Tee-nine-see

[Dennis R. Preston]

I grew up in the Louisville area, 1940's and 50's and used
TEE-nine-see (stress on first not second syllable, and 'see' not
'shee' in the last). Wilson, you just got to stop thinking that
everything you said when you was little is Black. Lots of us white
guys out here say the same stuff. If you want to be shocked by white
guys, save it for Imus.

The palatalization is interesting in your form. (I take the 'see'
form to be more widely distributed.) Is it the influence of the
following high front vowel? I'm having trouble thinking of
comparatively weakly stressed /-Vnsi##/ strings. (I can think of
/-VnsiC/ forms like "linseed".) "Unseat, "unseemly," etc... are all
in stressed syllables and seem to me very unlikely to go to /sh/ so
perhaps it's the sequence plus the lenition of the weaker stress that
promotes the palatalization in your form.

Finally, if this is formed from "teensy," as it almost certainly is
(itself already surely a development tiny -> teeny -> teensy), are
there other examples of a "diminutivizing infix" of this sort? (Of
course, it could be an augmentative augmenting the notion "small.")

This will teach me to get up early on Saturday.

dInIs


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>>Are y'all familiar with the term that's pronounced something like
>>"tee-NINE-shee"? It means "very small" and is used instead of
>>"itty-bitty" or "teeny-tiny." When I was in the Army, I heard this
>>used by Texans of all races, creeds, and colors from all over the
>>state. I learned it from my mother and my grandmother - I hated any
>>story that  began, "Whin yew wuh jes' a tee-nine-shee baby ..." Until
>>my Army days, I was under the impression that this word was peculiar
>>to the women in my family. You can imagine my shock when I first heard
>>it fall tripppingly from the tongue of a white farm boy from Mundy,
>>Texas. Later, I heard it used by GI's from Weslaco, Dallas, Odessa,
>>Midland, Tyler, Galveston, etc., etc. But that was fifty years ago.
>>
>>So, I was wondering whether any y'all were familiar with this term? Is
>>it peculiar to Texas or is it also used elsewhere?
>>
>>-Wilson
>  ~~~~~~~~~
>I don't know this one at all, but it strongly suggests to me the kind of
>secret language kids develop -- like pig latin, but more elaborate -- to
>baffle peers & parents, that are simply english with transposed letters,
>added syllables, &c.  One of my kids used to carry on rapid, animated
>conversations with her closest buddies in one of these.  I never did twig
>to the key, though I knew the technique.  Tiny could easily become
>tee-nine-shee with such treatment.
>AM
>
>
>~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
>
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