Introduction and question

[David]

I'm interested in finding new american expressions.   Like "you go girl"
"show me the money" "ultraportables".  Often these are created by the media
or technology.  Anyone have some good resources for this stuff.  The sites
I've seen do offer new sayings, but they tend to be at *least* three months
behind.  I want to find these much quicker.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Rebecca Meyer
> Sent: Thursday, December 02, 1999 3:03 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Introduction and question
>
>
> Greetings,
> New subscriber here. I'm a lecturer in linguistics at San Diego State
> University, where I teach an upper division survey course (Linguistics and
> English). I'm always searching for new dialect examples/sightings and
> resources (website, books, videos, etc.), and this looks like it might be
> "the place".
>
> I also have a question. Although it's not strictly dialect question, I'm
> really at a loss as to where else to ask it. I did ask in
> alt.usage.english,
> but that ng can be a bit of a freakshow, and I'm not counting on
> getting any
> usable feedback. Here is the question as it appeared in AEU:
>
> I'm de-lurking here to make an inquiry on behalf of a colleague who is
> researching grammar/punctuation/spelling flames on Usenet.
> In the course of her research, my friend encountered an exchange where
> one party (A) was exhorting another poster (B) to "learn how to
> punctuate". The sentence under attack was structured exactly like a
> tag question, but without the question mark (e.g., "You're a real
> moron, aren't you.").  Party B defended his/her punctuation by stating
> that the sentence was an "assurance" and not a question.
> My friend brought it to my attention and asked me if it was a bona
> fide sentence type. Unfortunately, I've never encountered this term
> (assurance) before. Is it new? Is it legitimate? I've looked in Fowler
> and several other usage texts, but can find no mention of it.
> Am I simply an old fuddy-duddy who needs to "get with it"?
>
> Soo...have I missed the inception of a new and exciting sentence
> type, or is
> "assurance" a purely contrived label?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Rebecca Meyer
>