Origins of the Word "Soccer"

[Michael Newman]

I think that structure is pretty common. It's certainly frequent in New York City English.

Butters, Ronald R. 1974. Variability in Indirect Questions. American Speech 49 (3/4): 230–234.



On Jul 3, 2014, at 5:08 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU<mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>> wrote:

---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU<mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>>
Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU<mailto:laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>>
Subject:      Re: Origins of the Word "Soccer"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Jul 2, 2014, at 10:22 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

On Wed, Jul 2, 2014 at 5:39 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com<mailto:aardvark66 at gmail.com>>
wrote:
=20
A. were he to be asked what was his most pleasant recollection of =
Oxford
life
=20
=20
I'm running on memory fumes, as usual, but didn't Labov write that =
this
construction of the "embedded question" was peculiar to BE, as opposed =
to
the "standard"

Yes he did, and George Lakoff cited the same effect (although limited to =
embedded questions that are used to indirectly ask questions) for his =
dialect of (Jewish, Bayonne, NJ) English, citing paradigms like

a.  Tell me where did he go.
b.  I want to know where did he go.
c.  *Bill told me where did he go.
d.  *I know where did he go.
e.   I don't know where did he go.

And in Hispanic English, this kind of inversion appears to be more =
broadly acceptable, according to Carmen Fought.=20

LH
=20
B. "were he to be asked what his most pleasant recollection of Oxford =
life
was"
=20
FWIW, my impression, based on dekkids of hearing and reading, is that =
these
constructions are like "economics" and "(n)either,"
=20
"You can get with this / Or you can get with that / The choice is =
yours,"
=20
as the song goes, regardless of race, etc.. I choose B and =
"(n)eether." I
have no personal preference WRT "economics."
=20
--=20
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint =
to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain
=20
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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


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