guppies and muppies

[Arnold Zwicky]

lynne murphy, bereft of kosher dills on the sussex downs:

  We could always try to introduce prenasalized (and prelabialized?)
  consonants into English and call you a "mguppie".  (Hanson's top 40
  song "Mmmbop" may have planted the seeds of prenazalization in
  English.)  Or you could be a "gumpie", as in "I'm gumpie, dammit."

GUMPIE has a nice geezery feel to it.  i'll try and see if i can't
encourage its use.

as for prenasalization, lots of american speakers already have it, in
[mbai] for 'BYE (GOODBYE) and [Nke] for 'KAY (OK).  i'd imagine these
pronunciations haven't made it into the dictionaries of american
english.  (i recall geoff pullum's astonishment, and pleasure, when on
his first visit to ohio state he heard the department secretary use
both of these in a single utterance.)

as for hanson, it hadn't occurred to me to listen to them, as opposed
to looking at them.  but i suppose that eye candy can have other uses.

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), tying several old threads
  on to this drifting one