bubbler/NYS

[Tim Frazer]

When you say Western NYS is "more like the Midwest," that really only
applies to the Great Lakes area.  This is apparent from both Linguistic
Atlas data, DARE data ("bubbler" is used in Wisconsin and N. Ill as well as
wNYS) and from Labov's Phonological Atlas (for example, with the Northern
Cities Shift).  Indiana, southern Ohio and southern Illinois are different,
and parts of them are different from others.  And Minnesota has its own
disctinctions (see the movie "Fargo" for some bad parodies of the same).
The "Midwest" is not a single entity, linguistically.

Timothy C. Frazer
ex-DARE fieldworker

----- Original Message -----
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <gd2 at IS2.NYU.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 10:22 AM
Subject: Re: "package store"


> At 03:53 PM 9/1/2000 +0100, you wrote:
> >>Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu
> >>
> >>When two different terms exist in the same area for the same thing (both
> >>"package store" and "liquor store" are quite famililar in NY and CT),
> >
> >Hey, be careful how you use "NY"!  In west-central NY state, you
> >don't hear 'package store' at all (unless from outsiders).
>
> Right, NYS is most of a day's drive across, even at 65 mph, and there are
> probably few generalizations one can make about usage in NYS that actually
> correspond precisely with the state's borders. Having spent some time in
> western NYS, my impression is that it is more like the Midwest than the
> Atlantic Coast, which from the geography is just what one might expect.
Many
> "pan-NYS" linguistic usages would have to be trivial, e.g., the definite
> article is used throughout the state....
>
> I was simply assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that everyone reading the post
> would clearly understand from my email address among other things that I
was
> writing from NYC and that when I wrote "NY and CT" I was referring to my
> experience with speakers in and around the metro NYC area. Was that not
> clear to everyone? If not, sorry!
>
>
> >People have complained that 'package store' can't be a regionalism
> >since it's found way outside of New England.  That just means it's a
> >regionalism in a bunch of regions, because it doesn't have currency
> >in  many of the places in between MI, MS, and MA.
>
> This raises a possibly interesting methodological question. Naturally,
> "package store" will tend to appear entirely or almost entirely in some
> portion of the localities where the law requires that alcoholic beverages
be
> sold in closed packages. Those laws vary from locality to locality. Such
> localities seem to be dotted around the country. Is there really such a
> thing as polka-dot regionalism, by which I mean not a few puddles of usage
> -- that's common enough -- but rather, given the local variation in laws,
> maybe hundreds of such puddles that are for some reason to be construed as
> isolated puddles of regional usage rather a single fairly widespread usage
> that applies wherever the state of the law creates the thing to which the
> word applies, in the absence of which there is of course no need for
> currency or usage? In any event, it seems clear that "package store is
> simply a CT/NE regionalism (and, by implication, no knowledgeable person
> would try to make anything more of it)" is not a completely satisfactory
> explanation.
>
> Which means of course that your "generational" speculation is worth
looking
> into. Usage is almost always the result of an aggregation of factors and
is
> therefore somewhat more complicated than the first convenient
generalization
> that springs to mind.
>
>
>
>
> Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu