iced tea

[thomas gebhart]

I don't know about either ice or iced tea being a "southernism" -- but it doesn't
appear to be predominant in my father's family's areas of Alabama. Tea that isn't
in a cup and isn't hot is _sweet tea_. When offered "tea" without a qualifier in
northern AL or in Montgomery, the question, "Ice(d) tea?" gets you "Yes Ma'am,
sweet tea."

Beth Simon
Assistant Professor, Linguistics and English
Indiana University Purdue University
simon at ipfw.edu


"A. Maberry" wrote:

> Not necessarily a southernism. I've always refered to it as "ice tea" and
> have always heard it pronounced that way, although I've seen "iced" and
> "ice tea" in print, but have no idea which predominates--at least in the
> Pacific Northwest.
>
> allen
> maberry at u.washington.edu
>
> On Mon, 2 Aug 1999, Jessie Emerson wrote:
>
> > My gut feeling is that "ice tea" is a southernism, and not something that is
> > written very often; i.e., you go into a restaurant and order "ice tea" (the
> > d and the t becoming indistinguishable).  These same people may write it
> > either way, with or without the d.  And it seems from Nexis that "iced tea"
> > is the predominate written form.
> >
> > Conversely, if it is a southernism, the d of "iced" is never pronounced,
> > even though the speaker may write it with the d.
> >
> > Jessie
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Barnhart <ADS-L at HIGHLANDS.COM>
> > To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Sent: Monday, August 02, 1999 3:11 PM
> > Subject: iced tea
> >
> >
> > > My curiosity has been stirred up.  In one of Popik's recent quotations
> > > there is a reference to ice tea being more common in Texas.
> > >
> > > >     "So much tea is consumed here year-round that you might even call
> > > iced
> > > >tea 'the national beverage of Texas.'  Historically, it is called
> > > 'ice' tea
> > > >in Texas.  Iced tea was created by an Indian tea merchant who couldn't
> > > sell
> > > >his hot tea at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904."
> > > >--"Tea Pleasures," HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 26 July 1995.
> > >
> > > I have not found any reference yet in dialect dictionaries as to the
> > > dialect variation of ice vs. iced tea.
> > >
> > > DAE has only iced tea.
> > > DA has only iced tea.
> > > WU3 has iced tea as the main entry and ice tea with a cross reference.
> > > OED has no reference to either.
> > > OEDs has no reference to either.
> > > Cent. Dict. has only iced tea.
> > > DARE has no reference to either.
> > > AmDiDic has no reference to either.
> > >
> > > Nexis shows 24,500 articles for iced tea
> > > Nexis shows   4,200 articles for ice tea.
> > >
> > > Has anyone a feeling for possible geographical or social distribution
> > > for these two terms?
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > David K. Barnhart
> > > barnhart at highlands.com
> >