[ADS-L] Louisiana vow els

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 10/12/07 3:46:49 PM, zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU writes:


> 
>    http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005015.html
> 

Wonderful, Arnold! I would add only that, when students object that specific 
linguistic changes MUST have a particular explanation--that language change 
cannot be random--I ask them why it rained yesterday and not today. It seems to 
me that folk wisdom actually has a fairly well-developed sense of the random 
nature of some phenomena (e.g., in addition to the weather, the sudden 
appearance of a giant number of gnats that recently changed the course of baseball 
history; "just not getting the cards" at poker; meeting the love of one's life in 
Bora-Bora).


**************************************
 See what's new at 
http://www.aol.com

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org