New thread--a curious thing

[Mike Salovesh]

Re "yikes" versus "yipes" -- (Sorry to be so late; I've been away from
computerland) --

Arnold Zwicky wrote:

> is there actually a general british/american divide here (with a
> few exceptional speakers, like bob and me), or is this some artefact
> of dictionary construction?
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

I use both.  I haven't looked closely enough to say they're in free
variation, but if my choice is conditioned I don't know what triggers
one instead of the other.

I was raised in Chicago, mostly. I spent grades 3 through 6 living in
Milwaukee. Don't draw too many conclusions about the general
distribution of YIKES versus YIPES from what I say, though.

Remember, I was trained to sound like a native speaker of Platform
English without any conscious effort on my part.  My old voice and
diction and elocution teachers did their damnedest to kill any strong
tendency I might have had to use recognizable localisms.  Since they
weren't dialecticians, I suppose they missed as many dialect markers as
they erased.

-- mike salovesh   <salovesh at niu.edu>   PEACE !!!