. Luncheon in Toppers Rooftop Ballroom, Marriott Oakland City Center Annual Luncheon, 12:15?1:45 p.m. Speaker: ADS president Michael Montgomery, Univ. of South Carolina. ?The Voices of My Ancestors.? Information on menu, cost, and reservations will be announced soon. Session in Rooms 210-211, Marriott Oakland City Center Session 8: Promoting Awareness of Language Diversity, 2:00?4:00 p.m. Chair: Anne Curzan, Univ. of Michigan. A panel co-sponsored by the American Dialect Society Committee on Teaching and by the Linguistic Society of America. 25. ?Promoting Language Awareness in Schools via Do You Speak American?? Jeffrey Reaser, Center for Applied Linguistics, Duke Univ., and North Carolina State Univ.; Carolyn Temple Adger, Center for Applied Linguistics; Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State Univ. 26. ?Teaching About Language Diversity in Non-Diverse Settings.? Michael Adams, North Carolina State Univ. From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 01:23:58 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:23:58 -0500 Subject: radio Message-ID: Hey, Bethany (and others), If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 01:27:31 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:27:31 -0500 Subject: radio Message-ID: Hey, Bethany (and others), If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) I forgot to mention that this is on "Mountain Stage," a great show from West Virginia. I hope most NPR stations carry it. From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 21 01:44:50 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:44:50 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20041120202143.00ac0d58@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >Hey, Bethany (and others), >If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau >Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right >now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace >Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of course .... Bethany From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Sun Nov 21 02:01:38 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:01:38 -0500 Subject: radio Message-ID: Of course, many if not most NPR stations are available online. I listen to Sunday bluegrass from WAMU in Washington DC. All day. And I'm in Akron, OH. The internet--what a ball. Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bethany K. Dumas" To: Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 8:44 PM Subject: Re: radio > They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish > music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of > course .... > > Bethany From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:09:59 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:09:59 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 08:44 PM 11/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: >On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > >Hey, Bethany (and others), > >If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau > >Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right > >now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace > >Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) > >They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish >music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of >course .... > >Bethany Is it "Thistle and Shamrock"? Equally cool! From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:08:46 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:08:46 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: <004901c4cf6e$09d9fe10$2724a618@sam> Message-ID: Yeah, I e-mailed my son, who works in Belgrade, Serbia, urging him to listen online to his old hometown radio. At 09:01 PM 11/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: >Of course, many if not most NPR stations are available online. I listen to >Sunday bluegrass from WAMU in Washington DC. All day. And I'm in Akron, >OH. > >The internet--what a ball. > >Sam Clements > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Bethany K. Dumas" >To: >Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 8:44 PM >Subject: Re: radio > > > They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish > > music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of > > course .... > > > > Bethany From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:27:27 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:27:27 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20041120210908.0250d680@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: >>They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish >>music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of >>course .... >> >>Bethany > >Is it "Thistle and Shamrock"? Equally cool! Yes - maybe. Bethany From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:42:06 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:42:06 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041120050232.6F68EB2501@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: i remember "Meppy Chrisukkah" from way way back, h.s. maybe?? (class of 65), prob. coined by a friend. Note, not "Merry": both words are hybridized. mark by hand From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Sun Nov 21 02:47:37 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:47:37 -0500 Subject: wag Message-ID: Our friend in NC says: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 19:31:07 -0500 (GMT-05:00) To: Mark A. Mandel Subject: Re: wag No, I think I first heard "wag" used this way by a man. I saw the message about this usage coming from the Appalachians, but I think I learned this usage of the word by people who live in Cumberland county, NC. Chris -----Original Message----- From: "Mark A. Mandel" Sent: Nov 18, 2004 10:47 AM Subject: wag extracted from ADS-L Digest - 16 Nov 2004 to 17 Nov 2004 (#2004-323) [NAME], do you have any sense of whether it is used only by women down there, as in Wilson's experience? -- DSBIL Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From dwhause at JOBE.NET Sun Nov 21 02:12:36 2004 From: dwhause at JOBE.NET (Dave Hause) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 20:12:36 -0600 Subject: radio Message-ID: Mine plays Bluegrass on Saturday evening, but broadcasts Mountain Stage at 6:00 PM (CST) Sundays and streams it on www.kumr.org Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net Ft. Leonard Wood, MO ----- Original Message ----- From: "Beverly Flanigan" To: Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 7:27 PM Subject: radio Hey, Bethany (and others), If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) I forgot to mention that this is on "Mountain Stage," a great show from West Virginia. I hope most NPR stations carry it. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 04:18:19 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 23:18:19 EST Subject: Movie Quotes; Chrismukkah Message-ID: MOVIE QUOTES Fred Shapiro probably knows about this, but in the rare case he doesn't, this was in yesterday's papers. (GOOGLE NEWS) _AFI salutes quotes_ (http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/10217468.htm) Pioneer Press (subscription), MN - New Yor _AFI will celebrate top 100 movie quotes_ (http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?rid=1e50ca76db0afe79&cat=dd8845aa60952db2) Big News Netwo _AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes: The most memorable phrases ..._ (http://top40-charts.com/news.php?nid=11200) top40-char _Zap2it.com_ (http://www.zap2it.com/movies/go?path=/mov ies/news/story&general_id=23640) - _all 36 r ?_ (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=ISO-8859-1&ncl=http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/1021746 8.htm) _Movie Quotes on AFI Agenda_ (http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,15366,00.html) E! Online, CA - Nov 17, ... your seatbelts, we're in for a new countdown from those prolific list-makers: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes: America's Greatest Quips, Comebacks and ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- CHRISMUUKAH There was an article on this in the Friday Wall Street Journal. I was going to post on it, but everyone beat me to it. There wasn't anything early in the OC WEEKLY (_www.ocweekly.com_ (http://www.ocweekly.com) ). The following had several interesting items. _Cover: Best of OC 2004: Part 5_ (http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/07/best-part5.php) ... (or blame) The O.C. for adding to the great American lexicon "aspirational," "THE Vegas" and "Chrismukkah." 3. Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. MTV, thanks to "unlimited access," follows a...Published October 22nd, 2004 _http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/07/best-part5.php_ (http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/07/best-part5.php) 1. Paleteros. "Those elderly men who walk around with ice-cream carts selling Mexican popsicles. Smiles, freshness and personal history?all for a buck." (...) If nothing else, praise (or blame) The O.C. for adding to the great American lexicon "aspirational," "THE Vegas" and "Chrismukkah." (...) DERISIVE OC NICKNAMES 1. Fascist Island (Fashion Island) 2. Scurvine (Irvine) 3. Seizure World (Leisure World) 4. F-Town (Fullerton) 5. Costa Misery (Costa Mesa) 6. Costa Lot (Costa Mesa) 7. Garbage Grove (Garden Grove) 8. Anaslime (Anaheim) 9. Cal State Disneyland (Cal State Fullerton) 10. Rustin (Tustin) From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Sun Nov 21 04:54:17 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 23:54:17 -0500 Subject: Movie Quotes; Chrismukkah Message-ID: Of interest to Fred Shapiro might also be a piece I heard a week or so ago on NPR, interviewing Nora Ephron about the line in "When Harry Met Sally." When Meg Ryan, in the middle of a deli, is demonstrating how women can fake an orgasm, the waiter? asks an old lady(Rob Reiner's mom) at another table what she'll have? She replies: "I'll have what SHE's having!" in obvious reference to Meg Ryan. This phrase is now used by people everywhere, but no doubt many know not from whence it came. Nora essentially said that Billy Crystal may have actually written the line. The movie was written by many people. Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2004 11:18 PM Subject: Movie Quotes; Chrismukkah MOVIE QUOTES Fred Shapiro probably knows about this, but in the rare case he doesn't, this was in yesterday's papers. (GOOGLE NEWS) _AFI salutes quotes_ (http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/10217468.htm) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 21 05:22:03 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:22:03 -0500 Subject: radio In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 8:44 PM -0500 11/20/04, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > >>Hey, Bethany (and others), >>If you want to hear Jorma Kaukonen (of the old Jefferson Airplane), Beau >>Soleil, and more straight from Athens, turn on your local NPR station right >>now--they're playing great stuff! (Bethany has been to Jorma's Fur Peace >>Guitar Ranch, near here, so she knows whereof I speak.) > >They are cool - unfortunately, my local NPR station is doing Scottish >music this night! Not that there is anything wrong with Scottish music of >course .... > >Bethany Well, we also have The Thistle and Shamrock here. But I highly recommend (if I hadn't already done so) the Jorma Kaukonen album (i.e. CD) from a couple of years ago, Blue Country Heart. Great stuff. Larry From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 21 06:23:09 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 01:23:09 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 20, 2004, at 11:24 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE > Ohio, > in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase "from > home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home funeral, > without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others > recognize this? When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, without the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of the great state of Texas.] -Wilson Gray > At 09:21 AM 11/20/2004 -0500, you wrote: >> On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Stephen Goranson wrote: >> >>> here-->hear? >> >> I wondered? Or is it >> >>> here --> here are "of the home" >> >> The choices seem to be: >> >> Here in North Central Ar. we hear "of the home" in reference to >> someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read >> on the radio. >> >> and >> >> Here in North Central Ar. we hear [here?] are "of the home" in >> reference to >> someone living with the deceased when obituary announcements are read >> on the radio. >> >> Bethany > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 07:15:19 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:15:19 EST Subject: "Curl up to a good book" Message-ID: I've been trying to find out when people started talking about "curling up with a good book." The phrase doesn't show up in the MOA collection or the UVa mod. Eng. text collection, and the earliest cite I've been able to find is from the NYT, Aug 29, 1926: "We read that he [Gene Tunny] takes a day off from training and curls up with a good book." But I'd have thought this goes back further than that. Geoff Nunberg Oh, all right. Maybe everybody else was busy preparing for Chrismukkah. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) ("curl up with" and "book") 1. _BOOKS OF THE WEEK.; Strong Brief for Expansion. Mr. Cable's Portrait. A Study in Character. Dr. Abbott's View of Paul. Lafcadio Hearn's New Book. New Work on Chess. Brief Mention. Books Received. _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000426638861&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=3 09&VName=HNP&TS=1101019141&clientId=65882) Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jan 28, 1899. p.10 (1 page) ??? 2. _WIVES OF TOMORROW; All Is Well _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=000000239746852&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HN P&TS=1101019141&clientId=65882) By FRANCES McDONALD.. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Sep 1, 1924. p. 12 (1 page) : Curl up with a book just as if you were alone. 3. _Vacation Season On, But Who'd Ever Guess It?_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=2&did=000000098387715&SrchMode=1&sid=6&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT =309&VName=HNP&TS=1101019141&clientId=65882) By L.H.R.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 29, 1926. p. XX2 (1 page) _Display Ad 20 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=34&did=000000105855316&SrchMode=1&sid=9&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS= 1101020726&clientId=65882) New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Mar 21, 1923. p. 20 (1 page): _ONE OF THE SUPREME SATISFACTIONS OF LIVING!_ THE man who has not learned to curl up on a sofa of an evening occasionally and "lose himself" in a rattling good story, or "find himself" under the influence of an author with provocative ideas, is missing one of the supreme satisfactions of living. (Ad for Borzoi Books, Alfred A. Knopf--ed.) _Other 4 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=40&did=000000361774412&SrchMode=1&sid=9&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=110102 0308&clientId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 4, 1925. p. 7 (1 page) (there was a room lined with books, where Sam was allowed to go and where he would curl up in a window seat, and read and read until his father would come and turn him out to play). (_WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM_ (http://www.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) ) _Barnard Bulletin _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=QIApIoRPQIyKID/6NLMW2qbRoZxMX46Dtcp074ovQF282GxRSG7v8UIF+CsZYmrz) Friday, October 02, 1925 _New York,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:new_york+curl+up+and+book+AND) _New York_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:new_york+curl+up+and+book+AND) ...divan is a wonderful place in which to CURL UP- f _ A AND read. Don-1 miss our.....We can tavit. ytiu much monry on your BOOK especially if you can for our pr If.. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 07:55:12 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 02:55:12 EST Subject: Anyhoo (1865) Message-ID: Someone used "anyhoo" this week. Yes, someone did. "Anyhoo" is not in the OED. It's not in the CASSELL DICTIONARY OF SLANG. The HDAS has 1945. It appears to be in an 1865 publication of LEAVES. I recall a comprehensive treatment of LEAVES a while back in an obscure publication called COMMENTS ON ETYMOLOGY. Most of the hits, anyhoo, seem to be from the 1930s. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Sort results by: 1. _UNCLE SAM NABS THREE; The Alleged Conspirators are Taken by Officers. Charged With Bogus Chinese Certificate Scheme. Union Bartender and Remittance Man in Trio. CARRIES TELLTALE EVIDENCE. DOCTORED DOCUMENT. _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000322686812&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101021932&cli entId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 26, 1904. p. A1 (1 page) 2. _Classified Ad 7 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=000000358020272&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HN P&TS=1101021932&clientId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 11, 1924. p. A15 (1 page) 3. _That Certain Party_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=2&did=000000388383241&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101021 932&clientId=65882) Tip Poff. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Nov 13, 1932. p. B13 (2 pages) Pg. 21: _Lead with Your Left_ Nobody swears to this, but they're leffing, anyhoo. 4. _Patrick Gives Rowsey Pasting; Orv Mohler Garners Four Hits; WARD TURNS IN ANGEL VICTORY Cherubs End Losing Streak After First in Row Locals Score Nine Runs in First Three Innings Stainback, McMullen, Lillard Get Circuit Clouts _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=3&did=000000388899891&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101021932&clientId=65882) BOB RAY. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current. Apr 22, 1933. p. 7 (2 pages) 5. _Radio Waves and Ripples_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=4&did=000000148042652&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS =1101021932&clientId=65882) The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Sep 4, 1933. p. 6 (1 page) 6. _Display Ad 22 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=5&did=000000460087702&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS= 1101021932&clientId=65882) Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jun 13, 1936. p. 21 (1 page) : SHE said: "I'm kinda Scotch anyhoo, and, I like your no tipping. ..." 7. _Comic 2 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=6&did=000000460317652&SrchMode=1&sid=10&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=110102 1932&clientId=65882) Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Sep 18, 1936. p. 22 (1 page) (_WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM_ (http://www.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) ) _Appleton Post Crescent _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=NuHyyu1GcYSKID/6NLMW2mDdnKdqb9t1IjYb25U3ry4nyVnYmGViGw==) Wednesday, January 01, 1930 _Appleton,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:appleton+anyhoo+AND) _Wisconsin_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:wisconsin+anyhoo+AND) ...and charge it up to philanthropy. ANYHOO. r.-hat we meant to say was that.. _Daily Gazette And Bulletin _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=0Hv62RLHvjKKID/6NLMW2h2WLiqCA7LIJNdpi4T8ql2d5XSGz6G6XQ==) Friday, March 09, 1894 _Williamsport,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:williamsport+anyhoo+AND) _Pennsylvania_ (http://www.newspa perarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:pennsylvania+anyhoo+AND) ...t' same be moor thaji I can say; ANYHOO _ Anyliob, male1 n less ado.. Pg. 7: though how th' divil they maun chance to gittin t' same be moor than I can say; anyhoo--" "Anyhoo, mak' a less ado, whip up the' 'osses an' push ahead!" _Newark Daily Advocate _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=wUP6BEk4rpmKID/6NLMW2hdKc/gmurRk9GCN5ZTlw70nyVnYmGViGw==) Tuesday, February 02, 1897 _Newark,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:newark+anyhoo+AND) _Ohio_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:ohio+anyhoo+AND) ...it was before the belling: didn'tsee ANYHOO SarsapanHa The One True Blood.. (WRIGHT AMERICAN FICTION) Title: Leaves From the Diary of a Celebrated Burglar and Pickpocket Leaves Author: Anonymous Availability: _? 2001 The Trustees of Indiana University._ (http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?type=simple;c=wright2 ;cc=wright2;sid=6ca5d9c72b38d632d89dc79ddd499a05;rgn=full%20text;q1=anyhoo;cite1r estrict=title;cite2restrict=title;cite3restrict=title;firstpubl1=1850;firstpub l2=1875;submit=S#) Print Source: Leaves from the diary of a celebrated burglar and pickpocket New York : G.W. Matsell, 1865. (Somewhere here--ed.) From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 21 08:01:57 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 03:01:57 -0500 Subject: Not in DARE/HDAS? Message-ID: Hold tight : wait a second/minute et sim. "Hold tight. I'll get you some." DARE has "Hold... To examine, to look at. 'Let me hold your program.' - Rare." This usage is quite common in BE. DARE has "Let me hold it." It's not clear to me what DARE means by "hold it," since the example appears in a section having to do with "hold" in both of the meanings, "to borrow; to lend." I'm not familiar with "hold" meaning "lend" (this is merely an observation; I'm making no claim). On the other hand, if "hold" in the cite means "lend," then I'm very familiar with that meaning. One person might say to another, "Let me hold twenty dollars till payday." I've both heard suchlike and said it a million times. -Wilson Gray From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 08:31:06 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 03:31:06 EST Subject: "Why not?" catchphrase author died Message-ID: This was in the last New York Sun. I don't know if Fred Shapiro has it or id interested. (GOOGLE GROUPS) From: _Hyfler/Rosner_ (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=author:relfyh at rcn.com+) (_relfyh at rcn.com_ (mailto:relfyh at rcn.com) ) Subject: Dayton Allen; NY Sun obit View: _Complete Thread (2 articles)_ (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&threadm=7eadnfVpmZVYdgPcRVn-ig at rcn.net&rnum=2&prev=/groups ?q=%22why+not%22+and+howdy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&scoring=d&selm=7eadnfVp mZVYdgPcRVn-ig%40rcn.net&rnum=2) _Original Format_ (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=7eadnfVpmZVYdgPcRVn-ig at rcn.net&output=gplain) Newsgroups: _alt.obituaries_ (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&group=alt.obituaries) Date: 2004-11-19 23:01:26 PST Dayton Allen, 85, TV Voice Artist BY Staff Reporter of the Sun November 19, 2004 Dayton Allen, who died November 11 at age 85, was a cast member of "The Howdy Doody Show," "Winky Dink and You," and a regular on the "Steve Allen Show," where he was known for his trademark "Why Not," delivered with manic intensity and a finger pointed in the air. In the 1960s, Allen's voice was nearly ubiquitous in such Saturday morning cartoons as "Deputy Dawg," "Mighty Mouse," and "Heckle and Jeckle," for which he was the voice of both of the madcap magpies. To the public, he surfaced in occasional news stories about his spectacular successes investing in penny stocks of Canadian mining companies. He published some of his investing theories in his memoir, "Why Not?" Allen was born in New York and went to school with the actor Art Carney, a lifelong friend. Always interested in performing, he found work as a disc jockey at WINS in 1935 and also wrote comedy bits for Vaudeville. He found work early in television as a voice of puppets, starting at "The Buffalo Bob Show" in 1947. It was soon renamed "Howdy Doody." He also worked on "The Adventures of Oky Doky," which starred Bob Keeshan, later better known as "Captain Kangaroo." "I met Keeshan in a men's room," Allen said in the oral history "The Box." "He said, 'You do a lot of voices. You'd be great for us.'" The show "was some piece of crap, but that's where I learned to work with a puppet," he said. "That thing must have weighed about a hundred pounds. I think it was made by King Kong." On "Howdy Doody," Allen was the voice of the mayor, Phineas T. Bluster, as well as the odd mish-mash monster Flub-a-Dub. Early TV played to Allen's strengths as an improviser. "You could do anything, as long as you remembered who the stars were, and the Peanut Gallery wasn't there," Allen told the Miami Herald in 2000. "There was a script, but we never stuck to it. [Buffalo] Bob was the greatest straight man. He'd fall on his face whatever I said." Allen added that he came close to being fired for risque ad-libs, and that "Howdy Doody" was eventually taken off the NBC studio tour because rehearsals got so "blue." In 1953, he moved to "Winky Dink and You," where he was the voice of the puppet Mr. Bungle. In 1956, he began work on "Heckle and Jeckle," the first of hundreds of cartoons he would eventually voice. He also became a semi-regular on the "Steve Allen Show," appearing as a bogus expert or man on the street. In one episode, Steve Allen introduced Dayton Allen as "Dr. Harvey L. Dayton," a world-famous surgeon and headache expert. Dayton: "Why not! Being a very famous surgeon, I have even worked in hospitals. Sometimes I would aid in helping around! Surgery to me is more than just a way to make a good fast buck ..." and so on. The "Why Not?" tag line got so famous that a writer for the Los Angeles Times claimed in 1960 that it had subconsciously become part of the language. Allen appeared in an Off-Broadway musical revue called "Why Not?" in 1960 and that same year released a comedy album called "Why Not?" He also used the line in television commercials. The craze lasted about a year then disappeared with barely an echo. Allen moved to Hollywood Beach, Fla., in 1986, and, still in excellent health, had just moved to Flat Rock, N.C., a week before he suffered a massive stroke. Allen was married to Elvi Brown in 1958; she had worked briefly in television as hostess of the WPIX show "Gadget Gallery," in which she demonstrated new kinds of tools, and also as an NBC tour guide. Allen's brother, Bradley Bolke, was the voice of Chumley on "Underdog." Dayton Allen Born Dayton Allen Bolke on September 24, 1919; died November 11 at Flat Rock, N.C., of a hemorrhagic stroke; survived by his wife, Elvi, and brother, Bradley Bolke. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 21 09:28:47 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 04:28:47 EST Subject: "Dope Fiend" Sandwich: Prison Food and Slang Glossary Message-ID: DOPE FIEND SANDWICH--726 Google hits, 2 Google Groups hits A jailhouse cookbook! With a slang glossary! There's nothing much new on the culinary front. I think the "sandwich lady" left out this one: Dunn also provided the recipe for the Dope Fiend Sandwich, a treat popular in the King County Jail. It consists of two Grandma?s brand peanut butter cookies, with a smashed Snickers bar in between. "These cookies are so named because heroin addicts often come to prison craving sweets," Dunn wrote. Other sweets include Behind These Bars, Celly Smores, Short-timer Cheesecake, and, for inmates from Seattle, Convict Mocha (coffee, hot chocolate, melted candy bar). (GOOGLE NEWS) _DIET: Jail Mix, Dope Fiend Sandwich, anyone? Prison chefs tout ..._ (http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/11172004/it/48982.htm) Portsmouth Herald News, NH - Nov 17, ... Those are just a few of the tasty dishes featured in the 163-page book. There?sa helpful glossary of prison slang in the back, too. ... _This jailhouse cookbook rocks_ (http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_3326749,00.html) Knoxville News Sentinel (subscription), TN - Nov 13, ... There's a helpful glossary of prison slang in the back, too. The cookbook grew out of a community college class on how to make the transition to the outside. ... _Prison chefs tout craft in cookbook_ (http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/10178585.htm) Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC - Nov 1 ... A helpful glossary of prison slang is in the back of the book. The cookbook grew out of a community college class on how to make the transition to the outside. ... From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 21 11:52:01 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 06:52:01 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: >> I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE >> Ohio, >> in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase "from >> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home funeral, >> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others >> recognize this? > >When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried >from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, without >the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted >to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption >is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of >the great state of Texas.] Now the phrase makes sense. I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this custom begin? Bethany From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Sun Nov 21 18:54:32 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 13:54:32 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I should have said, like Wilson, that this was a phrase common in our grandparents' day; I'm not sure our parents' generation could have gotten away with home preparations (or could they?). I'd add that city or county police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel 50 miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and maintain reasonable speed. But using the State Police is new to me; I'll ask my cousin, a retired MN highway patrolman. Beverly (To clarify: Borned and raised in Minnesota (as Ralph Stanley would say), lived the past 25 years in SE Ohio, with St. Louis and So. Indiana in between. So am I a Midwesterner, a North Centraler, or a Mideasterner?) At 06:52 AM 11/21/2004 -0500, you wrote: >On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > > >> I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE > >> Ohio, > >> in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase "from > >> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home funeral, > >> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others > >> recognize this? > > > >When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried > >from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, without > >the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, > >irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted > >to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be > >confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption > >is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of > >the great state of Texas.] > >Now the phrase makes sense. > >I have assisted in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never >with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >custom begin? > >Bethany From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 21 20:12:29 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:12:29 -0600 Subject: hold tight Message-ID: from page 2 of this newsletter: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/northampton/news4hmar04.pdf "Until then just hold tight and look for more information to come in soon!" http://francisco.compbio.ucsf.edu/~jacobson/biophys206/qm_model_systems.pdf "This is all a bit abstract for now, but hold tight." http://www.unc.edu/~echeran/paadanool/pdf/introduction.pdf "Until then, hold tight." http://www.webs.uidaho.edu/facultycouncil/2002-2003%20Council/Minutes/02-03F CMeeting07.pdf "He told everyone to "hold tight and enjoy the ride." " From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 21 20:16:22 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:16:22 -0600 Subject: another dayton allen obit Message-ID: http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2004_11_14.html#009205 From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 21 21:30:38 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 16:30:38 -0500 Subject: hold tight In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 3:12 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Mullins, Bill" > Subject: hold tight > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > from page 2 of this newsletter: > http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/northampton/news4hmar04.pdf > "Until then just hold tight and look for more information to come in > soon!" > > > http://francisco.compbio.ucsf.edu/~jacobson/biophys206/ > qm_model_systems.pdf > "This is all a bit abstract for now, but hold tight." > > > http://www.unc.edu/~echeran/paadanool/pdf/introduction.pdf > "Until then, hold tight." > > > http://www.webs.uidaho.edu/facultycouncil/2002-2003%20Council/Minutes/ > 02-03F > CMeeting07.pdf > "He told everyone to "hold tight and enjoy the ride." " > Good cites. -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 21 22:14:55 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 17:14:55 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 1:54 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Beverly Flanigan > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > I should have said, like Wilson, that this was a phrase common in our > grandparents' day; I'm not sure our parents' generation could have > gotten > away with home preparations (or could they?). I'd add that city or > county > police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in > Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel 50 > miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and > maintain > reasonable speed. Yes. My grandfather was buried in Longview and not in Marshall. > But using the State Police is new to me It could have been the fact that Marshall and Longview are in separate counties that motivated the use of the state police as opposed to the local law. Also, I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers. I remember only the "uptown" parking-control guy who rode about on a Harley-Davidson three-wheeler. (Any bikers out there can supply the actual name of this thing.) There was some way of getting people behind bars, since my granddad's nephew, an alcoholic, spent a lot of time there. But that's all that I know. Marshall was/is? one of those places where the signs told you when nobody was home: "Railway Express man, key is under doormat. Money is in envelope on kitchen table." -Wilson Gray > ; I'll ask my > cousin, a retired MN highway patrolman. > > Beverly > (To clarify: Borned and raised in Minnesota (as Ralph Stanley would > say), > lived the past 25 years in SE Ohio, with St. Louis and So. Indiana in > between. So am I a Midwesterner, a North Centraler, or a > Mideasterner?) > > At 06:52 AM 11/21/2004 -0500, you wrote: >> On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: >> >>>> I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in >>>> SE >>>> Ohio, >>>> in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase >>>> "from >>>> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home >>>> funeral, >>>> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others >>>> recognize this? >>> >>> When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried >>> from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, >>> without >>> the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >>> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is >>> escorted >>> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >>> confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption >>> is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of >>> the great state of Texas.] >> >> Now the phrase makes sense. >> >> I have assisted in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but >> never >> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >> custom begin? >> >> Bethany > From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 21 22:17:10 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:17:10 -0800 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin Message-ID: Randy Quaid, interviewed by Lillian Ross (in The New Yorker of 11/22/04, p. 39) about his role in Sam Shepard's new play, "The God of Hell": ----- Quaid, who lives in Beverly Hills with his wife, Evi, explained that he had to develop a Wisconsin accent for his role as a dairy farmer. "I had to make my 'r's more pronounced," he said. "Wisconsinites talk from the front of their mouths, because they don't want to breathe in the cold." ------ arnold, guessing that the intended parsing was [breathe in] [the cold], not [breathe] [in [the cold]] From preston at MSU.EDU Sun Nov 21 23:13:34 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 18:13:34 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <16A5DFB4-3C0B-11D9-9700-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: Good parsing arnold, but there does appear to be one phonological element which Wisconsonites have which is not shared with even their close Sotan and (some) Michigander talkalikes. The syllable division of the state name is wI - skan - s at n not wIs - con - s at n as the rest of us have it. It appears to be lexical rather than general (since they do not do funny things with the syllable division for such words as 'miscalculate'). Ah mimber whin Ah first wint up there frum Loovull to git me mah PhD how odd it sounded. I couldn't even figger out what they was doin fer a long time. Cheeseheads; funny talkers. dInIs >Randy Quaid, interviewed by Lillian Ross (in The New Yorker of >11/22/04, p. 39) about his role in Sam Shepard's new play, "The God of >Hell": >----- >Quaid, who lives in Beverly Hills with his wife, Evi, explained that he >had to develop a Wisconsin accent for his role as a dairy farmer. "I >had to make my 'r's more pronounced," he said. "Wisconsinites talk >from the front of their mouths, because they don't want to breathe in >the cold." >------ > >arnold, guessing that the intended parsing was > [breathe in] [the cold], not > [breathe] [in [the cold]] -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 00:31:43 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 19:31:43 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >Good parsing arnold, but there does appear to be one phonological >element which Wisconsonites have which is not shared with even their >close Sotan and (some) Michigander talkalikes. The syllable division >of the state name is > >wI - skan - s at n > >not wIs - con - s at n > >as the rest of us have it. or more accurately w at - , with less stress than the out-of-staters version below. Note the "transcription" below, from a nice piece from a few years ago featuring novelist Lorrie Moore: ===== The New York Times November 28, 1998, Saturday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section B; Page 9; Column 1; Arts & Ideas/Cultural Desk HEADLINE: Life Is Grim? Yes, but Good For a Laugh BYLINE: By BRUCE WEBER DATELINE: MADISON, Wis. "Wa-SKAHN-sin," Lorrie Moore said, articulating the syllables carefully, a lesson in local linguistics. "What you do, instead of breaking the syllables between the S and the C, you break between the A -- not usually in Wisconsin, of course -- and the S. So it's W-A, then there's a break, and there's S-K-A, with a nasal A." She was entertaining herself, much the way the characters in her stories and novels often do, playing with words, turning them this way and that, being impossibly clever. In the stories, it's usually a sign of a character's nervousness or discomfort or sense of crisis. "An attempt to amuse in times of deep unamusement," is the author's description of the impulse. But Ms. Moore herself, a reluctantly transplanted New Yorker walking the campus of the University of Wisconsin here, where she has taught in the English department for 14 years, seemed genuinely amused: Look how well I've assimilated! "I came here in the fall of 1984, and really, I thought 'Uh-uh,' " she said. "I was 27, by far the youngest person in the department. Everybody then was living the life that I'm living now, where you go to bed at 9:30 because your kids get you up at 6:30. I actually like Madison now. But it's a wonderful place to have a kid. When you start to have a little arthritis in the knees, it's easy to get around." [etc.] ===== > >It appears to be lexical rather than general (since they do not do >funny things with the syllable division for such words as >'miscalculate'). I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. larry > >Ah mimber whin Ah first wint up there frum Loovull to git me mah PhD >how odd it sounded. I couldn't even figger out what they was doin fer >a long time. > >Cheeseheads; funny talkers. > >dInIs > From douglas at NB.NET Mon Nov 22 01:09:29 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 20:09:29 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >The syllable division >of the state name is > >wI - skan - s at n > >not wIs - con - s at n > >as the rest of us have it. I didn't notice anything odd when I moved to Wisconsin. AFAIK, I've always said /wI skan s at n/, although I grew up in Detroit. Never thought about it, though. I say /dI sk at rIdZ/ and /dI skard/ too, I guess, but /mIs k&lkjulejt/. I suppose if I read aloud the unfamiliar word "discalculate" I would say /dIs k&lkjulejt/. I say /mI stejk/ but /mIs trit/, I think. The /I/ is more schwa-like when it doesn't have the following /s/ in the same syllable, I think. I suppose my tendencies are quite conventional in these things? -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 01:23:14 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 20:23:14 -0500 Subject: Oyster Pan Roast & Seafood Pan Roast & Olympia Pan Roast (1899) Message-ID: Someone forwarded me the following. "Seafood pan roast" was invented in New York City? Let's get our pan roasts straight. There is "Olympia Pan Roast" that the OED ("miserable on food") says dates from 1907 but a quick check shows 1899. This is from Washington State. There is "Oyster Pan Roast," made famous by the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal. However, the dish pre-dates even the Oyster Bar and probably was served in Coney Island hotels in the late 1800s. Then there is "Seafood Pan Roast," which is later and I'm too lazy to work on right now. (FACTIVA) SEAFOOD PAN ROAST IN BELLTOWN 299 words 19 November 2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer FINAL 5 English Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. Q: I just got back from Reno, where I discovered "seafood pan roast." We were told this dish had come from New York City and was adopted by quite a few of the casino oyster bars. Is there any place in the Seattle area that serves this type of seafood stew? - Sherwin, a pan roast fan A: You are one lucky devil, Sherwin. Alexandria's on 2nd (2020 Second Ave.; 206-374-3700), a new Southern-cuisine restaurant, offers a delicious, generous-sized seafood pan roast featuring lobster tail, shrimp and bay scallops atop a mound of fresh peas, corn, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes in a fish stock-based sauce made with heavy cream ($26.95). Chef Michael Franklin's seafood pan roast is similar to one made famous at Justin's, the New York and Atlanta white-tablecloth soul food restaurants opened by Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. Franklin once worked as a chef at Justin's. I'm not sure how either of these seafood pan roasts compares to what you tried in Reno, where, I've read, the Silver Legacy Hotel Casino sets the standard for this dish. Having spent some 20-plus days in Reno during each of the 1999 and 2000 holiday seasons, gift-wrapping Amazon.com purchases in its Fernley warehouse, I never had the opportunity, much less the energy, to survey the seafood pan roast casino phenomenon. Maybe next time, when I'm not working the night shift. - Penelope Corcoran (FACTIVA) FOOD NY SEAFOOD HOUSE CONTINUES TRADITION Series: NEW YORK'S MASTER CHEFS 928 words 23 May 1985 The Dallas Morning News HOME FINAL 14E English (Copyright 1985) Since the Grand Central Oyster Bar opened its doors in 1913, smart commuters and diners have filled the enormous rooms of this landmark institution to sample the best in fresh seafood. The team that maintains the restaurant's fine reputation, Chef Stanley Kramer, Pastry Chef Peter Roggensinger and George Morfogen, seafood buyer, share their secrets when they appear on New York's Master Chefs at noon Saturday on Channel 13/KERA. Kramer prepared his famous Oyster Pan Roast, fresh oysters simmered in their own juices with cream, a favorite among many New Yorkers, and Mako Shark Steak au Poivre. The show is then turned over to Roggensinger, who is responsible for The Oyster Bar's picture-perfect dessert buffet which boasts some 15 selections daily. Roggensinger's desserts include such down-home American treats as rice pudding, fruit pies and cheesecake, in addition to his daily specials -- Strawberry-Almond Galette, various mousses and sorbets, and Raspberry Honey-Almond Parfait, which he created during his segment of the program. The series' visit to The Oyster Bar wouldn't be complete without a visit with Morfogen, the restaurant's seafood buyer who is an expert on freshness. "No matter what kind of fish you buy,' says Morfogen, "the best way to keep it fresh is to place it on a bed of ice in the refrigerator. Just refrigerating it can dry it out.' New York's Master Chefs is a co-production of KQED/Golden State Productions and Exploration Television in association with WNET/Thirteen in New York. Bon Appetit, one of America's leading food magazines, is the series' culinary consultant. Here are recipes from the show. OYSTER PAN ROAST Prepare each serving separately. 2 tablespoons clam broth or juice 2 tablespoons ( 1/4 stick) butter, divided 1/4 teaspoon paprika, plus some for garnish Pinch of celery salt 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 9 shucked oysters with their liquor 1 to 2 tablespoons chili sauce 1/2 cup half and half 1 slice toast In top of double boiler, place clam broth, 1 tablespoon of the butter, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, celery salt and Worcestershire sauce; stir gently. Add oysters and simmer just until their edges start to curl, about 1 minute. Stir in chili sauce and half and half and heat through. Place slice of toast in warm bowl, pour oyster pan roast over toast, and float remaining tablespoon butter on top. Sprinkle with a pinch of paprika. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving. (FACTIVA) FEATURES - FOOD Cook's Corner OYSTER PAN ROAST 207 words 10 November 1999 THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Home Final 02F English (c) 1999 Columbus Dispatch. All Rights Reserved. For R.B., Newark, Ohio. This is the recipe from the Oyster Bar at Grand Central. Molly O'Neill included it in her New York Cookbook (Workman Publishing, $17.95). 6-8 large fresh oysters 1 tablespoon butter 3 tablespoons bottled clam juice, divided 1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce Dash celery salt 1/2 cup heavy cream 1 slice white bread, toasted Dash sweet paprika Shuck the oysters. Strain and reserve their liquor. Melt butter in a nonreactive skillet over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and add the oysters, their liquor and 2 tablespoons clam juice. Cook until oysters just begin to curl around the edges, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. In a small nonreactive saucepan over high heat, whisk together hot pepper and Worcestershire sauces, celery salt and the remaining 1 tablespoon clam juice. Whisk in the heavy cream and continue whisking until the mixture comes to a boil. Add the warm oysters and their cooking liquids; stir gently 1 minute. Place the toast in a wide soup bowl. Pour the pan roast over the toast and sprinkle with paprika. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving. Cindy Moran Westerville (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) New York, N. Y.; HIS MAJESTY, THE OYSTER Clementine Paddleford. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 18, 1949. p. H21 (1 page): _Nothing, New Yorkers insist,_ _can beat the bivalve dishes_ _in Grand Central Oyster Bar_ (...) The bar opened in 1913 as the first Union News restaurant. (...) _Oyster Pan Roast_ 4 dozen oysters 1/2 pound butter or margarine 6 tablespoons chili sauce 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 1/2 cups oyster liquor 1/2 teaspoon celery salt 1 teaspoon paprika 1/4 cup light cream Salt to taste Place oysters in a deep pan. Dot over butter or margarine, add sauces, lemon juice and oyster liquor and seasonings; bring to boiling point and cook one minute, stirring constantly. Add cream and bring to boiling point. Salt to taste. Serve over toast square in soup plates. Yield: 6 portions. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Grand Central Oyster Bar Shut, but May Reopen Soon; OYSTER PAN ROAST By JOHN L. HESS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 1, 1974. p. 32 (1 page) Nick Petter, the 76-year-old head cook, who came to work there in 1919, said the bar had never changed. With a sad smile, he gave permission to publish the recipe for its famous oyster stew: OYSTER PAN ROAST 8 freshly opened oysters 1 pat of butter 1 tablespoon chili sauce 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce A few drops of lemon juice 1/4 cup oyster liquor Celery salt, a dash Paprika 4 ounces cream 1 piece of dry toast (if desired) Place all but the cream in a deep pan and cook briskly for a minute, stirring constantly. Add cream. When it comes to boil, pour over toast in a soup plate and serve. (WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) Indianapolis Star Saturday, November 17, 1917 Indianapolis, Indiana ...with Bacon.... 60c New York OYSTER PAN ROAST 40c ROAST Goose, OYSTER.....Dressing ROAST Leg of Lamb, with Jelly....'. 45c.. Pg. 20, col. 5: HOFBRAU CAFE. Bismarck Tribune Tuesday, March 11, 1930 Bismarck, North Dakota ...40c Ovster Pepper ROAST 50c OYSTER PAN ROAST 50c SOUP Cream of Fresh Mushroom.....of Capon Creamed Mushrooms 60c ROAST ROAST young torn turkey, ROAST young.. Indianapolis Star Monday, November 12, 1917 Indianapolis, Indiana ...Stuffed White Pish, Egg Sauce OYSTER PAN ROAST, a la Budweiser Fried' Smelts.....Enamel Douche PAN. White Enam. Douche PAN. Perfection Douche PAN. Zinc Douche.. Pg. 14, col. 2: BUDWEISER CAFE. (OED) 2. Olympia pan roast, a dish of oysters served in a savoury sauce, originating in Olympia. 1907 Overland Monthly Dec. p. xvi/2 (advt.) Hotel Donnelly... The only restaurant in the city that makes Oyster Pan Roasts from the recipe of the originator of the famous Doane Olympia Pan Roast. 1961 Spectator 8 Dec. 879/1 American ingredients and American cooking..have always to me seemed most mysterious... Olympia pan roast (olympia is an oyster) and Green Goddess dressing..turn out to be entirely local [i.e. West Coast] inventions. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) PACIFIC COAST PROSPERITY. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Mar 12, 1899. p. 23 (1 page): "Oystermen of the East will certainly find many points of interest and profit to them by studying the oyster of the State of Washington. You may not have heard of the Olympia oyster. He is little, but he is a wonder. A good Olympia pan roast is the most delicious dish I know of. Cultivation of Eastern oysters is also in progress in our State." (BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE) 13 May 1900, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 14: 15c.--Pan roast of Oysters on Toast. 16 September 1900, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 12: OYSTER PAN ROAST, toast 15 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 03:28:06 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:28:06 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041121194150.031fc760@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 8:09 PM -0500 11/21/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>The syllable division >>of the state name is >> >>wI - skan - s at n >> >>not wIs - con - s at n >> >>as the rest of us have it. > >I didn't notice anything odd when I moved to Wisconsin. > >AFAIK, I've always said /wI skan s at n/, although I grew up in Detroit. Never >thought about it, though. > >I say /dI sk at rIdZ/ and /dI skard/ too, I guess, but /mIs k&lkjulejt/. > >I suppose if I read aloud the unfamiliar word "discalculate" I would say >/dIs k&lkjulejt/. > >I say /mI stejk/ but /mIs trit/, I think. and /mIs tUk/, I assume, for a closer minimal pair. or /mIs tajm/. > >The /I/ is more schwa-like when it doesn't have the following /s/ in the >same syllable, I think. I suppose my tendencies are quite conventional in >these things? > No doubt, but there's still the perception on the part of both sophisticated and naive speakers that /w@ skan s at n/ has more of a schwa for there-ites. I assume it correlates with degree of destressing. larry From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 03:39:15 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:39:15 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 6:13 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: the curious phonology of Wisconsin > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Good parsing arnold, but there does appear to be one phonological > element which Wisconsonites have which is not shared with even their > close Sotan and (some) Michigander talkalikes. The syllable division > of the state name is > > wI - skan - s at n > > not wIs - con - s at n > > as the rest of us have it. > > It appears to be lexical rather than general (since they do not do > funny things with the syllable division for such words as > 'miscalculate'). > > Ah mimber whin Ah first wint up there frum Loovull to git me mah PhD > how odd it sounded. I couldn't even figger out what they was doin fer > a long time. > > Cheeseheads; funny talkers. > > dInIs As fate and coincidence would have it, when my father first went up to Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was then an LlB but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation peculiar to a dialect." But this definition appears to be missing from DARE and even the word is missing from HDAS. -Wilson Gray > > > > > > >> Randy Quaid, interviewed by Lillian Ross (in The New Yorker of >> 11/22/04, p. 39) about his role in Sam Shepard's new play, "The God of >> Hell": >> ----- >> Quaid, who lives in Beverly Hills with his wife, Evi, explained that >> he >> had to develop a Wisconsin accent for his role as a dairy farmer. "I >> had to make my 'r's more pronounced," he said. "Wisconsinites talk >> from the front of their mouths, because they don't want to breathe in >> the cold." >> ------ >> >> arnold, guessing that the intended parsing was >> [breathe in] [the cold], not >> [breathe] [in [the cold]] > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African > Languages > A-740 Wells Hall > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824 > Phone: (517) 432-3099 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > preston at msu.edu > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African > Languages > A-740 Wells Hall > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824 > Phone: (517) 432-3099 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > preston at msu.edu > From RonButters at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 03:44:29 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:44:29 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20the=20curious=20pho?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?nology=20of=20Wisconsin?= Message-ID: In a message dated 11/21/04 6:13:59 PM, preston at MSU.EDU writes: > wI - skan - s at n > > not wIs - con - s at n > > as the rest of us have it. > I thought fer sher that my cousins from Green Bay aspirated the "c"! Maybe they just did a lot of heavy breahing when they left the cold air of Wisconsin for granny's house in balmy Iowa at Xmas. What really stood out for me was the centralized onsets of their diphthongs. From flanigan at OHIO.EDU Mon Nov 22 04:06:23 2004 From: flanigan at OHIO.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:06:23 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041121194150.031fc760@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: This Sotan says it the wI-skan-s at n way and finds it hard to split the /s/ and /k/ apart (the aspiration feels unnatural to me). I wonder if the original American Indian word might have something to do with it? Are you outsiders syllabifying the word artificially, maybe by analogy with mis- and dis-? Natives, and adopted natives, should know best! Like Doug, I never thought about it--until my students in Ohio commented on my pronunciation of the name. (And I should be grading their papers right now instead of writing this. . . .) At 08:09 PM 11/21/2004 -0500, you wrote: >>The syllable division >>of the state name is >> >>wI - skan - s at n >> >>not wIs - con - s at n >> >>as the rest of us have it. > >I didn't notice anything odd when I moved to Wisconsin. > >AFAIK, I've always said /wI skan s at n/, although I grew up in Detroit. Never >thought about it, though. > >I say /dI sk at rIdZ/ and /dI skard/ too, I guess, but /mIs k&lkjulejt/. > >I suppose if I read aloud the unfamiliar word "discalculate" I would say >/dIs k&lkjulejt/. > >I say /mI stejk/ but /mIs trit/, I think. > >The /I/ is more schwa-like when it doesn't have the following /s/ in the >same syllable, I think. I suppose my tendencies are quite conventional in >these things? > >-- Doug Wilson From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Nov 22 04:21:39 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 22:21:39 -0600 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature Message-ID: Ms. Aviv, I'm forwarding your request to the American Dialect Society. Maybe someone there will be able to help you. Offhand I don't know of any works of literature in which hot dogs figure prominently, although independent scholar Barry Popik has unearthed a wealth of "hot dog" stories/anecdotes/etc. in various humor magazines. If you're interested in that, we've just written a book (the late David Shulman is also listed as author) entitled _Origin of the Term "Hot Dog_"--- limited edition; currently at the print shop. If you're interested in that sort of material just let me know. (I'll be out of the office and away from my computer for a few days.) Sincerely, Gerald Cohen > ---------- > From: Rachel Aviv > Reply To: Rachel Aviv > Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:04 PM > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard > Subject: hot dogs in literature > > Dear Professor Cohen, > > Bruce Kraig suggested I write you. I am writing an article for the Believer (a San Francisco book review journal) about fat heroes in literature. I'm interested in talking about the role the hot dog has played in novels and poems -- I was wondering if you knew any early or current works in which hot dogs figure prominently. So far the only ones I can think of are Confederacy of Dunces and The Afterlife Diet. > I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad ("As when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it > quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true? And, if so - you don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be, do you? > > At this point, my research has been pretty limited to google searches, so if you have any suggestions, or if you could point me to a text or two, it would be a > great help -- > > Thanks very much! > > Best > > Rachel > > > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 04:28:21 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:28:21 -0500 Subject: "What's the matter with Kansas?"(1896); "What's the matter with Hannah?"(1875) Message-ID: WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS--72,800 Google hits, 643 Google Groups hits WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH--26 Google hits, 0 Google Groups hits Jon Stewart recently had the author of this book (Thomas Frank) on his show. "It's flat," Stewart said. The similar phrase "What's the matter with Hannah?" is forgotten now, but it should be recorded as a possible influence. I remember a stinker of a Shelley Winters film called WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HELEN?, but that's another story. (GOOGLE) William Allen White, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" William Allen White: "What's the Matter with Kansas?" 8/15/1896. Today the Kansas Department of Agriculture sent out a statement ... www.h-net.org/~shgape/internet/kansas.html - 11k - Cached - Similar pages 1896: What's the Matter with Kansas? What's the Matter with Kansas? William Allen White. Emporia Gazette, 15 August 1896. Reprinted courtesy the Kansas State Historical Society Website. ... projects.vassar.edu/1896/whatsthematter.html - 12k - Cached - Similar pages (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Athens Messenger Thursday, September 24, 1896 Athens, Ohio ...sin overproduction. Butthat doesn't, MATTER. KANSAS never did believi in.....nickel's worth of bluing. "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Nothinc under THE.. Daily Republican Thursday, September 03, 1896 Decatur, Illinois ...an overproduction. But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS never did believe in.....Cntza. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Today THE KANSAS Department nf.. Salem Daily News Friday, September 04, 1896 Salem, Ohio ...an overproduction. But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS never did believe in.....Arkansaw and Timbttctoo. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? We all know, yet.. Athens Messenger Thursday, October 08, 1896 Athens, Ohio ...impassable tv.'o months "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? earlier than usual.....in every way since 3SSS. I What is THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? I've u> thc villn.. Decatur Weekly Republican Thursday, September 10, 1896 Decatur, Illinois ...Craze. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Today THE KANSAS Department nf.....round trip from Deoatur, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH vou? mtod? Cascarots will.. Reno Evening Gazette Saturday, October 24, 1896 Reno, Nevada ...an over-produe'ion. But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS nevor did bellsve in.....any more. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? THE nation has grown rlcb. OTHEr.. Massillon Independent Thursday, September 17, 1896 Massillon, Ohio ...an overproduction But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS neve did believe in.....nickel's worth of bluing. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? Nothing under THE.. Steubenville Herald Tuesday, September 15, 1896 Steubenville, Ohio ...nickel's worth of bluing. WHAT'S THE MATTER KANSAS? Nothing under THE shining.....au oTerproductiou. But that doesn't MATTER. KANSAS never did believe in.. Ohio Democrat Thursday, September 10, 1896 New Philadelphia, Ohio ...evening and tell THEm WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS." As Mr. Stambaugh.....We failed to learn what was THE MATTER WITH KANSAS, but as THE gentleman.. CHICAGO TRIBUNE 1. HIS WIFE SAVED THE EDITORIAL.; Editor White Made Famous by the Good Judgment of His Partner in the Gazette. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Feb 28, 1897. p. 47 (1 page) 2. INSURANCE AFFAIRS.; THAT FACE! THAT FACE! Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: May 4, 1897. p. 7 (1 page) 3. Will Not Print White's Speech.; No Right to Confiscate Property. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Oct 15, 1897. p. 3 (1 page) 4. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? NOTHING. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Apr 1, 1899. p. 5 (1 page) LOS ANGELES TIMES 1. THE McKINLEY NUMBER--THIRD EDITION.; PRICES, INCLUDING POSTAGE. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 25, 1896. p. 6 (1 page) 2. THE McKINLEY NUMBER--THIRD EDITION.; PRICES, INCLUDING POSTAGE. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 26, 1896. p. 6 (1 page) 3. THE LESSON OF KANSAS. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Oct 29, 1896. p. 6 (1 page) NEW YORK TIMES The Story of William Allen White. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Nov 2, 1901. p. BR18 (1 page): The story of William Allen White's sudden fame through his "What's the Matter with Kansas" editorial is familiar to everybody, but it is not generally known by what a narrow opportunity Mr. White got there. It seems that one Summer the wife of the author of "Stratagems and Spoils" was at Colorado Springs. When he was leaving the office to join her his foreman came in and asked what provision he had made for the editorial columns during his absence. "There on that hook," said the editor, pointing to a spike on his desk upon which was impaled a quantity of manuscript. Theforeman detained Mr. White while he glanced it over, and announced that there wasn't enough copy. "Give me a little more," he pleaded, "and I'll manage to get along." "All right," said the editor, dropping into his chair. He dashed off the vigorous paragraphs, handed them to the foreman and was off for his train. When he returned he found his desk heaped two feet deep with letters, and himself a national character. It was that last editorial that did it. (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Burlington Weekly Hawkeye Thursday, November 04, 1875 Burlington, Iowa ...And now that's just WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH that's just what we.....past and we must have our say on THE MATTER, or we might burst. It is a.. Allen County Democrat Thursday, April 25, 1878 Lima, Ohio ...nnd unsteady step shows what Is-tlic MATTER WITH HANNAH, Tin ladles are right.....you Lot ne In aud tell mo WHAT'S THE MATTER." Sho let him In, and he found.. Decatur Republican Thursday, October 18, 1888 Decatur, Illinois ...wanted. [A voice That's WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH, by doinrics. Give it.....THE Cleveland administration thus did what THE republicans were charged WITH.. Hornellsville Weekly Tribune Friday, June 22, 1888 Hornellsville, New York ...where you lag, And "th'd'x WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH THE Elmira Advertiser.....defeat THE rag And "that's WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH Han lilmira Advertiser. But.. Bismarck Tribune Friday, December 31, 1880 Bismarck, North Dakota ...by don't my youux mmi propose was tho MATTER WITH HANNAH 7 don't I turn out my.....past. Hullo, Jack said I WHAT'S THE MATTER And I gave THE lady a seat on THE.. Ohio Democrat Thursday, September 10, 1896 New Philadelphia, Ohio ...may begin to realize 'WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH.' Xow, this.....its shattered system, how and WITH what friction and loss it THE one.. Saturday Herald Saturday, October 13, 1888 Decatur, Illinois ...Compare WITH his. THE war is over WITH THE democrats, except when THEy compare.....day is THE rich man of THE future. In what oTHEr country could THE poor.. Decatur Daily Republican Friday, October 12, 1888 Decatur, Illinois ...WITH his. THE war is "over WITH THE except when THEy comiare Palmer's.....day is THE rich man of THE future. In what oTHEr country could THE poor.. Middletown Daily Argus Friday, January 15, 1897 Middletown, New York ...and Oliver Hill, entitled: "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH HANNAH'.'" A silver.....said in praise of Platt. It necessary. THE had corralerl THE votes and WITH THE.. (AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES) 1. A GENERAL OCCULTATION. Joseph Sharpe. The Aldine, the Art Journal of America (1874-1879). New York: Jul 1, 1876. Vol. 8, Iss. 4; p. 140 (1 page) : For Old Probs, _alias_ Boreas, took in hand, And "that's what's the matter with Hannah!" 2. Article 9 -- No Title GOSHAWK.. Forest and Stream; A Journal of Outdoor Life, Travel, Nature Study, Shooting, Fishing, Yachting (1873-1930). New York: Jun 5, 1879. Vol. Volume 12, Iss. No. 18.; p. 352 (4 pages) 3. WHIMSICAL WOMAN. The National Police Gazette (1845-1906). New York: Jun 14, 1879. Vol. Vol. XXXIV., Iss. No. 90.; p. 7 (1 page) 4. THERE WAS A HOWL,; And it Came From the Brooklynites. AND THERE WAS A WAIL, And it Came From All the Other Clubites. A TAILENDER'S AWFUL OATH. PLAY BALL.. The National Police Gazette (1845-1906). New York: Jul 5, 1890. Vol. VOLUME LVI, Iss. No. 669.; p. 7 (1 page) (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) TOOMBS AGAIN TALKING.; UNDYING HATRED OF THE UNION. SOUTHERN WHITE REPUBLICANS MALIGNED AND YANKEES RIDICULED--HE OFFER TO MAKE A CONSTITUTION BY WHICH "THE PEOPLE" SHALL RULE AND "THE NIGGERS" NEVER BE HEARD OF. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jan 29, 1876. p. 2 (1 page): The largest county has the most representatives, no matter whether it is full of gophers or men! That's "what's the matter with Hannah, now!" (HISTORIC MISSOURI NEWSPAPER PROJECT) http://newspapers.umsystem.edu/Archive/skins/Missouri/navigator.asp?BP=OK&GZ=T&AW=1101096631140 24 October 1875, St. Louis Globe Democrat, pg. 11: But the trouble with these latter-day Williams de Faro is that they are for the most part unintelligble to all except a member of a college faculty or a professional interpreter. They can't speak English, nor can they _sprechen le Deitch_. But they _parlent Francais_ like a native Parisian. And now that's just what's the matter with Hannah: that's just what we are talking about. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 04:33:51 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:33:51 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 6:52 AM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > >>> I'm sure the first was meant. In any case, it's also used here in SE >>> Ohio, >>> in print obits too. I won't swear by it, but I think the phrase >>> "from >>> home" used to be used (in my parents' day) to indicate a home >>> funeral, >>> without the use of a mortuary: "He was buried from home." Do others >>> recognize this? >> >> When my maternal grandfather died in 1956 in NE Texas, he was "buried >> from home." The phrase, as you note, "indicates a home funeral, >> without >> the use of a mortuary." BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted >> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >> confused with the Texas Rangers). [Of course, the unspoken assumption >> is that the interment will take place somewhere within the borders of >> the great state of Texas.] > > Now the phrase makes sense. > > I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never > with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this > custom begin? > > Bethany > Perhaps the question is, rather, "When did it end?" At my grandfather's funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police was not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black people and denied to white people. -Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 04:59:38 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 23:59:38 -0500 Subject: "Adam Had 'Em" (1914) Message-ID: Gotta post before midnight. I was looking for the Bronx poem when this came up as the shortest. What does Fred have? LEE SIDE O'L.A. Lee Shippey. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Aug 5, 1928. p. B4 (1 page): Up to this moment, nineteen con-tribs have sent us in "the shortest poem," to-wit: "Adam had 'em." The only difference is in the title, some heading it "Cooties," some "fleas," some "Microbes," or what have you? But every last one, except L. M., submits it as an original poem! Sometimes we're almost inclined to fear there's nothing original, but sin. Display Ad 135 -- No Title Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Jan 28, 1951. p. G6 (2 pages): The two shortest poems I know are Ogden Nash's "The Bronx? No thonx!" amd the anonymous line concerning the antiquity of lfeas: "Adam had 'em." 1. A LINE O' TYPE OR TWO Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Dec 15, 1933. p. 16 (1 page): Adam had 'em, whatever it was: b;ind staggers, pants, freckles, taxes, automobiles, warts. Whatever it was we will never know. And, anyhow, the poem is only intended as a very classy decoration on the very swell cover of R. H. L.'s NOTEBOOK 2. A LINE O' TYPE OR TWO; OAKS FROM ACORNS. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Dec 10, 1943. p. 16 (1 page) 3. Bookman's Holiday; Sixteen Lines by Thirteen Bards DELOS AVERY. Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jun 23, 1946. p. B4 (1 page) 3. Queries and Answers; Queries and Answers New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug 16, 1925. p. BR21 (2 pages) First page:_"Adam Had 'Em"_ L. L.--I should be very glad if some one could help me to find a poem which I suppose is entitled "Adam and the 'Appile' Tree." I heard a lady give it as a reading and I remember this much: "Talk about troubles Adam, he had'em, Adam and the 'appile' tree." 4. Queries and Answers New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 4, 1926. p. BR23 (1 page) 5. Queries and Answers New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 25, 1926. p. BR20 (1 page) 1. Other 1 -- No Title The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: May 14, 1907. p. 6 (1 page) Article image - PDF Page map Citation 2. GIFT TO COLLEGE HEAD; Faculty Presents Loving Cup to Dr. Alderman. DIPLOMAS AWARDED TO 192 All Conferred Upon Students, as Univer- sity of Virginia Bestows no Honorary Degrees -- Beta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa Initiates Officers -- Ball to the Graduates Closes Week's Festivities. Special to The Washington Post.. The Washington Post. Jun 16, 1910. p. 12 (1 page) Article image - PDF Page map Abstract 3. THREE SHORTEST POEMS.; Two That Beat That Masterpiece "Adam Had 'Em." Strickland Gillian, in the Indianapolis Star.. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Jun 5, 1914. p. 6 (1 page): The "briefest possible" referred to was our long lyric entitled "The Antiquity of Microbes." And the poem itself was: "Adam Had 'em." From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 05:14:34 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:14:34 -0500 Subject: "Adam Had 'Em" (1911) Message-ID: Here's more. (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Lincoln Daily News Saturday, August 08, 1914 Lincoln, Nebraska ...The Antiquity of which reads: "ADAM HAD 'EM." Strlchland Gillilan may.....them." That was about the lost word he HAD HAD from Dick. They HAD ridden up to.. Charleroi Mail Saturday, March 25, 1911 Charleroi, Pennsylvania ...liquor men up. The Shortest Poem Made ADAM HAD 'EM. ___ Capt. Richmond Hobsori.....the effects of the heroic treatment HAD worr away the knee joint was good as.. Pg. 6(?), col. 2: _The Shortest Poem Made_ Adam Had 'em. Lincoln Daily News Saturday, June 27, 1914 Lincoln, Nebraska ...of Microbes." And the poem itself was: ADAM "HAD 'EM." Robertus speaks kindly.....kick that would have disabled a horse, HAD it struck home. Everybody under the.. Daily Commonwealth Friday, May 10, 1912 Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin ...of the Microbe." He arose and said, "ADAM HAD "em." and then sat down. "Well.....I remembered that the old rascal who HAD invaded my rooms HAD tried to make.. Pg. 7, col. 1: _Said Much in Little._ "Cy" Warman, the poet and humorist, is credited with the story of an after-dinner speaker who was called on to speak on "The Antiquity of the Microbe." He arose and said, "Adam had 'em," and then sat down. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 05:15:35 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:15:35 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 21, 2004, at 11:21 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Ms. Aviv, > I'm forwarding your request to the American Dialect Society. Maybe > someone there will be able to help you. Offhand I don't know of any > works of literature in which hot dogs figure prominently, although > independent scholar Barry Popik has unearthed a wealth of "hot dog" > stories/anecdotes/etc. in various humor magazines. If you're > interested in that, we've just written a book (the late David Shulman > is also listed as author) entitled _Origin of the Term "Hot Dog_"--- > limited edition; currently at the print shop. If you're interested in > that sort of material just let me know. (I'll be out of the office and > away from my computer for a few days.) > > Sincerely, > Gerald Cohen > >> ---------- >> From: Rachel Aviv >> Reply To: Rachel Aviv >> Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:04 PM >> To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard >> Subject: hot dogs in literature >> >> Dear Professor Cohen, >> >> Bruce Kraig suggested I write you. I am writing an article for the >> Believer (a San Francisco book review journal) about fat heroes in >> literature. I'm interested in talking about the role the hot dog has >> played in novels and poems -- I was wondering if you knew any early >> or current works in which hot dogs figure prominently. So far the >> only ones I can think of are Confederacy of Dunces and The Afterlife >> Diet. >> I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad >> ("As when a man beside a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and >> blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it >> quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true? And, if so - you >> don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be, >> do you? This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the sausage. Another word, orua [omicron-rho-upsilon-nu], dating from around 500 BCE, supposedly was used as the name of the completed sausage. -Wilson Gray >> >> At this point, my research has been pretty limited to google >> searches, so if you have any suggestions, or if you could point me to >> a text or two, it would be a >> great help -- >> >> Thanks very much! >> >> Best >> >> Rachel >> >> >> > From douglas at NB.NET Mon Nov 22 05:22:51 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:22:51 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: <8A2F4C39-3C45-11D9-BF59-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: >>>I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad >>>("As when a man beside a great fire has filled a sausage with fat and >>>blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it >>>quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true? And, if so - you >>>don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be, >>>do you? > >This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word >translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], >whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the >Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some >animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the >sausage. Maybe like a haggis. -- Doug Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 22 05:55:35 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:55:35 -0500 Subject: Stalkerazzi, Nonstoparazzi, Poopernazi and the Superflack Message-ID: STALKERAZZI--11,400 Google hits, 484 Google Groups hits NONSTOPARAZZI--8 Google hits, 1 Google Groups hit POOPERNAZI--9 Google hits, 1 Google Groups hit SUPERFLACK--256 Google hits, 14 Google Groups hits We probably discussed "stalkerazzi" before, but it's in the news. Their nemesis is..."superflack Ken Sunshine"? We have "superflacks" now? http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix.htm November 21, 2004 -- SUPERFLACK Ken Sunshine, who reps the likes of Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake, Leonardo DiCaprio, Barbra Streisand, Ricky Martin and Hilary Duff, is on a mission to stop "stalkerazzis" - and the magazine editors who support them. Sunshine, whose client Timberlake is involved with two lawsuits regarding paparazzi, says that by buying celebrity photos for astronomical amounts, Us Weekly editrix Janice Min and Star magazine's Bonnie Fuller are creating a "dangerous atmosphere that will get somebody killed." "The situation with stalkerazzi is completely out of control in Los Angeles," Sunshine fumed. (GOOGLE NEWS) DiCaprio warns struggle with 'stalkerazzi' could end in death Independent, UK - 4 hours ago ... to investigate the latest incident in the increasingly violent clashes between stars and packs of photographers who shadow them, known as the "Stalkerazzi". ... Justin & Cameron's Snaparazzi Scuffle NBC 17.com, NC - Nov 10, 2004 ... Justin's power publicist, Ken Sunshine, said celebrities have right to privacy. "If a star is walking down the street and a stalkerazzi or a photographer gets ... Tommy Lee hopes memoir will cleanse his image CTV, Canada - Nov 4, 2004 ... by press. He's even given the cameramen plenty of cutesy names such as "nonstoparazzi," "stalkerazzi" and "poopernazi.". "You guys ... (GOOGLE) New Words In English: O - Z ... Conversation). STALKERAZZI, n. (pl. stalkerazzis) Tabloid journalist who pursues celebrities night and day, dogging their every move. [Blend ... www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ling215/NewWords/page3.html - 23k - Cached - Similar pages (GOOGLE GROUPS) Pizza, stalking and reporters ... They are called "stalkerazzi." George Clooney has taken a stand against them and now so have many others. Right on, George! You just don't get it, do you? ... alt.music.pearl-jam - Nov 19, 1996 by Madashell - View Thread (3 articles) Re: News Item from MrShowBiz ... com>>>>> Jim Carrey Gets Into Fight With Tourist Jim Carrey may want to consider joining George Clooney's efforts to stop stalkerazzi videos. ... alt.fan.jim-carrey - Nov 19, 1996 by Raquel B. Starace - View Thread (2 articles) Re: HARD COPY ALERT ... (Details if requested.) Wonder if Carrey will be angry at HC if they show more ?stolen? footage (taken by the so-called stalkerazzi) and refuse to agree on ... alt.fan.jim-carrey - Nov 17, 1996 by Terri Buchman - View Thread (1 article) Re: More Trouble ... It's kind of a home turf thing, seems to me. OTOH, look at the boycott several stars are doing against one of the TV shows that uses "stalkerazzi" footage. ... alt.fan.keanu-reeves - Nov 9, 1996 by Tekora - View Thread (14 articles) From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Mon Nov 22 12:32:27 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 07:32:27 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: >> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never >> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >> custom begin? > >Perhaps the question is, rather, "When did it end?" At my grandfather's >funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police was >not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >people and denied to white people. Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I referenced began in the early 1950s. Thanks, Bethany From millerk at NYTIMES.COM Mon Nov 22 14:33:41 2004 From: millerk at NYTIMES.COM (Kathleen E. Miller) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:33:41 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <35133.69.142.143.59.1100929283.squirrel@69.142.143.59> Message-ID: There's a radio commercial out now, some cell phone company (I think it was that nextel coast-to-coast program), that smashes together all three December holidays into something like chrismahanakwanzakkah. Kathleen E. Miller From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Mon Nov 22 14:37:30 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:37:30 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: I recently attended two funerals in southern Kentucky. At the first funeral, the cemetery was about six miles out of town; there was a police escort to just past the city limits, and then the funeral procession continued on its own. At the second funeral, the cemetery was only a mile or two outside of town, and the police escort continued to the cemetery. In both cases, it was local city police, not state police. The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the highway and waiting for the funeral procession to pass. John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of Bethany K. Dumas Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 7:32 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: >> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but never >> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >> custom begin? > >Perhaps the question is, rather, "When did it end?" At my grandfather's >funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police was >not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >people and denied to white people. Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I referenced began in the early 1950s. Thanks, Bethany From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Nov 22 14:43:28 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:43:28 -0500 Subject: [?] Stalkerazzi, Nonstoparazzi, Poopernazi and the Superflack Message-ID: American Dialect Society on Monday, November 22, 2004 at 12:55 AM -0500 wrote: > >We probably discussed "stalkerazzi" before, but it's in the news. stalkerazzi ANW Vol. 72.3 stalkerazzi or stalkarazzi or stalk-arazzi DC Vol. 10.3 stalkerazzo DC Vol. 10.3 David K. Barnhart, Editor/Publisher The Barnhart DICTIONARY COMPANION Lexik at highlands.com From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Mon Nov 22 14:52:28 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:52:28 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <20041122050029.9B0C4B24ED@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: Larry Horn sez: >>> At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >wI - skan - s at n or more accurately w at - [...] I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. <<< "Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. And if /sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole lexicon? mark by hand From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 15:42:39 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:42:39 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.2.20041122092552.0246fe40@smtp-store.nytimes.com> Message-ID: --On Monday, November 22, 2004 9:33 AM -0500 "Kathleen E. Miller" wrote: > There's a radio commercial out now, some cell phone company (I think it > was > that nextel coast-to-coast program), that smashes together all three > December holidays into something like chrismahanakwanzakkah. > A friend of mine regularly uses the term "Chriskwanzukah" with reference to holiday-gift-giving opportunities. -- Alice Faber Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 faber at haskins.yale.edu From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Mon Nov 22 16:18:15 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:18:15 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:33:41 -0500, Kathleen E. Miller wrote: >There's a radio commercial out now, some cell phone company (I think it was >that nextel coast-to-coast program), that smashes together all three >December holidays into something like chrismahanakwanzakkah. That's Virgin Mobile, and they spell it "Chrismahanukwanzakah" in their TV and print ads: http://www.virginmobileusa.com/promo/Christmas2004FourPhone.do --Ben Zimmer From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 18:27:34 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:27:34 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: <8A2F4C39-3C45-11D9-BF59-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: At 12:15 AM -0500 11/22/04, Wilson Gray wrote: >This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word >translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], >whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the >Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some >animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the >sausage. I wonder if it's rendered as "haggis" in the standard Fitzgerald translation... larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 18:54:09 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:54:09 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: <20041122095140.W91696@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: At 9:52 AM -0500 11/22/04, Mark A. Mandel wrote: >Larry Horn sez: > >>>> > >At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>wI - skan - s at n > >or more accurately w at - > > [...] > >I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort >effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. > ><<< > >"Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ >takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. I admit I don't know enough to be able to empirically argue the point, but... >And if >/sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole >lexicon? ...it does tend to occur hand-in-hand with loss of transparency, as in the "mi-stake" vs. "mis-took" examples we were just discussing, or e.g. "di-sturb", "di-stort", "di-stinct" vs. "dis-taste", "dis-temper". There's even less effort involved after the resyllabification if you then drop the now totally unstressed first syllable, whence "Sconsin" for many native Badger Staters. (It's even a shibboleth, as in Kenny Mayne's pronunciation on ESPN's SportsCenter.) L From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 19:03:36 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:03:36 -0600 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: > > I'd add that city or county police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral > > processions "up home" in Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. Huntsville, AL is a city with one foot in the 21st century, and one in the 19th. About once a year, someone proposes that the city can save money be stopping the practice of police escorts from the funeral home to the graveyard. Everyone agrees that this would save money, but the proposal always gets voted down because it just doesn't seem right. I think some of the larger cities in AL have dropped the practice, though. From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Nov 22 19:04:15 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 11:04:15 -0800 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin Message-ID: Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond (or tonsil)?' >mark by hand From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 19:26:52 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:26:52 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 22, 2004, at 12:22 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >>>> I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the Iliad >>>> ("As when a man beside a great fire has filled a sausage with fat >>>> and >>>> blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it >>>> quickly roasted") -- would you say that's true? And, if so - you >>>> don't know what the exact translation of the sausage word would be, >>>> do you? >> >> This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word >> translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], >> whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the >> Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some >> animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the >> sausage. > > Maybe like a haggis. > > -- Doug Wilson > Good eye, Doug! That's a great call! -Wilson Gray From preston at MSU.EDU Mon Nov 22 19:28:39 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:28:39 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: larry, Careful with that "totally" dropped (unless totally dropped for you includes compensatory factors). I think you will hear a long /s/ in those "Sconsins" (like you hear incredibly long /n/'s in Indianapolis when it's pronounced /nnnaepl at s/. dInIs >At 9:52 AM -0500 11/22/04, Mark A. Mandel wrote: >>Larry Horn sez: >> >>>>> >> >>At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>wI - skan - s at n >> >>or more accurately w at - >> >> [...] >> >>I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort >>effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. >> >><<< >> >>"Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ >>takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. > >I admit I don't know enough to be able to empirically argue the point, but... > >>And if >>/sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole >>lexicon? > >...it does tend to occur hand-in-hand with loss of transparency, as >in the "mi-stake" vs. "mis-took" examples we were just discussing, or >e.g. "di-sturb", "di-stort", "di-stinct" vs. "dis-taste", >"dis-temper". There's even less effort involved after the >resyllabification if you then drop the now totally unstressed first >syllable, whence "Sconsin" for many native Badger Staters. (It's >even a shibboleth, as in Kenny Mayne's pronunciation on ESPN's >SportsCenter.) > >L -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 19:31:49 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:31:49 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 22, 2004, at 1:27 PM, Laurence Horn wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Laurence Horn > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > At 12:15 AM -0500 11/22/04, Wilson Gray wrote: >> This line is actually from the Odyssey, not the Iliad. The word >> translated as "sausage" is gaster [gamma-alpha-sigma-tau-eta-rho], >> whose literal meaning is "stomach." In some translations of the >> Odyssey, the literal meaning is used. Presumably, the stomach of some >> animal was used as the casing for the material(s) used to make the >> sausage. > > I wonder if it's rendered as "haggis" in the standard Fitzgerald > translation... > > larry > IMO, that would be a great translation, whether totally accurate or not. -Wilson From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Mon Nov 22 19:39:03 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 14:39:03 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of Wisconsin In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 2:28 PM -0500 11/22/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >larry, > >Careful with that "totally" dropped (unless totally dropped for you >includes compensatory factors). I think you will hear a long /s/ in >those "Sconsins" (like you hear incredibly long /n/'s in Indianapolis >when it's pronounced /nnnaepl at s/. > >dInIs Well, I didn't actually *say* the first syllable was totally dropped, I said it was totally unstressed (whence the tendency to schwagenize the vowel) and that it's dropped by many Badger Staters. I think, it retrospect, that while some do have the long /s/ there, many don't, and for many of those who do lengthen the /s/ it's not as remarkably lengthened as the /n/ of the tri-plus-syllabic rendering of "Indianapolis". (Which would make sense, since there's less compensation involved.) L > >>At 9:52 AM -0500 11/22/04, Mark A. Mandel wrote: >>>Larry Horn sez: >>> >>>>>> >>> >>>At 6:13 PM -0500 11/21/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>>wI - skan - s at n >>> >>>or more accurately w at - >>> >>> [...] >>> >>>I've always regarded that as a kind of familiarity-breeds-least-effort >>>effect, not unanalogous to "loovull" below. >>> >>><<< >>> >>>"Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ >>>takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. >> >>I admit I don't know enough to be able to empirically argue the point, but... >> >>>And if >>>/sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole >>>lexicon? >> >>...it does tend to occur hand-in-hand with loss of transparency, as >>in the "mi-stake" vs. "mis-took" examples we were just discussing, or >>e.g. "di-sturb", "di-stort", "di-stinct" vs. "dis-taste", >>"dis-temper". There's even less effort involved after the >>resyllabification if you then drop the now totally unstressed first >>syllable, whence "Sconsin" for many native Badger Staters. (It's >>even a shibboleth, as in Kenny Mayne's pronunciation on ESPN's >>SportsCenter.) >> >>L > > >-- >Dennis R. Preston >University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics >Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages >A-740 Wells Hall >Michigan State University >East Lansing, MI 48824 >Phone: (517) 432-3099 >Fax: (517) 432-2736 >preston at msu.edu From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 21:12:46 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:12:46 -0600 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature Message-ID: There's a scene in _Salem's Lot_ (Stephen King) where the protagonist discusses the right way to cook hot dogs with his would-be girlfriend's father. Not written literature, but Clint Eastwood is eating a hot dog when he stops an armed robbery in one of the Dirty Harry movies. Aviv's email address didn't show up. Will you (Gerald) forward to her? > -----Original Message----- > From: Cohen, Gerald Leonard [mailto:gcohen at UMR.EDU] > Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:22 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" > Subject: Re: Request for info on hot dogs in literature > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Ms. Aviv, > I'm forwarding your request to the American Dialect > Society. Maybe someone there will be able to help you. > Offhand I don't know of any works of literature in which hot > dogs figure prominently, although independent scholar Barry > Popik has unearthed a wealth of "hot dog" > stories/anecdotes/etc. in various humor magazines. If you're > interested in that, we've just written a book (the late David > Shulman is also listed as author) entitled _Origin of the > Term "Hot Dog_"--- limited edition; currently at the print > shop. If you're interested in that sort of material just let > me know. (I'll be out of the office and away from my computer > for a few days.) > > Sincerely, > Gerald Cohen > > > ---------- > > From: Rachel Aviv > > Reply To: Rachel Aviv > > Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 10:04 PM > > To: Cohen, Gerald Leonard > > Subject: hot dogs in literature > > > > Dear Professor Cohen, > > > > Bruce Kraig suggested I write you. I am writing an article > for the Believer (a San Francisco book review journal) about > fat heroes in literature. I'm interested in talking about > the role the hot dog has played in novels and poems -- I was > wondering if you knew any early or current works in which hot > dogs figure prominently. So far the only ones I can think of > are Confederacy of Dunces and The Afterlife Diet. > > I read online that a hot dog like substance appeared in the > Iliad ("As > > when a man besides a great fire has filled a sausage with > fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very > eager to get it quickly roasted") -- would you say that's > true? And, if so - you don't know what the exact translation > of the sausage word would be, do you? > > > > At this point, my research has been pretty limited to > google searches, > > so if you have any suggestions, or if you could point me to > a text or > > two, it would be a great help -- > > > > Thanks very much! > > > > Best > > > > Rachel > > > > > > > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 22:14:31 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:14:31 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 22, 2004, at 7:32 AM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Sun, 21 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray wrote: > >>> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but >>> never >>> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >>> custom begin? >> >> Perhaps the question is, rather, "When did it end?" At my >> grandfather's >> funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >> be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >> at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >> panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >> expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police >> was >> not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >> people and denied to white people. > > Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I > referenced began in the early 1950s. > > Thanks, > Bethany > In the _early_ '50's? That's surprising! Were the funerals in a dry county or a wet one? Marshall's both the county seat of a _dry_ county _and_ the home of the East Texas Babdis (i.e. Baptist) University, Hence, it's a more Christian location than some other towns and most cities in Texas, not to mention that my grandfather was himself a minister. Given the generally high level of holiness in the region and on this occasion, perhaps the Lord God of Hosts Himself spake unto some desk sergeant at the local state-police barracks.;-) -Wilson From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 22:15:11 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:15:11 -0600 Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? Message-ID: >From _The American Golfer_, December, 1915, No. 2, p. 90-100. "Players of the Period - VI. Mr. Edward Blackwell" "He has suppressed the craving and given himself contentment, but when the time for reunion has come again he has gone the whole length, as we say in slang, and in a fine enthusiasm has pursued this game on the east coast and the west, among the highlands and the lowlands of his own north Britain, and then by the shores and in the nooks and crannies of England and in the very heart of it where he has made his home in Worcestershire." I found a couple of other cites from this magazine in which "the whole length" has more or less the same meaning we currently ascribe to "the whole nine yards". Apparently it was thought of as a slang phrase then. I haven't searched for it in any other sources. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 22:16:25 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:16:25 -0600 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: > perhaps the Lord God of Hosts Himself spake unto > some desk sergeant at the local state-police barracks.;-) > Maybe He threatened to smite him. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 22:39:47 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:39:47 -0600 Subject: short slang story Message-ID: This is short enough it seemed proper to send it in total. "A Golf Fable in Slang" Wilbur L. Smith, _The American Golfer_, February, 1913, No. 4, p. 316-317. A GOLF FABLE IN SLANG BY WILBUR L. SMITH. (With apologies to Geo. Ade.) Once there was a Bachelor, 5 ft. 7 in. tall, who Tipped the Toy of the Blind Goddess of Justice at 277 lbs. Plus (in his Stocking Feet) and in order to Eliminate a few Pounds of Excess Baggage, he decided that Golf would be just about the Proper Caper. It so happened that there was a Skinny, Suffragette, Bachelor Maid, of uncertain Vintage, 5 ft. 7 in. tall who, in a Salome Costume, weighed just 100 lbs. Minus, and was Advised to play "Goff" to gain a few Ounces of Upholstering for her Slats. It also happened that there was a Smart Boob who was Hep to the Ideas of this Abnormal Pair, and Introduced this Human Steam Roller to the Human Darning Needle, and what was the Result? Answer: We shall Discern later. They were members of the Dubbmore Golf Club, and one Bright, Sunshiny Day, in the Pup Days of August, decided to go out for the P. M. and see if they could not Accomplish their Fell Designs. They engaged a couple of caddies to Tote the Junk and Teed off at No. 1. The Human D. N. used to play some Croquet, and held the Ladies' Open Championship Cup of the Summer Colony at Swamphurst, and knew something about a Sphere. She teed the ball carefully and Deliberately and Drove off. The Human S. R. had so much Abdominal Excess, and Extended over the Building Line so far, that when he Addressed the Ball he could not see it, but after two Vicious Stabs succeeded in hitting it (his Caddie said to the other Robber: "Gee! he couldn't hit a Bale of Hay with a Mallet") and the Pill Stopped in a nice Pot Bunker just 32 yards away-his Afternoon Affinity being over by a good Hair Mattress. She holed out in 9 (par 4). He in 14. At No. 2 tee she made a B-e-a-utiful drive, viz.: 32 yards, and he topped two times into a stream that was 10 yards from the tee-4 feet across at High, perfectly dry at Low tide- losing the ball. (His Philosophical caddie informed him that they would have a Revenue Cutter with a Diver, Anchored there next Season.) She made an 8 and He 14 (par 3). They Excavated the Course in Spots, Flubdubbed around, lost several of the Elusive Pills, and otherwise Laboriously Wormed their way to No. 13. His Collar was as Wet as Sop, and He was all Mussed-Up. Her Face was Devoid of Powder, Revealing a few Transverse Sub-Stratum Bunkers. At this tee, Dear Reader, she made the only Decent Drive of the day, for the ball Ceased Ambling 97 yards Down the Center. He, for the first time, Connected with the ball, for a Horrible Slice; Wafted it 210 yards, West S. W. ? W. into the Tall Timber (the course he should have Navigated was East S. E. ? E.), and up to Going to Press the Sphere is still Ricocheting Around in the Conservation District. After this Horrible Episode he was quite Desperate and Muttered: "Curses; the Devil is in the Ball today" and Suggested to his Laurel Crowned Opponent that they Repair to the Life Saving Station-which they do. After the Showers, she tried some Oolong with a bit of Lemon and Instructor Crackers-he Lapped up a few with Maraschino Cherries in 'em. then took her back to her Home in his Limozette. For Dinner she ate one Reed Bird with a piece of Dry Toast, and was restless on her Downy Couch during the Whole Night. He went to his Club for Dinner, and told the waiter he was so hungry that he could Eat a Raw Mule Stuffed with Fire-Crackers-so the waiter brought him an Extra Porter-house with Frills and Bubble Juice, and later when he went to the Hay, Slept like Capt. Kidd. When he "Weighed in" the next morning he Threw a Fit, for the Scales Showed a Net Gain of 4 lbs. Plus. He telephoned her, and Horrors Above-she had lost-weighed 97 lbs. Minus. Moral: It was ever thus in a Golfer's happiest hour, to see some fondest hope Collapse. From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Mon Nov 22 22:46:58 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:46:58 -0500 Subject: short slang story Message-ID: Rats! I though you had found "mulligan." Or "skins." :( SC ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" To: Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 5:39 PM Subject: short slang story > This is short enough it seemed proper to send it in total. > > "A Golf Fable in Slang" Wilbur L. Smith, _The American Golfer_, February, > 1913, No. 4, p. 316-317. > > A GOLF FABLE IN SLANG > BY WILBUR L. SMITH. > (With apologies to Geo. Ade.) > > Once there was a Bachelor, 5 ft. 7 in. tall, who Tipped the Toy of the Blind > Goddess of Justice at 277 lbs. Plus (in his Stocking Feet) and in order to > Eliminate a few Pounds of Excess Baggage, he decided that Golf would be just > about the Proper Caper. It so happened that there was a Skinny, > Suffragette, Bachelor Maid, of uncertain Vintage, 5 ft. 7 in. tall who, in a > Salome Costume, weighed just 100 lbs. Minus, and was Advised to play "Goff" > to gain a few Ounces of Upholstering > for her Slats. It also happened that there was a Smart Boob who was Hep to > the Ideas of this Abnormal Pair, and Introduced this Human Steam Roller to > the Human Darning Needle, and what was the Result? Answer: We shall Discern > later. They were members of the Dubbmore Golf Club, and one Bright, Sunshiny > Day, in the Pup Days of August, decided to go out for the P. M. and see if > they could not Accomplish their Fell Designs. They engaged a couple of > caddies to Tote the Junk and Teed off at No. 1. The Human D. N. used to play > some Croquet, and held the Ladies' Open Championship Cup of the Summer > Colony at Swamphurst, and knew something about a Sphere. She teed the ball > carefully and Deliberately and Drove off. The Human S. R. had so much > Abdominal Excess, and Extended over the Building Line so far, that when he > Addressed the Ball he could not see it, but after two Vicious Stabs > succeeded in hitting it (his Caddie said to the other Robber: "Gee! he > couldn't hit a Bale of Hay with a Mallet") and the Pill Stopped in a nice > Pot Bunker just 32 yards away-his Afternoon Affinity being over by a good > Hair Mattress. She holed out in 9 (par 4). He in 14. > > At No. 2 tee she made a B-e-a-utiful drive, viz.: 32 yards, and he topped > two times into a stream that was 10 yards from the tee-4 feet across at > High, perfectly dry at Low tide- losing the ball. (His Philosophical caddie > informed him that they would have a Revenue Cutter with a Diver, Anchored > there next Season.) She made an 8 and He 14 (par 3). They Excavated the > Course in Spots, Flubdubbed around, lost several of the Elusive Pills, and > otherwise Laboriously Wormed their way to No. 13. His Collar was as Wet as > Sop, and He was all Mussed-Up. Her Face was Devoid of Powder, Revealing a > few Transverse Sub-Stratum Bunkers. At this tee, Dear Reader, she made the > only Decent Drive of the day, for the ball Ceased Ambling 97 yards Down the > Center. He, for the first time, Connected with the ball, for a Horrible > Slice; Wafted it 210 yards, West S. W. ? W. into the Tall Timber (the course > he should have Navigated was East S. E. ? E.), and up to Going to Press the > Sphere is still Ricocheting Around in the Conservation District. > > After this Horrible Episode he was quite Desperate and Muttered: "Curses; > the Devil is in the Ball today" and Suggested to his Laurel Crowned Opponent > that they Repair to the Life Saving Station-which they do. After the > Showers, she tried some Oolong with a bit of Lemon and Instructor > Crackers-he Lapped up a few with Maraschino Cherries in 'em. then took her > back to her Home in his Limozette. > > For Dinner she ate one Reed Bird with a piece of Dry Toast, and was restless > on her Downy Couch during the Whole Night. He went to his Club for Dinner, > and told the waiter he was so hungry that he could Eat a Raw Mule Stuffed > with Fire-Crackers-so the waiter brought him an Extra Porter-house with > Frills and Bubble Juice, and later when he went to the Hay, Slept like Capt. > Kidd. > > When he "Weighed in" the next morning he Threw a Fit, for the Scales Showed > a Net Gain of 4 lbs. Plus. > > He telephoned her, and Horrors Above-she had lost-weighed 97 lbs. Minus. > > Moral: It was ever thus in a Golfer's happiest hour, to see some fondest > hope Collapse. > From douglas at NB.NET Mon Nov 22 22:58:24 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:58:24 -0500 Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49796@rdec-exch8.ds.amr dec.army.mil> Message-ID: >"He has suppressed the craving and given himself contentment, but when the >time for reunion >has come again he has gone the whole length, as we say in slang, and in a >fine enthusiasm has pursued this >game on the east coast and the west, among the highlands and the lowlands of >his own north Britain, and >then by the shores and in the nooks and crannies of England and in the very >heart of it where he has made >his home in Worcestershire." > >I found a couple of other cites from this magazine in which "the whole >length" has more or less the same meaning we currently ascribe to "the whole >nine yards". Apparently it was thought of as a slang phrase then. I >haven't searched for it in any other sources. This is like "go the distance" or "go the extra mile", I suppose, and currently there is "go the whole nine yards" in similar application; however, according to the available data AFAIK, the earlier "whole nine yards" was not used this way: in the 1960's and 1970's the usual usage was "[have/get/etc.] the whole nine yards" as if the yards measured some substance rather than "go the whole nine yards" as if the yards measured a distance. The earliest "go the whole nine yards" in HDAS is 1981, while the earliest examples (1966) had IIRC something like (1) "untangle the whole nine yards [of divorce red tape]", (2) "buy/get the whole nine yards [of tonsorial treatment]", and an interjection "The whole nine yards!" in context which would suggest implicit "She offers the whole nine yards [of sex etc.]" IMHO. Of course it is not impossible that there is considerable undiscovered early "nine yards" material which would change the picture. -- Doug Wilson From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 22 23:00:06 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:00:06 -0800 Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? Message-ID: Bill, this is entirely new to me but very interesting. JL "Mullins, Bill" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Mullins, Bill" Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From _The American Golfer_, December, 1915, No. 2, p. 90-100. "Players of the Period - VI. Mr. Edward Blackwell" "He has suppressed the craving and given himself contentment, but when the time for reunion has come again he has gone the whole length, as we say in slang, and in a fine enthusiasm has pursued this game on the east coast and the west, among the highlands and the lowlands of his own north Britain, and then by the shores and in the nooks and crannies of England and in the very heart of it where he has made his home in Worcestershire." I found a couple of other cites from this magazine in which "the whole length" has more or less the same meaning we currently ascribe to "the whole nine yards". Apparently it was thought of as a slang phrase then. I haven't searched for it in any other sources. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! ? Get yours free! From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 23:00:15 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:00:15 -0600 Subject: whole nine yards -- predecessor phrase??? Message-ID: > > Of course it is not impossible that there is considerable > undiscovered early "nine yards" material which would change > the picture. > Given the efforts by the members of this list, I would be surprised at "considerable". From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Mon Nov 22 23:26:09 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:26:09 -0600 Subject: Golf -- was: short slang story Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Sam Clements [mailto:SClements at NEO.RR.COM] > Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 4:47 PM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: short slang story > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Sam Clements > Subject: Re: short slang story > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Rats! I though you had found "mulligan." Or "skins." :( > > SC > The Amateur Athletic Foundation has files of American Golfer (1908 - 1920) and Golf Illustrated & Outdoor America (1914-1915) online. No mulligans, nothing on skins game. But I did find: birdie "Four-Ball Matches" Leighton Calkins, The American Golfer, November, 1908, No. 1, p. 18-20. "With all four players evenly matched, it is generally necessary for one of them to "jump out of the bunch" with a "birdie" in order to capture a hole." eagle "Around Philadelphia " by Hazard, The American Golfer, January, 1909, No. 3, p. 124-128. "A much mooted question is "who was the father of Birdies?" That distinction certainly belongs to one of the brothers Smith either A. H. or W. P. Some four or five years ago a party of Philadelphia golfers at Atlantic City decided that in order to improve their play, a premium of one ball from each player should be given the man who succeeded in making any hole in one less than par; in other words, accurate play up to the "tee," rather than onto the green in general was encouraged and rewarded. The innovation met with immediate favor, and from its nest in Philadelphia the Birdie has taken wing to all parts of the country. Sometime after the hatching of the Birdie another feathered feature was given to golf the Eagle, which soars even higher than the Birdie and is consequently doubly rewarded. To secure an Eagle one must hole out in two less than par, thereby receiving from each opponent three balls (two for the Eagle and one for the Birdie)." bogey (as a verb) "From the South " The Judge, The American Golfer, March, 1910, No. 5, p. 373-377. "The seventh hole here is close to 400 yards, first down hill and then up a rather steep incline, bogeyed at 5." "1910 Southern Championship" The American Golfer, July, 1910, No. 2, p. 131-136 "The East Lake course, 6,300 yards in length, is bogeyed as follows with distances given: [table follows]" From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Mon Nov 22 23:31:51 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:31:51 -0500 Subject: Predating "boogaloo" Message-ID: HDAS dates "boogaloo" to 1974 as a noun, to 1972 as part of a verb phrase and to 1971 as a verb, noting that all uses derive from the name of a dance popular in the 'Sixties. An otherwise-unknown singer, Kent Harris, fronting two different equally otherwise-unknown bands, Freddie Simon's Band and Ernie Freeman's Combo (Ernie Freeman did enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame as a solo act) recorded several songs under the name, "Boogaloo and His Gallant Crew," for Crest Records in 1956. -Wilson Gray From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Tue Nov 23 00:23:21 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 19:23:21 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray quoted me: >>>> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but >>>> never >>>> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >>>> custom begin? >> Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I >> referenced began in the early 1950s. then wrote: >In the _early_ '50's? That's surprising! Were the funerals in a dry >county or a wet one? Marshall's both the county seat of a _dry_ county >_and_ the home of the East Texas Babdis (i.e. Baptist) University, >Hence, it's a more Christian location than some other towns and most >cities in Texas, not to mention that my grandfather was himself a >minister. Given the generally high level of holiness in the region and >on this occasion, perhaps the Lord God of Hosts Himself spake unto some >desk sergeant at the local state-police barracks.;-) I have no idea whether the county was wet/dry! But one of the burials was of my maternal gf, a local Primitive Baptist preacher - I don't think the degree/brand of Christianity made any difference. If you know central TX, think Gonzales/Waelder = Gonzales County. Bethany From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 23 02:29:20 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 21:29:20 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 22, 2004, at 7:23 PM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Wilson Gray quoted me: > >>>>> I have assised in the burial of a number of Texans, all dead, but >>>>> never >>>>> with the assistance of the Texas State Police. When did this >>>>> custom begin? > >>> Interesting - the custom must have varied by county, The burials I >>> referenced began in the early 1950s. > > then wrote: > >> In the _early_ '50's? That's surprising! Were the funerals in a dry >> county or a wet one? Marshall's both the county seat of a _dry_ county >> _and_ the home of the East Texas Babdis (i.e. Baptist) University, >> Hence, it's a more Christian location than some other towns and most >> cities in Texas, not to mention that my grandfather was himself a >> minister. Given the generally high level of holiness in the region and >> on this occasion, perhaps the Lord God of Hosts Himself spake unto >> some >> desk sergeant at the local state-police barracks.;-) > > I have no idea whether the county was wet/dry! But one of the burials > was > of my maternal gf, a local Primitive Baptist preacher - I don't think > the > degree/brand of Christianity made any difference. > > If you know central TX, think Gonzales/Waelder = Gonzales County. > > Bethany > Good point. BTW, folk in Marshall pronounce "y'all" in the ordinary, expected way. However, when Marshallites pronounce the long form, "you-all," it sounds like "YEW-wall." But there's nothing particularly noticeable about the way "you was/were you wish you would" etc. are pronounced. Ever notice anything like that? -Wilson From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Nov 23 03:11:36 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 22:11:36 EST Subject: "Faked into the popcorn machine" (1966) Message-ID: FAKED INTO THE POPCORN MACHINE--23 Google hits, 11 Google Groups hits ProQuest's Los Angeles Times is now at March 1967! It's advanced three months just now! We'd been waiting months for movement--and now we've got three more digitized months! Still no "slam dunk," but I found the following to be worth recording. _Hearn: a Snap, a Crackle and a Popcorn Machine_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000496069442&SrchMode=1&sid=25&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD& RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101178652&clientId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Mar 18, 1966. p. B1 (1 page): He (Chic Hearn--ed.) is most famous for having players "faked into the popcorn machine," but Hearn's invention does not stop there. He's never more than a syllable behind the action. The "dribble-drive," "give-and-go" are Hearn-ese, not basketball-ese. Any game needs imaginative synonyms for standard plays--"red dog" for a three-man rush, "hummer" for fastball, and "she's going, going, GONE!" for a dramatic home run instead of just simply "and Snyder hits a home run." (Again, sorry for no "slam dunk"--ed.) From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 23 04:55:45 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 23:55:45 -0500 Subject: "Faked into the popcorn machine" (1966) Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 10:11 PM Subject: "Faked into the popcorn machine" (1966) > He (Chic Hearn--ed.) is most famous for having players "faked into the > popcorn machine," but Hearn's invention does not stop there. >"give-and-go" 1947 at Proquest--pre-dates Hearn. > Hearn-ese, not basketball-ese. Any game needs imaginative synonyms for standard > plays.... "she's going, > going, GONE!" for a dramatic home run instead of just simply "and Snyder hits a > home run." Which existed many, many years before Hearn. Sam Clements From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 23 07:10:03 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 02:10:03 -0500 Subject: Baseball Magazine (was: Golf -- was: short slang story) Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:26:09 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: >The Amateur Athletic Foundation has files of American Golfer (1908 - 1920) >and Golf Illustrated & Outdoor America (1914-1915) online. http://www.aafla.org/search/search.htm Looks like a great resource. I see that they also have Baseball Magazine (1908-1918), which should prove quite useful. Here's a modest antedating to start the ball rolling: "submarine (pitcher)" (Proquest 1917, Dickson 1919) http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0402D&L=ads-l&P=R276 How the National League Champions Flivvered in the Big Series Wm. A. Phelon, Baseball Magazine, December, 1916, No. 2, p. 16-28 For Boston, the confident submarine thrower, Carl Mays, he who pitches from the strangest of positions: standing on his head and arching the ball upwards?was given a lovely beating, and Foster finished in splendid fashion, despite a crippled arm. --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 23 07:36:29 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 02:36:29 -0500 Subject: Predating "boogaloo" Message-ID: On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:31:51 -0500, Wilson Gray wrote: >HDAS dates "boogaloo" to 1974 as a noun, to 1972 as part of a verb >phrase and to 1971 as a verb, noting that all uses derive from the name >of a dance popular in the 'Sixties. > >An otherwise-unknown singer, Kent Harris, fronting two different >equally otherwise-unknown bands, Freddie Simon's Band and Ernie >Freeman's Combo (Ernie Freeman did enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame as >a solo act) recorded several songs under the name, "Boogaloo and His >Gallant Crew," for Crest Records in 1956. But what about the late boogie-woogie piano player Abie "Boogaloo" Ames (1918-2002)? Washington Post, February 8, 2002 At the age of 5, Mr. Ames began playing piano, and his style earned him the nickname "Boogaloo" in the 1940s. He moved to Detroit as a teenager and started a band, touring Europe with Louis Armstrong in 1936. He worked at Motown Studio and befriended other great musicians such as Nat King Cole and Errol Garner. See also: http://www.shs.starkville.k12.ms.us/mswm/MSWritersAndMusicians/musicians/BoogalooAmes/BoogalooAmes2.html --Ben Zimmer From jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 23 14:15:13 2004 From: jsmithjamessmith at YAHOO.COM (James Smith) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 06:15:13 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B49791@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: Police escorts of funerals, once commonplace in the Salt Lake City area, are now rare. This was never, to the best of my knowledge (i.e., my father's funeral 40 years ago) a free service, so escalating cost (liability, more time because of heavier traffic and greater distances, better police pay, etc.)is probably a major factor in the demise of this practice. --- "Mullins, Bill" wrote: > > > I'd add that city or county police (or > sheriffs) always escort funeral > > > > processions "up home" in Minnesota, and I > presume everywhere else. > > Huntsville, AL is a city with one foot in the 21st > century, and one in the > 19th. > About once a year, someone proposes that the city > can save money be stopping > the > practice of police escorts from the funeral home to > the graveyard. Everyone > agrees > that this would save money, but the proposal always > gets voted down because > it just > doesn't seem right. > > I think some of the larger cities in AL have dropped > the practice, though. > ===== James D. SMITH |If history teaches anything South SLC, UT |it is that we will be sued jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com |whether we act quickly and decisively |or slowly and cautiously. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it today! http://my.yahoo.com From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 23 15:10:19 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 10:10:19 EST Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: Wilson Gray writes: > BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, > irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is escorted > to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be > confused with the Texas Rangers). > I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers The town of Marshall had no town marshal? It is said that the reason the US Army does not have the rank of "Marshal" or "Field Marshal" is that the first man to be considered for such a rank was General (i.e. then four stars) George C. Marshall, and he refused to become "Marshal Marshall". It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to Field Marshal was Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason unknown to me, instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." A Texas Ranger cannot be described as a "peace officer" because the Rangers are theoretically not a police force but rather the private army of the State of Texas. Beverly Flanigan writes: > I'd add that city or county > police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in > Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel 50 > miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and maintain > reasonable speed. Wilson Gray writes: > At my grandfather's > funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to > be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police > at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused > panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, > expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police was > not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >people and denied to white people. John Baker writes: > The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the highway and > waiting for the funeral procession to pass. More than a custom; it is part of good driving practice and may be state law in most states. At least it may be state law that once a convoy (any convoy on the road, not only a funeral procession) passes a traffic light and the light turns red, the convoy keeps going. The custom of having the headlights on in a funeral procession has nothing to do with respect for the deceased. It is a warning to other motorists that this is a convoy. In fact, convoys other than funeral processions (which generally means military convoys) also have headlights on. As for the police escort, that is because a funeral procession, regardless of race creed or hairstyle, is an equal-opportunity creator of traffic problems. It is not a "service provided to white people" but rather a necessity for the police department, one of whose duties is to clear up trafic problems. Wilson Gray writes: > when my father first went up to > Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was > then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his > Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up > yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my > Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal > pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation > peculiar to a dialect." I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an Irish accent. From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Tue Nov 23 15:19:08 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 10:19:08 EST Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature Message-ID: There is a Greek word for "sausage", namely "allas" or "allant-". It became New Latin "allantois" from which we get the English words "allantoin" and "allantois". Not to be confused with "Alan", an Indo-European people who got scattered from the Volga to North Africa by the Huns, or the Irish god "Allun". I seem to recall that one of Aristophanes's plays (perhaps "The Clouds") had a major character who was a sausage-seller. Sausage-making may go back to prehistoric times (I'm sure haggis does, but prehistoric in Scotland means before the Roman conquest of Britain, only two millenia ago). That's because sausage-making was one of the main methods of preserving meat before refrigeration, the others being salting, smoking, and drying. - Jim Landau From dave at WILTON.NET Tue Nov 23 15:55:05 2004 From: dave at WILTON.NET (Dave Wilton) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 07:55:05 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: <198.328cb884.2ed4acdb@aol.com> Message-ID: > It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. > However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to > Field Marshal was > Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason > unknown to me, > instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." The post and rank of "General of the Armies of the United States" was actually created in 1799 by Congress for Washington, but he died before it was conferred on him. Washington died with the rank of Lieutenant General. In 1800 after Washington's death, Congress suspended the rank. In 1976, the rank was posthumously conferred on him. Congress revived the post and rank in 1866, changing the title slightly to "General of the Army of the United States," and appointing Grant to the post. William T. Sherman succeeded Grant in the title when the latter was inaugurated president in 1869. In 1888, the ranks of Lieutenant General and General of the Army were merged and Philip Sheridan was also granted the rank of General of the Army--a month before he died. The rank was again suspended with the death of Sherman in 1891. The rank was again revived in 1919 and Pershing appointed to the post. In this revival the title was again fashioned with the plural "Armies." The exact reason for choices of singular/plural is unknown. Pershing held the rank until his death in 1948. In 1944, Congress enacted a new law authorizing the ranks of "General of the Army" and "Fleet Admiral." Technically, this is a different rank and office than Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Pershing held, although the title is the same. This is the rank that Marshall, Eisenhower, et.al. were appointed to. Initially, these new ranks were to be temporary. Congress made them permanent in 1946. (Source: https://www.perscom.army.mil/tagd/tioh/rank/goa.htm) --Dave Wilton dave at wilton.net http://www.wilton.net From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Nov 23 16:07:11 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 11:07:11 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041123050014.0E240B26F1@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: FRITZ JUENGLING asks: >>> Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond (or tonsil)?' <<< i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, punctuation, capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon naturallyspeaking to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, etc., and sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my tendinitis. i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name was mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he shortened it. i like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather than to avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees and left only the nuts. aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; french also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can see, "by hand" is away from the tonsils! it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that eng. "dozen" is '(group of) 12'. -- mark by hand From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Nov 23 16:37:20 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 08:37:20 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: Mark, I didn't know about the '15' meaning. Names are often so interesting. I have a kid whose last name is Breivogel. He naturally thinks that it has something to do with birds, but such is not the case. A Breivogel is not a bird, altho it probably alludes it one. My last name gets slaughtered all the time. I am used to it and even enjoy the variations I get. ALmost no one here at the school can even spell it. I've gotten about 20 different spellings on various notes. Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and paid with my plastic. The lady who took it, who is from China, informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if I remember correctly. It's all good:) Fritz Juengling aka Zhueng-ling >>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/23/04 08:07AM >>> FRITZ JUENGLING asks: >>> Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond (or tonsil)?' <<< i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, punctuation, capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon naturallyspeaking to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, etc., and sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my tendinitis. i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name was mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he shortened it. i like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather than to avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees and left only the nuts. aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; french also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can see, "by hand" is away from the tonsils! it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that eng. "dozen" is '(group of) 12'. -- mark by hand From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 23 17:07:06 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:07:06 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Fritz, You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. Of course familiarity does not always breed accuracy; when I was in Madison WI in the 12th Cent. there was a cheap beer (popular among the little moneyed) named Feuerbach pronounced 'fireback,' but the best local pronunciation of all the midwestern US German heritage beers was Griesedieck as 'greasydick.' dInIs >Mark, >I didn't know about the '15' meaning. Names are often so >interesting. I have a kid whose last name is Breivogel. He >naturally thinks that it has something to do with birds, but such is >not the case. A Breivogel is not a bird, altho it probably alludes >it one. >My last name gets slaughtered all the time. I am used to it and >even enjoy the variations I get. ALmost no one here at the school >can even spell it. I've gotten about 20 different spellings on >various notes. Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My >favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and >paid with my plastic. The lady who took it, who is from China, >informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you >were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know >how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was >able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if >I remember correctly. It's all good:) >Fritz Juengling aka Zhueng-ling > >>>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/23/04 08:07AM >>> >FRITZ JUENGLING asks: >>>> >Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark almond >(or tonsil)?' ><<< > >i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, punctuation, >capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon naturallyspeaking >to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako >escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, etc., and >sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my tendinitis. > >i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name was >mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he shortened it. i >like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather than to >avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees and left >only the nuts. > >aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; french >also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can see, >"by hand" is away from the tonsils! > >it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that eng. >"dozen" is '(group of) 12'. > >-- mark by hand -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Nov 23 17:49:54 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 09:49:54 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: Pronounced how? Will I be able to add another to the list? >>> preston at MSU.EDU 11/23/04 09:07AM >>> >Fritz, You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 23 18:13:13 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:13:13 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: /yingling/, stress on first syllable, which make make you even more Chinese than you thought but is also much closer to the original than doubtless many horrors you have suffered. My wife's maiden name was Guagliardo, and reports attempts on it which managed only to process the fact that is started with /g/; after that, it apparently went everywhere. dInIs >Pronounced how? Will I be able to add another to the list? > >>>> preston at MSU.EDU 11/23/04 09:07AM >>> >>Fritz, >You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your >name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Tue Nov 23 19:55:11 2004 From: halldj at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Damien Hall) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:55:11 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of wisconsin Message-ID: Sorry if this is a little behind the times. As I don't receive ADS-L while it's hot but only once a day, I know there have been several replies to Mark's point "Least effort" is notoriously (?) subjective. For me, syllable-initial /sC/ takes MORE effort, not less, than coda /-s/ followed by onset /C-/. And if /sC-/ is more efficient to produce, why hasn't it spread across the whole lexicon? since he made it. Since no-one has done it, though, I think it's worth pointing out that there *are* dialects in which /sC-/ has spread across the whole lexicon. Mine, Standard Southern British English, is one of them. I think I have the following systematically: /wIskOnsIn/ --> [wI.sgOn.sIn] /mIstejk/ --> [mI.sdejk] I'm pretty sure that that's still my pattern. I also remember remarking about a year ago on the difference between my 'teen' numbers and those that I perceived from many Americans: (eg) /fIfti:n/ --> BrE [fIf.di:n], 'GenAmE' [fIf.ti:n] which seems to be a similar pattern, if not exactly the same. If I have picked up [wIs.kOn.sIn], it would just be from having been in the States for the past just over a year now. Damien Hall University of Pennsylvania From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Nov 23 20:04:10 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 12:04:10 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: That's not a new one, but pretty uncommon. Interestingly, the nearest correct pronunciation of the pronunciation that I use in the US is from American German speakers (No, I don't insist upon the umlaut nor the 'L'). I have never really figured out why, tho. Fritz >>> preston at MSU.EDU 11/23/04 10:13AM >>> /yingling/, stress on first syllable, which make make you even more Chinese than you thought but is also much closer to the original than doubtless many horrors you have suffered. preston at msu.edu From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 23 20:04:40 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:04:40 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 12:07 PM -0500 11/23/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>Fritz, > >You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your >name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. > If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced "Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of the panda family. --larry, whose last name presents its own problems From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 23 20:14:23 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:14:23 -0600 Subject: goof antedate Message-ID: goof (n) slang OED: 1. A silly, stupid, or daft person. 1916 Sat. Even. Post "What the Umpires Will Do" _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 62. "an' what inell didja say that goof's name was what was tuh pitch?" From preston at MSU.EDU Tue Nov 23 20:43:27 2004 From: preston at MSU.EDU (Dennis R. Preston) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:43:27 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: larry's right; the beer is spelled with a "Y"; (I forgot), but the panda pronunciation is certainly what I had in mind. dInIs >At 12:07 PM -0500 11/23/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>>Fritz, >> >>You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your >>name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. >> >If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, >which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation >depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced >"Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of >the panda family. > >--larry, whose last name presents its own problems -- Dennis R. Preston University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages A-740 Wells Hall Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 Phone: (517) 432-3099 Fax: (517) 432-2736 preston at msu.edu From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Tue Nov 23 22:39:57 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:39:57 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: The beginning is exactly as the English word 'you'. My American German speaking friends often rhyme it with 'book', i.e.[U] Sounds very strange to me. Fritz Juengling >>> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU 11/23/04 12:04PM >>> At 12:07 PM -0500 11/23/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote: >>Fritz, > >You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your >name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. > If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced "Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of the panda family. --larry, whose last name presents its own problems From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 24 00:01:36 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 18:01:36 -0600 Subject: sports magazine cites Message-ID: foolish house "Theobald Boggles' Football System," Harry E. Corbet, _Baseball Magazine_, January, 1915, No. 3, p. 81-88 "Well, well, just so I don't wake up in the foolish house, or find it's all been a bad dream." blooey (OED 1920) "In the Bag " A. W. Tillinghast, _The American Golfer_, December, 1914, No. 2, p. 110-115. "Of course, He couldn't stop me and I got the ground good and plenty, Blooey!" clean up (baseball -- not in OED? Shulman (American Speech, 2/1951) has 1915) "Disappointments of a Big League Manager " Hugh Jennings, _Baseball Magazine_, September, 1912, No. 5, p. 54-56. "There is all the difference in the world between 370 and 270 in the batting of your cleanup man." "Detroit Notes - The New Home of the Tigers " _Baseball Magazine_, April, 1912, No. 6, p. 86. "He is still the cleanup man in one of the hardest hitting clubs ever gathered together and his bat may be depended upon to break up more than one close game in the coming season." hopper (OED 1914, Shulman has 1915) "The Part Luck Plays in Baseball " Wm. A. Phelon, Baseball Magazine, May, 1913, No. 7, p. 33-39. "Vice versa, a broken bat has rolled many a feeble hopper to an easy scoop, when the full swing of the unshattered stick would at least have hoisted an outfield fly that would send a runner home from third." ivory hunter (scout. this sense not in OED. Shulman has 1915.) "Short Lengths " Baseball Magazine, April, 1914, No. 6, p. 69-72 "Both these expert basepilferers came to the National League from the organization of which Louis Heilbroner, for many years Garry Herrmann's head ivory hunter, is the president." rhubarbs (not in OED; Shulman has 1915) "Training Camps " Chas. P. Stack, Baseball Magazine, March, 1914, No. 5, p. 27-30, 120. Even a kid outfielder will not be expected to make long, hard throws from the rhubarbs in the cold weather; they can save their wings and at the same time show their ability in catching the long flies or batting the whirring leather. top flight (OED has 1939, as does Shulman) "The Federal League Race " Howard B. Tyler, Baseball Magazine, October, 1915, No. 6, p. 28, 108, 110, passim. "The life of a slack wire walker balancing in a jaunt over Niagara Falls, is not a bit more nerve racking than trying to settle into a top flight berth in the Federal league." Waterbucket, foot in (Shulman has 1919, from a source copyrighted 1913) "Behind the Scenes in the Spring Training Camp " Baseball Magazine, April, 1916, No. 6, p. 19-20. "You mustn t put that hind foot in the waterbucket, because " From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 24 00:16:50 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 19:16:50 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, >which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation >depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced >"Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of >the panda family. I drink Yuengling Lager 'all the time'. "Yingling" does seem to be the most common pronunciation around here (Pittsburgh), although I never had any trouble wiith "Yuengling" [with the umlaut] either, and some people around here say "Yoongling" or "Yewngling" or so. The nickname (which seems to be universally recognized) is of course "Ying Yang". Another popular brand around here is Milwaukee's Best [made by Miller], nicknamed "Beast". -- Doug Wilson From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Wed Nov 24 00:38:23 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 19:38:23 -0500 Subject: sports magazine cites Message-ID: "Clean up hitter" appears frequently in the 1909 Washington Post. Sam Clements ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 7:01 PM Subject: sports magazine cites > clean up (baseball -- not in OED? Shulman (American Speech, 2/1951) has > 1915) > "Disappointments of a Big League Manager " Hugh Jennings, _Baseball > Magazine_, September, 1912, No. 5, p. 54-56. > "There is all the difference in the world between 370 and 270 in the batting From stalker at MSU.EDU Wed Nov 24 03:11:23 2004 From: stalker at MSU.EDU (James C Stalker) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 22:11:23 -0500 Subject: Stalkerazzi, Nonstoparazzi, Poopernazi and the Superflack In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I must object! Stalkers are not Italian. They are Scottish. And these guys are not falconers, albeit they are predators. It sure gets confusing, don't it. Jim Stalker Barnhart writes: > American Dialect Society on Monday, November 22, > 2004 at 12:55 AM -0500 wrote: >> >>We probably discussed "stalkerazzi" before, but it's in the news. > stalkerazzi ANW Vol. 72.3 > stalkerazzi > or stalkarazzi > or stalk-arazzi DC Vol. 10.3 > stalkerazzo DC Vol. 10.3 > > David K. Barnhart, Editor/Publisher > The Barnhart DICTIONARY COMPANION > Lexik at highlands.com > James C. Stalker Department of English Michigan State University From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Wed Nov 24 03:51:22 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 22:51:22 -0500 Subject: See you in the funny papers! Message-ID: This is an update to a 2002 thread. At that time, some newspapers were not digitized as yet. Doug Wilson offered that HDAS showed from 1926: <> The digitized Chicago Tribune has a cite from WGN(Chicago radio) in 1928, advertising a 12-1 Sunday show where "Uncle Quin" would read the "funny papers" to the kids listening along at home. This show shows up from 1927 in the Tribune. But the first "see you in the funny papers" is 1928, as spoken by Uncle Quin in a adv. for his show. 'Course Uncle Quin didn't mean he was leaving. He was actually reading the funnies to the kids in radioland. (Perhaps he signed off with something like "see you in the funny papers.") Had to do this one for my deceased great aunt. She always used to say that to me when I was leaving. Sam Clements From Bapopik at AOL.COM Wed Nov 24 04:20:37 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 23:20:37 -0500 Subject: OT: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich Message-ID: Cheesus! Maybe I'll cross-post this to rec.food.historic. http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20041122230809990009 Updated: 08:40 AM EST $28,000 Bid for Unique Grilled Cheese Sandwich HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (Nov. 22) - A woman who said her 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich bore the image of the Virgin Mary will be getting a lot more bread after the item sold for $28,000 on eBay. GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, confirmed that it placed the winning bid, and company executives said they were willing to spend "as much as it took" to own the 10-year-old half-sandwich with a bite out of it. "It's a part of pop culture that's immediately and widely recognizable," spokesman Monty Kerr told The Miami Herald. "We knew right away we wanted to have it." Photos posted on eBay show what can be viewed as a woman's face emblazoned on the sandwich, a bite taken out of one end. Bidding closed Monday. In a statement, GoldenPalace.com CEO Richard Rowe said he planned to use the sandwich to raise money for charity. Kerr and Steve Baker, CEO of GoldenPalace's management company, Cyberworld Group, flew to south Florida on Monday to make arrangements for a sandwich handover from its owner, Diana Duyser. "I would like all people to know that I do believe that this is the Virgin Mary Mother of God," Duyser, a work-from-home jewelry designer, said in the casino's statement. The online auction site initially pulled the sale, saying it didn't post joke items. The page was restored after the company was convinced that Duyser would deliver on the bid, said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy. Duyser said she took a bite after making the sandwich 10 years ago and saw a face staring back at her. She put the sandwich in a clear plastic box with cotton balls and kept it on her night stand. She said the sandwich has never sprouted a spore of mold. 11/22/04 23:07 EST From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 24 07:14:13 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 02:14:13 -0500 Subject: goof antedate Message-ID: On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:14:23 -0600, Mullins, Bill wrote: >goof (n) slang OED: 1. A silly, stupid, or daft person. 1916 Sat. Even. >Post > > >"What the Umpires Will Do" _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 62. >"an' what inell didja say that goof's name was what was tuh pitch?" I don't have Dickson's dictionary handy, but I know that "goof" was already used in baseball by that time (in Chicago at least) to refer to a second-string player on a team's roster who only played during spring training -- typically in intersquad games between the "regulars" (or "premiers") and the "goofs". Newspaperarchive.com has that sense of the term back to 1912: Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, March 15, 1912 Kid Gleason's goofs defeated the regulars. Lincoln (Neb.) Evening News, March 20, 1912 The White Sox premiers and Gleason's "Goofs" parted company today, the latter squad, commanded by Doc White, leaving this morning for San Antonio to begin practice on the diamond to be vacated today by Connie Mack's Athletics. ... The "Goofs" will probably remain at San Antonio the balance of the training season. (Decatur, Ill.) Daily Review, April 14, 1912 GOOFS SPANKED IN FIRST GAME German's Regulars Win Opening Tilt, 8 to 2. See also : The Cubs spent their weeks on the island playing mostly inter- squad games. The regulars versus the goofs, they were called. Looks like the Cubs and White Sox were the teams who most often called their B-squads "goofs", or perhaps they were the only teams to do so. (Someone with access to the Tribune archive might find earlier cites.) --Ben Zimmer From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Wed Nov 24 10:59:39 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 05:59:39 -0500 Subject: OT (slightly) Re: Oyster Pan Roast & Seafood Pan Roast & Olympia Pan Roast (1899) Message-ID: The best of the pan roasts at the Oyster Bar is "combination pan roast". But it's too rich for my pocketbook. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com American Dialect Society on Sunday, November 21, 2004 at 8:23 PM -0500 wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header >----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM >Subject: Oyster Pan Roast & Seafood Pan Roast & Olympia Pan Roast >(1899) >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >Someone forwarded me the following. "Seafood pan roast" was invented in >New York City? > > >Let's get our pan roasts straight. > > >There is "Olympia Pan Roast" that the OED ("miserable on food") says >dates from 1907 but a quick check shows 1899. This is from Washington >State. > > >There is "Oyster Pan Roast," made famous by the Oyster Bar in Grand >Central Terminal. However, the dish pre-dates even the Oyster Bar and >probably was served in Coney Island hotels in the late 1800s. > > >Then there is "Seafood Pan Roast," which is later and I'm too lazy to >work on right now. > > > > >(FACTIVA) >SEAFOOD PAN ROAST IN BELLTOWN > > >299 words >19 November 2004 >Seattle Post-Intelligencer >FINAL >5 >English >Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All >rights reserved. > > >Q: I just got back from Reno, where I discovered "seafood pan roast." We >were told this dish had come from New York City and was adopted by quite >a few of the casino oyster bars. Is there any place in the Seattle area >that serves this type of seafood stew? > > >- Sherwin, a pan roast fan > > >A: You are one lucky devil, Sherwin. Alexandria's on 2nd (2020 Second >Ave.; 206-374-3700), a new Southern-cuisine restaurant, offers a >delicious, generous-sized seafood pan roast featuring lobster tail, >shrimp and bay scallops atop a mound of fresh peas, corn, mushrooms and >cherry tomatoes in a fish stock-based sauce made with heavy cream >($26.95). Chef Michael Franklin's seafood pan roast is similar to one >made famous at Justin's, the New York and Atlanta white-tablecloth soul >food restaurants opened by Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. Franklin once worked as >a chef at Justin's. I'm not sure how either of these seafood pan roasts >compares to what you tried in Reno, where, I've read, the Silver Legacy >Hotel Casino sets the standard for this dish. Having spent some 20-plus >days in Reno during each of the 1999 and 2000 holiday seasons, >gift-wrapping Amazon.com purchases in its Fernley warehouse, I never had >the opportunity, much less the energy, to survey the seafood pan roast >casino phenomenon. Maybe next time, when I' >m not working the night shift. > > >- Penelope Corcoran > > > > >(FACTIVA) >FOOD >NY SEAFOOD HOUSE CONTINUES TRADITION Series: NEW YORK'S MASTER CHEFS > > >928 words >23 May 1985 >The Dallas Morning News >HOME FINAL >14E >English >(Copyright 1985) > > >Since the Grand Central Oyster Bar opened its doors in 1913, smart >commuters and diners have filled the enormous rooms of this landmark >institution to sample the best in fresh seafood. The team that maintains >the restaurant's fine reputation, Chef Stanley Kramer, Pastry Chef Peter >Roggensinger and George Morfogen, seafood buyer, share their secrets when >they appear on New York's Master Chefs at noon Saturday on Channel >13/KERA. > > >Kramer prepared his famous Oyster Pan Roast, fresh oysters simmered in >their own juices with cream, a favorite among many New Yorkers, and Mako >Shark Steak au Poivre. The show is then turned over to Roggensinger, who >is responsible for The Oyster Bar's picture-perfect dessert buffet which >boasts some 15 selections daily. > > >Roggensinger's desserts include such down-home American treats as rice >pudding, fruit pies and cheesecake, in addition to his daily specials -- >Strawberry-Almond Galette, various mousses and sorbets, and Raspberry >Honey-Almond Parfait, which he created during his segment of the program. > > >The series' visit to The Oyster Bar wouldn't be complete without a visit >with Morfogen, the restaurant's seafood buyer who is an expert on >freshness. > > >"No matter what kind of fish you buy,' says Morfogen, "the best way to >keep it fresh is to place it on a bed of ice in the refrigerator. Just >refrigerating it can dry it out.' > > >New York's Master Chefs is a co-production of KQED/Golden State >Productions and Exploration Television in association with WNET/Thirteen >in New York. Bon Appetit, one of America's leading food magazines, is the >series' culinary consultant. > > >Here are recipes from the show. OYSTER PAN ROAST > > >Prepare each serving separately. > > >2 tablespoons clam broth or juice > > >2 tablespoons ( 1/4 stick) butter, divided > > >1/4 teaspoon paprika, plus some for garnish > > >Pinch of celery salt > > >1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce > > >9 shucked oysters with their liquor > > >1 to 2 tablespoons chili sauce > > >1/2 cup half and half > > >1 slice toast > > >In top of double boiler, place clam broth, 1 tablespoon of the butter, >1/4 teaspoon paprika, celery salt and Worcestershire sauce; stir gently. >Add oysters and simmer just until their edges start to curl, about 1 >minute. Stir in chili sauce and half and half and heat through. > > >Place slice of toast in warm bowl, pour oyster pan roast over toast, and >float remaining tablespoon butter on top. Sprinkle with a pinch of >paprika. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving. > > > > >(FACTIVA) >FEATURES - FOOD >Cook's Corner > > >OYSTER PAN ROAST > > >207 words >10 November 1999 >THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH >Home Final >02F >English >(c) 1999 Columbus Dispatch. All Rights Reserved. > > >For R.B., Newark, Ohio. This is the recipe from the Oyster Bar at Grand >Central. Molly O'Neill included it in her New York Cookbook (Workman >Publishing, $17.95). > > >6-8 large fresh oysters > > >1 tablespoon butter > > >3 tablespoons bottled clam juice, divided > > >1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco > > >1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce > > >Dash celery salt > > >1/2 cup heavy cream > > >1 slice white bread, toasted > > >Dash sweet paprika > > >Shuck the oysters. Strain and reserve their liquor. > > >Melt butter in a nonreactive skillet over high heat. Reduce heat to >medium and add the oysters, their liquor and 2 tablespoons clam juice. > > >Cook until oysters just begin to curl around the edges, about 2 minutes. >Remove from the heat. > > >In a small nonreactive saucepan over high heat, whisk together hot pepper >and Worcestershire sauces, celery salt and the remaining 1 tablespoon >clam juice. > > >Whisk in the heavy cream and continue whisking until the mixture comes to >a boil. > > >Add the warm oysters and their cooking liquids; stir gently 1 minute. > > >Place the toast in a wide soup bowl. Pour the pan roast over the toast >and sprinkle with paprika. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving. > > >Cindy Moran > > >Westerville > > > > >(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) >New York, N. Y.; HIS MAJESTY, THE OYSTER >Clementine Paddleford. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los >Angeles, Calif.: Dec 18, 1949. p. H21 (1 page): >_Nothing, New Yorkers insist,_ >_can beat the bivalve dishes_ >_in Grand Central Oyster Bar_ >(...) The bar opened in 1913 as the first Union News restaurant. >(...) >_Oyster Pan Roast_ >4 dozen oysters >1/2 pound butter or margarine >6 tablespoons chili sauce >2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce >1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice >1 1/2 cups oyster liquor >1/2 teaspoon celery salt >1 teaspoon paprika >1/4 cup light cream >Salt to taste > > >Place oysters in a deep pan. Dot over butter or margarine, add sauces, >lemon juice and oyster liquor and seasonings; bring to boiling point and >cook one minute, stirring constantly. Add cream and bring to boiling >point. Salt to taste. Serve over toast square in soup plates. Yield: 6 >portions. > > > > >(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) >Grand Central Oyster Bar Shut, but May Reopen Soon; OYSTER PAN ROAST >By JOHN L. HESS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Aug >1, 1974. p. 32 (1 page) >Nick Petter, the 76-year-old head cook, who came to work there in 1919, >said the bar had never changed. With a sad smile, he gave permission to >publish the recipe for its famous oyster stew: > > >OYSTER PAN ROAST >8 freshly opened oysters >1 pat of butter >1 tablespoon chili sauce >1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce >A few drops of lemon juice >1/4 cup oyster liquor >Celery salt, a dash >Paprika >4 ounces cream >1 piece of dry toast (if desired) > > >Place all but the cream in a deep pan and cook briskly for a minute, >stirring constantly. Add cream. When it comes to boil, pour over toast in >a soup plate and serve. > > > > >(WWW.NEWSPAPERARCHIVE.COM) > Indianapolis Star Saturday, November 17, 1917 Indianapolis, Indiana >...with Bacon.... 60c New York OYSTER PAN ROAST 40c ROAST Goose, >OYSTER.....Dressing ROAST Leg of Lamb, with Jelly....'. 45c.. >Pg. 20, col. 5: HOFBRAU CAFE. > > > Bismarck Tribune Tuesday, March 11, 1930 Bismarck, North Dakota >...40c Ovster Pepper ROAST 50c OYSTER PAN ROAST 50c SOUP Cream of Fresh >Mushroom.....of Capon Creamed Mushrooms 60c ROAST ROAST young torn >turkey, ROAST young.. > > > Indianapolis Star Monday, November 12, 1917 Indianapolis, Indiana >...Stuffed White Pish, Egg Sauce OYSTER PAN ROAST, a la Budweiser Fried' >Smelts.....Enamel Douche PAN. White Enam. Douche PAN. Perfection Douche >PAN. Zinc Douche.. >Pg. 14, col. 2: BUDWEISER CAFE. > > > > >(OED) > 2. Olympia pan roast, a dish of oysters served in a savoury sauce, >originating in Olympia. > > > 1907 Overland Monthly Dec. p. xvi/2 (advt.) Hotel Donnelly... The only >restaurant in the city that makes Oyster Pan Roasts from the recipe of >the originator of the famous Doane Olympia Pan Roast. 1961 Spectator 8 >Dec. 879/1 American ingredients and American cooking..have always to me >seemed most mysterious... Olympia pan roast (olympia is an oyster) and >Green Goddess dressing..turn out to be entirely local [i.e. West Coast] >inventions. > > > > >(PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) >PACIFIC COAST PROSPERITY. >New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Mar 12, 1899. p. 23 >(1 page): >"Oystermen of the East will certainly find many points of interest and >profit to them by studying the oyster of the State of Washington. You may >not have heard of the Olympia oyster. He is little, but he is a wonder. A >good Olympia pan roast is the most delicious dish I know of. Cultivation >of Eastern oysters is also in progress in our State." > > > > >(BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE) >13 May 1900, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 14: >15c.--Pan roast of Oysters on Toast. > > >16 September 1900, BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, pg. 12: >OYSTER PAN ROAST, toast 15 From edkeer at YAHOO.COM Wed Nov 24 15:19:46 2004 From: edkeer at YAHOO.COM (Ed Keer) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 07:19:46 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041123190852.0320d610@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: What, no Iron City? --- "Douglas G. Wilson" wrote: > >If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with > the spelling, > >which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the > pronunciation > >depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the > beer is pronounced > >"Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of > the offshoots of > >the panda family. > > I drink Yuengling Lager 'all the time'. "Yingling" > does seem to be the most > common pronunciation around here (Pittsburgh), > although I never had any > trouble wiith "Yuengling" [with the umlaut] either, > and some people around > here say "Yoongling" or "Yewngling" or so. The > nickname (which seems to be > universally recognized) is of course "Ying Yang". > Another popular brand > around here is Milwaukee's Best [made by Miller], > nicknamed "Beast". > > -- Doug Wilson > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Wed Nov 24 15:41:55 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:41:55 -0500 Subject: There is/there are Message-ID: I have received the following question from a student here who is foolishly trusting to my expert knowledge of such matters: "I am doing a small research project on the history of existential 'there' constructions with plural subjects (i.e., There's three books on the table as opposed to There are three books). I've looked on Bobcat, several databases available through the Libarary Website and I have found a lot of information on 'there' existential constructions, but not pertaining to the plural subjects, which is what I need." I haven't gotten back to him to enquire as to which databases he has used, but am otherwise at a loss. Any suggestions will be appreciated. I will advise him that he would do well to enroll in ADS-L. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:04:39 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:04:39 -0500 Subject: Request for info on hot dogs in literature In-Reply-To: <20041124050154.5AD3CB2479@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: "James A. Landau" writes: >>>>> There is a Greek word for "sausage", namely "allas" or "allant-". It became New Latin "allantois" from which we get the English words "allantoin" and "allantois". Not to be confused with "Alan", an Indo-European people who got scattered from the Volga to North Africa by the Huns*, or the Irish god "Allun". I seem to recall that one of Aristophanes's plays (perhaps "The Clouds") had a major character who was a sausage-seller. <<<<< (OT:)** "And I'm cuttin' me own throat!" -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] * (This footnote deleted after a sudden temporary attack of sanity.) ** "off-topic", not "Old Testament" From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:13:55 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:13:55 -0500 Subject: Subject: Re: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041124050154.5AD3CB2479@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: FRITZ JUENGLING writes: >>>>> My last name gets slaughtered all the time. I am used to it and even enjoy the variations I get. ALmost no one here at the school can even spell it. I've gotten about 20 different spellings on various notes. Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and paid with my plastic. The lady who took it, who is from China, informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if I remember correctly. It's all good:) <<<<< When my sister got divorced for the second time she didn't want to keep husband #2's last name, or to go back to husband #1's, or to our father's last name either, and she didn't know what to do. I suggested that she take her middle name as last name, and instead of being NAME1 NAME2 NAME3 where NAME3 was one of the unwanted three surnames, be officially and in everyday use known as NAME1 NAME2 She was pleased with that solution and went with it. Since her original middle name was Sue, and it is now her last name, I sometimes refer to her as "my Chinese sister". -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:15:31 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:15:31 -0500 Subject: Subject: Re: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041124050154.5AD3CB2479@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: A sudden thought: Would any participant in this name thread object if I forwarded this series of posts to the American Name Society mailing list? -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:25:35 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:25:35 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041124050154.5AD3CB2479@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: FRITZ JUENGLING writes: >>>>> The beginning is exactly as the English word 'you'. My American German speaking friends often rhyme it with 'book', i.e.[U] Sounds very strange to me. <<<<< That's how I have always pronounced your surname to myself. /yu:N/ or "yoohng" (the pronunciation you describe) sounds very strange to me. English syllables ending in /N/ ("ng") always have lax vowels, never tense vowels. You won't find any of the following, at least in any dialect I'm familiar with: - *eeng with vowel as in Pete /i:N/ - *ayng " " hate /e:N, eyN/ - *(eye)ng " " kite /ayN/ - *ohng " " coat /o:N, owN/ - *oohng " " you, boot /u:N/ (your pronunciation) - *owng " " cow /awN/ I started to include the three heterorganic diphthongs, but I stopped at two because of the single exception: the onomatopoeia "boing", which I think is the only example of "oyng" /oyN/. -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:41:05 2004 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:41:05 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a "toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" that we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in other parts of the US? -Matt Gordon From rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:48:19 2004 From: rshuttle at BAMA.UA.EDU (Rachel E. Shuttlesworth) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:48:19 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <200411241643.iAOGhoJk023024@bama.ua.edu> Message-ID: My only experience with the term "toasted cheese sandwich" instead of "grilled cheese sandwich" (which I've heard all my life) comes from the television show SouthPark, as given below. I remember having to think about what a "toasted cheese sandwich" might be. The show is set in Colorado, but seems like the show's creators are Canadian. "No problem kids. Are you sure you don't wanna stay for some toasted cheese sandwiches? " http://www.spscriptorium.com/Season1/E104script.htm Rachel Gordon, Matthew J. wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J." > Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a = > "toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" that = > we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. > Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in = > other parts of the US? > > > -Matt Gordon From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Nov 24 16:56:58 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 08:56:58 -0800 Subject: Subject: Re: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology ofWisconsin) Message-ID: I wouldn't object. Fritz juengling (or whatever spelling/pronunciation you want) >>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/24/04 08:15AM >>> A sudden thought: Would any participant in this name thread object if I forwarded this series of posts to the American Name Society mailing list? -- Mark [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Nov 24 16:58:34 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:58:34 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I think I usually called it a grilled cheese, but toasted cheese is perfectly OK. (childhood: OH, MA; college: PA; since: WI, IL, SD, IL) In fact, I think I recently offered someone a toasted cheese sandwich and then, feeling perhaps she might not have understood, added "grilled cheese". Barbara >When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a >"toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" >that we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. >Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in >other parts of the US? > > >-Matt Gordon From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Wed Nov 24 17:00:02 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:00:02 -0800 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) Message-ID: >>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/24/04 08:25AM >>> Interesting. Ironically, it's almost exclusively people who have knowledge of German who say [U]. Non-Germanists tend to get /u:/ right. They just mess up everything else. Fritz That's how I have always pronounced your surname to myself. /yu:N/ or "yoohng" (the pronunciation you describe) sounds very strange to me. English syllables ending in /N/ ("ng") always have lax vowels, never tense vowels. You won't find any of the following, at least in any dialect I'm familiar with: - *eeng with vowel as in Pete /i:N/ - *ayng " " hate /e:N, eyN/ - *(eye)ng " " kite /ayN/ - *ohng " " coat /o:N, owN/ - *oohng " " you, boot /u:N/ (your pronunciation) - *owng " " cow /awN/ I started to include the three heterorganic diphthongs, but I stopped at two because of the single exception: the onomatopoeia "boing", which I think is the only example of "oyng" /oyN/. -- Mark A. Mandel [This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.] From maberry at MYUW.NET Wed Nov 24 17:02:30 2004 From: maberry at MYUW.NET (Allen Maberry) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:02:30 -0800 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <200411241643.iAOGhptX019258@mxe7.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: I've heard them called both "toasted" and "grilled" cheese sandwiches all my life, almost entirely in Oregon and Washington. I tend to call them "toasted cheese sandwiches" myself. allen maberry at myuw.net On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J." > Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a = > "toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" that = > we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. > Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in = > other parts of the US? > > > -Matt Gordon > From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Wed Nov 24 17:06:53 2004 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:06:53 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: In Central NY we always ate toasted cheese sandwiches, which were put into the oven on low heat so the cheese gets good and runny. I also heard grilled cheese, which would be cooked in a frying pan, but we didn't use that. Melted-cheese sandwiches also rings a bell. Dale Coye The College of NJ From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:08:38 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:08:38 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >I started to include the three heterorganic diphthongs, but I stopped at two >because of the single exception: the onomatopoeia "boing", which I think is >the only example of "oyng" /oyN/. > Well, there's the equally (if animal rather than mineral) onomatopoetic "oink", which is /oyN/ followed by /k/... larry From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 24 17:08:55 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:08:55 -0600 Subject: breastaurant Message-ID: This is a new one on me. http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001735.html "Trial began last week in a lawsuit filed by Hooters of America against a rival "breastaurant" operator named WingHouse, which also relies on curvy waitresses to sell sports-bar food and drink to a clientele of young men. " A Yahoo search shows the term in the context of women who breast feed their babies. From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:20:12 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:20:12 -0500 Subject: Yingling In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041123190852.0320d610@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: Did anyone watch "Frontline" last night? Grim--and one of the grimmest interviewees (on the credit card industry) was a man named Yingling. The caption made the spelling clear, and he was definitely not Chinese. At 07:16 PM 11/23/2004, you wrote: >>If that's the Penn. version, it wouldn't help with the spelling, >>which is Yuengling. Whether it would help with the pronunciation >>depends on how Fritz renders his "Juengling"; the beer is pronounced >>"Ying-Ling", which has always reminded me of one of the offshoots of >>the panda family. > >I drink Yuengling Lager 'all the time'. "Yingling" does seem to be the most >common pronunciation around here (Pittsburgh), although I never had any >trouble wiith "Yuengling" [with the umlaut] either, and some people around >here say "Yoongling" or "Yewngling" or so. The nickname (which seems to be >universally recognized) is of course "Ying Yang". Another popular brand >around here is Milwaukee's Best [made by Miller], nicknamed "Beast". > >-- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:22:25 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:22:25 -0500 Subject: See you in the funny papers! In-Reply-To: <005501c4d1d8$dd28b470$2724a618@sam> Message-ID: I used to hear this too, in the '40s. At 10:51 PM 11/23/2004, you wrote: >This is an update to a 2002 thread. At that time, some newspapers were not >digitized as yet. > >Doug Wilson offered that HDAS showed from 1926: > ><Grant, _Wise-Crack Dict._ 14: _See you in the funny sheet_-- A humorous way >of saying good-bye.>> > >The digitized Chicago Tribune has a cite from WGN(Chicago radio) in 1928, >advertising a 12-1 Sunday show where "Uncle Quin" would read the "funny >papers" to the kids listening along at home. This show shows up from 1927 >in the Tribune. But the first "see you in the funny papers" is 1928, as >spoken by Uncle Quin in a adv. for his show. 'Course Uncle Quin didn't mean >he was leaving. He was actually reading the funnies to the kids in >radioland. (Perhaps he signed off with something like "see you in the funny >papers.") > >Had to do this one for my deceased great aunt. She always used to say that >to me when I was leaving. > >Sam Clements From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:33:04 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:33:04 -0500 Subject: There is/there are Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:41:55 -0500, George Thompson wrote: >I have received the following question from a student here who is >foolishly trusting to my expert knowledge of such matters: >"I am doing a small research project on the history of existential >'there' constructions with plural subjects (i.e., There's three books >on the table as opposed to There are three books). I've looked on >Bobcat, several databases available through the Libarary Website and >I have found a lot of information on 'there' existential constructions, >but not pertaining to the plural subjects, which is what I need." >I haven't gotten back to him to enquire as to which databases he has >used, but am otherwise at a loss. Any suggestions will be appreciated. For starters, see: Miyamoto, Yoichi. 2003. On there-sentences. _Journal of Language and Linguistics_ 2(2):246-260. http://www.shakespeare.uk.net/journal/2_2/miyamoto.html (Section 4 includes a number of references on "there's" + plural NP.) Britain, David and Andrea Sudbury. 2000. There's sheep and there's penguins: 'Drift', 'slant' and singular verb forms following existentials in New Zealand and Falkland Island English. In M Jones and E Esch (eds.) _Contact-induced language change: an examination of internal, external and non-linguistic factors_. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (Abstract here: ) The topic has also come up on the alt.usage.english newsgroup, where John Lawler of the University of Michigan has provided explanations for "there's" as a frozen existential form: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=5rkki8$7fq$1 at newbabylon.rs.itd.umich.edu http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8Ah77.754$am2.14275 at news.itd.umich.edu And here is a discussion from the "Ask A Linguist" archive: http://linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-1998.10/msg00025.html --Ben Zimmer From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Wed Nov 24 17:44:58 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:44:58 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <6E4936C2.507479BB.006E8B3E@aol.com> Message-ID: >In Central NY we always ate toasted cheese sandwiches, which were put into >the oven on low heat so the cheese gets good and runny. I also heard >grilled cheese, which would be cooked in a frying pan, but we didn't use >that. Melted-cheese sandwiches also rings a bell. > >Dale Coye >The College of NJ ~~~~~~~~~~ What we meant by "toasted cheese sandwich" in my childhood home was a single piece of bread with slice of real cheese (not "American" or "process") put under the broiler in the oven long enough to melt and brown the cheese & toast the edges of the bread. "Grilled cheese" -- at least as supplied in cafes -- seems usually to mean plastic cheese between two pieces of bread and briefly fried on the stove top. A. Murie From suzanne at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU Wed Nov 24 17:45:50 2004 From: suzanne at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU (Suzanne Evans Wagner) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:45:50 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <200411241739.MAA03892@babel.ling.upenn.edu> Message-ID: I see that no-one has yet mentioned the "cheese toastie" variant that is, I think, almost as common in the UK as "toasted cheese sandwich", at least among college students. When I was at college in England, inviting fellow students over for a cheese toastie (made in a George Foreman-style 'toastie maker') was as much a ritual as inviting them for a cup of tea. Suzanne Evans Wagner From Dalecoye at AOL.COM Wed Nov 24 18:03:53 2004 From: Dalecoye at AOL.COM (Dale Coye) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:03:53 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: In the Patrick O'Brien Aubrey-=Maturin series they are always eating toasted cheese on their voyages. Because they didn't include the word "sandwiches" I always wondered what exactly they were eating. Was it in fact a sandwich, or just one piece of bread with cheese, or something without bread at all. Dale Coye The College of NJ From wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG Wed Nov 24 18:31:11 2004 From: wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG (Michael Quinion) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 18:31:11 -0000 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <00B462D8.29FA0319.006E8B3E@aol.com> Message-ID: Dale Coye wrote: > In the Patrick O'Brien Aubrey-=Maturin series they are always eating > toasted cheese on their voyages. Because they didn't include the word > "sandwiches" I always wondered what exactly they were eating. Was it > in fact a sandwich, or just one piece of bread with cheese, or > something without bread at all. Definitely a piece of toast with melted cheese on top - "cheese on toast" is an exact synonym. To answer some other points: the usual term in British English is indeed "toasted cheese", never "grilled", though the usual way of making it (at least in this household) is to toast the underside of the bread, put the cheese on top and heat it under the grill until the cheese melts. However, a toasted-cheese sandwich is a cheese sandwich that has been heated up in a sandwich toaster. Let us not get into the intricacies of Welsh rabbit, which one of my subscribers keeps trying to tell me, in defiance of all experience and every dictionary and cookery book I know of, is never served on toast. -- Michael Quinion Editor, World Wide Words E-mail: Web: From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Nov 24 19:16:18 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:16:18 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >In Central NY we always ate toasted cheese sandwiches, which were put into >>the oven on low heat so the cheese gets good and runny. I also heard >>grilled cheese, which would be cooked in a frying pan, but we didn't use >>that. Melted-cheese sandwiches also rings a bell. >> >>Dale Coye >>The College of NJ >~~~~~~~~~~ >What we meant by "toasted cheese sandwich" in my childhood home was a >single piece of bread with slice of real cheese (not "American" or >"process") put under the broiler in the oven long enough to melt and brown >the cheese & toast the edges of the bread. > "Grilled cheese" -- at least as supplied in cafes -- seems usually to mean >plastic cheese between two pieces of bread and briefly fried on the stove >top. >A. Murie I had never heard of a melted cheese sandwich before! What is described above as "toasted" cheese was simply an open-faced sandwich (usually with bacon in addition to the cheese)! The joys of a childhood undimmed by cholesterol and fat and calories! Barbara From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Wed Nov 24 19:19:02 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 13:19:02 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <1101318350.41a4c8ce40c70@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: >I see that no-one has yet mentioned the "cheese toastie" variant that is, I >think, almost as common in the UK as "toasted cheese sandwich", at least among >college students. When I was at college in England, inviting fellow students >over for a cheese toastie (made in a George Foreman-style 'toastie maker') was >as much a ritual as inviting them for a cup of tea. > >Suzanne Evans Wagner Is a "toasted" cheese sandwich made differently than a "toastie"? When asked a colleague here what a sandwich with cheese which was heated to melt the cheese was, he said "melted" cheese, but he describe the method of cooking as you describe the "toastie" (his mother used a waffle iron with plates installed over or instead of the waffle plates). Barbara From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 19:32:42 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 14:32:42 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <41A4D36F.32510.233D510@localhost> Message-ID: At 6:31 PM +0000 11/24/04, Michael Quinion wrote: > Let us not get into the intricacies of Welsh rabbit, which >one of my subscribers keeps trying to tell me, in defiance of all >experience and every dictionary and cookery book I know of, is never >served on toast. > Maybe your subscriber knows the cheese-on-toast version as "Welsh rarebit", and figures that after all the two can't be the same, can they? ;-) (Begging the question of what else Welsh rabbit would be, of course.) Larry, hoping he's just used "beg the question" in the traditionally approved way... From marshaalley at MSN.COM Wed Nov 24 19:45:13 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 11:45:13 -0800 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles for 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between, coated outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled cheese sandwich." A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the broiler until it melted was "cheese toast." The under side of the bread was never toasted first. A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts two slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a "toasted cheese sandwich." He's never heard of cheese toast. Marsha /wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-) From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 20:06:19 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:06:19 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:45 AM -0800 11/24/04, Marsha Alley wrote: >In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles >for 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between, >coated outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled >cheese sandwich." > >A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the >broiler until it melted was "cheese toast." The under side of the >bread was never toasted first. > >A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts >two slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a >"toasted cheese sandwich." He's never heard of cheese toast. > >Marsha >/wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-) This was my standard nighttime snack, untoasted Italian or Portuguese bread with cheddar (but with jalape?os or other hot peppers on it, or with pepper jack cheese instead) run under the top-brown setting in the toaster oven, before I had to cut back on carbs. (sniff...) I never really had a term for it (I suppose I'd have called it "bread with toasted cheese" or the like), but when my then teenage son began partaking, coming to the tradition off tortilla chips with spicy cheese, he called it "nacho bread". So in our family it's offically "nacho bread" rather than "toasted cheese" or "cheese toast" that I don't get to eat. Larry From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 20:10:03 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:10:03 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: At 11:45 AM -0800 11/24/04, Marsha Alley wrote: >In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles >for 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between, >coated outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled >cheese sandwich." > >A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the >broiler until it melted was "cheese toast." The under side of the >bread was never toasted first. > >A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts >two slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a >"toasted cheese sandwich." He's never heard of cheese toast. > >Marsha >/wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-) This used to be my standard nighttime snack, untoasted Italian or Portuguese bread topped with pepper jack cheese or with cheddar and sliced jalape?os, run under the top-brown setting in the toaster oven, before I had to cut back on carbs. (sniff...) I never really had a term for it originally (I suppose I'd have called it "bread with toasted cheese" or the like), but when my then teenage son began partaking, coming to the tradition off tortilla chips with spicy cheese, he called it "nacho bread". So in our family it's officially "nacho bread" rather than "toasted cheese" or "cheese toast" that I don't get to eat. Larry From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Wed Nov 24 20:16:31 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:16:31 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <41A4D36F.32510.233D510@localhost> Message-ID: On Nov 24, 2004, at 13:31, Michael Quinion wrote: > the usual way of making it (at least in this household) is to > toast the underside of the bread, put the cheese on top and heat it > under the grill until the cheese melts. No butter? Maybe it's to make up for using American cheese singles, but the way I do grilled cheese (and learned it) is to butter both sides of a slice of bread, put it on the griddle, put the cheese on the live sizzling slice, butter a second piece on both sides, and then put that one on top of the cheese. Turn it in a minute or two. This way you get a nice golden brownness on even the blandest supermarket bread. Tastes so good and fattening with real butter. Smells good, too. Everyone and the cats come sniffing around. So maybe the have the same ingredients, but I'd call "grilled cheese" and "toasted cheese" separate menu items. Grant Barrett From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Wed Nov 24 20:25:59 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 14:25:59 -0600 Subject: "in the soup" Message-ID: OED has 26 Apr 1889. _Quincy (Illinois) Daily Whig_ 5 Mar 1889 p. 5 col 1: "The unsuccessful suitor, the defeated political candidate, the "exploded" financial venture, the overturned market basket; in short, mishaps and disappointments of all kinds, are described as "in the soup". " From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Wed Nov 24 21:55:01 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:55:01 -0500 Subject: deracinate In-Reply-To: <60.48f0ed27.2ece54d8@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 RonButters at AOL.COM wrote: > 1. Does anyone have an antedating to the 1599 Shakespeare quote? Nothing comes up earlier in searching Early English Books Online Text Creation Project or Literature Online. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Wed Nov 24 22:14:58 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:14:58 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language Message-ID: The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those interested. A Philological Review of NATIVE NEW YORKERS: THE LEGACY OF THE ALGONQUIN PEOPLE OF NEW YORK, by Evan T. Pritchard, Council Oak Books, San Francisco and Tulsa, 2002. Has there ever been a language subjected to so much abuse by pretentious dabblers, as the Lenape language? From Rafinesque's WALAM OLUM (and all its modern-day "translators") to Wenning's HANDBOOK OF THE DELAWARE INDIAN LANGUAGE, charlatans and dilettanti of every kind have had their goes at duping the general public (and sometimes academia!) by their linguistic legerdemain?often with surprising success. Evan T. Pritchard, Professor of Native American Studies at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, has now given us another work in this genre?perhaps the worst yet. The reviewer identifies himself as Raymond Whritenour, LENAPE TEXTS & STUDIES GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mullins, Bill" Date: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:08 pm Subject: breastaurant > This is a new one on me. > > http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001735.html > "Trial began last week in a lawsuit filed by Hooters of America > against a > rival "breastaurant" operator named WingHouse, which also relies > on curvy > waitresses to sell sports-bar food and drink to a clientele of > young men. " > > A Yahoo search shows the term in the context of women who breast > feed their > babies. > From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Wed Nov 24 22:21:47 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:21:47 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <1ab7baa1abca20.1abca201ab7baa@nyu.edu> Message-ID: George, please do forward the full review to me. Beverly Flanigan At 05:14 PM 11/24/2004, you wrote: >The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist list. I will >forward the full, very detailed review to those interested. > >A Philological Review of NATIVE NEW YORKERS: THE LEGACY OF THE ALGONQUIN >PEOPLE OF NEW YORK, by Evan T. Pritchard, Council Oak Books, San Francisco >and Tulsa, 2002. > > Has there ever been a language subjected to so much abuse by > pretentious dabblers, as the Lenape language? From Rafinesque's WALAM > OLUM (and all its modern-day "translators") to Wenning's HANDBOOK OF THE > DELAWARE INDIAN LANGUAGE, charlatans and dilettanti of every kind have > had their goes at duping the general public (and sometimes academia!) by > their linguistic legerdemain?often with surprising success. Evan T. > Pritchard, Professor of Native American Studies at Marist College in > Poughkeepsie, New York, has now given us another work in this > genre?perhaps the worst yet. > >The reviewer identifies himself as Raymond Whritenour, LENAPE TEXTS & STUDIES > >GAT > >George A. Thompson >Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern >Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. > >"We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, >and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, >Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Mullins, Bill" >Date: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:08 pm >Subject: breastaurant > > > This is a new one on me. > > > > http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/001735.html > > "Trial began last week in a lawsuit filed by Hooters of America > > against a > > rival "breastaurant" operator named WingHouse, which also relies > > on curvy > > waitresses to sell sports-bar food and drink to a clientele of > > young men. " > > > > A Yahoo search shows the term in the context of women who breast > > feed their > > babies. > > From douglas at NB.NET Wed Nov 24 22:59:40 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:59:40 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: <20041124151946.63775.qmail@web20421.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >What, no Iron City? No Iron City. Though if somebody was to buy me a case of Iron, I'd drink it right up (might could take two-three days) and say thank-you-kindly ... and no I-reckon about it. The local beer store proprietor says his biggest seller is Coors Light. -- Doug Wilson From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Thu Nov 25 09:32:33 2004 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 01:32:33 -0800 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <200411242215.iAOMF2Gw004964@mxe3.u.washington.edu> Message-ID: Could you send a copy to me as well? I will pass it along to the Endagered Languages List. Benjamin Barrett gogaku at ix.netcom.com > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of George Thompson > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > interested. From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Thu Nov 25 14:01:30 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 09:01:30 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <20041125050113.06C3FB26BA@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: for me & mine, "grilled cheese (sandwich)" has always been: - toast the bread, 1 slice per serving - optionally, spread a very thin layer of mayonnaise on one side; this will keep the cheese from soaking into the bread - top it with slices of cheese, usu. cheddar or jack - sprinkle with paprika - put it in the broiler to melt the cheese mark by hand From grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET Thu Nov 25 18:49:52 2004 From: grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET (Seán Fitzpatrick) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:49:52 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: Barbara Need wrote: <> Exactly. We called it a grilled cheese sandwich in the Wash., D.C. suburbs in the 1950s, and my mother taught us to make them in a waffle iron with the plates reversed to the pancake griddle side. We buttered the outsides and filled it with cheddar cheese, mustard, and maybe sliced ham. This bound me conceptually, so that I still make the sandwich before putting it in the frying pan, rather than using the elegant method of building the sandwich as it cooks. (Visages, sacred or profane, were rare, though my mother once thought she saw the likeness of Franklin Roosevelt. Her response was to cut the sandwich into quarters rather than the usual halves.) I found in the late '60s that Dutch pub fare always included--often exclusively--a grilled cheese or ham & cheese sandwich made in a press. One asked for "een ham en kaas tostie", although I'm not sure about the "tostie". Se?n Fitzpatrick Strawberry tarts, cinnamon trollops, and hot buttered trulls. Uuumm,mmm good. http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/ From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Thu Nov 25 19:59:46 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 14:59:46 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:49:52 -0500, Se?n Fitzpatrick wrote: >I found in the late '60s that Dutch pub fare always included--often >exclusively--a grilled cheese or ham & cheese sandwich made in a press. >One asked for "een ham en kaas tostie", although I'm not sure about the >"tostie". I've seen "toastje", "toastie", or "tostie". Basically the same as French "croque monsieur", no? And then there's the Australian "jaffle"... --Ben Zimmer From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Thu Nov 25 23:42:50 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:42:50 -0600 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <200411250932.iAP9WLrt008172@listserv.cc.uga.edu> Message-ID: Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 George Thompson wrote: > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > > interested. > --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Nov 26 01:36:35 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 17:36:35 -0800 Subject: sex 'have sex with' Message-ID: Instinct magazine, Dec. 2004, p. 42, Frank Pizzoli's "What a Difference a Gay Makes": ----- A new Chicago Department of Public Health report shows about 14 percent of primary and secondary syphilis cases reported there between 2000 and 2002 were transmitted through oral sex... Roughly 20 percent of men sexing other men and catching syphilis indicated only oral sex exposure. ----- From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 26 04:43:12 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 23:43:12 -0500 Subject: sex 'have sex with' In-Reply-To: <9BCD06D8-3F4B-11D9-9700-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 25, 2004 at 05:36:35PM -0800, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote: > Instinct magazine, Dec. 2004, p. 42, Frank Pizzoli's "What a Difference > a Gay Makes": > ----- > A new Chicago Department of Public Health report shows about 14 percent > of primary and secondary syphilis cases reported there between 2000 and > 2002 were transmitted through oral sex... > Roughly 20 percent of men sexing other men and catching syphilis > indicated only oral sex exposure. > ----- OED2 does have an entry for this, with cites back only to 1966 (in intransitive use), but we now have examples from the early 20th century in the files, and I'm sure Barry or Fred or Ben or Sam will hit us with an example from ECCO or something now. We also have transitive examples--Iceberg Slim uses it thus in _Pimp_--but because you're citing an example in a homosexual context, I'll share another such (intransitive), from a classic: 1968 `A. D'ARCANGELO' _Homosexual Handbook_ 146 All Sunday we stayed in bed, reading the funnies, the book reviews of all the papers, sexing and loving. Best, Jesse Sheidlower OED From Bapopik at AOL.COM Fri Nov 26 05:01:15 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:01:15 EST Subject: "Pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar" (1881) Message-ID: I've been adding to my web site, and I was looking for "double Dutch." Perhaps I'll post that here. "Pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar" appears to be an early, Fred Shapiro-worthy food-based rope-jumping rhyme. Who knew it went back to 1881? Anything under "pepper" in the revised OED? Perhaps it should be added there. 1 April 1881, Reno (NV) Evening Gazette, pg. 1, col. 1: DIED FROM JUMPING ROPE. (...) >From the New York Sun. (...) Another of Rachel's little companions said: "She used to be very fond of jumping what we call 'pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar,' That is when we being to jump slow, and keep jumping faster until we get to vinegar, when you have to jump as fast as you can." 27 April 1941, New York Times, pg. SM9: The chant for the single rope jump is still, "Pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar!" Then the fast count. These kids are jumping "Double Dutch," the two-rope game. 21 April 1944, New York Times, pg. 3: Air Hero Provides Theme For Rope-Jumping Rhyme The chant of "Pepper, salt, mustard, cider, vinegar," which for generations has timed the jump-rope game of youngsters, has become a war casualty - at least in Brooklyn. Here is what a group of girls was heard singing yesterday at Ninth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street as the rope went 'round and 'round: Major Bong is a very fine man, He shoots down all the Japs he can. How many Zeros will he get today? Let's count them up, what do you say? One-two-three-four, etc. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Fri Nov 26 05:06:03 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 21:06:03 -0800 Subject: everynow Message-ID: correspondent mike gillis reports: ----- on a whim I typed 'everynow' into google, thinking that it would get very few hits except for perhaps artistic uses. It got 11-thousand-something, and I noticed that nearly all of the first page were hits for 'everynow' and then. So I checked, and the phrase "everynow and then" gets about eight thousand hits. It seems way too many to be all typos... although the phrase "every now and then" gets around a million hits, "every nowand then" and "every now andthen" only get a couple of hundred hits each. ----- so "every now" (in the idiom "every now and then", and with lesser frequency, in the idiom "every now and again") has followed "every time" and "every place" -- these two are in MWDEU -- in having a sequence of words that is pronounced as a unit spelled (by some people) as a unit. "everytime", "everyplace", "everynow". sorta (or kinda) like "alot" and "alright". arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), yeah, yeah, wanna, hafta, oughta, useta, and so on From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 26 05:07:10 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:07:10 -0500 Subject: "Hip" from Wolof?; Big Apple Whores (cont.); My book is published In-Reply-To: <77.363d0a6c.2ea3b5de@aol.com> Message-ID: At 7:47 AM -0400 10/17/04, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >"HIP" FROM WOLOF? > >Hip: The History >By John Leland >Ecco, 405 pp., %26.95 > >http://www.villagevoice.com/vls/182/sante.shtml >EYES WIDE SHUT >BY LUC SANTE >The way of all hip, from Emerson to a billboard near you > >John Leland may or may not have written the first history of hipness-I can't, >in an admittedly casual search, find another-but it's hard to shake the >thought that such a book might as well be its subject's obituary. It's like >broadcasting the rituals of the lodge, or maybe spelling down all >the names of the >godhead. There are dozens of histories of bohemia, but that's not the same >thing, although the two concepts have a large field of intersection. Bohemia >started in Europe and spread around the world, but hip (Leland >employs the word as >both adjective and noun) is indigenously American. The word derives from the >Wolof hepi ("to see") and hipi ("to open one's eyes"). The idea of hip emerged >from seeds sown in Senegambia that budded in America. It has everything to do >with race mixing, and it works both ways, comprising not just white people's >love and theft of black style but also African American appropriations of >European baggage: the pianoforte, the three-button suit, >existentialism, Yiddish >expressions, horn-rim glasses, the novel. And hip is occult, arcana without a >heaven. > > >I saw this book at the Barnes & Noble and I've been thinking about this. >Lighter's HDAS has "origin unknown" for "hep" and "hip." It's nice that a book >about the subject, such as this is, can go beyond scholarship and state a >conclusion for a mass audience that's not based on evidence. > >And the reviewers--they usually know even less. > >I don;t subscribe to the "Wolof" theory at all. Even if I did, however, I >would have reservations in stating this before the general public. But I guess >that wouldn't be hip. > Barry and others will be unsurprised to learn that in today's NYT (p. E18), reviewer Ben McGrath also cites Leland's Wolof etymology of "hip" without disclaimer. So now it's official. Larry From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 26 06:04:01 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:04:01 -0500 Subject: "Hip" from Wolof?; Big Apple Whores (cont.); My book is published In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Barry and others will be unsurprised to learn that in today's NYT (p. >E18), reviewer Ben McGrath also cites Leland's Wolof etymology of >"hip" without disclaimer. So now it's official. It's also unsurprising that Wolof (according to my dictionary) has no letter "h" ... although it is purportedly the language of origin not only for "hip" and even "hep-cat" but also for "honky" (in Wikipedia etc.). The verb "open one's eyes" does appear, as "xippi" ("x" = /x/ apparently). "See" does not have any entry like "hip"/"hep". The supposed etymon of "honky" sometimes given as "honq" = "pink" appears as "xonxa" = "red". Of course it may be that Wolof was a little different a few hundred years ago ... is it safe to assume that the scholars responsible for discovering these African etymologies did diligent research into the Wolof lexicon and phonetics of past centuries? -- Doug Wilson From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Fri Nov 26 09:43:01 2004 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:43:01 -0800 Subject: Dear John Letters Message-ID: I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man to a woman ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford Dictionary of English. Here is a citation where it seems to mean a letter written to many people in a generic letter (from http://www.jat.org/jtt/LipsettBilling.html): In the process of introducing a new estimating and invoicing system, however, we had to be careful to not raise the cost of a given job (well, not visibly, at any rate...). [...]We mailed out a Dear John letter on May 15th, describing what we were doing, and announced that the change would go into effect on June 1st. We stressed the fact that effective costs would not change and enclosed the new price list. Note that no relationship is being terminated whatsoever, it seems to be the genericness of the word "John" that is being borrowed. Benjamin Barrett Baking the World a Better Place www.hiroki.us From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Fri Nov 26 11:04:36 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 06:04:36 -0500 Subject: Goofs, Yannigans, Juveniles (was Re: goof antedate) Message-ID: On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 02:14:13 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: >On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 14:14:23 -0600, Mullins, Bill > wrote: > >>goof (n) slang OED: 1. A silly, stupid, or daft person. 1916 Sat. >>Even. Post >> >>"What the Umpires Will Do" _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 62. >>"an' what inell didja say that goof's name was what was tuh pitch?" > >I don't have Dickson's dictionary handy, but I know that "goof" was >already used in baseball by that time (in Chicago at least) to refer to a >second-string player on a team's roster who only played during spring >training -- typically in intersquad games between the "regulars" (or >"premiers") and the "goofs". Newspaperarchive.com has that sense of the >term back to 1912: > > Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, March 15, 1912 > Kid Gleason's goofs defeated the regulars. > > Lincoln (Neb.) Evening News, March 20, 1912 > The White Sox premiers and Gleason's "Goofs" parted company > today, the latter squad, commanded by Doc White, leaving this > morning for San Antonio to begin practice on the diamond to > be vacated today by Connie Mack's Athletics. ... The "Goofs" > will probably remain at San Antonio the balance of the > training season. > > (Decatur, Ill.) Daily Review, April 14, 1912 > GOOFS SPANKED IN FIRST GAME > German's Regulars Win Opening Tilt, 8 to 2. > >See also : > > The Cubs spent their weeks on the island playing mostly inter- > squad games. The regulars versus the goofs, they were called. > >Looks like the Cubs and White Sox were the teams who most often called >their B-squads "goofs", or perhaps they were the only teams to do so. >(Someone with access to the Tribune archive might find earlier cites.) Following up... George Thompson finds nothing relevant in the Tribune archive before that fateful spring of 1912: WHITE SOX SQUAD IN TWO SECTIONS; Callahan to Send Second Team to San Antonio Today for Practice. MATTICK GOES TO FIRSTS. Premiers and Goofs Exhausted After Most Strenuous Drill in the South. SAM WELLER. Chicago Daily Tribune: Mar 20, 1912. p. 11 I would guess that someone in the White Sox organization (perhaps coach Kid Gleason) came up with the "Goofs" sobriquet for spring training in 1912. Then at some later point the crosstown Cubs borrowed "Goofs" for their own B-squad. As the link above suggests, the Cubs were still using "Goofs" when they moved their spring training to Catalina Island in the '20s. Here's another reference, found via Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0974242403/?v=search-inside&keywords=goofs _The Cubs on Catalina: A Scrapbookful of Memories About a 30-Year Love Affair Between One of Baseball's Classic Teams & California's Most Fanciful Isle_, by Jim Vitti. Settefrati Press (2003) The guys had some fun with their intrasquad games. Just about every year, the half-squads got new names. Some matchups over the years: Regulars vs. Sand Dabs Regulars vs. Goofs Doublemints vs. Spearmints Catalinas vs. Avalons (Burns covered these in the Tribune as Joseph V. McCarthy's Avalons vs. J. Vincent McCarthy's Catalinas) Claghorns vs. Wildcats Regulars vs. Rebels Regulars vs. Daisies Regulars vs. Yannigans McCullough's Night Owls vs. Scheffing's Grumpies Whites vs. Grays Roy Johnsons vs. Spud Davises One of the B-squad nicknames listed is "Yannigans", which I see has been discussed at length here by Barry Popik and Gerry Cohen back in Dec. '02, with cites from Barry back to 1895. Indeed, when "Goofs" starts appearing in the sports pages in 1912, it's as an alternative to "Yan(n)igans", e.g.: In the Phillies' New Training Camp Edward L. Grant, Baseball Magazine, May, 1909, No. 1, p. 13-14. Every afternoon all the guests are out to see our practice or the game between the Regulars and Yanigans. And they root hard? not for the Regulars, however, for they are an out-and-out Yanigan crowd, and rejoice at any humiliation they can administer the opponents. One other B-squad name I noticed in Baseball Magazine is "Juveniles": Phillies vs. Athletics William A. Phelon, Baseball Magazine, May, 1912, No. 1, p. 1-6. A game was on between the Regulars of the team and the Juveniles? the ambitious youngsters of the aggregation... The "Juveniles" nickname lends some credence to the idea that "Yan(n)igans" started off as a variant of "young 'uns" (mentioned in a Jan. '03 post by Doug Wilson). --Ben Zimmer From jester at PANIX.COM Fri Nov 26 13:05:58 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:05:58 -0500 Subject: "Hip" from Wolof?; Big Apple Whores (cont.); My book is published In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041126005022.03203540@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 26, 2004 at 01:04:01AM -0500, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > > ... is it safe to assume that the scholars responsible for discovering > these African etymologies did diligent research into the Wolof lexicon and > phonetics of past centuries? "scholars" Jesse Sheidlower From gingi at POBOX.COM Fri Nov 26 13:20:20 2004 From: gingi at POBOX.COM (Rachel Sommer) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:20:20 -0500 Subject: merry chrismukkah/happy holidays In-Reply-To: <20041119193834.E1F28DBD5@gold.pobox.com> Message-ID: Then there's my husband's take on it, several years (and email addresses) ago: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3A35110A.25968F27%40earthlink.net -- --<@ Rachel L.S. Sommer http://www.gingicat.org "If you scratch a cynic, you find a disappointed idealist." --George Carlin From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 26 15:30:46 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 10:30:46 -0500 Subject: Dear John Letters In-Reply-To: <200411260943.iAQ9h3J4005866@listserv.cc.uga.edu> Message-ID: At 1:43 AM -0800 11/26/04, Benjamin Barrett wrote: >I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man to a woman >ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford >Dictionary of English... Actually, that's a "Dear Jane letter" ;-) Larry From einstein at FROGNET.NET Fri Nov 26 16:11:42 2004 From: einstein at FROGNET.NET (David Bergdahl) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:11:42 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: Clear DayThe first place I saw the Wolof etymology for "hip" and "hep" was in J. L. Dillard's Black English. ________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Fri Nov 26 16:20:02 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:20:02 -0500 Subject: Dear John Letters In-Reply-To: <200411260943.iAQ9h3J4005866@listserv.cc.uga.edu> Message-ID: >Benjamin Barrett writes: >I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man to a woman >ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford >Dictionary of English. ~~~~~~~~~~ Surely a letter from a woman to man. Typically illustrated as the man in uniform reading the letter from the "girl he left behind." A. Murie From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 26 16:26:07 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:26:07 -0800 Subject: "only ever" Message-ID: Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes in the New Yorker for Nov. 29, Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82) I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be All Schulz ever wanted to be was a cartoonist. or Schulz wanted only to be a cartoonist. or A cartoonist! Yessirree, Bob, that's the only thing Schulz ever wanted to be! Anymore, is the New Yorker losing its celebrated sensitivity to English? Its old-time persnickety copy-editors used to would have forstalled something like this. Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column? JL --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses. From paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM Fri Nov 26 16:32:32 2004 From: paulzjoh at MTNHOME.COM (paulzjoh) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 10:32:32 -0600 Subject: Dear John Letters Message-ID: Does anyone remember the country song popular during the Korean War? "Dear John, I've sent your saddle home"? Paul johnson. ----- Original Message ----- From: "sagehen" To: Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 10:20 AM Subject: Re: Dear John Letters > >Benjamin Barrett writes: > >I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man to a woman > >ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford > >Dictionary of English. > ~~~~~~~~~~ > Surely a letter from a woman to man. Typically illustrated as the man in > uniform reading the letter from the "girl he left behind." > A. Murie From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Fri Nov 26 16:33:57 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:33:57 -0800 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: I believe it was David Dalby who first made this suggestion about 1967 or '68. I also seem to recall that he made clear that it was only a suggestion, part of his interest in investigating West African languages for possibly overlooked etymologies of English words. "Jitterbug" was also on the list. So far as I know, substantive evidence of a Wolof origin for "hip/hep" (or vice versa) has never been adduced. JL David Bergdahl wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: David Bergdahl Subject: Wolof hip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clear DayThe first place I saw the Wolof etymology for "hip" and "hep" was in J. L. Dillard's Black English. ________________________________ "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott aber Boshaft ist er nicht" --Albert Einstein --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! ? Try it today! From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Fri Nov 26 16:40:54 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:40:54 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <000301c4d348$79b61a60$2e2b0b45@vneufeldt> Message-ID: The best consultant would be Ives Goddard of the Smithsonian Institute. An Algonquian scholar, he would know, or would at least know who to contact. At 06:42 PM 11/25/2004, you wrote: >Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the >reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > >Victoria > >Victoria Neufeldt >727 9th Street East >Saskatoon, Sask. >S7H 0M6 >Canada >Tel: 306-955-8910 > >George Thompson wrote: > > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > > > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > > > interested. > > > >--- >Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Fri Nov 26 16:49:43 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:49:43 -0500 Subject: "only ever" In-Reply-To: <20041126162607.17711.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: At 8:26 AM -0800 11/26/04, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes >in the New Yorker for Nov. 29, > > Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82) > >I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be > > All Schulz ever wanted to be was a cartoonist. > > or > > Schulz wanted only to be a cartoonist. > > or > > A cartoonist! Yessirree, Bob, that's the only thing >Schulz ever wanted to be! > >Anymore, is the New Yorker losing its celebrated sensitivity to >English? Its old-time persnickety copy-editors used to would have >forstalled something like this. > >Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column? > I won't try to answer that last one, but after first claiming in print that "only ever" is a Briticism, I've started to accumulate many examples from U.S. English. If you google on "over ever done it once", for example, you're directed to 394 hits. I'm not sure why it would be considered "incorrect"--stilted, perhaps, but not incorrect. In general, "only" licenses negative polarity items like "ever" as long as the latter are not the focus of "only", as seen below [examples taken from a 1996 paper of mine], so the "only ever" in examples like Franzen's is actually quite well-behaved. (1) a. I only eat any meat WHEN I'M DEPRESSED. b. I eat meat only WHEN I'M DEPRESSED ABOUT {SOMETHING/ ?*ANYTHING}. c. Only WHEN I'M DEPRESSED do I ever eat any meat. d. *Only WHEN I'M EVER DEPRESSED ABOUT ANYTHING do I eat meat. (2) a. I've only ever gone there ONCE. b. I only go there {SOMETIMES/*EVER}. c. Only ONCE have I ever been there. d. *Only EVER {do I go there/have I been there}. Larry From douglas at NB.NET Fri Nov 26 18:43:27 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 13:43:27 -0500 Subject: Goof (1902) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: From N'archive: ---------- _Colorado Springs Gazette_, 2 March 1902: p. 17: [A humorous poem about the legislature, with interpolated commentary] <<.... / For below the people's elect were spread. / Some were statesmen, in wisdom born and bred, / While some were muggled goofs with necks of red. / <> ---------- -- Doug Wilson From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Fri Nov 26 19:14:52 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 14:14:52 -0500 Subject: "only ever" In-Reply-To: <20041126162607.17711.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Nov 2004, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes in the New Yorker for Nov. 29, > > Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82) > >I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be I have heard sentences like the first one most of my life - I do not find it weird. The focus is different, I suppose. Jon, how old did you say you are now?!? Bethany, formerly your senior From gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG Fri Nov 26 19:30:23 2004 From: gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG (Grant Barrett) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 14:30:23 -0500 Subject: "only ever" In-Reply-To: <20041126162607.17711.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column? The latter. ; ) Grant From grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET Fri Nov 26 20:20:37 2004 From: grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET (Seán Fitzpatrick) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:20:37 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) Message-ID: Hardly, unless you mean in the same way an Egg McMuffin is the same as a croque madame. http://www.cnn.com/FOOD/specials/1999/french.food/sandwich.html To be fair, Google finds more than 21000 hits for "croque monsieur", some of which are little different from a toasted cheese sandwich. Se?n Fitzpatrick Live fast, die young . . . God, what else did I forget? http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/ ----- Original Message ----- From: Benjamin Zimmer Sent: Thursday, 25 November, 2004 14:59 Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 13:49:52 -0500, Se?n Fitzpatrick wrote: >I found in the late '60s that Dutch pub fare always included--often >exclusively--a grilled cheese or ham & cheese sandwich made in a press. >One asked for "een ham en kaas tostie", although I'm not sure about the >"tostie". I've seen "toastje", "toastie", or "tostie". Basically the same as French "croque monsieur", no? And then there's the Australian "jaffle"... --Ben Zimmer From gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM Fri Nov 26 21:21:45 2004 From: gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM (Benjamin Barrett) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 13:21:45 -0800 Subject: Dear John Letters In-Reply-To: <200411260730.1cxI3E1B43NZFpL0@mx-a065b05.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: Oh, right. I always have trouble keeping straight things straight...BB > -----Original Message----- > From: American Dialect Society > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Laurence Horn > > At 1:43 AM -0800 11/26/04, Benjamin Barrett wrote: > >I've always thought a "Dear John letter" was one from a man > to a woman > >ending a romantic relationship, and this is confirmed by the Oxford > >Dictionary of English... > > Actually, that's a "Dear Jane letter" ;-) From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sat Nov 27 02:01:13 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 20:01:13 -0600 Subject: Goof (1902) Message-ID: > <<.... / For below the people's elect were spread. / Some were > statesmen, > in wisdom born and bred, / While some were muggled goofs with necks > of red. / So what does "muggled" mean in this context?? From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 27 02:42:50 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 21:42:50 -0500 Subject: Goof (1902) In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B497B2@rdec-exch8.ds.amr dec.army.mil> Message-ID: >So what does "muggled" mean in this context?? I don't know for sure, but I suppose it to be approximately equivalent to "muddled", i.e. "confused". DARE shows a "muggle" something like this, with a reference to the EDD (which I don't have handy). Cf. also "hugger-mugger", and various "muggle" words referring to marijuana. Maybe it's just a nonce word. The same poem contains "twickled and twittled" where "twittered" or so would be expected, and "twirked" apparently similar to "twitched", and some of the legislators are termed "ismists" and "popgogs". Could "goof" itself be nonce here, and unrelated to later use? Could be, but the sense looks about right for continuity. -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 27 05:26:12 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 00:26:12 -0500 Subject: "Yannigan bag"? Message-ID: A while back -- http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0301A&L=ads-l&P=R378 -- "yannigan bag" was mentioned as a supposed ancestor of the baseball "yannigan". I don't know whether anybody ever found any trace of "yannigan bag", but I happened across this word which may be related somehow: From MW3: << wanigan or wannigan ... noun ... of Algonquian origin; akin to Abnaki _waniigan_ trap, literally, that into which something strays ... 1 : a chest for supplies 2 : a shelter for sleeping, eating, storage, or office space often mounted on wheels or crawler tracks and towed by tractor or mounted on a raft or boat 3 : debts incurred by lumbermen at a company store >> I have seen "wannigan" used to mean "houseboat". Can't remember where now. Judging from the senses above maybe the basic sense is/was "carryall" or so. I don't see any connection to the baseball "yannigans". -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 27 06:01:48 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 01:01:48 -0500 Subject: Dear John Letters Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 10:32:32 -0600, paulzjoh wrote: >Does anyone remember the country song popular during the Korean War? "Dear >John, I've sent your saddle home"? There were a number of country & western songs in the early '50s on the "Dear John" theme. The one you're thinking of was called "Dear John" and was recorded by Hank Williams in 1951 (written by Aubry Gass and Tex Ritter): ------- Well when I woke up this mornin', There was a note upon my door, Said don't make me no coffee Babe, 'cause I won't be back no more, And that's all she wrote, Dear John, I've sent your saddle home. Now Jonah got along in the belly of the whale, Daniel in the lion's den, But I know a guy that didn't try to get along, And he won't get a chance again, And that's all she wrote, Dear John, I've fetched your saddle home. ------- The song is also notable for linking "Dear John" with another then-new expression, "that's all she wrote". Slightly earlier than the Hank Williams song was Ernest Tubb's "That's All She Wrote", written by Jerry Fuller in 1950: ------- I got a letter from my mama just a line or two She said listen daddy your good girl's leavin' you That's all she wrote didn't write no more She'd left the gloom a hanging round my front door Now I woke up this morning a quarter past three I just couldn't realize this could happen to me That's all she wrote... ------- "That's all she wrote" is not yet in the OED, but Googling suggests the expression dates to the '40s, perhaps as the punchline to a WWII-era joke/story about a "Dear John" letter. ("Dear John" itself dates to 1945, according to OED2.) The two expressions were familiar enough in August 1947 for a real estate agent named John H. Whitfield to run classified ads in the Nevada State Journal and the Reno Evening Gazette reading: "DEAR JOHN? BUT THAT IS NOT ALL SHE WROTE." --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Nov 27 06:30:42 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 22:30:42 -0800 Subject: The fall eggcorn crop Message-ID: three months of eggcorn collecting (in which ADS-L figures prominently) have now been summarized on the Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001671.html From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 27 07:58:43 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:33:57 -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >I believe it was David Dalby who first made this suggestion about 1967 >or '68. I also seem to recall that he made clear that it was only a >suggestion, part of his interest in investigating West African languages >for possibly overlooked etymologies of English words. "Jitterbug" was >also on the list. I think the original Dalby reference on "hip" et al. was a July 19, 1969 article in the (London) Times. From Paul Werth on the Linguist List: --------------- http://linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-705.html Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET From: Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK An expansion on my earlier rather vague note about the attempt to argue an African origin for O.K. I've managed to find my original source for the information, which was an article in the London Times of July 19, 1969, by David Dalby (Reader in West African Languages, SOAS, U of London). There is apparently independent evidence of the importance of Wolof as a lingua franca among American slaves, and some of the foodstuffs traded along the West African coast have entered the English vocab as Wolof loans (Dalby cites banana and yam). There are other examples in this article than those I cited: 'dig' in the 'understand' or 'appreciate' sense seems like Wolof 'dega', 'to understand'; 'jive', in its original sense of 'talk misleadingly' (Don't jive me, man), finds a parallel in Wolof 'jev', 'to talk disparagingly'; there's a Wolof verb 'hipi', meaning 'to open one's eyes', which with the agentive verbal suffix 'kat', gives 'hipikat', 'one whose eyes are open'. And if the explanation of an African origin for such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural shock, Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of inter- jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only are they more common in American English than in British English, they're also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! --------------- --Ben Zimmer From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Sat Nov 27 14:31:26 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 09:31:26 EST Subject: Assorted comments Message-ID: In a message dated > Fri, 26 Nov 2004 13:43:27 -0500, "Douglas G. Wilson" < > douglas at NB.NET> quotes: > > From N'archive: > _Colorado Springs Gazette_, 2 March 1902: p. 17:> > > [A humorous poem about the legislature, with interpolated commentary] > > <<.... / For below the people's elect were spread. / Some were statesmen, > in wisdom born and bred, / While some were muggled goofs with necks of red. > / and in a later message suggests "muggled" is a (deliberate?) misrendering of "muddled". That suggestion makes sense, as the phrase would then read "muddled doofs" which could be a shortening of "muddled doofuses". I vaguely recall a discussion on the word "doofus" in ADS-L, but I don't recall how far back that word was citated. On to other short comments: Douglas Wilson also writes > The supposed etymon of > "honky" sometimes given as "honq" = "pink" appears as "xonxa" = "red". Of > course it may be that Wolof was a little different a few hundred years ago "honq" and "xonxa" look to be the same word, as trascribed by two observers with different transliteration conventions, particularly if the final "a" on "xonxa" is a grammatical inflection or agglutination. Compare the transliterations "Peiping" (or was it "Peking") and "Beijing". Alternatively "honq" and "xonxa" are variations on the same root which means "of a reddish color" as reported by observers with different transliteration conventions and different opinions as to the importance of including a variant meaning "pink". -------------------------------------------------------- Two neologisms I found this past week: In a negative review of "Alexander", the reviewer said the movie was a "shleppic". This I suspect is a nonce coinage. Sally Friedman "The Plague of the Sexless Marriage" _Inside_ (ISSN 0199-7602, published by Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia) Winter 2004, no Volume/number given, page 61 bottom of column 1: In a culture saturated with the sexual---in a world in which sexual liberation is presumably universal---m illions of American couples are living like celibate monks. There's even a name for these couples: "DINS." Double Income, No Sex "DINS" may be a derivative of "DINK"- "Dual Income No Kids" which I ran across a few years ago. Gordon Welchman _The Hut Six Story_ (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982, ISBN -0-07-069180-0) page 78 discusses the word "crib" and in a footnote gives the following unattributed quote: "And they found in his palms...what is common in palms, namely dates" Anyone familiar with this proverb(?)? It certainly appears to be a parody of a line in Bret Harte's poem "Plain Language from Truthful James" - Jim Landau From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Sat Nov 27 15:15:14 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 07:15:14 -0800 Subject: "only ever" Message-ID: I still don't get it but I know when I'm beat. JL Laurence Horn wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Laurence Horn Subject: Re: "only ever" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At 8:26 AM -0800 11/26/04, Jonathan Lighter wrote: >Of the late creator of the strip "Peanuts," Jonathan Franzen writes >in the New Yorker for Nov. 29, > > Schulz only ever wanted to be a cartoonist. (82) > >I judge this sentence to be semantically weird. Natural and normal would be > > All Schulz ever wanted to be was a cartoonist. > > or > > Schulz wanted only to be a cartoonist. > > or > > A cartoonist! Yessirree, Bob, that's the only thing >Schulz ever wanted to be! > >Anymore, is the New Yorker losing its celebrated sensitivity to >English? Its old-time persnickety copy-editors used to would have >forstalled something like this. > >Or have I slipped over, finally, into the curmudgeon column? > I won't try to answer that last one, but after first claiming in print that "only ever" is a Briticism, I've started to accumulate many examples from U.S. English. If you google on "over ever done it once", for example, you're directed to 394 hits. I'm not sure why it would be considered "incorrect"--stilted, perhaps, but not incorrect. In general, "only" licenses negative polarity items like "ever" as long as the latter are not the focus of "only", as seen below [examples taken from a 1996 paper of mine], so the "only ever" in examples like Franzen's is actually quite well-behaved. (1) a. I only eat any meat WHEN I'M DEPRESSED. b. I eat meat only WHEN I'M DEPRESSED ABOUT {SOMETHING/ ?*ANYTHING}. c. Only WHEN I'M DEPRESSED do I ever eat any meat. d. *Only WHEN I'M EVER DEPRESSED ABOUT ANYTHING do I eat meat. (2) a. I've only ever gone there ONCE. b. I only go there {SOMETIMES/*EVER}. c. Only ONCE have I ever been there. d. *Only EVER {do I go there/have I been there}. Larry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Nov 27 15:21:01 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 10:21:01 -0500 Subject: "Money Is the Mother's Milk..." In-Reply-To: <20041127151514.99350.qmail@web53906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I am without ProQuest Historical Newspaper access this weekend. Can I impose upon anyone to search PQHN to see what is the earliest appearance of Jesse Unruh's quote, "Money is the mother's milk of politics"? I would be interested in the newspaper, exact date, and exact wording. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Sat Nov 27 16:04:00 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 11:04:00 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" In-Reply-To: <200411271524.iARFOakP025922@pantheon-po07.its.yale.edu> Message-ID: One more: Can I impose upon anyone to search ProQuest Historical Newspapers to see what is the earliest appearance there of "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us" or variants thereof? Sam Clements searched this on Newspaperarchive, but I don't think anyone posted any ProQuest results for it. Fred Shapiro -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From douglas at NB.NET Sat Nov 27 16:37:05 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 11:37:05 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments In-Reply-To: <195.330f56cc.2ed9e9be@aol.com> Message-ID: >.... the phrase would then read "muddled doofs" >which could be a shortening of "muddled doofuses". "Doofus" is too recent, I think. Its possible ancestor "doof"" is easily old enough, in Scots (says HDAS). Neither of these appears frequent in the US English of 1902 (I can't find them, at a glance). >"honq" and "xonxa" look to be the same word, as trascribed by two observers >with different transliteration conventions .... I believe these are the same word. I doubt there is a separate "pink" but I haven't researched the matter fully and don't intend to. Wolof lexicon and grammar are AFAIK utterly unrelated to the etymology of the English "hip" or "honky", although I would change my position immediately if any grain of evidence were put forth. "Xonxa" is one dictionary's spelling; I think it's standard. "Honq" is of unknown provenance, possibly a casual transcription, I don't know or care. But note that the forms adduced for the etymological assertions are ones which are orthographically closer to the target word (in order better to convince the fastidious savants of Wikipedia, NYT, etc., maybe). BTW: "Peking" vs. "Beijing": the "pe"/"bei" distinction seems to be merely a choice of transcriptions of the same sound but the "king" vs. "jing" seems to reflect a recent (during last few centuries) 'fronting'/ palatalization (pronunciation shift) in northern (particularly Beijing) Chinese; I suppose the shift is probably still in progress. The "k" is the older version, presumably adopted from a dialect which had not undergone this shift at the time of the spelling choice (some dialects still don't have the shift) ... or possibly from a conservative 'formal' pronunciation (e.g., Chinese opera pronunciation retains some old features like this still, AFAIK). -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sat Nov 27 17:22:26 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 12:22:26 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 09:31:26 EST, James A. Landau wrote: >That suggestion makes sense, as the phrase would then read "muddled doofs" >which could be a shortening of "muddled doofuses". I vaguely recall a >discussion on the word "doofus" in ADS-L, but I don't recall how far back >that word was citated. Over on the alt.usage.english newsgroup I posted a 1955 cite where "Doofus" is used generically for a dim-witted boxer, similar to "Joe Palooka" or "Joe Schmo". I see from the archives that Fred Shapiro reposted it over here: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0306A&L=ads-l&P=R2541 1955 John Lardner in _N.Y. Times_ 25 Dec. "Doofus lost every round from the third, but they give him the duke!" "Gratz had him on the floor in the fifth!" "You shoulda seen it!" "What kind of officiating is that!" "Was you there? You was? Then let me tell you what happened!" Fred noted that HDAS only has a 1966 cite (though it's "remembered from Jonathan Lighter's childhood" c. 1960). In any case, as Doug Wilson said, "doof(us)" is too recent a coinage to be a source for "goof" -- the other way around is more likely. "Doofus" could have been derived from "goof" via "goofus" (_Highlights Magazine_'s "Goofus and Gallant" dates to 1948, according to ). --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sat Nov 27 20:34:51 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 12:34:51 -0800 Subject: Rule Of Three (redux) Message-ID: i've just done a summary of our february ADS-L discussion of "location, location, location" and related matters on the Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001673.html From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 27 22:39:06 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 17:39:06 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <5506056.1101588836005.JavaMail.jharwell@tennessee.edu> Message-ID: I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: --- After a few purchases, however, buyers realize that they get better prices when they lie in wait until the last few seconds of an auction and then jump in with a higher bid. This practice, known as sniping, doesn't give other buyers the chance to reconsider their own bottom line and bump up their own bid a few dollars higher. --- The infinitive is . Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Nov 27 22:58:53 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 17:58:53 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 05:39:06PM -0500, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a > quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: Yes, it's extremely widespread. Jesse Sheidlower OED From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sat Nov 27 23:03:14 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:03:14 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <20041127225853.GA10201@panix.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: > >Yes, it's extremely widespread. Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? Bethany From jester at PANIX.COM Sat Nov 27 23:17:17 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:17:17 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 06:03:14PM -0500, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: > On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: > > >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a > >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: > > > >Yes, it's extremely widespread. > > Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? None, so far as I know. That is, there are other current verbs _to snipe_ (the other newish one referring to the surreptitious placement of advertising stickers for music promotion), but this is pretty exclusive to eBay and similar sites. (In most traditional forms of auction, sniping as such is not possible, because there's no fixed time when an auction ends: any new bid will extend the time.) Jesse Sheidlower OED From panis at PACBELL.NET Sat Nov 27 23:54:52 2004 From: panis at PACBELL.NET (John McChesney-Young) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 15:54:52 -0800 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <200411272317.iARNHJLM012755@mtac2.prodigy.net> Message-ID: Out of curiosity I decided to check Google groups (searching for combinations of snipe & sniping and ebay & auction), and the earliest cite I found is from August of 1997: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=01bcaeaf%24bd0baca0%24f7a9bacd%40prescojo.ix.netcom.com&output=gplain From: jp (prescojo-- at -ix.netcom.com ) Subject: Re: I've Had It With EBay ! Newsgroups: rec.antiques Date: 1997/08/22 Hey, I have to agree with dpross- at -ibm.net on this one. Sniping is okay when it works for you, but is very frustrating when it doesn't.... so, the best bet is to give yourself and e-bay time to process the bid(s) in advance of the closing hour, bid what you're willing to pay and hope for the best. Besides, E-bay isn't really like a "live" auction; it's more of a "silent" auction where you don't know who's going to win until all the bids are in and the auction closes ... (end quote; e-mail addresses munged by me) Since eBay opened for business in September of 1995 I wonder whether it really took two years for the practice and its term to arrive; on the other hand, sniping was chancier in pre-broadband days. I was also interested to learn there's a noun, _snipe_, reportedly derived from the other meaning of verb to which JS refers. It might be that everyone else knows of it. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=199701081958.MAA06056%40sde.hp.com&output=gplain From: Evan Zweifel Subject: MOPO FAQ V.1.0 Date: 1997/01/08 Message-ID: <199701081958.MAA06056 at sde.hp.com> apparently-to: sender: Movie Poster Discussion comments: Gated by NETNEWS at AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU reply-to: Evan Zweifel newsgroups: bit.listserv.movie.memorabilia ... Snipes Also called "minis," these posters are produced by the studios/production companies (NOT by National Screen Service) usually for use in non-theatre locations to promote a film. These posters are also given out at sneak previews and other promotional events to generate interest in a movie. They received the name " snipe " since "to snipe " meant pasting advertisements up (on walls, telephone poles, etc) illegally at night. Size varies, but they are generally 11 X 17 and printed on glossy paper. John *** >On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 06:03:14PM -0500, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >> On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> >> >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a >> >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: >> > >> >Yes, it's extremely widespread. >> >> Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? > >None, so far as I know. That is, there are other current >verbs _to snipe_ (the other newish one referring to the >surreptitious placement of advertising stickers for >music promotion), but this is pretty exclusive to eBay >and similar sites. > >(In most traditional forms of auction, sniping as such >is not possible, because there's no fixed time when an >auction ends: any new bid will extend the time.) > >Jesse Sheidlower >OED -- *** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley, California, U.S.A. *** From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sat Nov 27 23:55:20 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:55:20 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 23, 2004, at 10:10 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is >> escorted >> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >> confused with the Texas Rangers). > >> I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers > > The town of Marshall had no town marshal? > > It is said that the reason the US Army does not have the rank of > "Marshal" or > "Field Marshal" is that the first man to be considered for such a rank > was > General (i.e. then four stars) George C. Marshall, and he refused to > become > "Marshal Marshall". > > It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. > However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to Field > Marshal was > Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason unknown > to me, > instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." > > A Texas Ranger cannot be described as a "peace officer" because the > Rangers > are theoretically not a police force but rather the private army of > the State > of Texas. > > Beverly Flanigan writes: > >> I'd add that city or county >> police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in >> Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel >> 50 >> miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and >> maintain >> reasonable speed. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> At my grandfather's >> funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >> be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >> at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >> panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >> expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police >> was >> not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >> people and denied to white people. > > John Baker writes: > >> The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the > highway and >> waiting for the funeral procession to pass. > > More than a custom; it is part of good driving practice and may be > state law > in most states. At least it may be state law that once a convoy (any > convoy > on the road, not only a funeral procession) passes a traffic light and > the > light turns red, the convoy keeps going. The custom of having the > headlights on > in a funeral procession has nothing to do with respect for the > deceased. It is > a warning to other motorists that this is a convoy. In fact, convoys > other > than funeral processions (which generally means military convoys) also > have > headlights on. > > As for the police escort, that is because a funeral procession, > regardless of > race creed or hairstyle, is an equal-opportunity creator of traffic > problems. > It is not a "service provided to white people" but rather a necessity > for > the police department, one of whose duties is to clear up trafic > problems. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> when my father first went up to >> Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >> then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >> Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >> yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >> Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >> pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >> peculiar to a dialect." > > I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an > Irish > accent. > I think "primarily" is the term that you're searching for. But, IMO, even if the term is accepted as being restricted specifically to Irish, it merely makes my father's use of it to describe his idiolect of BE even more noteworthy. Unfortunately, he died in January of this year, at the age of 97. Otherwise, I'd question him about it. -Wilson Gray From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Sun Nov 28 01:02:47 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:02:47 -0500 Subject: boarding-house reach (1909) Message-ID: Found today (I should say refound, as I had lost it): The subject was not mentioned at breakfast; nor was anything else, in particular, mentioned. Duncan was extremely polite, and passed here the toast when ordinarily he would have permitted her to help herself (true, it was a small table, for two, and easily spanned, but she objected to a "boarding-house reach"), as was wholly affable. Edwin L. Sabin, "What Did Duncan Do?" Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (APS Online), Dec. 1909, p 724 Any examples from further back would be much appreciated. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 01:59:21 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:59:21 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <20041127231717.GA8325@panix.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a >> >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: >> > >> >Yes, it's extremely widespread. >> >> Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? > >None, so far as I know. Thanks. I thought you meant that it occurred in contexts other than those involving eBay, etc. Bethany From nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU Sun Nov 28 01:32:17 2004 From: nee1 at MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU (Barbara Need) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:32:17 -0600 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: <007201c4d31f$9cdc32a0$6400a8c0@FITZT1840> Message-ID: >Barbara Need wrote: ><instead of the waffle plates>> >Exactly. >We called it a grilled cheese sandwich in the Wash., D.C. suburbs in >the 1950s, and my mother taught us to make them in a waffle iron >with the plates reversed to the pancake griddle side. We buttered >the outsides and filled it with cheddar cheese, mustard, and maybe >sliced ham. Did you close the waffle iron? Or did you use the griddle side as a griddle and flip the sandwich. > This bound me conceptually, so that I still make the sandwich >before putting it in the frying pan, rather than using the elegant >method of building the sandwich as it cooks. I always make the sandwich before I cook it--I use a griddle or a frying pan and flip the sandwich. Barbara > (Visages, sacred or profane, were rare, though my mother once >thought she saw the likeness of Franklin Roosevelt. Her response >was to cut the sandwich into quarters rather than the usual halves.) > >I found in the late '60s that Dutch pub fare always included--often >exclusively--a grilled cheese or ham & cheese sandwich made in a >press. One asked for "een ham en kaas tostie", although I'm not >sure about the "tostie". > >Se?n Fitzpatrick >Strawberry tarts, cinnamon trollops, and hot buttered trulls. Uuumm,mmm good. >http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/ From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 02:01:48 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:01:48 -0500 Subject: "Money is the mother's milk of politics" (1963) Message-ID: I am without ProQuest Historical Newspaper access this weekend. Can I impose upon anyone to search PQHN to see what is the earliest appearance of Jesse Unruh's quote, "Money is the mother's milk of politics"? I would be interested in the newspaper, exact date, and exact wording. Fred Shapiro (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Party Hackles Raised by Democratic Council CARL GREENBERG. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Apr 8, 1963. p. A4 (1 page) : This was the platform from which the committee, and subsequently the convention, jumped on Unruh with both feet, inveighing against "bossism" and "machine politics" and, lest anybody fail to get the message, using a quotation previously publicly attributed to Unruh about money being "the mother's milk of politics." California Clash; Feud of Top Democrats In Golden State Could Hurt Kennedy in 1964 Leaders Jockey to Build Power Bases; White House Ties of Unruh Irk Brown An Earful on President's Trip? California Clash: Democrats' Feud Could Hurt Kennedy in State in '64 By ALAN L. OTTEN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Wall Street Journal (1889. Jun 5, 1963. p. 1 (2 pages) Pg. 20: It cited as a horrible example a quote widely identified with the speaker (Unruh--ed.): "Money is the mother's milk of politics." Brown Signs Campaign Bill Backed by Unruh; Governor Calls CDC-Opposed Endorsement Measure 'Badly Needed to Correct Abuses' CAMPAIGN BILL CARL GREENBERG. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Jul 2, 1963. p. 2 (2 pages) Pg. 17: He (Unruh--ed.) attended its Bakersfield convention in March at which CDC adopted an election reform report using a quotation widely attributed to Unruh that "money is the mother's milk of politics." After Political Honey Comes That Big Money RICHARD BERGHOLZ. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 6, 1963. p. A4 (1 page) : Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh is credited with the classic remark that "money is the mother's milk of politics." The Democrats Are Having Troubles, Too CARL GREENBERG. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Mar 2, 1965. p. A4 (1 page) : ...rewrote Unruh's famous "Money is the mother's milk of politics"... Unruh's Money Raising Dinnerto Aid His Slate; $100 Contributions Jan. 13 to Help Those Candidates Who Are Allied With Speaker RICHARD BERGHOLZ. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Jan 2, 1966. p. 2 (1 page): Most of Unruh's followers are abundantly aware that it was the speaker who, while climbing to the top, is credited with the oft-quoted remark that "money is the mother's milk of politics." Close-up on Reagan; Hurdling the primaries Approach smoother Economy popular Slate assembled Choice possible A political signal? By John C. Waugh Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Jan 15, 1968. p. 9 (1 page): "I aim to do two things in these swings," he (Ronald Reagan--ed.) says. "Talk up Republican unity and raise the mother's milk of politics--money." The myths of politics By John A. Cicco, Jr.. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Jul 12, 1979. p. 22 (1 page) : _"Money is the mother's milk of politics."_ This constantly repeated quotation within political circles seems primarily intended to discourage any newcomers to politics. Money is important, but its importance is overrated. Too many good candidates don't run because they think it takes a fortune to do so. Too many bad cadidates do run simply because they can get the "backing." The politican who hopes to buy an election, however, will waste most of his or her money on people who make a small, but reliable, living by selling their support--often several times during the same election. Jesse Unruh, a devotee of politics and power; JUSTICE CURTIS J. SITOMER. Christian Science Monitor (1908-Current file). Boston, Mass.: Aug 13, 1987. p. 17 (1 page) : "MONEY is the mother's milk of politics," quipped Jesse Unruh almost three decades ago. This catch phrase quickly became, and still is, a rallyiung cry for politicans the nation over. From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 02:08:37 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:08:37 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, John McChesney-Young wrote: >Hey, I have to agree with dpross- at -ibm.net on this one. Sniping is >okay when it works for you, but is very frustrating when it doesn't.... >so, the best bet is to give yourself and e-bay time to process the bid(s) >in advance of the closing hour, bid what you're willing to pay and hope >for the best. And I have to disagree with your best bet, based on my two weeks of experience on eBAY. Last week I lost a dining table I had my heart set on - to a last15seconds sniper. But from that experience, I figured out how to snipe (though I did not yet know the term) - and on Wednesday night I bid successfully for a much nicer table at a much lower price - in the closing seconds. The next day - Thanksgiving - I spoke with a friend who buys often on eBay. Her sniping technique involves sitting at two high-speed computers as the bid close time approaches - so she loses no time between her bids. I was fascinated by the WSJ article yesterday because it summarized most of what I had just spent two weeks learning. I am of course speaking only of eBay bids - not other kinds of . Bethany From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 02:09:26 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:09:26 -0500 Subject: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 23, 2004, at 12:07 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Dennis R. Preston" > Subject: Re: mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of > Wisconsin) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> Fritz, > > You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your > name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town. > > Of course familiarity does not always breed accuracy; when I was in > Madison WI in the 12th Cent. there was a cheap beer (popular among > the little moneyed) named Feuerbach pronounced 'fireback,' but the > best local pronunciation of all the midwestern US German heritage > beers was Griesedieck as 'greasydick.' > > dInIs In addition to Griesedieck Brothers Beer, the Griesedieck Bros. Brewery, a St. Louis-based company, also brewed Falstaff Beer, the biggest-selling brand of beer in St. Louis through the 'Sixties, at least, much to the chagrin of Anheuser-Busch, the biggest-selling beer in the world, except not in its own hometown. -Wilson Gray > > > >> Mark, >> I didn't know about the '15' meaning. Names are often so >> interesting. I have a kid whose last name is Breivogel. He >> naturally thinks that it has something to do with birds, but such is >> not the case. A Breivogel is not a bird, altho it probably alludes >> it one. >> My last name gets slaughtered all the time. I am used to it and >> even enjoy the variations I get. ALmost no one here at the school >> can even spell it. I've gotten about 20 different spellings on >> various notes. Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My >> favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and >> paid with my plastic. The lady who took it, who is from China, >> informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you >> were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know >> how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was >> able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if >> I remember correctly. It's all good:) >> Fritz Juengling aka Zhueng-ling >> >>>>> mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/23/04 08:07AM >>> >> FRITZ JUENGLING asks: >>>>> >> Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark >> almond >> (or tonsil)?' >> <<< >> >> i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording, >> punctuation, >> capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon >> naturallyspeaking >> to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako >> escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts, >> etc., and >> sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my >> tendinitis. >> >> i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name >> was >> mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he >> shortened it. i >> like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather >> than to >> avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees >> and left >> only the nuts. >> >> aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape; >> french >> also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can >> see, >> "by hand" is away from the tonsils! >> >> it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that >> eng. >> "dozen" is '(group of) 12'. >> >> -- mark by hand > > > -- > Dennis R. Preston > University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics > Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African > Languages > A-740 Wells Hall > Michigan State University > East Lansing, MI 48824 > Phone: (517) 432-3099 > Fax: (517) 432-2736 > preston at msu.edu > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 02:38:53 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:38:53 -0500 Subject: "English was good enough for Jesus" (1905, 1912 for "St. Paul") Message-ID: One more: Can I impose upon anyone to search ProQuest Historical Newspapers to see what is the earliest appearance there of "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us" or variants thereof? Sam Clements searched this on Newspaperarchive, but I don't think anyone posted any ProQuest results for it. Fred Shapiro (AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES ONLINE) LANGUAGE OF ST. PAUL. Youth's Companion. Puck (1877-1918). New York: Sep 11, 1912. Vol. 72, Iss. 1854; p. 0_10 (1 page): Among the Wesleyans of a century ago there was a well-known and eccentric preacher named David Mackenzie. When reading the third chapter of Daniel he invariably abbreviated the instruments of the Babylonian musicians, and when the names of the instruments were repeated in verses 10 and 15 he would say, "The band as before." He was a lay preacher of the old order, and was admitted without having read the prescribed "Wesley's Sermons," and the rest. He boasted of his lack of "book learning," and scornfully told a student of the new school, who was learning Latin, that "English was good enough for St. Paul; ain't it good enough for you?"--_Youth's Companion_. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) OLDEST DINING CLUB IN THE WORLD; The State in Schwylkill, Founded in 1732, Still Holds Its Annual Dinner in Its Castle Near Philadelphia -- All Cooking Is Done by Members, and Each Must Take His Turn at It. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jan 15, 1905. p. SMA8 (1 page): PROF. ADOLPHE COHN of Columbia University recently, in discussing the teaching of French and German in public schools, said that the attitude of a good many people on that subject was explained to him very aptly by a remark he had once overheard in a street car. Two elderly Irish women were talking about their children, when one remarked: "I won't let my child be taught Frinch." "Why not?" inquired the other. "Sure," replied the first, "if English was good enough for St. Paul to write the Bible in it's good enough for me." From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 02:48:36 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:48:36 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 24, 2004, at 11:41 AM, Gordon, Matthew J. wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Gordon, Matthew J." > Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now > less OT) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > When I saw this story on BBC.com, I was struck by their calling it a = > "toasted cheese sandwich". This is a variant of "grilled cheese" that = > we've recorded in Missouri, mostly by St. Louisans. > Is "toasted cheese" the usual term in British English? How 'bout in = > other parts of the US? > > -Matt Gordon > "Mostly by St. Louisans"? That's very bizarre. I first knew of the "grilled-cheese" sandwich as an offering of the student cafeteria at St. Louis University. This would have been in 1955 or so. Before then, I had never eaten a grilled-/toasted-cheese sandwich nor had I even heard of such a thing, though I had, by that time, lived in St. Louis for about twenty years. What can I tell you? Segregation worked. -Wilson Gray From panis at PACBELL.NET Sun Nov 28 02:51:41 2004 From: panis at PACBELL.NET (John McChesney-Young) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 18:51:41 -0800 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: <200411280208.iAS28XAk011542@ylpvm08.prodigy.net> Message-ID: "Bethany K. Dumas" quoted & wrote in part: >On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, John McChesney-Young wrote: > >> ... the best bet is to give yourself and e-bay time to process the bid(s) >>in advance of the closing hour, bid what you're willing to pay and hope >>for the best. > >And I have to disagree with your best bet, based on my two weeks of >experience on eBAY. ... Just to make it clear, the advice you quoted was not mine but that of the 1997 Usenet poster, jp (prescojo-- at -ix.netcom.com). In fact, I agree with you on eBay bidding techniques, although when I've tried sniping I've rarely succeeded - I think my competitors were using sniping software rather than doing it manually as I was. John -- *** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley, California, U.S.A. *** From vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET Sun Nov 28 03:46:10 2004 From: vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET (Vida J Morkunas) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:46:10 -0800 Subject: "I kid, because I love" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A little meme keeps reappearing in many of the blogs that I read (MetaFilter, Engadget, boingboing and other tech / consumer electronics type sites) Usually the line "I kid because I love" will appear when the writer is joking about something, or kidding. Where does this phrase come from? Where was it first written? I did a search on the ADS archives, and did not get a result. A search on Google reveals 774 instances of this sentence. Cheers - Vida Morkunas Vancouver BC From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 03:45:50 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 22:45:50 -0500 Subject: Speaking of "toast" Message-ID: When I was a child, buttered toast was made by first buttering slices of "light bread" and then putting them into the broiler on a cookie sheet till the butter melted and only the *top* of the bread was toasted. After we moved to St. Louis, which was not nearly as Jim-Crow as Marshall, TX, as a child, I often had occasion to eat a meal at the houses of neighborhood white children. One of the first things that I noticed was that white people had bread-toasting machines that toasted the bread on both sides. I also noted that no butter was put onto the bread until after it was toasted. I came to the following conclusions: 1) It was not possible to make a toasting machine that could toast bread on only one side, hence both sides of a slice of bread had to be toasted 2) Since the bread was inserted into the toasting machine on the vertical, it was not possible to butter the bread before toasting it, because the melting butter would flow into the innards of machine and cause a problem Approximately 25 years later, I had a white roommate who owned a toaster-oven. One day, when it was his turn to cook, he got out a cookie sheet, put some unbuttered slices bread on it and toasted the bread. This struck me as somewhat strange, but I wasn't the one cooking, so I didn't say anything. In any case, after the bread slices had been toasted, he took the cookie sheet out of toaster and proceeded to flip the slices over to their untoasted sides and then he put the cookie sheet back into the toaster-oven. I asked, "Why are you putting that toasted bread back into the oven?" He replied, as though to a child, "Why, so that I can toast the other sides." EPIPHANY!!! White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't figure out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only one side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 03:55:59 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 22:55:59 -0500 Subject: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now less OT) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 24, 2004, at 2:45 PM, Marsha Alley wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Marsha Alley > Subject: Re: Virgin Mary image in Grilled Cheese Sandwich (now > less OT) > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > In my family of origin (rural SW Appalachians living in Los Angeles > for = > 20 years before me), two slices of bread with cheese between, coated = > outside with butter and fried in a skillet was a "grilled cheese = > sandwich." > > A single slice of bread, topped with cheese and run under the broiler = > until it melted was "cheese toast." The under side of the bread was = > never toasted first. You are correct, ma'am. This is precisely the name of the foodstuff and precisely the method used to prepare it in East Texas, too. -Wilson Gray > > A friend of mine (originally from Idaho with Minnesota roots) toasts > two = > slices of bread, puts cheese inside when done and calls it a "toasted = > cheese sandwich." He's never heard of cheese toast. =20 > > Marsha > /wishing she had one of any of the above just now :-) > From marshaalley at MSN.COM Sun Nov 28 04:37:39 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:37:39 -0800 Subject: Speaking of "toast" Message-ID: Not all white folks. I prefer mine the way you had it as a child. When my aged heart can stand the butter anyway. :-) Marsha /who doesn't own a toaster or a toaster oven ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Wilson Gray > Subject: Speaking of "toast" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't figure out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only one side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 04:42:20 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 23:42:20 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 27, 2004, at 9:51 PM, John McChesney-Young wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: John McChesney-Young > Subject: Re: sniping? > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > "Bethany K. Dumas" quoted & wrote in part: > >> On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, John McChesney-Young wrote: >> >>> ... the best bet is to give yourself and e-bay time to process the >>> bid(s) >>> in advance of the closing hour, bid what you're willing to pay and >>> hope >>> for the best. >> >> And I have to disagree with your best bet, based on my two weeks of >> experience on eBAY. ... > > Just to make it clear, the advice you quoted was not mine but that of > the 1997 Usenet poster, jp (prescojo-- at -ix.netcom.com). > > In fact, I agree with you on eBay bidding techniques, although when > I've tried sniping I've rarely succeeded - I think my competitors > were using sniping software rather than doing it manually as I was. > > John > -- > > > *** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley, > California, U.S.A. *** > I had no idea that there was a way to snipe manually. I've always used a sniping application myself and it's worked like a charm for me. For instance, I once got a $325 sterling-silver Tiffany charm bracelet for $85. My wife loved it! I have a Mac, for which there are about three sniping apps. PC users probably have dozens to choose among. -Wilson Gray From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 05:01:53 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:01:53 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 27, 2004, at 11:37 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: Assorted comments > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> .... the phrase would then read "muddled doofs" >> which could be a shortening of "muddled doofuses". > > "Doofus" is too recent, I think. Its possible ancestor "doof"" is > easily > old enough, in Scots (says HDAS). Neither of these appears frequent in > the > US English of 1902 (I can't find them, at a glance). > >> "honq" and "xonxa" look to be the same word, as trascribed by two >> observers >> with different transliteration conventions .... > > I believe these are the same word. I doubt there is a separate "pink" > but I > haven't researched the matter fully and don't intend to. Wolof lexicon > and > grammar are AFAIK utterly unrelated to the etymology of the English > "hip" > or "honky", although I would change my position immediately if any > grain of > evidence were put forth. "Xonxa" is one dictionary's spelling; I think > it's > standard. "Honq" is of unknown provenance, possibly a casual > transcription, > I don't know or care. But note that the forms adduced for the > etymological > assertions are ones which are orthographically closer to the target > word > (in order better to convince the fastidious savants of Wikipedia, NYT, > etc., maybe). How is the word, funky, pronounced in BE? It's pronounced as though something like "fonky," right? Now, suppose that there was an ordinary word of American English, hunky, that was originally used as a term of opprobrium for certain peoples of Central-European extraction. Now, how would this word, hunky, be pronounced in BE? It might well be pronounced something like "honky," right? Is that a reasonable supposition? -Wilson Gray > > BTW: "Peking" vs. "Beijing": the "pe"/"bei" distinction seems to be > merely > a choice of transcriptions of the same sound but the "king" vs. "jing" > seems to reflect a recent (during last few centuries) 'fronting'/ > palatalization (pronunciation shift) in northern (particularly Beijing) > Chinese; I suppose the shift is probably still in progress. The "k" is > the > older version, presumably adopted from a dialect which had not > undergone > this shift at the time of the spelling choice (some dialects still > don't > have the shift) ... or possibly from a conservative 'formal' > pronunciation > (e.g., Chinese opera pronunciation retains some old features like this > still, AFAIK). > > -- Doug Wilson > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 05:16:31 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:16:31 -0500 Subject: Speaking of "toast" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 27, 2004, at 11:37 PM, Marsha Alley wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Marsha Alley > Subject: Re: Speaking of "toast" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Not all white folks. I prefer mine the way you had it as a child. > When = > my aged heart can stand the butter anyway. :-) > > Marsha > /who doesn't own a toaster or a toaster oven I take your point. -Wilson > > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header = > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society = > > > Poster: Wilson Gray = > > > Subject: Speaking of "toast" > = > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > --= > ------ > > White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't > figure > out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only > one > side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! > From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 05:26:26 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:26:26 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments In-Reply-To: <9F1F6FF8-40FA-11D9-9595-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: >How is the word, funky, pronounced in BE? It's pronounced as though >something like "fonky," right? Now, suppose that there was an ordinary >word of American English, hunky, that was originally used as a term of >opprobrium for certain peoples of Central-European extraction. Now, how >would this word, hunky, be pronounced in BE? It might well be >pronounced something like "honky," right? Is that a reasonable >supposition? I hope it's reasonable, because it's my supposition too. -- Doug Wilson From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 05:31:09 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:31:09 -0500 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. Message-ID: Am I the only one who read this essay in the TBR for 21 November? Or did everyone else read it and not find anything worthy of comment? -Wilson Gray From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 05:36:18 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:36:18 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 11:04:00 -0500, Fred Shapiro wrote: >One more: Can I impose upon anyone to search ProQuest Historical >Newspapers to see what is the earliest appearance there of "If English >was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us" or variants >thereof? Sam Clements searched this on Newspaperarchive, but I don't >think anyone posted any ProQuest results for it. Barry Popik has already turned up a 1905 cite with the "St. Paul" version, predating the two 1912 cites attributing the saying to David Mackenzie. As for the "Jesus" version, here's a Newspaperarchive cite from 1927: Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), April 27, 1927 Satisfied! An official of the Rockefeller Institute states that, among hundreds of letters of denunciation received by the institution during the past year, one was from a man in Arkansas who took the view that all this modern education is dangerous, and that the new-fangled practice of grounding preachers in Latin and Greek is especially pernicious. They ought to be taught English, he said, adding in conclusion: "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me." I don't know when the "Jesus" version began to be attributed to Texas Governor Miriam "Ma" Ferguson. I see the Ferguson attribution showed up in Safire's May 30, 1982 "On Language" column, but surely it predates that. (In a Sept. 15, 1979 Syracuse Herald Journal article, then-Congressman Paul Simon gave H.L. Mencken as the source.) --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 05:50:49 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:50:49 -0500 Subject: boarding-house reach (1909) Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:02:47 -0500, Barnhart wrote: >Found today (I should say refound, as I had lost it): > >The subject was not mentioned at breakfast; nor was anything else, in >particular, mentioned. Duncan was extremely polite, and passed here the >toast when ordinarily he would have permitted her to help herself (true, >it was a small table, for two, and easily spanned, but she objected to a >"boarding-house reach"), as was wholly affable. Edwin L. Sabin, "What Did >Duncan Do?" Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (APS Online), Dec. 1909, p 724 > >Any examples from further back would be much appreciated. Slightly earlier, from the LA Times: A MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP JOKE. Los Angeles Times, Jan 7, 1908. p. II4 So-called reformers who have a "boarding-house reach" for all the municipal pie in sight, object to the term "half-baked." --Ben Zimmer From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Sun Nov 28 06:00:16 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:00:16 -0600 Subject: snipe (was Re: Assorted comments) Message-ID: >On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 06:03:14PM -0500, Bethany K. Dumas wrote: >> On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, Jesse Sheidlower wrote: >> >> >> I ran into this term this week - is its use widespread? Here is a >> >> quotation from a recent WSJ story about sniping on eBay: >> > >> >Yes, it's extremely widespread. >> >> Thanks. What other contexts does it occur in? > >None, so far as I know. That is, there are other current >verbs _to snipe_ (the other newish one referring to the >surreptitious placement of advertising stickers for >music promotion), but this is pretty exclusive to eBay >and similar sites. > I found another context, which I posted here: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0411A&L=ads-l&P=R564 From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 06:55:12 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 01:55:12 -0500 Subject: Mountain talk from Manly Wade Wellman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I read a few Wellman books, set in Appalachia, probably around Asheville NC, time 1946-1984. Some odd words are used, supposedly regular Appalachianisms. Some are well-known, others new to me, some seem obsolete, some I can't find in my dictionaries. "allow" = "assert"/"state" (not "concede" or so) "a gone gump" = "a complete fool" "hamper" [n.] = "impediment" "blockade [whiskey]" = "moonshine" "bee gum" = "beehive" "croker sack" = "burlap bag" "a sight" = "a multitude"/"a large quantity" "jimswinger" = "long-tailed [coat]" "whet" [n.] = "aperitif" "I swanny" [exclamation] = "I swear" "wag" = "carry" "brag" [n.] = "truculent talk" "master", "champion" [adverb, adjective (including predicate)] = "outstanding" "the pure quill" = "the real McCoy" "shammock" = "roam"(?) Generally long obsolete in standard English: "swarve" = "climb" "[not a] hooter" = "[not a] bit" Not in my books: "gop" = "gape" [same as "garp" etc. in DARE?] "use" [v.i.] = "walk"/"go"(?) "hobby" [n.] = "bunch" Anybody recognize any of the last group? Anybody want an example of any term? -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 07:10:43 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:10:43 -0500 Subject: "I kid, because I love" Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 19:46:10 -0800, Vida J Morkunas wrote: >A little meme keeps reappearing in many of the blogs that I read >(MetaFilter, Engadget, boingboing and other tech / consumer electronics >type sites) > >Usually the line "I kid because I love" will appear when the writer is >joking about something, or kidding. > >Where does this phrase come from? Where was it first written? I associate the line with Krusty the Clown on _The Simpsons_... "I kid, 'cause I love. I'm telling you the best folk in the world are prison folk." --"The Brother from Another Series", aired Feb. 23, 1997 http://www.snpp.com/episodes/4F14 But I see that the Usenet archive has it back to Feb. 1994: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=pcnet.22.762446402 at englab.indstate.edu Since the _Simpsons_ writers have modeled Krusty on the old Borscht Belt comedians, I'd bet that the line was long part of the shtick of "insult comics" like Don Rickles -- as a way to defuse any hard feelings after a nasty jibe (and to set up the insultee for an even nastier jibe). Jon Stewart, who also borrows heavily (if self-consciously) from Borscht Belt shtick, has made use of the line, as in this 1998 interview: http://jon.happyjoyfun.net/tran/1998/98_1003npr.html --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 07:34:29 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:34:29 -0500 Subject: "Money is the mother's milk of politics" (1963) Message-ID: On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:01:48 -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >Party Hackles Raised by Democratic Council >CARL GREENBERG. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: >Apr 8, 1963. p. A4 (1 page) : >This was the platform from which the committee, and subsequently the >convention, jumped on Unruh with both feet, inveighing against "bossism" >and "machine politics" and, lest anybody fail to get the message, using a >quotation previously publicly attributed to Unruh about money being "the >mother's milk of politics." Ever-so-slightly earlier: Democratic Council Hits at Unruh; Adopts Explosive Report Warning of Party Bossism Los Angeles Times, Mar 31, 1963. p. G1 The election committee made it clear that it was referring to Unruh in its report by citing a quotation attributed to him that "money is the mother's milk of politics." --Ben Zimmer From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 28 07:42:33 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 23:42:33 -0800 Subject: the curious phonology of wisconsin In-Reply-To: <1101239711.41a3959f0951f@webmail.sas.upenn.edu> Message-ID: On Nov 23, 2004, at 11:55 AM, Damien Hall added to the followups on my original New Yorker quote from Randy Quaid. no one picked up on quaid's "more pronounced" r's, or on his theory that wisconsinites "talk from the front of their mouths, because they don't want to breathe in the cold." there were some comments on the parsing of "breathe in the cold", but mostly we've been talking about that syllable-division thing in "Wisconsin" (which came up on this list back in october 2003), and in other words, like "mistake". here's a brief run-down... 1. (leaving out some messy details...) words of the form ...V1 C1 C2 V2..., where V1 is the lax vowel of the first syllable and V2 is a tense vowel with primary accent, tend to have three linked properties: (a) tertiary accent on the first syllable; (b) unreduced V1; (c) C1and C2 split between the two syllables, C1 closing the first and C2 as the onset of the second. as a result of (c), C1 has appropriate syllable-final allophones and C2 appropriate syllable-initial allophones. examples: festoon, pontoon, monsoon, poltroon, pastiche, Mankato, Monhegan, Matsui,... and Wisconsin. 2. productive, semantically transparent, "strong" prefixes, like "new" re- (recalculate), de- (defang), mis- (miscalculate), and dis- (distaste) come with tertiary accent, and so have the other properties in 1 (as appropriate). the "old", unproductive, semantically opaque, "weak" prefixes re- (receive), de- (defer), mis- (mistake), and dis- (disturb) are unaccented, have reduced vowels, and (as appropriate) have C1 syllabified with the following syllable. 3. the Oregon Effect: in very frequent, familiar words (like "Oregon" for Oregonians and "Wisconsin" for Wisconsinites), vowels with tertiary stress tend to lose it, with concomitant vowel reduction and (where appropriate) resyllabification; this is what gives the Wisconsinite pronunciation of "Wisconsin". the same thing can happen in fast, casual speech, so that "distaste" can be pronounced, on occasion, much like "mistake" (though they are usually distinct). the reverse is possible, too, but only in hyperarticulate speech, in which each syllable gets some accent. so there's the quick story. an extra twist: some prefix-like elements in names normally come with tertiary accent and show the other properties in 1; the result is a possible contrast like the famous one between "McAuley" (with [k] closing the first syllable, preserving the element "Mc") and "McCawley" (with a [k] in each syllable, or with the first deleted before another [k]). if these names are both familiar to you, they lose the accent on the first syllable and become homophones. otherwise, they *can be* distinct, with the more infrequent "McAuley" likely to preserve tertiary accent (and first-syllable [k]) and the more familiar "McCawley" likely to lose the accent (and have no [k] in the first syllable). but they can also fall together, with tertiary accent on the first syllable, and with the [k] of "McAuley" moved into the second syllable to maximize syllable onsets. The tendency to maximize onsets is in part independent of the accent condition. and now: "Van Ness", the name of a major street in san francisco. the name has a tertiary accent on the element "Van"; the first syllable can end in [n], or have it deleted before the initial [n] of the second syllable. if the [n] is deleted, a hearer who knows the naming system of english (and of the languages that have contributed to this system) can recognize the element "Van" ("Va" not being a possibility) but can't tell whether the primary-accented element is "Ness" (with [n] deleted) or "Ess" (with [n] moved into the following syllable). so if you don't know the street names of san francisco, you could well think that what you're hearing is "Van Ess". and lots of people do. well, i did, back in 1976. ok, this last stuff might be impossibly intricate. but there *are* a lot of alternative pronunciations, and which ones you have depends on things like word structure, familiarity/frequency, speech style, and all that neat stuff. arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 07:51:05 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:51:05 -0500 Subject: thisclose (1933), closeasthis (1955) Message-ID: Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald, June 6, 1933 [Photo caption] HOW ROMANCE RUMORS linking the names of Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone were started you may guess from this photo showing them thisclose at a recent dinner. Bridgeport (Conn.) Telegram, April 11, 1955 Marion and Lopez Both Sure Of Winning Pennant in 1955 By UNITED PRESS Fred Haney, Pirates -- The race should be just as closeasthis. I don't care who wins if we don't. I'm just trying to build an eventual contender with the Pirates. --Ben Zimmer From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Sun Nov 28 07:53:50 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 02:53:50 -0500 Subject: Assorted comments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 28, 2004, at 12:26 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Douglas G. Wilson" > Subject: Re: Assorted comments > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > >> How is the word, funky, pronounced in BE? It's pronounced as though >> something like "fonky," right? Now, suppose that there was an ordinary >> word of American English, hunky, that was originally used as a term of >> opprobrium for certain peoples of Central-European extraction. Now, >> how >> would this word, hunky, be pronounced in BE? It might well be >> pronounced something like "honky," right? Is that a reasonable >> supposition? > > I hope it's reasonable, because it's my supposition too. > > -- Doug Wilson It's good to find a kindred soul. I don't like to assign African origin to any aspect of black-American culture to Africa, unless there's no possibility of American origin or if there's clear historical evidence that leaves me no choice. IMO, the building of a whole new culture under the most arduous of circumstances, a culture that has influenced the cultures of the rest of the world, I find that far more interesting and impressive than hearing some fool say, "Oh, no! None of that's original!. It all came from Africa!" -Wilson Gray From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 09:26:23 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 04:26:23 -0500 Subject: "hunky-dory" < Sc. "unco dour" ? Message-ID: Reading another thread's discussion of "hunky", I was inspired to check out newspaperarchive's early cites for "hunky-dory" and found this: Evening Gazette (Port Jervis, N.Y.), August 4, 1870 The slang expression of "hunky dory" is Scotch, and is a synonym of the Latin "non compos." He is "unco dour in the uptak," is the full expression. Has anyone run across this purported etymology before? I've heard the Japanese "Honcho dori" theory, but this Scots derivation is a new one. I take it the Scots expression would be glossed as "very stubborn on the uptake", though "non compos" obviously suggests a graver mental condition. This would seem to be precisely the opposite of the sense of "hunky-dory" as it emerged in the 1860s ('satisfactory, in good condition'). I've found some examples of "unco dour" in 19th-century Scots texts, though none followed by "...in the uptak": http://www.scotstext.org/makars/p_hay_hunter/chaipter_19.asp James Inwick: Ploughman and Elder by P Hay Hunter; Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier (Edinburgh and London) 1894, 1895, 1900 It wis nae uise speakin til him, an advisin him to come hame wi us, for the drink wis in his heid, an it made him unco dour. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/abk3684 Noetes ambrosianae. By Christopher North. (Prof. John Wilson.) Selected, edited & arranged by John Skelton. N.Y., J. B. Alden [pref. 1876] The flunkeys - as we weel ca'd them, sir - a contumelious nickname, which that unco dour and somewhat stupit radical in the Westminster would try to make himsel believe he invented ower again, when the impident plagiary changed it - as he did the ither day - into "Lackey." http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABR0102-0051-12 The Living age, Volume 51, Issue 654, p. 640 December 6, 1856 A WELCOME TO AULD AGE. BY MISS HAMILTON. Ye winna promise! och! ye're unco' dour, Sae hard to manage and sae cold and sour. --Ben Zimmer From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 09:29:26 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 04:29:26 EST Subject: Wake me up when Kirby dies; Broker than the Ten Commandments Message-ID: BROKER THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS BROKER THAN THE TEM COMMANDMENTS--47 Google hits, 13 Google Groups hits 1. _Straight From the Trumpet's Mouth; SATCHMO: My Life in New Orleans. By Louis Armstrong. Illustrated. 240 pp. New York: Prentice-Hall. $3.50. Trumpet's Mouth _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000096625537&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101632281&clientId=658 82) By CLEVELAND AMORY. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Oct 10, 1954. p. BR7 (2 pages) First page: Some of these, Louis tells us, hit the big time with "Roast Beef" (tuxedo) and "frebies" (free meals), others are nothing but "poor boy" sandwiches and were "broker than the Ten Commandments;... 2. _Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies; Louis Armstrong, the Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies in His Home at 71 _ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=000000079675134&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT =309&VName=HNP&TS=1101632281&clientId=65882) By ALBIN KREBS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 7, 1971. p. 1 (2 pages) Pg. 41: "I was foolin' around with some tough ones," Mr.. Armstrong recalled in 1969. "Get paid a little money, and a beeline for on of them gambling houses. Two hours, man, and I was a broke cat, broker than the Ten Commandments." _Bucks County Courier Times _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=++xTpPwvmwuKID/6NLMW2twgUcwPTeHajH0yrdQ41FgSWqZgLX4bFkIF+CsZYmrz) Saturday, July 13, 1968 _Levittown,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:levittown+than+the+ten+commandments) _Pennsylvania_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:pennsylvania+than+the+ten+commandm ents) ...remember when he was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Heart transplants were.....LBJ may have been less a gag target THAN usual. had an awful lot of somebody.. _Times Recorder _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=Ga2xMtpV76yKID/6NLMW2odsq4h7NXO1gMV6rU/Tvw/+HTeu2vtXIkIF+CsZYmrz) Sunday, July 14, 1968 _Zanesville,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:zanesville+than+the+ten+commandments) _Ohio_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:ohio+than+the+ten+commandments) ...remember when he was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Heart transplants were.....In show on CBS TV brought in some more THAN slightly suggestive material.. _Bucks County Courier Times _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=++xTpPwvmwuKID/6NLMW2uZ3shyR7xZusIaZXnzEax/a6TNpIf3zKEIF+CsZYmrz) Friday, August 09, 1974 _Levittown,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:levittown+than+the+ten+commandments) _Pennsylvania_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:pennsylvania+than+the+ten+commandm ents) ...one to Flip Wil- I was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.' a mighty good of what.....pursuit of power is more important THAN civil rights and THE welfare of a.. _Frederick Post _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=ssVO2f5ZuruKID/6NLMW2lqTdsfpwucUpNKKEzyeIskdbXukfoTed0IF+CsZYmrz) Wednesday, January 22, 1997 _Frederick,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:frederick+than+the+ten+commandments) _Maryland_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:maryland+than+the+ten+commandments) ...or how THEy're 4 broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.' biie-GMC dealer Sam C.....eating briers" or how THEy're -broker THAN THE TEN CommandmentFor Po.veil. 39.. _News _ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=ssVO2f5ZuruKID/6NLMW2tJ8kySV6UN3s07qcrLHUToFSiiXnTayT0IF+CsZYmrz) Wednesday, January 22, 1997 _Frederick,_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=city:frederick+than+the+ten+commandments) _Maryland_ (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=state:maryland+than+the+ten+commandments) ...or how THEy're "broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS." For Powell. 39. a.....eating briers' or how THEy're 'broker THAN THE TEN whole mess" of friends and.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- WAKE ME UP WHEN KIRBY DIES WAKE ME UP WHEN KIRBY DIES--5 Google hits, 0 Google Groups hits (GOOGLE) _Gold Rush Women_ (http://www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html) ... purposes, was an English actor so noted for his dramatic death throes that a phrase coined by bored theatre-goers, ?Wake me up when Kirby dies,? became ... www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html - 17k - _Cached_ (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:RRzT4eS4nlkJ:www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html+"wak e+me+up+when+kirby"&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/wo men.html) _San Francisco History - Strolling on Sunday Afternoons_ (http://www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm) ... Such stories of stage life he could tell! Such color of the old Bowery Theater! How he would dilate on the old slogan, ?Wake me up when Kirby dies?! ... www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm - 12k - _Cached_ (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:z5hykI2xoP8J:www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm+"wake+me+up+when+kirby "&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm) _WHMC-Columbia-- W Word List: Tamony, Peter (1902-1985), Collection ..._ (http://www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html) ... Waiting List Wait Out Waitress Wait-See Wait Tell Next Year Wait Up Waive Waiver Waiver Rule Waivers Wak Waka Wake Wakeathon Wake Me Up When Kirby Dies Wake Up ... www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html - 33k - _Cached_ (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:68s-jb_exEkJ:www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html+"wake+me +up+when+kirby"&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.ht ml) _[CTRL] [3] The Ohio Gang_ (http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html) ... was a Civil War veteran who always bedded down in a pile of old newspapers and, by way of bidding good-night, would say, "Wake me up when Kirby dies"? whoever ... www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv. aol.com/msg15487.html - 24k - Supplemental Result - _Cached_ (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:iYCA04DCniYJ:www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html+"wake+me+up+when+kirby"&hl=e n&ie=UTF-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html) _Article 1 -- No Title_ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000324266932&SrchMode=1&sid=4&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=11016 28569&clientId=65882) Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 12, 1898. p. 6 (1 page) The San Francisco papers, in speaking of the death of the pioneer actress, Sarah Stark Thorne, mentions James Stark as her first husband, which is quite incorrect. The lady was three times married, her first husband being the famous Bowery actor of fifty years ago, Hudson Kirby. Out of his name grew the popular newsboys' shibboleth of "Wake me up when Kirby dies." _THREE OLD-TIME THEATRES._ (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=000000101218470&SrchMode=1&sid=5&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=11 01628957&clientId=65882) THOMAS W. PITTMAN.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jun 22, 1902. p. 7 (1 page) Kirby, one of the then leading tragedians, frequently played there in National anf patriotic plays, and during his engagements it was the common saying of the town, "Wrap me in an American flag and wake me up when Kirby dies," as he was regarded as great in his heroic and prolonged death scenes. 4. _In the Days of "Dese, Dem, an' Dose"; Mr. Harlow Writes a Fascinating Full-Throated Chronicle of the Old Bowery. The Bowery _ (http:// proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=3&did=000000118215627&SrchMode=1&sid=5&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD& VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1101628957&clientId=65882) By HOLLISTER NOBLE. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 26, 1931. p. BR3 (2 pages) First page: Judsob Kirby appeared in "Six Degrees of Crime" and grew so famous for his death scenes that a request of the tired business man of the period to "Wake Me Up When Kirby Dies" became a bon mot for years. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 10:16:53 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 05:16:53 -0500 Subject: Wake me up when Kirby dies; Broker than the Ten Commandments Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 04:29:26 EST, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: >(http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=000000324266932&SrchMode=1&sid=4&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=11016 >28569&clientId=65882) >Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 12, 1898. >p. 6 (1 page) >The San Francisco papers, in speaking of the death of the pioneer actress, >Sarah Stark Thorne, mentions James Stark as her first husband, which is >quite incorrect. The lady was three times married, her first husband being >the famous Bowery actor of fifty years ago, Hudson Kirby. Out of his name >grew the popular newsboys' shibboleth of "Wake me up when Kirby dies." >From Newspaperarchive: Lima (Ohio) Daily Democratic Times, November 10, 1888 Laughing over the story recently told about the old Chatham theatre, W. B. Gregg recalls that in 1846 or 1847 an old actor named Kirby was the favorite there. Kirby was strong on melodrama and could die so pathetically that he always captivated the house in that scene. Once he was going through a particularly dull play and a kid in the pit grew weary. Stretching himself for a nap he requested his nearest neighbor in a tone clearly audible, "Wake me up when Kirby dies." The expression raised a hurrah. The curtain was rung down and Kirby was obliged to make a speech. "Wake me up when Kirby dies" was a Bowery expression from that time down to a very short time ago. -- New York Evening World. --Ben Zimmer From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 12:44:17 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 07:44:17 -0500 Subject: sniping? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thanks for the clarification, John. On Sat, 27 Nov 2004, John McChesney-Young wrote: >Just to make it clear, the advice you quoted was not mine but that of >the 1997 Usenet poster, jp (prescojo-- at -ix.netcom.com). > >In fact, I agree with you on eBay bidding techniques, although when >I've tried sniping I've rarely succeeded - I think my competitors >were using sniping software rather than doing it manually as I was. Bethany From goranson at DUKE.EDU Sun Nov 28 12:56:21 2004 From: goranson at DUKE.EDU (Stephen Goranson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 07:56:21 -0500 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. In-Reply-To: <200411280531.iAS5VEDY007543@ballard.acpub.duke.edu> Message-ID: I thought he did right good, New York paper and all, cept maybe that time he said he had "a relatively epicene sensibility." Stephen Goranson > Am I the only one who read this essay in the TBR for 21 November? Or > did everyone else read it and not find anything worthy of comment? > > -Wilson Gray > From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Sun Nov 28 13:14:20 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 08:14:20 -0500 Subject: 1 thousand words for reindeer? Message-ID: In a recent article in The Independent: "Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor 28 November 2004 Global warming is increasingly rendering Inuit and other Arctic peoples at a loss for words. They simply do not have names in their languages for the temperate species flocking up from the south. They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some have more than 1,000 words for reindeer - but none for, say, the robin, which is only now venturing north of the treeline. ...." This seems to be another case of journalistic exaggeration. More mythology about "snow words" I suspect. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 13:16:06 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 08:16:06 -0500 Subject: snipe (was Re: Assorted comments) In-Reply-To: <6D0A4730B029C545AC8DE97D7F22049D01B497B3@rdec-exch8.ds.amrdec.army.mil> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Mullins, Bill wrote: >I found another context, which I posted here: > >http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0411A&L=ads-l&P=R564 Thanks - I read the webpages. I was fascinated by this bit of misinformation in one story about faculty scheduling: >The Federalists, and even some members of the faculty, suggest that the administration's rationale was nonsense; faculty schedules are the same every week. If the faculty speakers were available last Tuesday at noon, they would also be available the next Tuesday, at noon, or the Tuesday after that.< Of course that is not true. It is generally true that one's teaching schedule remains constant over a semester - but the times of department and committee meetings, travel commitments, offcampus speaking engagements, etc. vary enormously. Bethany From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 14:06:14 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 09:06:14 -0500 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Am I the only one who read this essay in the TBR for 21 November? Or >did everyone else read it and not find anything worthy of comment? I've read it now. Here is the word from Asheville: http://www.mountainx.com/ae/2004/0721southern.php That Smoky Mountain dictionary looks interesting. Is there a discount for ADS members? -- Doug Wilson From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 14:35:44 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 09:35:44 -0500 Subject: "hunky-dory" < Sc. "unco dour" ? In-Reply-To: <54220.24.225.200.116.1101633983.squirrel@24.225.200.116> Message-ID: >Reading another thread's discussion of "hunky", I was inspired to check >out newspaperarchive's early cites for "hunky-dory" and found this: > > Evening Gazette (Port Jervis, N.Y.), August 4, 1870 > The slang expression of "hunky dory" is Scotch, and is a > synonym of the Latin "non compos." He is "unco dour in > the uptak," is the full expression. > >Has anyone run across this purported etymology before? I've heard the >Japanese "Honcho dori" theory, but this Scots derivation is a new one. I >take it the Scots expression would be glossed as "very stubborn on the >uptake", though "non compos" obviously suggests a graver mental condition. > This would seem to be precisely the opposite of the sense of "hunky-dory" >as it emerged in the 1860s ('satisfactory, in good condition'). I've never seen this etymology before. "Unco dour in the uptak" would seem to be similar to (still current?) "slow on the uptake", = "mentally deficient" or "of low intelligence" ... although I suppose it could be used to refer to a temporary condition (e.g., somnolence or drunkenness). Roughly equivalent to "non compos mentis" in a casual (not legal) meaning, I think. SND sense 7 for "dour": "Slow, sluggish, reluctant, used in various contexts, e.g. of a pupil to learn ...": example (1828): <> SND sense 3 for "uptak": "The capacity for understanding, power of comprehension, intelligence ... Freq. in phrs. gleg, quick, dull, simple, slow, etc. in, at, of the uptak.": example (1816): <> The sense of this "unco dour" (probably pronounced like "Unca Dewar" or so?) does not seem to have any overlap with the sense of "hunky-dory". I think maybe the newspaper item is poking fun at those hip cats who respond to "How are you?" with the ultramodern "Hunky-dory" ... or something like that ... i.e., implying that "hunky-dory" is a stupid expression. -- Doug Wilson From RonButters at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 15:39:41 2004 From: RonButters at AOL.COM (RonButters at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:39:41 EST Subject: 1 thousand words for reindeer? Message-ID: Yes, and I suspect that they call a robin something like [rabIn]. In a message dated 11/28/04 8:14:41 AM, barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM writes: > In a recent article in The Independent: > > "Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words > By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor > > 28 November 2004 > > Global warming is increasingly rendering Inuit and other Arctic peoples at > a loss for words. They simply do not have names in their languages for the > temperate species flocking up from the south. > > They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some have more > than 1,000 words for reindeer - but none for, say, the robin, which is > only now venturing north of the treeline. ...." > > This seems to be another case of journalistic exaggeration.? More > mythology about "snow words" I suspect. > > Regards, > David > > barnhart at highlands.com > > From laurence.horn at YALE.EDU Sun Nov 28 15:47:42 2004 From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU (Laurence Horn) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 10:47:42 -0500 Subject: "hunky-dory" < Sc. "unco dour" ? In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041128090741.032016e0@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: At 9:35 AM -0500 11/28/04, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >>Reading another thread's discussion of "hunky", I was inspired to check >>out newspaperarchive's early cites for "hunky-dory" and found this: >> >> Evening Gazette (Port Jervis, N.Y.), August 4, 1870 >> The slang expression of "hunky dory" is Scotch, and is a >> synonym of the Latin "non compos." He is "unco dour in >> the uptak," is the full expression. >> >>Has anyone run across this purported etymology before? I've heard the >>Japanese "Honcho dori" theory, but this Scots derivation is a new one. I >>take it the Scots expression would be glossed as "very stubborn on the >>uptake", though "non compos" obviously suggests a graver mental condition. >> This would seem to be precisely the opposite of the sense of "hunky-dory" >>as it emerged in the 1860s ('satisfactory, in good condition'). > >I've never seen this etymology before. > This does seem doubtful, as does the Japanese theory. For yet another one, check out http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhunky.html Larry From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 18:26:47 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 13:26:47 -0500 Subject: 1 thousand words for reindeer? Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 08:14:20 -0500, Barnhart wrote: >In a recent article in The Independent: > >"Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words >By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor > >28 November 2004 > >Global warming is increasingly rendering Inuit and other Arctic peoples at >a loss for words. They simply do not have names in their languages for the >temperate species flocking up from the south. > >They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some have more >than 1,000 words for reindeer - but none for, say, the robin, which is >only now venturing north of the treeline. ...." > >This seems to be another case of journalistic exaggeration. More >mythology about "snow words" I suspect. Yes, this is the " words for snow" meme with some new twists. The "~1,000 words for reindeer" part apparently came from this article: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6530026/ As ice melts, Arctic peoples at loss for words Languages don't reflect species, weather shifts By Alister Doyle Updated: 2:57 p.m. ET Nov. 24, 2004 REYKJAVIK, Iceland - What are the words used by indigenous peoples in the Arctic for "hornet," "robin," "elk," "barn owl" or "salmon?" If you don't know, you?re not alone. [...] "I know about 1,200 words for reindeer ? we classify them by age, sex, color, antlers," said Nils Isak Eira, who manages a herd of 2,000 reindeer in north Norway. The "no word for robins" part has been making the rounds, recently appearing in a quote from Sen. John McCain in the New York Times. Geoffrey Pullum has an entry on the Language Log about McCain's comment: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001647.html The origin of this one is a CBC Radio report in September 2000 called "No Word for Robin: Climate Change in the Canadian Arctic." You can read a summary of the report here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/sci_tech/highlights/010510_canadianarctic.shtml And here are audio links: (Part 1) (Part 2) At the beginning of Part 2, an Inuit bird enthusiast named Roger Kuptana tells the interviewer, Bob Carty, about a sighting of a red-breasted robin. Carty helpfully prompts, "What's the word in your language for 'robin'?" Kuptana replies, "I don't know if there's a word in Sachs Harbour for robin. They're so rare here, we don't have names for them." That was enough for Carty to name his report "No Word for Robin". The appeal of this meme is obvious-- we all know that those Eskimos have a zillion words for snow, but now with global warming that's all melting away. In place of snow come things that they don't have words for. --Ben Zimmer From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Sun Nov 28 18:47:30 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 13:47:30 -0500 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041128085313.03203b20@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >That Smoky Mountain dictionary looks interesting. Is there a discount for >ADS members? If you are talking about Michael Montgomery's book, it is interesting - it is also at least magnificent! I have given away several copies - this is a dictionary to sit and read. Bethany From Bapopik at AOL.COM Sun Nov 28 20:17:04 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:17:04 EST Subject: Ithaca's "Hot Truck" terminology Message-ID: Ithaca, New York's "Hot Truck" is featured in the Sterns' column in the December 2004 GOURMET, pg. 56. GOURMET didn't give a web site (why not?), but check it out here: _The Hot Truck_ (http://www.thehottruck.com/) ... CHRIS: A quarter loaf with sauce, pepperoni, sausage, cheese, onion, hot and heavy, grease and garden. ... "G & G" or "Grease and Garden" - mayonnaise and lettuce. ... www.thehottruck.com/ - 20k - Nov 26, 2004 - _Cached_ (http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:10PHjIcKw4cJ:www.thehottruck.com/+"grease+and+garden"&hl=en&ie=UT F-8) - _Similar pages_ (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&q=related:www.thehottruck.com/) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- OT, MISC. AOL 9.0 SECURITY EDITION--I was going between windows and sent that last "Kirby dies" post before it was ready. I've downloaded this "security edition" plus something else, and my computer is still slow and I still can't get rid of that annoying "diet patch" pop-up. BARRYPOPIK.COM: Should I add "Kirby" or is that too obscure? I just added Con Ed; Mason Jar; Arthur's Theme; Fame; Big Brothers; Wigstock; Hell's Hundred Acres; Frog and Toe; Mecca of Telephone Men; Double Dutch; Harlem Globetrotters; Boulevard of Death; Death Avenue; Parkway; Millionaires' Row; and various NYC college sports nicknames. CHICAGO: I still favor jumping off the Hancock Building. From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Sun Nov 28 20:44:23 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 12:44:23 -0800 Subject: 1 thousand words for reindeer? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 28, 2004, at 5:14 AM, David Barnhart wrote: > In a recent article in The Independent: > "Climate change and unfamiliar species leave Inuit lost for words... Geoff Pullum has savaged these reports in a recent Language Log posting: GKP: Arctic folk at loss for words again: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001665.html > ...They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife - some > have more > than 1,000 words for reindeer... the reports that geoff saw apparently didn't have this reference to the ur-snowclone, "language L has [huge] N words for X". since he's one of the keepers of the "Eskimo words for snow" inventory, i've forwarded the relevant ADS-L postings on to him. people just make these things up, you know. see geoff's "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax", especially the reference to Ideas Too Good To Be False (with credit to john reed). arnold From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 20:56:00 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:56:00 -0500 Subject: AOR (1977) Message-ID: According to the OED3 draft entry, "AOR" for "album-oriented rock" is "orig. US" (first cite 1979). But this 1977 cite suggests that the abbreviation originated in the UK: "Making the Rounds" with Vic Short Blue Island (Ill.) Sun Standard, August 11, 1977, p. 9 A new music term is AOR, just cropping up in London, so maybe you don't yet know that the three little letters stand for Album Oriented Rock; another rather new term is jazz/progressive, which takes in much more, they say, than merely the limited fusion aspects of rock-pop-jazz... --Ben Zimmer From douglas at NB.NET Sun Nov 28 20:59:04 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas G. Wilson) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:59:04 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of wisconsin In-Reply-To: <109706C4-4111-11D9-B0EA-000A958A3606@csli.stanford.edu> Message-ID: From Arnold Zwicky: >.... >3. the Oregon Effect: in very frequent, familiar words (like "Oregon" >for Oregonians and "Wisconsin" for Wisconsinites), vowels with tertiary >stress tend to lose it, with concomitant vowel reduction and (where >appropriate) resyllabification; this is what gives the Wisconsinite >pronunciation of "Wisconsin". .... A very nice summary, thanks. I confess to having used the furriners' pronunciation of "Oregon" (with "-gon" like in "pentagon" etc.) in my youth. But I never used "Wiss-consin" ... or neither "Illinoise". I guess WI and IL were closer states and the names were more familiar. I don't suppose that it is claimed that (e.g.) residents of northern IL near the WI line universally use the outsiders' version? It is interesting that my RHUD gives the pronunciation /wIs kan s at n/ -- and speaks it so -- while my MW3 shows /w@ skan(t) s at n/ (with no other choice in either work). -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Sun Nov 28 21:51:34 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 16:51:34 -0500 Subject: After-School Club Message-ID: First OED3 cite for "After-School Club" (under "after-school") is 1929. Here is one of several newspaperarchive.com cites from 1911: ------- Atlanta Constitution, March 9, 1911, p. 10 The After-School Club of America, through the Woman's Department of The Constitution, has presented to Mrs. Willet for the club school at Tallulah for mountain boys and girls, membership for one year in the After-School Club... Membership in the After-School Club, which has headquarters in Philadelphia, opens a field of valuable instruction and literature for grown-ups, especially those who are in any way directing the welfare of children - mothers, teachers or students, while the department for children, presided over by Mr. Nathaniel Dawson, is reaching thousands of children all over the country. ------- I'm not sure when the After-School Club of America was founded. I have found references to a multi-volume set called "The After School Library" published in Philadelphia by The After School Club in 1909. --Ben Zimmer From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Sun Nov 28 21:57:06 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 16:57:06 -0500 Subject: the curious phonology of wisconsin In-Reply-To: <6.1.1.1.0.20041128154859.03203560@pop3.nb.net> Message-ID: I heard the W state mentioned just the other day (on NPR or somewhere) as "Wis-con-sin," and it sounded very strange to this Minnesotan's ears--at the syllable break there seemed to be a glottal stop, not so? Illinoise and De-Moinz are another matter, of course. Even Minnesotans sometimes say these, alas. At 03:59 PM 11/28/2004, you wrote: > From Arnold Zwicky: > >>.... > >>3. the Oregon Effect: in very frequent, familiar words (like "Oregon" >>for Oregonians and "Wisconsin" for Wisconsinites), vowels with tertiary >>stress tend to lose it, with concomitant vowel reduction and (where >>appropriate) resyllabification; this is what gives the Wisconsinite >>pronunciation of "Wisconsin". .... > >A very nice summary, thanks. > >I confess to having used the furriners' pronunciation of "Oregon" (with >"-gon" like in "pentagon" etc.) in my youth. But I never used "Wiss-consin" >.... or neither "Illinoise". I guess WI and IL were closer states and the >names were more familiar. I don't suppose that it is claimed that (e.g.) >residents of northern IL near the WI line universally use the outsiders' >version? > >It is interesting that my RHUD gives the pronunciation /wIs kan s at n/ -- and >speaks it so -- while my MW3 shows /w@ skan(t) s at n/ (with no other choice >in either work). > >-- Doug Wilson From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Sun Nov 28 23:53:12 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 18:53:12 -0500 Subject: dialectal brogues In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> >>Wilson Gray writes: >> >>>when my father first went up to >>>Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >>>then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >>>Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >>>yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >>>Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >>>pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >>>peculiar to a dialect." >> >>I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an >>Irish >>accent. > >I think "primarily" is the term that you're searching for. But, IMO, >even if the term is accepted as being restricted specifically to Irish, >it merely makes my father's use of it to describe his idiolect of BE >even more noteworthy. Unfortunately, he died in January of this year, >at the age of 97. Otherwise, I'd question him about it. > >-Wilson Gray I assume "brogue" came in with the Irish, but it's not restricted to their accent, in my experience. My mother (Norwegian-American, born 1906) used the word all the time, referring not only to other or "foreign" accents but to the common Scandinavian English everyone used in Minnesota. She'd comment on someone's extreme brogue, i.e., a heightened or exaggerated (conscious or not) use of Scand.-Am. intonation patterns, "ya," "uffda," "doncha know," etc.--the sort of brogue used in "Fargo." So, if it was used in Texas and Minnesota, I suspect it became widespread regardless of dialect or idiolect. Beverly (Olson) Flanigan, from the old sod of Minnesota (and I can say this truthfully, since my grandfather lived in a sod-roofed dugout when he first came from Sweden). From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 00:41:30 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 19:41:30 -0500 Subject: "Wake me up when Kirby dies" (1886) Message-ID: I don't know if this American theatre phrase is Fred Shapiro-worthy, but this is earlier. (AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES ONLINE) Dramatic Feuilleton. STEPHEN FISKE. The Art Amateur; A Monthly Journal Devoted to Art in the Household (1879-1903). New York: Aug 1886. Vol. 15, Iss. 3; p. 47 (2 pages) Second page: In the same programme is "Wilbert, the Deformed," with J. H. Kirby as the hero. This is the actor about whom the phrase, "Wake me up when Kirby dies," was originated, because his stage deaths were so terrific. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Mon Nov 29 01:50:25 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 20:50:25 -0500 Subject: bubble wrap (1965) Message-ID: The earliest cite in the OED3 draft entry for "bubble wrap" is a 1971 U.S. Patent Office listing for the proprietary name. I see from the Trademark Application and Registration Retrieval (TARR) system that the trademark was filed by Sealed Air Corporation on June 9, 1969 and was registered on Oct. 26, 1971: http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=72329516 According to the listing, the first commercial use of the product was Oct. 1968. However, a newspaperarchive.com cite shows that Hallmark was using the name for a similar product in 1965: ------- Sheboygan (Wisc.) Press, October 11, 1965, p. 10 [Advertisement] New Hallmark 'Bubble Wrap' ... Protects as it Beautifies Wrap in it! It's Pretty Pack in it! It Protects Hundreds of tiny air cushions insure against damage. Cookies won't crumble ... Jellies won't jar. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow wilts it. ------- --Ben Zimmer From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 03:49:32 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 22:49:32 -0500 Subject: "One foot on a banana peel and the other in a grave" (1932) Message-ID: Robert Hendrickson's NEW YAWK TAWK says that DARE has 1965, but he remembered this from the late 1940s. I don't know if it's Fred Shapiro-worthy. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) PEN POINTS Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Apr 10, 1932. p. A4 (1 page): A man is in a bad fix when he has one foot on a banana peel and the other on the tail of a bulldog. A LINE O' TYPE OR TWO Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Sep 5, 1932. p. 12 (1 page): Goodness, we feel just as though poor old Tammany had one foot on a banana peel and the other way deep into an open grave. A LINE O' TYPE OR TWO Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Jul 12, 1933. p. 12 (1 page): THE ENGLISH POUND was reported yesterday as being within four cents of its normal value, while the American dollar has slipped down to 68 cents and a fraction and seemed to be poised somewhat uncertainly with one foot on a banana peel and the other in an open grave. Ducks Drop Two Tilts to Angels AL WOLF. Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 2, 1947. p. 6 (1 page): After having one foot on a banana peel and the other on a roller skate, our Angels got back on relatively firm footing in the Pacific Coast League pennant chase yesterday by beating Portland twice. (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Bridgeport Telegram Saturday, November 29, 1924 Bridgeport, Connecticut ...bAld mAn. Are compensAtiONs. you ONE FOOT ON. A. bAnAnA PEEL, the mAy be ON.....let the belt out Another boss is the ONE thAt provides When ONE cONsiders the.. Portsmouth Herald Monday, August 16, 1943 Portsmouth, New Hampshire ...by A GermAn Duce who AlreAdy hAs ONE FOOT ON A bAnAnA PEEL. Hitler will know.....which mAy tr'.ntblr. ntul thAt's ONE of ihrre Is still enough -rr wrnthrr.. Port Arthur News Tuesday, July 05, 1932 Port Arthur, Texas ...is like going through life with ONE FOOT ON A bAnAnA PEEL Per- hAps If I.....A clAss fight with old brAins ON ONE side And numbers ON the other.. Clearfield Progress Saturday, May 01, 1943 Clearfield, Pennsylvania ...fit" tVl NEW Mussolini muy hAve ONE, FOOT ON A bAnAnA PEEL And the other ON A.....of his hitting. His cONtrAct is for ONE yeAr the 1943 seAsON. Previous to.. Indiana Progress Wednesday, January 11, 1933 Indiana, Pennsylvania ...A mAn is in A hAd fix when he hAs ONE FOOT ON A 'bAnAnA PEEL And the other ON.....being prepAred in A vAriety of wAys. ONE type of bAnAnA is used lArgely for.. Portsmouth Herald Tuesday, April 27, 1943 Portsmouth, New Hampshire ...New York April Mussolini mAy hAve ONE FOOT ON A bAnAnA PEEL And the other ON A.....two grAndchildren, his fAther, ONE sister, Mrs. MAbel McCourt And ONE.. From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 04:36:06 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 23:36:06 -0500 Subject: Mrs. Astor's pet horse (1915) Message-ID: George Thompson asked about this a few years back. I think the 1915 citation applies (pets=husbands). It doesn't appear that the Stanley Walker 1935 book coined the term. (CATNYP) Author Walker, Stanley, b. 1898. Title Mrs. Astor's horse / by Stanley Walker ; with a foreword by Nunnally Johnson; with fifteen reproductions from photographs, and an index. Imprint New York : Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1935. (CATNYP) Author Ager, Milton, 1893-1979. Title Mrs. Astor's pet horse. Selections [Mrs. Astor's pet horse / Milton Ager and Richard Rodgers ; orchestrations principally by J. Toliver, Charles L. Cooke]. Imprint [1942] (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) WEEK END FOR HUNTS; Fine Runs Near Richmond, Petersburg, and Keswick. MRS. ASTOR'S HORSE IN CHASE Deep Run Club Meets at Idle Hour, Cov- ering an Eight-Mile Steeplechase Course, Winding Up at Race Track. Riverside Hunters Finish at Kennels, After Check -- Receptions at All Clubs. Special to The Washington Post.. The Washington Post. Feb 28, 1909. p. 3 (1 page) Mrs. Astor's Pet Poodle Is Fed On $2 Steaks Special to The Washington Post.. The Washington Post (1877-1954). Washington, D.C.: Jul 11, 1915. p. 10 (1 page) Why is one of Mrs. Astor's pets, Harry Lehr, put in, and another, Craig Wadsworth, left out? MRS. ASTOR'S PET APE AT HOME IN BRONX ZOO; Freda, 125-Pound Orang, Takes Keeper's Hand and Walks to New Quarters in Cage. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: Jul 4, 1934. p. 17 (1 page) Other 4 -- No Title Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sep 19, 1934. p. 9 (1 page): After he'll meet Maxie Rosenbloom who is just dying to advance himself socially by waltzing with Mrs. Astor's pet--er--with Mrs. Astor's latest husband. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Mon Nov 29 04:44:55 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 23:44:55 -0500 Subject: card-carrying (1927) Message-ID: The OED3 draft entry for "card-carrying" has 1943 as the earliest cite. A syndicated column by NEA Service writer Rodney Dutcher appeared in several papers on October 22, 1927, including the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, the Zanesville Signal, and the Decatur Daily Review. All include this paragraph: ----- The dominant force in Sheridan county [Montana] is the United Farmers, a secret agrarian organization which has also made headway in Washington state, Minnesota and North Dakota. This group is organized both for economic and political action. Its numbers and membership lists are kept secret and when it endorses a candidate for office the fact is kept secret so that if perchance it take a political licking the fact remains unknown. Meanwhile it arranges with local merchants to give all card-carrying members a discount when they come to town for purchases. ----- --Ben Zimmer From Bapopik at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 04:59:26 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 23:59:26 -0500 Subject: Wet clothes...Dry Martini (1940) Message-ID: A little earlier than 1946. (PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS) Display Ad 3 -- No Title Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963). Chicago, Ill.: Apr 30, 1940. p. 3 (1 page) "Now...out of these wet clothes ...and into a dry Martini"...* *Bon mot by Benchley (NEWSPAPERARCHIVE) Lowell Sun Tuesday, January 29, 1946 Lowell, Massachusetts ...himself out of A wet Statesville Daily Record Saturday, September 06, 1947 Statesville, North Carolina ...her out of thAt, wet suit And INTO A DRY mArtini. Give her A good story And A.....Home in OklAhomA" with Roy Rogers. DRY Role For Once Cyd ChArisse Achieved.. Walla Walla Union Bulletin Wednesday, September 03, 1947 Walla Walla, Washington ...her out of thAt wet suit And INTO A DRY mArtini. Give her A good story And A.....stAr to support her through A picture. DRY her off And put her in A light.. From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Mon Nov 29 05:15:42 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:15:42 -0500 Subject: dream team (1925) Message-ID: The OED3 draft entry for "dream team" has a first cite of 1935. Newspaperarchive finds a cite a decade earlier, from Damon Runyon no less. -------- Bridgeport (Conn.) Telegram, December 26, 1925, p. 12, col. 1 STAR EAST AND WEST TEAMS MEET FOR HOSPITAL BENEFIT ON SAN FRANCISCO GRIDIRON By DAMON RUNYON. SAN FRANCISCO. Dec. 25. -- Two "dream teams" -- the kind of teams that football fans might dream of in their wildest dreams of gridiron ecstacy -- meet here tomorrow afternoon at Ewing Field. They are all-star teams, these "dream teams" -- the kind of teams that football bugs fondly imagine, and that the football experts set down on paper as their idea of the absolute ultimate in football prowess, but never hope to see. They are mythical teams breathed to life, made real. It takes this California to make dreams come true. -------- --Ben Zimmer From grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET Mon Nov 29 05:33:38 2004 From: grendel.jjf at VERIZON.NET (Seán Fitzpatrick) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:33:38 -0500 Subject: If not 1 thousand words for reindeer, then how many? Message-ID: How many (max., average) words do the various Eskimo dialects have for snow, reindeer, and refrigerator? Is "word" limited to single words like "snow", "powder", and "slush", or can it include multi-word terms, like "wet snow"? Se?n Fitzpatrick Irony-free zone: Abandon tropes, all ye who enter here http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/ From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 29 14:50:58 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 06:50:58 -0800 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. Message-ID: Montgomery's dictionary is the best book that has ever been done on Smoky Mountain English. It will never be replaced. JL "Bethany K. Dumas" wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" Subject: Re: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Douglas G. Wilson wrote: >That Smoky Mountain dictionary looks interesting. Is there a discount for >ADS members? If you are talking about Michael Montgomery's book, it is interesting - it is also at least magnificent! I have given away several copies - this is a dictionary to sit and read. Bethany --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 29 14:58:26 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 06:58:26 -0800 Subject: dialectal brogues Message-ID: Tennesseans refer to their stereotypical accent as a "brogue." I never heard this term used up North except for Irish English. (The Scots have a "burr.") JL Beverly Flanigan wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: dialectal brogues ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >>Wilson Gray writes: >> >>>when my father first went up to >>>Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >>>then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >>>Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >>>yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >>>Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >>>pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >>>peculiar to a dialect." >> >>I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an >>Irish >>accent. > >I think "primarily" is the term that you're searching for. But, IMO, >even if the term is accepted as being restricted specifically to Irish, >it merely makes my father's use of it to describe his idiolect of BE >even more noteworthy. Unfortunately, he died in January of this year, >at the age of 97. Otherwise, I'd question him about it. > >-Wilson Gray I assume "brogue" came in with the Irish, but it's not restricted to their accent, in my experience. My mother (Norwegian-American, born 1906) used the word all the time, referring not only to other or "foreign" accents but to the common Scandinavian English everyone used in Minnesota. She'd comment on someone's extreme brogue, i.e., a heightened or exaggerated (conscious or not) use of Scand.-Am. intonation patterns, "ya," "uffda," "doncha know," etc.--the sort of brogue used in "Fargo." So, if it was used in Texas and Minnesota, I suspect it became widespread regardless of dialect or idiolect. Beverly (Olson) Flanigan, from the old sod of Minnesota (and I can say this truthfully, since my grandfather lived in a sod-roofed dugout when he first came from Sweden). --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? All your favorites on one personal page ? Try My Yahoo! From JJJRLandau at AOL.COM Mon Nov 29 16:03:53 2004 From: JJJRLandau at AOL.COM (James A. Landau) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:03:53 EST Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer quotes: > Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET > From: > Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK > > And if the explanation of an African origin for > such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural shock, > Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh > and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of inter- > jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only > are they more common in American English than in British English, they're > also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following reason: "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English has a glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has a glottal stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English should have exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal stop) not found in European languages. But if Wolof is full of words with glottal stops, it would make sense that two such words might enter American English complete with the unusual (to English-speakers) glottal stop. How would the interjections "uh-oh", "uh-uh", and "unh-uh" make the jump from slaves recently imported from Africa to the white population? Simple. In the Southern United States it was quite common for young white children to be raised by, or at least to be in frequent contact with, African-American females, i.e. house slaves before the Civil War and "mammies" after the Civil War. Social pressure and prescriptivist school-marms would cause these white children to lose any obvious features of AAVE that they would have picked up from these black servants, but the trio of interjections "uh-oh", "uh-uh", and "unh-uh" might easily have slipped beneath the prescriptivist radar. (Note the surprisingly late dates in MWCD11 for these interjections). Aside on the subject of "brogue"---I was not saying anyone was wrong, I was merely pointing out that I personally had never heard "brogue" used except to designate an Irish accent. I should, however, have noted that if "brogue" meant exclusively an Irish dialect, it would be spelled "Brogue". MWCD11 says that "brogue" is from Irish "barrog" and means "a dialect or regional pronunciaton, esp: an Irish accent" so all of us are correct. - James A. Landau From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Nov 29 16:05:25 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:05:25 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language Message-ID: With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I have offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since it deals with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The NYHist list is not a very active one, and I follow it fairly carelessly, since the other participants are mainly interested in country matters. I do not recall whether the review has made any previous postings to the group. This is the first posting on an Indian language that I recall. Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). ----- Original Message ----- From: Victoria Neufeldt Date: Thursday, November 25, 2004 6:42 pm Subject: Re: the Lenape language > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > Victoria > > Victoria Neufeldt > 727 9th Street East > Saskatoon, Sask. > S7H 0M6 > Canada > Tel: 306-955-8910 > > George Thompson wrote: > > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > > > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > > > interested. > > > > --- > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 > From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Mon Nov 29 16:18:04 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:18:04 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip In-Reply-To: <8d.1af41aac.2edca269@aol.com> Message-ID: --On Monday, November 29, 2004 11:03 AM -0500 "James A. Landau" wrote: > In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer > quotes: > >> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET >> From: >> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK >> >> And if the explanation of an African origin for >> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural >> shock, Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections >> uh-huh and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds >> of inter- jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out >> that not only are they more common in American English than in British >> English, they're also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! > > This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following > reason: "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in > English has a glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know > of that has a glottal stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems > odd that English should have exactly two vocabulary items with a > phonological feature (the glottal stop) not found in European languages. > > But if Wolof is full of words with glottal stops, it would make sense that > two such words might enter American English complete with the unusual (to > English-speakers) glottal stop. But affective interjections often have sounds that aren't part of the normal phonological inventory. In English, we have clicks (in "tsk tsk", and whatever it is one says to horses that we want to do something), velar fricatives ("yecch"), as well as the glottal stops in "uh oh" and "unh uh". For some speakers, ejectives are the norm for word-final released voiceless stops. Hebrew also uses a click in one alternative for "no". In all of these instances, contact explanations are certainly *possible*, but they are by no means necessary. -- Alice Faber Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 faber at haskins.yale.edu From ddr11 at UVIC.CA Mon Nov 29 16:27:10 2004 From: ddr11 at UVIC.CA (Dave Robertson) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:27:10 -0800 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: The presence of glottal stops in ("uh-huh" and) "u[n]h-uh" seems like poor evidence for borrowing. Two reasons come right to mind: First, English has glottal stops elsewhere, especially at the beginning of a syllable--Think of an emphatically uttered "I *am* *American*." And the farther you get from the literary standard, the more glottal stops you'll hear in US English. Second, English interjections and allegro forms make use of other sounds uncommon in or missing from our phonemic inventory, such as nasal vowels. Some of the other Wolof evidence presented is fairly compelling, but "uh-uh" is harder to make a case for. --Dave Robertson (UVic) ----- Original Message ----- From: "James A. Landau" To: Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:03 AM Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer > quotes: > >> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET >> From: >> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK >> >> And if the explanation of an African origin for >> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural >> shock, >> Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh >> and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of >> inter- >> jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only >> are they more common in American English than in British English, >> they're >> also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! > > This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following > reason: > "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English has > a > glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has a > glottal > stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English should > have > exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal > stop) > not found in European languages. From jester at PANIX.COM Mon Nov 29 17:19:04 2004 From: jester at PANIX.COM (Jesse Sheidlower) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:19:04 -0500 Subject: Hancock building in Chicago In-Reply-To: <86.1c30dc47.2edb8c40@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 03:17:04PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > CHICAGO: I still favor jumping off the Hancock Building. It's much better looking than the Sears Tower. JTS From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Nov 29 17:34:22 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:34:22 -0500 Subject: Speaking of "toast" Message-ID: When I was a kid, the toaster my parents had, had the heating/toasting elements in the center and flaps on either side. We put the bread slices on the lowered flaps and closed them. The bread toasted on one side, but when we opened the flaps a contrivance of wire which I do not now clearly remember caught the lower edge of the slice, so that if the flap was opened and then closed the untoasted side of the bread was then presented to the heat without our having to touch the bread. We always opened and shut the toaster, because in fact we did like bread toasted on both sides. GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). ----- Original Message ----- From: Wilson Gray Date: Saturday, November 27, 2004 10:45 pm Subject: Speaking of "toast" > When I was a child, buttered toast was made by first buttering slices > of "light bread" and then putting them into the broiler on a cookie > sheet till the butter melted and only the *top* of the bread was > toasted. After we moved to St. Louis, which was not nearly as Jim-Crow > as Marshall, TX, as a child, I often had occasion to eat a meal at the > houses of neighborhood white children. One of the first things > that I > noticed was that white people had bread-toasting machines that toasted > the bread on both sides. I also noted that no butter was put onto the > bread until after it was toasted. > > I came to the following conclusions: > 1) It was not possible to make a toasting machine that could toast > bread on only one side, hence both sides of a slice of bread had > to be > toasted > 2) Since the bread was inserted into the toasting machine on the > vertical, it was not possible to butter the bread before toasting > it, because the melting butter would flow into the innards of machine > and cause a problem > > Approximately 25 years later, I had a white roommate who owned a > toaster-oven. One day, when it was his turn to cook, he got out a > cookie sheet, put some unbuttered slices bread on it and toasted the > bread. This struck me as somewhat strange, but I wasn't the one > cooking, so I didn't say anything. In any case, after the bread slices > had been toasted, he took the cookie sheet out of toaster and > proceededto flip the slices over to their untoasted sides and then > he put the > cookie sheet back into the toaster-oven. I asked, "Why are you putting > that toasted bread back into the oven?" He replied, as though to a > child, "Why, so that I can toast the other sides." > > EPIPHANY!!! > > White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't figure > out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only one > side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! > > -Wilson Gray > From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 29 17:35:21 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 09:35:21 -0800 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second, their spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered with a grunt." Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been sufficient. What about "um-hmm"? I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge. JL Dave Robertson wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Dave Robertson Subject: Re: Wolof hip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The presence of glottal stops in ("uh-huh" and) "u[n]h-uh" seems like poor evidence for borrowing. Two reasons come right to mind: First, English has glottal stops elsewhere, especially at the beginning of a syllable--Think of an emphatically uttered "I *am* *American*." And the farther you get from the literary standard, the more glottal stops you'll hear in US English. Second, English interjections and allegro forms make use of other sounds uncommon in or missing from our phonemic inventory, such as nasal vowels. Some of the other Wolof evidence presented is fairly compelling, but "uh-uh" is harder to make a case for. --Dave Robertson (UVic) ----- Original Message ----- From: "James A. Landau" To: Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:03 AM Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ---------------------- Information from the mail > header ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer > quotes: > >> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET >> From: >> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK >> >> And if the explanation of an African origin for >> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural >> shock, >> Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections uh-huh >> and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of >> inter- >> jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not only >> are they more common in American English than in British English, >> they're >> also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! > > This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following > reason: > "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English has > a > glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has a > glottal > stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English should > have > exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal > stop) > not found in European languages. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 29 17:48:13 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:48:13 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip In-Reply-To: <20041129173521.97173.qmail@web53908.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So other people are more articulate? What does this mean?? Sounds like the old "primitive language" idea--except that now we're the primitives! At 12:35 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the >superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second, their >spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many >potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered >with a grunt." > >Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. >The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been >sufficient. What about "um-hmm"? > >I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge. > >JL From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Nov 29 18:09:13 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:09:13 -0600 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <1e58c3d1e5923a.1e5923a1e58c3d@nyu.edu> Message-ID: Thanks, George. I was just curious, because of the strong words used -- I wondered what could have prompted them, and hoped that you or someone on the list had this info at their fingertips. If someone else wants to follow this up (I haven't the time now), Ives Goddard would certainly be the person who would know. Victoria Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 On Monday, November 29, 2004 10:05 AM, George Thompson wrote: > > With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I > have offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: > > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since > it deals with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The > NYHist list is not a very active one, and I follow it > fairly carelessly, since the other participants are mainly > interested in country matters. I do not recall whether the > review has made any previous postings to the group. This > is the first posting on an Indian language that I recall. > Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 29 18:16:19 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 13:16:19 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <000701c4d63e$880baf00$2e2b0b45@vneufeldt> Message-ID: If I can find Goddard's e-dress, I'll forward it to him. I agree that the vitriolic nature of the review is surprising. Americanists are usuallly very staid and polite in their comments (but then, maybe the book IS really really bad!). At 01:09 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >Thanks, George. I was just curious, because of the strong words >used -- I wondered what could have prompted them, and hoped that you >or someone on the list had this info at their fingertips. If someone >else wants to follow this up (I haven't the time now), Ives Goddard >would certainly be the person who would know. > >Victoria > >Victoria Neufeldt >727 9th Street East >Saskatoon, Sask. >S7H 0M6 >Canada >Tel: 306-955-8910 > >On Monday, November 29, 2004 10:05 AM, George Thompson wrote: > > > > With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I > > have offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: > > > > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > > > I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since > > it deals with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The > > NYHist list is not a very active one, and I follow it > > fairly carelessly, since the other participants are mainly > > interested in country matters. I do not recall whether the > > review has made any previous postings to the group. This > > is the first posting on an Indian language that I recall. > > Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. > >--- >Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM Mon Nov 29 18:51:37 2004 From: vneufeldt at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM (Victoria Neufeldt) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:51:37 -0600 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041129131432.03160ec0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: That's great, Beverly. What is especially surprising is the reviewer's statement that pretty well all the Lenape scholarship has been terrible -- as if the reviewer is the only one who's ever managed to get it right. Victoria On Monday, November 29, 2004 12:16 PM Beverly Flanigan wrote: > > If I can find Goddard's e-dress, I'll forward it to him. I > agree that the > vitriolic nature of the review is surprising. Americanists > are usuallly > very staid and polite in their comments (but then, maybe > the book IS really > really bad!). > Victoria Neufeldt 727 9th Street East Saskatoon, Sask. S7H 0M6 Canada Tel: 306-955-8910 --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 29 19:55:26 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:55:26 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20041129131432.03160ec0@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> Message-ID: I've sent it to Goddard and will forward his reply (hopefully forthcoming). At 01:16 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >If I can find Goddard's e-dress, I'll forward it to him. I agree that the >vitriolic nature of the review is surprising. Americanists are usuallly >very staid and polite in their comments (but then, maybe the book IS really >really bad!). > >At 01:09 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >>Thanks, George. I was just curious, because of the strong words >>used -- I wondered what could have prompted them, and hoped that you >>or someone on the list had this info at their fingertips. If someone >>else wants to follow this up (I haven't the time now), Ives Goddard >>would certainly be the person who would know. >> >>Victoria >> >>Victoria Neufeldt >>727 9th Street East >>Saskatoon, Sask. >>S7H 0M6 >>Canada >>Tel: 306-955-8910 >> >>On Monday, November 29, 2004 10:05 AM, George Thompson wrote: >> > >> > With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I >> > have offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: >> > >> > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the >> > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? >> > >> > I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since >> > it deals with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The >> > NYHist list is not a very active one, and I follow it >> > fairly carelessly, since the other participants are mainly >> > interested in country matters. I do not recall whether the >> > review has made any previous postings to the group. This >> > is the first posting on an Indian language that I recall. >> > Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. >> >>--- >>Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. >>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >>Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 From zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU Mon Nov 29 20:09:26 2004 From: zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU (Arnold M. Zwicky) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:09:26 -0800 Subject: Fwd: If not 1 thousand words for reindeer, then how many? Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: > From: Arnold M. Zwicky > Date: November 29, 2004 10:30:21 AM PST > To: Se?n Fitzpatrick > Subject: Re: If not 1 thousand words for reindeer, then how many? > > > On Nov 28, 2004, at 9:33 PM, Se?n Fitzpatrick asked: > >> How many (max., average) words do the various Eskimo dialects have >> for snow, reindeer, and refrigerator? >> >> Is "word" limited to single words like "snow", "powder", and "slush", >> or can it include multi-word terms, like "wet snow"? > > there are (at least) four things to count (here, "vocabulary" takes in > both words and idiomatic expressions, and "word" is a > ordinary-language synonym of "lexical item" or "lexeme"; inflected > forms of a word are not counted separately): > > 1. basic vocabulary (see our discussion of basic color words a while > back). > > 2. common vocabulary, generally known and used. > > 3. all vocabulary, including compound words, vocabulary reserved for > specialists or for particular registers/styles, and proper names. > > 4. all expressions, including syntactic phrases. > > i can't speak about reindeer and refrigerators, though i believe that > the reindeer vocabulary is much like the snow vocabulary and that the > refrigerator vocabulary is very small indeed. for the snow > vocabulary, the various eskimo (i'll continue to use this term) > languages apparently differ in details, but the general story is as > follows: > > 1. english: 1 basic vocabulary item. an eskimo lg.: 2 (falling snow, > snow on the ground). > > 2. english and eskimo lgs.: each, about a dozen common vocabulary > items. (see the discussion in pullum.) > > 3. english and eskimo lgs.: each, gigantic vocabulary (thanks to > specialist and stylistically restricted items), perhaps unlimited > (thanks to the ability of english to create new compound words and of > the eskimo lgs. to create new incorporations). > > 4. english and eskimo lgs. (and every other known lg.): each, > unlimited stock of syntactic phrases. > > all the interesting action here has to do with basic vocabulary. > languages/dialects do differ in the extent of the basic vocabulary in > some domain -- for basic color words, the range is from 2 to around a > dozen -- but if it's to be useful, the basic vocabulary can't be too > large, so the differences between languages are never really dramatic > but mostly stick within an order of magnitude. these (relatively > small) differences are often clearly grounded in cultural differences: > if you live in a snowy world, you deal with falling snow and snow on > the ground in different ways; and if you live in a culture that has > (otherwise similar) manufactured items in a wide range of hues created > by modern dyeing processes, then color differences are important to > you. this is not a particularly deep point. > > an even more trivial point is that languages will differ in their > general and total vocabularies, according to the physical settings > their speakers find themselves in, the interests of their culture in > general and of particular occupations within that culture, etc. such > cultural differences and specialist vocabularies are of course > fascinating and worthy of study, but it's hard to see what deep > lessons about human nature and variation could be drawn from them. > > some of the guys i grew up with were obsessed with cars and would > notice (and remember) details -- make, model, year, specific color, > optional equipment, etc. -- that i did not not; they had learned to do > this by long practice. meanwhile, through an informal apprenticeship > in gardening, i became an expert on flowering plants and so noticed > (and remembered) details that escaped them entirely. we were all > pretty much at sea in the domains of, say, australian flora and fauna, > or the weaponry of the european middle ages, or the ethnicities of the > indian subcontinent. there's nothing particularly startling about > that. > > cultures overall have their preoccupations -- with baseball, or > singing, or witches, or intoxication, or hunting, or whatever -- and > these will tend to show up in an elaboration of the general vocabulary > in these domains; pretty much everyone learns about these domains and > practices talking about them, and uses the associated vocabulary to > help structure their world. now there *is* an interesting question > about the extent to which these general preoccupations (and the > beliefs and knowledge associated with them) "hang together", to make a > kind of cultural profile; scholars differ as to how much unity they > see in these cultural complexes. this is a fascinating question, and > part of the way we approach it is by looking at vocabulary, but at > root the issues aren't about language. > > arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu) > From george.thompson at NYU.EDU Mon Nov 29 20:57:40 2004 From: george.thompson at NYU.EDU (George Thompson) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:57:40 -0500 Subject: the Lenape language Message-ID: I see I made a significant typing error in my disclaimer sent earlier today. I dare say that no one was much confused, but: "I do not recall whether the review has made any previous postings to the group." should have read "reviewer". GAT George A. Thompson Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). ----- Original Message ----- From: George Thompson Date: Monday, November 29, 2004 11:05 am Subject: Re: the Lenape language > With reference to the review of the dictionary of Lenape I have > offered to share among you-uns, Victoria Neufeldt asks: > > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > I don't, and indeed haven't read the review myself, since it deals > with matters I am entirely ignorant of. The NYHist list is not a > very active one, and I follow it fairly carelessly, since the > other participants are mainly interested in country matters. I do > not recall whether the review has made any previous postings to > the group. This is the first posting on an Indian language that I > recall. Postings on Indian culture and history are uncommon. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", > Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. > > "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, > treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our > graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Victoria Neufeldt > Date: Thursday, November 25, 2004 6:42 pm > Subject: Re: the Lenape language > > > Does anyone know the background to all of this? That is, is the > > reviewer's extraordinary diatribe warranted? > > > > Victoria > > > > Victoria Neufeldt > > 727 9th Street East > > Saskatoon, Sask. > > S7H 0M6 > > Canada > > Tel: 306-955-8910 > > > > George Thompson wrote: > > > > The opening paragraph of a review posted today to the NYHist > > > > list. I will forward the full, very detailed review to those > > > > interested. > > > > > > > --- > > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. > > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). > > Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04 > > > From barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM Mon Nov 29 22:01:21 2004 From: barnhart at HIGHLANDS.COM (Barnhart) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:01:21 -0500 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: _astroseismology_, study of star quakes. _astroseismological_ _astroseismologically_ _astroseismologist_ _e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) _point of entry_, a single examination to establish appropriateness for a lengthy medical treatment. _starter_, a precursor to the onset of a panic attack _stop stick_, a strip of hollow quills used to puncture tires of a car. IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Mon Nov 29 22:13:17 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:13:17 -0500 Subject: e-dress In-Reply-To: Message-ID: There must be tons of e- terms now, aren't there? E-commerce, E-trade, . . . But I love e-dress and use it all the time! At 05:01 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >_astroseismology_, study of star quakes. > _astroseismological_ > _astroseismologically_ > _astroseismologist_ >_e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) >_point of entry_, a single examination to establish appropriateness for a >lengthy medical treatment. >_starter_, a precursor to the onset of a panic attack >_stop stick_, a strip of hollow quills used to puncture tires of a car. > > >IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. >Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. > >Regards, >David > >barnhart at highlands.com From panis at PACBELL.NET Mon Nov 29 22:27:23 2004 From: panis at PACBELL.NET (John McChesney-Young) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:27:23 -0800 Subject: e-dress In-Reply-To: <200411292216.iATMGMg7032628@ylpvm04.prodigy.net> Message-ID: Checking my Eudora mailboxes, I find that a correspondent of mine at the U of Georgia has been using _edress_ since at least as far back as October of '99. John *** Beverly Flanigan wrote: >There must be tons of e- terms now, aren't there? E-commerce, E-trade, . . >. But I love e-dress and use it all the time! >At 05:01 PM 11/29/2004, David barnhart at highlands.com had written: ... >>_e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) ... >>IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. >>Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. -- *** John McChesney-Young ** panis~at~pacbell.net ** Berkeley, California, U.S.A. *** From juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US Mon Nov 29 22:36:43 2004 From: juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US (FRITZ JUENGLING) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:36:43 -0800 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: e-dress has been around for years-- I remember using it at least as long ago as '97. Fritz _e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) _point of entry_, a single examination to establish appropriateness for a lengthy medical treatment. _starter_, a precursor to the onset of a panic attack _stop stick_, a strip of hollow quills used to puncture tires of a car. IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. Regards, David barnhart at highlands.com From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Mon Nov 29 23:16:08 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:16:08 -0800 Subject: Wolof hip Message-ID: Beverly, are you serious? JL Beverly Flanigan wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Beverly Flanigan Subject: Re: Wolof hip ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So other people are more articulate? What does this mean?? Sounds like the old "primitive language" idea--except that now we're the primitives! At 12:35 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the >superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second, their >spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many >potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered >with a grunt." > >Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. >The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been >sufficient. What about "um-hmm"? > >I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge. > >JL --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. From gcohen at UMR.EDU Mon Nov 29 23:43:06 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:43:06 -0600 Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale Message-ID: The book _"Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"_ has just been printed by my campus print shop. (authors: Barry Popik, Gerald Cohen, the late David Shulman). For those interested, the cost is $40 + $7 for mailing (total: $47). Checks should be made payable to Gerald Cohen and mailed to: Prof. Gerald Cohen, Department of Arts, Languages, and Philosophy, G-4 H-SS, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla MO 65409. As I mentioned in my earlier ads-l message, this is a scholarly work (300 pages) and is intended for lexicographers, scholars, dyed-in-the-wool word buffs, and libraries. While perfectly comprehensible, it's not a Christmas stocking-stuffer. Only 60 copies have been printed, with 50 slated for sale. A reprinting can occur if interest warrants, but I'm being careful not to overestimate the potential sale. About 20 ads-l members expressed interest in the book when I sent out my preliminary announcement last month. I'll set aside those copies to be sure that the orders can be filled. Gerald Cohen University of Missouri-Rolla From marshaalley at MSN.COM Mon Nov 29 23:59:22 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 15:59:22 -0800 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: So, does e-dress displace addy? Am I hopelessly outdated? :-) Marsha ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Barnhart > Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _e-dress_ or _e-ddress_, an e-mail address (rarely _edress_ or _eddress_) From dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU Tue Nov 30 00:01:34 2004 From: dumasb at UTKUX.UTCC.UTK.EDU (Bethany K. Dumas) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 19:01:34 -0500 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Marsha Alley wrote: >So, does e-dress displace addy? Am I hopelessly outdated? :-) I would never assume that refers to an edress. Do you use it that way? Bethany From marshaalley at MSN.COM Tue Nov 30 00:10:37 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:10:37 -0800 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: I picked "addy" up back in '95 when I first got on the internet - I was on AOL at the time, and it seemed that was what most people called an email address. I hadn't really thought about it again until I say Beverly's e-dress. I must admit, e-dress is much more specific; a better word. Marsha ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "Bethany K. Dumas" > Subject: Re: e-dress (was Lenape ...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Marsha Alley wrote: >So, does e-dress displace addy? Am I hopelessly outdated? :-) I would never assume that refers to an edress. Do you use it that way? Bethany From GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU Tue Nov 30 00:52:29 2004 From: GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU (Gordon, Matthew J.) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 18:52:29 -0600 Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale Message-ID: How did this topic result in a 300-page book? I intend this as an honest question, not a snide remark. I can't imagine having that much to say about any lexical item. -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Cohen, Gerald Leonard Sent: Mon 11/29/2004 5:43 PM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale The book _"Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"_ has just been printed by my campus print shop. (authors: Barry Popik, Gerald Cohen, the late David Shulman). For those interested, the cost is $40 + $7 for mailing (total: $47). Checks should be made payable to Gerald Cohen and mailed to: Prof. Gerald Cohen, Department of Arts, Languages, and Philosophy, G-4 H-SS, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla MO 65409. As I mentioned in my earlier ads-l message, this is a scholarly work (300 pages) and is intended for lexicographers, scholars, dyed-in-the-wool word buffs, and libraries. While perfectly comprehensible, it's not a Christmas stocking-stuffer. Only 60 copies have been printed, with 50 slated for sale. A reprinting can occur if interest warrants, but I'm being careful not to overestimate the potential sale. About 20 ads-l members expressed interest in the book when I sent out my preliminary announcement last month. I'll set aside those copies to be sure that the orders can be filled. Gerald Cohen University of Missouri-Rolla From SClements at NEO.RR.COM Tue Nov 30 01:06:45 2004 From: SClements at NEO.RR.COM (Sam Clements) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 20:06:45 -0500 Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gordon, Matthew J." To: Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 7:52 PM Subject: Re: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"--book now on sale >How did this topic result in a 300-page book? >I intend this as an honest question, not a snide remark. I >can't imagine having that much to say about any lexical >item. Barry DOES tend to go on at length, sometimes, well, most of the time, well always, since you're asking........ SC From gcohen at UMR.EDU Tue Nov 30 01:55:50 2004 From: gcohen at UMR.EDU (Cohen, Gerald Leonard) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 19:55:50 -0600 Subject: Origin of the Term "Hot Dog"-- Why 300 pages? Message-ID: Original message from Matthew Gordon, Nov. 29, 2004, 6:52 p.m.: > How did this topic result in a 300-page book? > I intend this as an honest question, not a snide remark. I can't imagine having that much to say about any lexical item. > *************** This is a partial answer to the question just above: Conents, Preface: -- 7 pp. Chapter 1 (pp. 1-4): Previous literature Chapter 2 (pp. 5-66) presents information from the college scene, 1895ff. Chapter 3 (pp.67-134) presents non-college material illustrating the 19c. popular belief that dog meat might turn up in sausages. Chapter 4 (pp.135-150) gives information on the spread of "hot dog" from college slang. Chapter 5 (pp.151-222) presents various additional information, e.g.., a more detailed look at the previous literature, various items about Coney Island in which "hot dog" is conspicuous by its absence (the term was officially avoided there), etc. etc., ----- pp. 182-200: "hot dog" (= show-off and related matters), References (often with quoted material): pp. 223-283. Index: pp. 284-293. Also: the late Peter Tamony (independent scholar, San Francisco) worked on "hot dog" for at least 35 years, albeit not full time. I published my first working paper on the term in 1978 and have been very interested in the term ever since. David Shulman headed me in the right direction, viz. college slang, and Barry Popik entered the scene in 1991 big-time with his extraordinary unearthing of material. Allen Walker Read spent decades researching "okay." I wrote two monographs on the term "shyster." (total: ca. 240 pages). And now there's the study of "hot dog." In all three cases we see that even a humble slang term can receive a thorough study. Or as the eminent linguist Eric Hamp once wrote me a few decades ago (he did so in criticism of some less than well-researched work I had recently done): "I am constantly amazed at what can emerge from the *detailed* study of a subject." Yes, so am I. Btw, I am solely responsible for the editorial decisions in such matters as the length of the book and its arrangement of material. Barry Popik is included as co-author because some 3/4 of the book's material was unearthed by him. David Shulman is included because he headed me (and then Barry) in the right direction. I had previously been stubbornly holding to Edo McCullough's view that Coney Island must have been the starting point of the term. Matthew, thanks for asking. Best. -- Gerald Cohen From sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM Tue Nov 30 02:10:47 2004 From: sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM (sagehen) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:10:47 -0500 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. >Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. > >Regards, >David > >barnhart at highlands.com ~~~~~~~~ Saul Landau, in a recent article on Fallujah, uses "presstitutes" in connection with embedded journalists. I hadn't run across this before, but I see, via google, that it's been around for a while. (I should think it might well have come up in the first Gulf War, since even the press itself was apologetic for the way they had allowed themselves to be used by the Pentagon in that Bush's war.) A. Murie From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 02:12:10 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:12:10 -0500 Subject: Wake me up when Kirby dies; Broker than the Ten Commandments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 28, 2004, at 4:29 AM, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM > Subject: Wake me up when Kirby dies; Broker than the Ten > Commandments > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > BROKER THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS This is one of the oldest BE expressions known to man. We used this when we were still swinging through the trees. I don't see a date for the first cite below, but I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Satchmo used this expression when he was a pre-teen. I certainly was a pre-teen when I first heard it in St. Louis, ca.1945. -Wilson Gray > =20 > BROKER THAN THE TEM COMMANDMENTS--47 Google hits, 13 Google Groups > hits > =20 > 1. =20 > _Straight From the Trumpet's Mouth; SATCHMO: My Life in New Orleans. > By=20 > Louis Armstrong. Illustrated. 240 pp. New York: Prentice-Hall. $3.50. > Trump= > et's =20 > Mouth _=20 > (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D0&did=3D000000096625537&SrchMode=3D1= > &sid=3D2&Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD&VType=3DPQD&RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1 > 10163= > 2281&clientId=3D658 > 82)=20 > By CLEVELAND AMORY. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, > N.Y.: Oct=20= > =20 > 10, 1954. p. BR7 (2 pages)=20 > First page: Some of these, Louis tells us, hit the big time with > "Roast=20 > Beef" (tuxedo) and "frebies" (free meals), others are nothing but > "poor boy= > "=20 > sandwiches and were "broker than the Ten Commandments;... > > 2. =20 > _Louis Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter and Singer, Dies; Louis Armstrong, > the Jaz= > z=20 > Trumpeter and Singer, Dies in His Home at 71 _=20 > (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D1&did=3D000000079675134&SrchMode=3D1= > &sid=3D2&Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD&VType=3DPQD&RQT > =3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1101632281&clientId=3D65882)=20 > By ALBIN KREBS. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, N.Y.: > Jul 7,= > =20 > 1971. p. 1 (2 pages)=20 > Pg. 41: "I was foolin' around with some tough ones," Mr.. Armstrong > recalle= > d=20 > in 1969. "Get paid a little money, and a beeline for on of them > gambling=20 > houses. Two hours, man, and I was a broke cat, broker than the Ten > Commandm= > ents." > =20 > > _Bucks County Courier Times _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3D++xTpPwvmwuKID/ > 6NLMW2twgU= > cwPTeHajH0yrdQ41FgSWqZgLX4bFkIF+CsZYmrz) =20 > Saturday, July 13, 1968 _Levittown,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > levittown+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) _Pennsylvania_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > pennsylvania+tha= > n+the+ten+commandm > ents) ...remember when he was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS > Heart=20 > transplants were.....LBJ may have been less a gag target THAN usual. > had an= > =20 > awful lot of somebody.. > _Times Recorder _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3DGa2xMtpV76yKID/ > 6NLMW2odsq= > 4h7NXO1gMV6rU/Tvw/+HTeu2vtXIkIF+CsZYmrz) Sunday, July 14,=20 > 1968 _Zanesville,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > zanesville+than+t= > he+ten+commandments) _Ohio_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > ohio+than+the+te= > n+commandments) ...remember when=20 > he was broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Heart transplants > were.....In show= > =20 > on CBS TV brought in some more THAN slightly suggestive material.. > _Bucks County Courier Times _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3D++xTpPwvmwuKID/ > 6NLMW2uZ3s= > hyR7xZusIaZXnzEax/a6TNpIf3zKEIF+CsZYmrz) =20 > Friday, August 09, 1974 _Levittown,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > levittown+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) _Pennsylvania_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > pennsylvania+tha= > n+the+ten+commandm > ents) ...one to Flip Wil- I was broker THAN THE TEN > COMMANDMENTS.' a=20 > mighty good of what.....pursuit of power is more important THAN civil > righ= > ts=20 > and THE welfare of a.. > =20 > =20 > > _Frederick Post _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3DssVO2f5ZuruKID/ > 6NLMW2lqTd= > sfpwucUpNKKEzyeIskdbXukfoTed0IF+CsZYmrz) Wednesday,=20 > January 22, 1997 _Frederick,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > frederick+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) _Maryland_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > maryland+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) =20 > ...or how THEy're 4 broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.' biie-GMC > dealer Sam= > =20 > C.....eating briers" or how THEy're -broker THAN THE TEN > CommandmentFor Po.= > veil.=20 > 39.. > _News _=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Viewer.aspx?img=3DssVO2f5ZuruKID/ > 6NLMW2tJ8k= > ySV6UN3s07qcrLHUToFSiiXnTayT0IF+CsZYmrz) Wednesday, January 22, > 1997=20 > _Frederick,_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dcity: > frederick+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) _Maryland_=20 > (http://www.newspaperarchive.com/Search.aspx?Search=3Dstate: > maryland+than+th= > e+ten+commandments) ...or how THEy're =20 > "broker THAN THE TEN COMMANDMENTS." For Powell. 39. a.....eating > briers' or= > =20 > how THEy're 'broker THAN THE TEN whole mess" of friends and.. > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -----= > -- > -------------------------------------------------------- > WAKE ME UP WHEN KIRBY DIES =20 > =20 > WAKE ME UP WHEN KIRBY DIES--5 Google hits, 0 Google Groups hits > =20 > =20 > (GOOGLE) > =20 > _Gold Rush Women_ > (http://www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html)=20 > ... purposes, was an English actor so noted for his dramatic death > throes=20 > that a phrase > coined by bored theatre-goers, =E2=80=9CWake me up when Kirby > dies,=E2=80= > =9D became ...=20 > www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/women.html - 17k - _Cached_=20 > (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=3Dcache:RRzT4eS4nlkJ: > www.sierrafoothillmagaz= > ine.com/women.html+"wak > e+me+up+when+kirby"&hl=3Den&ie=3DUTF-8) - _Similar pages_=20 > (http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF > -8&c2coff=3D1&q=3Drelate= > d:www.sierrafoothillmagazine.com/wo > men.html) =20 > _San Francisco History - Strolling on Sunday Afternoons_=20 > (http://www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm)=20 > ... Such stories of stage life he could tell! Such color of the old > Bowery=20= > =20 > Theater! > How he would dilate on the old slogan, =E2=80=9CWake me up when Kirby > dies= > =E2=80=9D! ...=20 > www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm - 12k - _Cached_=20 > (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=3Dcache:z5hykI2xoP8J:www.zpub.com/ > sf50/sf/hg= > sto13.htm+"wake+me+up+when+kirby > "&hl=3Den&ie=3DUTF-8) - _Similar pages_=20 > (http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF > -8&c2coff=3D1&q=3Drelate= > d:www.zpub.com/sf50/sf/hgsto13.htm) =20 > _WHMC-Columbia-- W Word List: Tamony, Peter (1902-1985), Collection > ..._=20 > (http://www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html)=20 > ... Waiting List Wait Out Waitress Wait-See Wait Tell Next Year Wait > Up=20 > Waive Waiver > Waiver Rule Waivers Wak Waka Wake Wakeathon Wake Me Up When Kirby > Dies Wak= > e=20 > Up ...=20 > www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.html - 33k - _Cached_=20 > (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=3Dcache:68s-jb_exEkJ:www.umsystem.edu/ > whmc/i= > nvent/3939W.html+"wake+me > +up+when+kirby"&hl=3Den&ie=3DUTF-8) - _Similar pages_=20 > (http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF > -8&c2coff=3D1&q=3Drelate= > d:www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/3939W.ht > ml) =20 > _[CTRL] [3] The Ohio Gang_=20 > (http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html)=20 > ... was a Civil War veteran who always bedded down in a pile of old=20 > newspapers and, > by way of bidding good-night, would say, "Wake me up when Kirby > dies"=E2= > =80=94 > whoever ...=20 > www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv. aol.com/msg15487.html - 24k - =20 > Supplemental Result - _Cached_=20 > (http://216.239.39.104/search?q=3Dcache:iYCA04DCniYJ:www.mail- > archive.com/ct= > rl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html+"wake+me+up+when+kirby"&hl=3De > n&ie=3DUTF-8) - _Similar pages_=20 > (http://www.google.com/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&ie=3DUTF > -8&c2coff=3D1&q=3Drelate= > d:www.mail-archive.com/ctrl at listserv.aol.com/msg15487.html) > =20 > =20 > _Article 1 -- No Title_=20 > (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D0&did=3D000000324266932&SrchMode=3D1= > &sid=3D4&Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD&VType=3DPQD&RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1 > 1016 > 28569&clientId=3D65882)=20 > Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File). Los Angeles, Calif.: Dec 12, > 1898. p= > .=20 > 6 (1 page)=20 > The San Francisco papers, in speaking of the death of the pioneer > actress, =20 > Sarah Stark Thorne, mentions James Stark as her first husband, which > is quit= > e =20 > incorrect. The lady was three times married, her first husband being > the=20 > famous Bowery actor of fifty years ago, Hudson Kirby. Out of his name > grew=20= > the=20 > popular newsboys' shibboleth of "Wake me up when Kirby dies." > =20 > _THREE OLD-TIME THEATRES._=20 > (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D1&did=3D000000101218470&SrchMode=3D1= > &sid=3D5&Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD&VType=3DPQD&RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1 > 1 > 01628957&clientId=3D65882)=20 > THOMAS W. PITTMAN.. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, > N.Y.: Jun=20 > 22, 1902. p. 7 (1 page) =20 > Kirby, one of the then leading tragedians, frequently played there in > =20 > National anf patriotic plays, and during his engagements it was the > common =20= > saying=20 > of the town, "Wrap me in an American flag and wake me up when Kirby > dies,"=20= > as=20 > he was regarded as great in his heroic and prolonged death scenes. > =20 > 4. _In the Days of "Dese, Dem, an' Dose"; Mr. Harlow Writes > a=20 > Fascinating Full-Throated Chronicle of the Old Bowery. The Bowery _ > (http:/= > / > proquest.umi.com/pqdweb? > index=3D3&did=3D000000118215627&SrchMode=3D1&sid=3D5= > &Fmt=3D10&VInst=3DPROD& > VType=3DPQD&RQT=3D309&VName=3DHNP&TS=3D1101628957&clientId=3D65882)=20 > By HOLLISTER NOBLE. New York Times (1857-Current file). New York, > N.Y.: Jul= > =20 > 26, 1931. p. BR3 (2 pages) =20 > > =20 > First page: Judsob Kirby appeared in "Six Degrees of Crime" and grew > so =20 > famous for his death scenes that a request of the tired business man > of the=20= > =20 > period to "Wake Me Up When Kirby Dies" became a bon mot for years. > From Bapopik at AOL.COM Tue Nov 30 02:29:21 2004 From: Bapopik at AOL.COM (Bapopik at AOL.COM) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:29:21 EST Subject: Hipster Handbook, part II; Sears/K-Mart Tower in Chicago Message-ID: HIPSTER HANDBOOK, PART II Today's gothamist.com shows that the guy behind the Hipster Handbook has come out with a new one. His invented words in this tome include Food Court Druids, Idiosyncrology, Lieberal, and Cherohonkee. _http://www.hipsterhandbook.com/glossary.html_ (http://www.hipsterhandbook.com/glossary.html) _http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/cherohonkee.html_ (http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/cherohonkee.html) _http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/lieberal.html_ (http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/lieberal.html) _http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/lieberal.htmlm/foodcourtdruid.html_ (http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/lieberal.htmlm/foodcourtdruid.html) _http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/idio.html_ (http://www.foodcourtdruids.com/idio.html) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- CHICAGO On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 03:17:04PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > CHICAGO: I still favor jumping off the Hancock Building. It's much better looking than the Sears Tower. JTS It's probably Sears/K-Mart Tower now. There's no way you want to be caught dead in a K-Mart. From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 02:42:45 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:42:45 -0500 Subject: "Stretching..." (was Re: Wake me...) Message-ID: "Stretching himself for a nap..." FWIW, both my wife, a native of NE PA, and I, a native of NE TX, are familiar from childhoodwith the phrase, "stretch out," with the meaning "take a nap," and "be stretched out" with the meaning, "be taking a nap," e.g. "Go get your father. He's stretched out on the couch." OTOH, "be stretched out" in Los Angeles BE slang meant "be performing some intense form of manual labor," whether sweeping up or digging ditches. "Man, John been stretched out since he copped that hame with Public Works layin' pipe. -Wilson Gray From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 03:23:21 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:23:21 -0500 Subject: e-dress (was Lenape ...) Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 14:36:43 -0800, FRITZ JUENGLING wrote: >e-dress has been around for years-- I remember using it at least as long >ago as '97. The earliest appearance of "e-dress" in Google's Usenet archive is from 1987: . Based on the number of hits on Google Groups (including some false matches), it looks like usage peaked in 1998: 1993: 27 1994: 40 1995: 158 1996: 415 1997: 1,150 1998: 4,780 1999: 4,720 2000: 2,810 2001: 2,420 2002: 3,930 2003: 2,700 2004: 747 (Since the Usenet posting volume supposedly doubles annually, the decline in usage since 1998 is even more precipitous than those figures indicate.) --Ben Zimmer From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 04:21:27 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:21:27 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 29, 2004, at 11:27 AM, Dave Robertson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Dave Robertson > Subject: Re: Wolof hip > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > The presence of glottal stops in ("uh-huh" and) "u[n]h-uh" seems like > poor > evidence for borrowing. Two reasons come right to mind: First, > English has > glottal stops elsewhere, especially at the beginning of a > syllable--Think of > an emphatically uttered "I *am* *American*." And the farther you get > from > the literary standard, the more glottal stops you'll hear in US > English. > Second, English interjections and allegro forms make use of other > sounds > uncommon in or missing from our phonemic inventory, such as nasal > vowels. > Some of the other Wolof evidence presented is fairly compelling, but > "uh-uh" > is harder to make a case for. > > --Dave Robertson (UVic) I might add that no less a student of black vernacular English in the United States than the late Frederick Sanford, who published under the pen name "Redd Foxx," on numerous occasions stated publicly that these "grunts" are absolutely not of African origin. -Wilson Gray > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "James A. Landau" > To: > Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:03 AM > Subject: Re: Wolof hip > > >> ---------------------- Information from the mail >> header ----------------------- >> Sender: American Dialect Society >> Poster: "James A. Landau" >> Subject: Re: Wolof hip >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> --------- >> >> In a message dated Sat, 27 Nov 2004 02:58:43 -0500, Benjamin Zimmer >> quotes: >> >>> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 93 16:30 MET >>> From: >>> Subject: RE: 4.694 Etymology of OK >>> >>> And if the explanation of an African origin for >>> such a quintessential Americanism as OK isn't enough of a cultural >>> shock, >>> Dalby also suggests that the positive and negative interjections >>> uh-huh >>> and uh-uh also have an African origin. He says that these kinds of >>> inter- >>> jections are particularly common in Africa, and points out that not >>> only >>> are they more common in American English than in British English, >>> they're >>> also more common in Afrikaans than in European Dutch! >> >> This one particular Dalby suggestion seems plausible for the following >> reason: >> "negative uh-uh" (which for clarity I will spell "unh-uh") in English >> has >> a >> glottal stop. The only other word in English that I know of that has >> a >> glottal >> stop is "uh-oh", also an interjection. It seems odd that English >> should >> have >> exactly two vocabulary items with a phonological feature (the glottal >> stop) >> not found in European languages. > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 04:32:46 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:32:46 -0500 Subject: Speaking of "toast" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 29, 2004, at 12:34 PM, George Thompson wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: George Thompson > Subject: Re: Speaking of "toast" > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > When I was a kid, the toaster my parents had, had the heating/toasting > elements in the center and flaps on either side. We put the bread > slices on the lowered flaps and closed them. The bread toasted on one > side, but when we opened the flaps a contrivance of wire which I do > not now clearly remember caught the lower edge of the slice, so that > if the flap was opened and then closed the untoasted side of the bread > was then presented to the heat without our having to touch the bread. > We always opened and shut the toaster, because in fact we did like > bread toasted on both sides. > > GAT > > George A. Thompson > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern > Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately. > > "We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, > treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our > graves." King Lear, Act 1, scene 2 (Gloucester speaking). Yes, I, too, remember that toasting contraption. My family bought one shortly after we moved to St. Louis. It didn't really work for us because of our custom of buttering or, rather, oleomagarining - this was during the war - the bread before putting it into the toasting machine. -Wilson Gray > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Wilson Gray > Date: Saturday, November 27, 2004 10:45 pm > Subject: Speaking of "toast" > >> When I was a child, buttered toast was made by first buttering slices >> of "light bread" and then putting them into the broiler on a cookie >> sheet till the butter melted and only the *top* of the bread was >> toasted. After we moved to St. Louis, which was not nearly as Jim-Crow >> as Marshall, TX, as a child, I often had occasion to eat a meal at the >> houses of neighborhood white children. One of the first things >> that I >> noticed was that white people had bread-toasting machines that toasted >> the bread on both sides. I also noted that no butter was put onto the >> bread until after it was toasted. >> >> I came to the following conclusions: >> 1) It was not possible to make a toasting machine that could toast >> bread on only one side, hence both sides of a slice of bread had >> to be >> toasted >> 2) Since the bread was inserted into the toasting machine on the >> vertical, it was not possible to butter the bread before toasting >> it, because the melting butter would flow into the innards of machine >> and cause a problem >> >> Approximately 25 years later, I had a white roommate who owned a >> toaster-oven. One day, when it was his turn to cook, he got out a >> cookie sheet, put some unbuttered slices bread on it and toasted the >> bread. This struck me as somewhat strange, but I wasn't the one >> cooking, so I didn't say anything. In any case, after the bread slices >> had been toasted, he took the cookie sheet out of toaster and >> proceededto flip the slices over to their untoasted sides and then >> he put the >> cookie sheet back into the toaster-oven. I asked, "Why are you putting >> that toasted bread back into the oven?" He replied, as though to a >> child, "Why, so that I can toast the other sides." >> >> EPIPHANY!!! >> >> White people don't toast bread on both sides because they can't figure >> out a way to make a toasting machine that will toast bread on only one >> side! They toast bread on both sides BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT THAT WAY!!! >> >> -Wilson Gray >> > From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 05:44:33 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:44:33 -0500 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Nov 23, 2004, at 10:10 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is >> escorted >> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >> confused with the Texas Rangers). > >> I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers > > The town of Marshall had no town marshal? Not that I know of. > > It is said that the reason the US Army does not have the rank of > "Marshal" or > "Field Marshal" is that the first man to be considered for such a rank > was > General (i.e. then four stars) George C. Marshall, and he refused to > become > "Marshal Marshall". > > It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. > However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to Field > Marshal was > Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason unknown > to me, > instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." > > A Texas Ranger cannot be described as a "peace officer" because the > Rangers > are theoretically not a police force but rather the private army of > the State > of Texas. The Rangers aren't quite an army. There aren't enough of them, though I'm sure that, if you asked, you would be told that an army is unnecessary, given the existence of the Rangers. -Wilson Gray > > Beverly Flanigan writes: > >> I'd add that city or county >> police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in >> Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel >> 50 >> miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and >> maintain >> reasonable speed. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> At my grandfather's >> funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >> be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >> at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >> panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >> expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police >> was >> not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >> people and denied to white people. > > John Baker writes: > >> The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the > highway and >> waiting for the funeral procession to pass. > > More than a custom; it is part of good driving practice and may be > state law > in most states. At least it may be state law that once a convoy (any > convoy > on the road, not only a funeral procession) passes a traffic light and > the > light turns red, the convoy keeps going. The custom of having the > headlights on > in a funeral procession has nothing to do with respect for the > deceased. It is > a warning to other motorists that this is a convoy. In fact, convoys > other > than funeral processions (which generally means military convoys) also > have > headlights on. > > As for the police escort, that is because a funeral procession, > regardless of > race creed or hairstyle, is an equal-opportunity creator of traffic > problems. > It is not a "service provided to white people" but rather a necessity > for > the police department, one of whose duties is to clear up trafic > problems. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> when my father first went up to >> Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >> then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >> Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >> yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >> Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >> pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >> peculiar to a dialect." > > I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an > Irish > accent. > From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 30 06:03:38 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas Wilson) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 01:03:38 -0500 Subject: Uh-huh, huh-uh In-Reply-To: <4DCF2CE8-4287-11D9-A06C-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: A glance at N'archive shows "uh-huh" = "yes" from 1887, "huh-uh" = "no" from 1901. If these are of interest, I can quote them ... but I suppose there are earlier ones. -- Doug Wilson From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 07:12:44 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 02:12:44 -0500 Subject: drive time (1966) Message-ID: First cite in OED3 draft entry for "drive time" (the rush-hour radio time slot) is from 1975. 1966 Arlington Heights (Illinois) Herald 3 March 38/4 At WLNA he handled the late afternoon drive time air slot. --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 09:36:18 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 04:36:18 -0500 Subject: "go figure (it (out))" Message-ID: I see from the ADS-L archive that there was some discussion of "go figure" in May 2001. Jesse said that the earliest OED cite thus far was from 1980, and that is indeed what appears in the June 2004 draft entry for "go". Jesse suspected that this could be antedated, perhaps even back to the '50s. Newspaperarchive turns up a few cites from the '70s: Walla Walla (Washington) Union Bulletin, June 3, 1970 (13/3) "There Oughta Be A Law" by Al Shorten [sic: the comic strip was by Al Fagaly & Harry Shorten] Go Figure Dep't: When Hoggwell was courting Delladream, she dished up some meals that wouldn't stop. Now that they're hitched, the only time she goes into the kitchen is for a glass of water. Reno (Nevada) Evening Gazette, November 14, 1975 (15/1) NEW YORK (AP) -- Go figure. The figures under the roster column labeled "Age" tell us that the Washington Redskins are obviously too old to be running around on football fields. Also, this tagline for the movie _The Big Fix_ appeared in various newspaper ads in the fall of 1978: "Richard Dreyfuss as Moses Wine, private detective. So go figure." I haven't yet come across any cites for the bare "go figure" in the '60s, but there are numerous examples of the transitive form "go figure X", perhaps shortened from "go figure X out": Lincoln (Nebraska) Evening Journal, December 17, 1960 Go figure these things. Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, May 10, 1964 Go figure this booking. Syracuse (New York) Herald Journal, July 27, 1966 Go figure critics. (Monessen, Pennsylvania) Valley Independent, November 16, 1967 Go figure the Ivy League. (Elyria, Ohio) Chronicle Telegram, March 22, 1969 Go figure kids. (Burlington, North Carolina) Daily Times News, December 16, 1969 Go figure it. Sheboygan (Wisconsin) Press, June 10, 1970 Go figure ballplayers. The earliest transitive usage I can find is from 1955 ("You go figure it"): Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal, June 03, 1955 If you think that makes me a crazy mixed up kid, scratch any millionaire or ulcer-stricken giant of industry and you'll find a guy who longs for the little home in the country and the carpet slipper routine. You go figure it. "Go figure it out" dates back to 1953 at least, in a quote from the actor Robert Stack that appeared in Erskine Johnson's syndicated column: Walla Walla (Washington) Union Bulletin, June 10, 1953 It may have been that 3-D kiss he gave Barbara Britton, or the mint earned by "Bwana Devil," but Bob hasn't had a minute off in months and he's getting "the kind of roles I used to dream about" in films like "War Paint" and "Sabre Jet." "Go figure it out." Bob sighed. "After 'The Bullfighter and the Lady,' which was a great prestige picture, I didn't work for a year. 'Bwana Devil,' panned by everybody in Hollywood, did the trick for me." --Ben Zimmer From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 10:30:39 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 05:30:39 -0500 Subject: monkey suit = baseball uniform (1914) Message-ID: The OED3 draft entry for "monkey suit" has a first cite of 1926 in the sense of "(baseball) uniform". -------- Lima (Ohio) Daily News, March 11, 1914 (4/1) Florance W. Crowley, a Chicago fan who has rooted for the Cubs for 16 years, thought he would go down south with them this spring just to see what a ball club did at the training camp. Immediately after arriving at Tampa, Fla., he sought out Manager Hank O'Day and asked permission to borrow a Cub uniform and go through the stunts outlined for all the athletes. He has written a short description of his experience which he set down as follows: "After a week's experience on the ground in a monkey suit, taking orders from Mr. O'Day, who won't stand for loafing or posing, I have reached the conclusion that these spring trips are anything but joy parties." -------- --Ben Zimmer From mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU Tue Nov 30 13:53:43 2004 From: mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU (Mark A. Mandel) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 08:53:43 -0500 Subject: dialectal brogues In-Reply-To: <20041130050029.A7CB4B24ED@lorax.ldc.upenn.edu> Message-ID: referring to a Glasgow accent, from yesterday's NY Times, "A Traffic Reporter With No Traffic", By ANDREW JACOBS. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/29/nyregion/29traffic.html?oref=login >>> In a perfect world, Mr. Daniels would have his own drive-time radio program, playing pop music between lively banter with guests and callers. But in the rapidly consolidating realm of American radio, there are fewer opportunities for on-air personalities, especially for disc jockeys with unmistakably Scottish accents. Mr. Daniels, who was born and raised in Glasgow, can approximate Brooklynese, ? la Ralph Kramden, but he cannot vanquish his brogue entirely for more than a few sentences. <<< mark by hand From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 30 14:33:17 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 06:33:17 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: Actually, the Texas Rangers are quite formidable. One day a riot broke out suddenly in a large Texas town. People were fightin' with their fists and shootin' with their .44's. Even the wimmin an' kids were punchin' an' shootin'. I think there was Bowie-knife stabbin' goin' on too. Half the town was in flames, and to make it worse, a gang of teenagers had set up speakers to play their crazy rock' n' roll music over the entire jamboree. The cops couldn't handle it. One of 'em says, "Call the Rangers! Call the Rangers!" The Chief calls the Rangers and by-and-by one little ol' Ranger shows up. He's about knee-high to a tall duck, but he's got a hellacious mean look on his face. The Chief says, "What in blazes is this? I call the Texas Rangers to put down a riot and all they send is ONE little ol' Ranger?" The Ranger shifts his chaw from one side to the other, squirts a brown stream o' juice, an' he says, "Hell, they's only ONE little ol' riot, ain't they?" JL Wilson Gray wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society . Poster: Wilson Gray Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Nov 23, 2004, at 10:10 AM, James A. Landau wrote: > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: "James A. Landau" > Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > -------- > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> BTW, the funeral cortege of any dead Texan, >> irrespective of race, creed, color, or sexual orientation, is >> escorted >> to his/her final resting place by the Texas State Police (not to be >> confused with the Texas Rangers). > >> I'm not even sure that Marshall had any regular peace officers > > The town of Marshall had no town marshal? Not that I know of. > > It is said that the reason the US Army does not have the rank of > "Marshal" or > "Field Marshal" is that the first man to be considered for such a rank > was > General (i.e. then four stars) George C. Marshall, and he refused to > become > "Marshal Marshall". > > It is certainly possible that George C. Marshall made such a statement. > However, the first man to be considered for a rank equivalent to Field > Marshal was > Pershing, in the first World War. Pershing, for some reason unknown > to me, > instead became "General of the Armies" rather than "Field Marshal." > > A Texas Ranger cannot be described as a "peace officer" because the > Rangers > are theoretically not a police force but rather the private army of > the State > of Texas. The Rangers aren't quite an army. There aren't enough of them, though I'm sure that, if you asked, you would be told that an army is unnecessary, given the existence of the Rangers. -Wilson Gray > > Beverly Flanigan writes: > >> I'd add that city or county >> police (or sheriffs) always escort funeral processions "up home" in >> Minnesota, and I presume everywhere else. A procession might travel >> 50 >> miles or more in a rural area, and police must clear the way and >> maintain >> reasonable speed. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> At my grandfather's >> funeral, the presence of the state-police escort was not considered to >> be worthy of comment. In 1956, the presence of the Texas State Police >> at a large gathering of black people would more likely have caused >> panic, let alone comment, unless it was an ordinary occurrence, >> expected under the circumstances. And an escort by the state police >> was >> not a service that the state of Texas would have provided to black >> people and denied to white people. > > John Baker writes: > >> The people in this rural area continue the custom of stopping on the > highway and >> waiting for the funeral procession to pass. > > More than a custom; it is part of good driving practice and may be > state law > in most states. At least it may be state law that once a convoy (any > convoy > on the road, not only a funeral procession) passes a traffic light and > the > light turns red, the convoy keeps going. The custom of having the > headlights on > in a funeral procession has nothing to do with respect for the > deceased. It is > a warning to other motorists that this is a convoy. In fact, convoys > other > than funeral processions (which generally means military convoys) also > have > headlights on. > > As for the police escort, that is because a funeral procession, > regardless of > race creed or hairstyle, is an equal-opportunity creator of traffic > problems. > It is not a "service provided to white people" but rather a necessity > for > the police department, one of whose duties is to clear up trafic > problems. > > Wilson Gray writes: > >> when my father first went up to >> Madison from his home hamlet of Moundville, Alabama, to get what was >> then an LlB [sic] but is now a JD, the locals had problems with his >> Alabama-backwater version of BE. As he put it, "When I first went up >> yonder to go to school, folk in Wisconsin couldn't understand my >> Alabama brogue." The OED has "brogue, n. A strongly-marked dialectal >> pronunciation or accent." Webster's New World has "the pronunciation >> peculiar to a dialect." > > I was under the impression that "brogue" referred specifically to an > Irish > accent. > --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Meet the all-new My Yahoo! ? Try it today! From wilson.gray at RCN.COM Tue Nov 30 14:43:18 2004 From: wilson.gray at RCN.COM (Wilson Gray) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:43:18 -0500 Subject: A trivial note re St. Louis Message-ID: I saw a TV show from St. Louis about 45 min. ago. To "down someone" is still used in place of to "put someone down," in the local version of BE, at least. Of course, to "put someone/something down" in the sense of to "diassociate oneself from a person, place, or activity" survives. As the songs go, "This Army boogie (i.e. bullshit) I believe I'll put it down"; "I can't quit you, baby, but I got to put you down for awhile." -Wilson Gray From stevekl at PANIX.COM Tue Nov 30 15:00:38 2004 From: stevekl at PANIX.COM (Steve Kl.) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 10:00:38 -0500 Subject: traveling to Oakland on the cheap. In-Reply-To: <2C9E6523-42DE-11D9-8002-000A95E82154@rcn.com> Message-ID: By the way, it doesn't show up on Orbitz, but Jet Blue (jetblue.com) flies into Oakland. I got a direct flight from Boston to Oakland for less than a 1/3 of the price than flying into SFO via one of the major carriers. - Steve From fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU Tue Nov 30 16:10:40 2004 From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU (Fred Shapiro) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:10:40 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" In-Reply-To: <200411280536.iAS5aKAr022733@pantheon-po07.its.yale.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Nov 2004, Benjamin Zimmer wrote: > Barry Popik has already turned up a 1905 cite with the "St. Paul" version, > predating the two 1912 cites attributing the saying to David Mackenzie. > As for the "Jesus" version, here's a Newspaperarchive cite from 1927: > > Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), April 27, 1927 The Chronicle Telegram articles on Newspaperarchive are badly misdated, and I assume this one is misdated. What is the next earliest hit for the Jesus version on Newspaperarchive? Fred -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred R. Shapiro Editor Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press, Yale Law School forthcoming e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From douglas at NB.NET Tue Nov 30 16:55:15 2004 From: douglas at NB.NET (Douglas Wilson) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:55:15 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> As for the "Jesus" version, here's a Newspaperarchive cite from 1927: >> >> Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), April 27, 1927 > > The Chronicle Telegram articles on Newspaperarchive are badly misdated, > and I assume this one is misdated. Apparently this one is dated correctly. -- Doug Wilson From marshaalley at MSN.COM Tue Nov 30 17:40:33 2004 From: marshaalley at MSN.COM (Marsha Alley) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:40:33 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: I'm sorry...I just have to tell Jonathan he made me LOL for real this dreary rainy morn. Thank you! Reminds me of a bar fight I got myself stuck in the middle of in Austin in '96. Two women fighting over a cowboy. Lordy, I thought I'd never get out in one piece - knives, broken beer bottles, handfuls of hair! And the band played on, of course, just louder than before! :-) Marsha ----- Original Message ----- From: Jonathan Lighter The Chief says, "What in blazes is this? I call the Texas Rangers to put down a riot and all they send is ONE little ol' Ranger?" The Ranger shifts his chaw from one side to the other, squirts a brown stream o' juice, an' he says, "Hell, they's only ONE little ol' riot, ain't they?" From JMB at STRADLEY.COM Tue Nov 30 17:47:44 2004 From: JMB at STRADLEY.COM (Baker, John) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:47:44 -0500 Subject: Uh-huh, huh-uh Message-ID: I'm surprised to see that Merriam-Webster has such late dates for these words: 1889 for uh-huh, circa 1924 for uh-uh, and, implausibly, 1971 for uh-oh. Why so late? These seem like the kind of terms that one would expect to have been in the language for centuries. Of course, their apparent lateness may be an artifact of a lack of standardized spellings and a tendency not to regard them as words, but I think the latter goes only so far, since there has always been a need to reflect such terms in colloquial dialogue. I can antedate uh-uh and uh-oh. For uh-uh, here's an August 1901 cite from The Atlantic Monthly, available on Making of America (Cornell), referring to a patient who is holding on to a woman's hand: "'Why, Henderson, I'm dashed if I can untangle him.' Carey stooped again. 'Just alive enough to swing to her. Uh-uh!'" A slightly earlier (1901, but referring to earlier events) cite is from Studybaker v. Cofield, 159 Mo. 596, 61 S.W. 246, 249 (Feb. 12, 1901), but the meaning is questionable at best: "Witness was of the opinion that on the day the deed was executed and the day before Boyer could not understand what he was doing. Witness would ask him if he wanted his medicine, and he would answer, 'Uh, uh.' 'Q. You think he was unable to make himself understood at all? A. That is, according to my-- Q. And was unable to understand what people said to him? A. That is the way I took it.'" For uh-oh, I can take it back to 1942, describing events of 1940: "The witness then testified in substance that she had been gazing in that direction (towards the west field) since the car began its ascent of the hill; that she looked back when Mr. Rubart said 'Uh Oh!' and she then saw the truck." Roushar v. Dixon, 231 Iowa 993, 995, 2 N.W.2d 660, 661 (Mar. 10, 1942). John Baker -----Original Message----- From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of douglas at NB.NET Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004 1:04 AM To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Uh-huh, huh-uh A glance at N'archive shows "uh-huh" = "yes" from 1887, "huh-uh" = "no" from 1901. If these are of interest, I can quote them ... but I suppose there are earlier ones. -- Doug Wilson From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 30 18:54:05 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:54:05 -0600 Subject: Hancock building in Chicago Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Jesse Sheidlower [mailto:jester at PANIX.COM] > Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 11:19 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: Hancock building in Chicago > > On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 03:17:04PM -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote: > > > > CHICAGO: I still favor jumping off the Hancock Building. > > It's much better looking than the Sears Tower. Yes, but since it's trapezoidal-shaped, you'd bounce off the sides on the way down. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 30 18:54:04 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:54:04 -0600 Subject: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. Message-ID: Tennessee Alumnus (magazine for the UT alumni) has an article about the Smoky Mountain dictionary: http://pr.tennessee.edu/alumnus/alumarticle.asp?id=547 Another dictionary some might find interesting: http://www.angelfire.com/nj/carlb/seinfeld/seinfelddictionary.html > -----Original Message----- > From: Jonathan Lighter [mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM] > Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 8:51 AM > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header > ----------------------- > Sender: American Dialect Society > Poster: Jonathan Lighter > Subject: Re: "How to Talk Southern" : Roy Blount, Jr. > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------------- > > Montgomery's dictionary is the best book that has ever been > done on Smoky Mountain English. It will never be replaced. > > JL > From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 19:16:39 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:16:39 -0500 Subject: "English Was Good Enough for Jesus" Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:55:15 -0500, Douglas Wilson wrote: >>> As for the "Jesus" version, here's a Newspaperarchive cite from 1927: >>> >>> Chronicle Telegram (Elyria, Ohio), April 27, 1927 >> >> The Chronicle Telegram articles on Newspaperarchive are badly misdated, >> and I assume this one is misdated. > >Apparently this one is dated correctly. Indeed it is. I also found some "St. Paul" variants predating Barry's 1905 find, all referring to the King James Bible: --------- PREACHING ON THE BIBLE; PULPIT OPINIONS OF THE NEW VERSION. New York Times, May 23, 1881. p. 8 The Rev. Dr. Pentecost ... illustrated the tenacity with which people cling to the old Bible by telling a story about an agent of a Bible society who was trying to collect money in a country church for a new translation of the Bible. The agent asked an old farmer in the congregation to contribute. "What's the matter with the good old King James version?" the farmer replied. "That was good enough for St. Paul, and it's good enough for me." --------- "The New Covenant" and its Critics. J W Hanson. The Universalist Quarterly and General Review. Boston: Oct 1884. Vol. 21; p. 465 Prof. Schaff pertinently observes: There are many lineal descendants of those priests, who, in the reign of Henry VIII, preferred their old-fashioned Mumpsimus Domine to the new-fangled Sumpsimus; even in the enlightened State of Massachusetts, a pious deacon is reported to have opposed the Revision of 1881 with the conclusive argument, "If St. James's Version was good enough for St. Paul, it is good enough for me!" [Apparently quoting Philip Schaff's _Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version_ (1883).] --------- Nebraska State Journal, June 16, 1901, p. 12 "The Sketch," of London, says: "A new book on the history of the English Bible has a good story of a certain sprightly young deacon who, in preaching against the advocates of the revised version, startled his hearers by the contention that, if the authorized version was good enough for St. Paul, it was good enough for him!" [Story also appears in: Davenport Daily Republican, February 27, 1902.] --------- --Ben Zimmer From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 30 19:23:20 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 13:23:20 -0600 Subject: poundage and others Message-ID: poundage -- OED: 6.b. A person's weight, esp. that which is regarded as excess. 1930 WODEHOUSE Very Good, Jeeves! iv. 93 Women who have anything to do with opera..always appear to run to surplus poundage "Glimpses of the Game" Wm. A. Phelon, _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 39/1 "Added weight undoubtedly had much to do with Jack Johnson's defeat; added weight has driven many a good ballplayer out of the game and yet, in many cases, extra bulk, a large increase in poundage, has helped to keep a player in the business, and even to bring back a discard from the minors!" hippo (slang for a fat person; not in OED) "Glimpses of the Game" Wm. A. Phelon, _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. 2, p. 38/2 "When he became a hippo, and learned how to bend the extra bulk into the force of every blow he struck, he came back to fast company and became a whale, a terror to all pitchers." busher (OED has bush leaguer from 1906) "The New Recruit," _Baseball Magazine_, May, 1916, No. 1, p. 71/1 "Well, there ain't no sense in lettin' a busher get away with everything is there?" p. 71/2 "Not bad, y'unnerstand, but just a little scratch, to show that the big league is too rough for a busher." blinged -- swear word, not in OED "The New Recruit," _Baseball Magazine_, May, 1916, No. 1, p. 71/2 "Not while I'm tryin' to find out just where that blinged plate is located." From dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM Tue Nov 30 19:33:41 2004 From: dsgood at IPHOUSE.COM (Dan Goodman) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 13:33:41 -0600 Subject: Scots archive Message-ID: From the UK edition of Google News: Canny Scots create muckle archive BBC News - 12 hours ago A new online archive aimed at recording the Scots tongue in all its forms is due to go live on St Andrew's Day. The Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech (SCOTS) has been put together by the University of Glasgow and has taken three years to compile. Canny idea from university means braw day for Scots The Scotsman Web project celebrates Scots tongue ic Dumfries.co.uk Glasgow Evening Times - all 11 related ? The Scotsman gives the URL: ? The SCOTS project corpus is available for free at www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk from today. -- Dan Goodman Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ Predictions and Politics http://dsgood.blogspot.com All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician. From faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU Tue Nov 30 19:34:21 2004 From: faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU (Alice Faber) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:34:21 -0500 Subject: Attention Arnold! Message-ID: Spotted on usenet: "the same-oh-same-oh does get really, really boring!" -- Alice Faber Haskins Labs, 270 Crown St, New Haven, CT, 06511 T: (203) 865-6163 x258 F: (203) 865-8963 faber at haskins.yale.edu From jparish at SIUE.EDU Tue Nov 30 20:07:04 2004 From: jparish at SIUE.EDU (Jim Parish) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:07:04 -0600 Subject: poundage and others In-Reply-To: <200411301925.iAUJPRK9009130@mx1.isg.siue.edu> Message-ID: Bill Mullins wrote (with much snipped): > hippo (slang for a fat person; not in OED) > "Glimpses of the Game" Wm. A. Phelon, _Baseball Magazine_, June, 1915, No. > 2, p. 38/2 > "When he became a hippo, and learned how to bend the extra bulk into the > force of every blow he struck, he came back to fast company and became a > whale, a terror to all pitchers." There was a pitcher by the name of Jim Vaughn, nicknamed "Hippo", from about that period. He came up briefly in 1908 and returned to stay in 1910. I don't know when he acquired the nickname, but investigation might yield a slight antedating. Jim Parish ------------------------------------------------- SIUE Web Mail From bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU Tue Nov 30 20:19:22 2004 From: bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU (Benjamin Zimmer) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 15:19:22 -0500 Subject: Uh-huh, huh-uh Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:47:44 -0500, Baker, John wrote: > For uh-oh, I can take it back to 1942, describing events of 1940: >"The witness then testified in substance that she had been gazing in that >direction (towards the west field) since the car began its ascent of the >hill; that she looked back when Mr. Rubart said 'Uh Oh!' and she then saw >the truck." Roushar v. Dixon, 231 Iowa 993, 995, 2 N.W.2d 660, 661 (Mar. >10, 1942). Hard to search for "uh-oh" on newspaperarchive or other databases, since poor scanning results in lots of false matches. But I did find a 1930 cite: Van Wert (Ohio) Times Bulletin, August 19, 1930 The Featherheads [comic strip] Uh-oh! This is the title to a strip featuring Mr. Featherhead and his boss: Boss: Mr. Featherhead - have you got all the figures in on that Riggs deal? You want to get along that job, you know... Boss: If we get the contract, my boy... it will be a feather in your cap! A fine thing for you... yes sir! [Mr. Featherhead beams.] Boss: And if we don't get it... you'll probably be fired! Mr. Featherhead: ! I suspect earlier cites can be found in comic strips of the '20s. --Ben Zimmer From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 30 21:31:23 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 16:31:23 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Colonial English Message-ID: Ives Goddard has agreed to send me a comment on the Algonquian book review, and in return he asks for help on the following query. I told him I'd pass the request on to you all, and you can contact him directly. >X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2 >X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 6.5.2 >Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:24:41 -0500 >From: "Ives Goddard" >To: >Subject: Colonial English >X-PMX-Version: 4.7.0.111621, Antispam-Engine: 2.0.2.0, Antispam-Data: >2004.11.30.1 (pm10) >X-PMX-Information: http://www.cns.ohiou.edu/email/filtering/ >X-PMX-Spam: Gauge=IIIIIII, Probability=7%, Report='__CD 0, __CT 0, __CTE >0, __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __HAS_X_MAILER 0, __MIME_VERSION 0, >__SANE_MSGID 0' > >May I ask a favor in return? >I am trying to find someone who is familiar with Colonial American English, >the vernacular usage of letters, etc., specifically of Mass. in the 17th >century, and might be interested in looking at a purported letter of 1699 >(cited in the OED) to see if the language looks right. > Any ideas? Do you know anyone connected with DARE that might know or be >such a person? > Any aid appreciated. > --Ives Goddard Senior Linguist, Department of Anthropology Smithsonian Institution PO Box 37012 NHB 85-M, MRC 100 Washington, DC 20013-7012 From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 30 22:24:52 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:24:52 -0500 Subject: e-dress etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: That's a great one! Could be nominated for best revival? At 09:10 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: > >IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. New (?) words are popping up everywhere. > >Here are a few plucked from the hopper today. > > > >Regards, > >David > > > >barnhart at highlands.com >~~~~~~~~ >Saul Landau, in a recent article on Fallujah, uses "presstitutes" in >connection with embedded journalists. I hadn't run across this before, but >I see, via google, that it's been around for a while. (I should think it >might well have come up in the first Gulf War, since even the press itself >was apologetic for the way they had allowed themselves to be used by the >Pentagon in that Bush's war.) >A. Murie From flanigan at OHIOU.EDU Tue Nov 30 22:28:03 2004 From: flanigan at OHIOU.EDU (Beverly Flanigan) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:28:03 -0500 Subject: Wolof hip In-Reply-To: <20041129231608.51144.qmail@web53906.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Of course not! I just don't know how to show irony in a smiley. At 06:16 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: >Beverly, are you serious? > >JL > >Beverly Flanigan wrote: >---------------------- Information from the mail header >----------------------- >Sender: American Dialect Society >Poster: Beverly Flanigan >Subject: Re: Wolof hip >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >So other people are more articulate? What does this mean?? Sounds like >the old "primitive language" idea--except that now we're the primitives! > >At 12:35 PM 11/29/2004, you wrote: > >The late appearance of "uh-huh," etc., in print may partly reflect the > >superprescriptionist idea that they "aren't words"; second, their > >spelling, until regularized, would be problematical. It may be that many > >potentially earlier cites are disguised in phrases such as, "He answered > >with a grunt." > > > >Dalby may be right, of course, but white people can be quite inarticulate. > >The native grunt-and-groan elements of English may always have been > >sufficient. What about "um-hmm"? > > > >I see no way of resolving this question on the basis of current knowledge. > > > >JL > > >--------------------------------- >Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. From Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL Tue Nov 30 23:51:06 2004 From: Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL (Mullins, Bill) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:51:06 -0600 Subject: jassak and baseball slang Message-ID: jassak "The Council of War," _Baseball Magazine_, October, 1916, No. 6, p. 25 "There, there! Cut it out! Some of you split them two jassaks out before they kill each other." "The New Signals," _Baseball Magazine_, October, 1918, No. 6, p. 492 "But Wharke here has ears like a jassack, and they could be seen a mile away-" Perhaps a corruption of Jackass??? doghouse (fiddle) (a double bass -- OED has 1923. "The Council of War," _Baseball Magazine_, October, 1916, No. 6, p. 26 "Fiddle means to steal a base. Big doghouse fiddle means to work the double steal." The same article has "musketeer" for "mosquito", on the next page. roll your own (OED has "rolls its own" 1930) Bull Durham tobacco advertisement, _Baseball Magazine_, Aug 1916, p. ?? (probably back cover) "It takes only a little practice to learn to "roll your own" with "Bull Durham." knuckler (OED has 1928) classified advertisement, _Baseball Magazine_, Aug 1916, p. 4/2. "PITCH THE FADEAWAY, SPITTER, KNUCKLER, SMOKE BALL, etc." [note smoke ball is not in OED] jock (abbrev for jock-strap (supportive garment)) (OED has 1952) classified advertisement, _Baseball Magazine_, Aug 1916, p. 120/1 "Ask your dealer, and if he will not supply you with Mizpah Jock No. 44, send us 75?." fan club (OED has 1941) "The 'R-U-A-Fan' Club," Brother Max, _Baseball Magazine_, December, 1908, No. 2, p. 51 ""But what good does it do a fellow to join the Fan Club?" I hear Bob over there in the corner ask." gink (OED has 1910) "Bugs," Louis Schneider, _Baseball Magazine_, Dec 1908, p. 62 "He'll ramp and stamp and whoop and yell; he'll tear his lungs plumb out; He'll dislocate his voice to boot, but still the gink'll shout; He's game to stay and cheer you on for fifteen innings through, But if you go and lose the game he's got it in for you!" twirl, twirler (pitch, pitcher -- this sense not in OED) "The 'R-U-A-Fan' Club," Brother Max, _Baseball Magazine_, May 1909, No. 1, p. 69 "Lyle manages to get off work on Saturday afternoons, and then he twirls for the champion boys' team of the town. We have his record, and it's a good one. "I love to pitch, and my greatest ambition is to be a famous twirler," he says. You have the right idea, Lyle." onion (slang for baseball -- not in OED) "Cutting the Corners" W. R. Hoefer, _Baseball Magazine_, July 1918, p. 287/1 "When they ain't pasting the onion they're in a slump." "Cutting the Corners" W. R. Hoefer, _Baseball Magazine_, July 1918, p. 287/2 "PICKLE the Pill: To soak, paste, biff, bang, kiss, wallop or sting the onion, apple, pill, or ball upon the snoot, seam, kisser, nose or stitch." Note that all of these are online at: http://www.aafla.org/search/search.htm From wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM Tue Nov 30 23:59:06 2004 From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM (Jonathan Lighter) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 15:59:06 -0800 Subject: dialectal "from the home" /of the home Message-ID: Thank you, Marsha. I've known that story for half my life but never had a chance to tell it till now. It's a good'un. JL arsha Alley wrote: ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Marsha Alley Subject: Re: dialectal "from the home" /of the home ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm sorry...I just have to tell Jonathan he made me LOL for real this = dreary rainy morn. Thank you! Reminds me of a bar fight I got myself stuck in the middle of in Austin = in '96. Two women fighting over a cowboy. Lordy, I thought I'd never = get out in one piece - knives, broken beer bottles, handfuls of hair! = And the band played on, of course, just louder than before! :-) Marsha ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Jonathan Lighter=20 The Chief says, "What in blazes is this? I call the Texas Rangers to = put down a riot and all they send is ONE little ol' Ranger?" The Ranger shifts his chaw from one side to the other, squirts a brown = stream o' juice, an' he says, "Hell, they's only ONE little ol' riot, = ain't they?" --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.