Fwd: Re: language in Teletubbies

[Eve V. Clark]

  Perhaps there are TWO forms here,  eh-oh (hello, without the 'h' or
'l' sounds) and uh-oh.   Uh-oh is certainly current in British English
(used in much teh same way as in the US with young children), and the
other form may be an attempt to represent infant speech without the
medial -l- in hello.

I haven't heard any of the programs so this could be far off the
mark, but Americans sometimes have trouble with British vowels...

Eve Clark

==================
>Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 19:54:21 -0600 (MDT)
>From: FELDMAN  ANDREA <feldman at stripe.Colorado.EDU>
>Subject: Re: language in Teletubbies
>
>I have just received a reply (off list) that mentions that the
>Po doll says 'eh oh' for 'hello'--perhaps a British pronunciation
>of 'uh oh' ?  I wonder if the writers of the show chose this
>word (or pronunciation) to mimic children's use of the word
>'hello' for 'telephone' (though my child used the word 'bye bye'
>for telephone')--I can imagine a rather far-fetched connection,
>if a caregiver said 'uh oh' every time the phone rang...
>Andrea Feldman
>
>On Thu, 20 May 1999, FELDMAN  ANDREA wrote:
>
>> I think 'uhoh' is sometimes used by the Teletubbies to mean 'hello'.
>> (I have often watched the show with my three-year-old.)
>>
>> --Andrea Feldman
>> On Thu, 20 May 1999, Lois Bloom wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > The phonological details are interesting, but difficult to measure their
>> > potential influence I suspect.  One question I had at the time was whether
>> > the TTs were saying 'uhoh' or 'hello' --both words 'fit' at times, but
>> > 'uhoh' more often in the tapes I watched (these came from ABC News).
>> >
>> > --Lois Bloom
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>