[Ads-l] YouTubery: "I guess you never heard of a _wheelbarrel_."

Mark Mandel mark.a.mandel at GMAIL.COM
Sun Apr 21 15:23:51 UTC 2019


On Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 5:36 AM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ...
>
> The following 1898 citation employed "wheelbarrow" and "wheelbarrel"
> in adjacent sentences. Yet, the two terms apparently referred to the
> same object.
>
> Date: October 16, 1898
> Newspaper: The Cincinnati Enquirer
> Newspaper Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
> Article: Street Talk
> Quote Page 13, Column 1
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> "If yer had a wheelbarrel we'd be all right," asserted the young man
> who had delivered the guitar.
>
> "Well, there's a wheelbarrow somewhere on the place. It's back by the
> stable."
> [End excerpt]
>

 I suspect that was intended to reflect different usages by the
conversants. Note the eye dialect "yer" of the "wheelbarrel" speaker, while
speaker "wheelbarrow" is recorded in standard spelling. That's not much
evidence in such brief utterances, but it's something. The source cited
must have more.

Mark Mandel

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