Comments on the Joke

[Donald M. Lance]

The "thirty-three dirty trees" joke I inflicted on Listees yesterday has some interesting
phonological dimensions.  It doesn't focus on the stereotypical -er- --> -oi- vowel
nucleus of New Yorkese to make its point.  So, what is it in these words that makes the
joke work so well?  Relying solely on my own fuzzy memory and fuzzy math (even suspect
data are always better than none), I suspect it's a package of lenis/fortis and aspiration
stuff in the initial consonants.  How does "dirty tree" work so well as "thirty-three"?
The lower stress on the first word (dirty, t'irty) tends to neutralize the voicing
opposition in the initial consonant in this dialect.  If I say the words in my own variety
of South Midland, the d- ~ t- < th- phonology just seems silly, but if I fake a Nuw Yawka
accent, tirty-tree and dirty-tree have initial consonants that are much more alike.

It's also interesting that the boss's assumption of NY wise-ass-ness isn't confirmed until
the very last sentence (When do I freakin' start?).  Until then, we get only the slightly
macho-istic braggadocio New Yorker 'tude in "Dat's easy" and "Dare ya go," and then the
freakin' Bam! at the end.  The discoursal feature that the joke-writer capitalizes on is
seemingly intentional flouting of register expectations in a job interview.  Ya'd be a
piss pooa New Yawka if ya followed all da prissy rules!  It's kinda like what transpired
on this List when a certain Iowan accused a certain Louavillian of having only one
register, a register that one might label South Midland chutzpa, but the Iowan was too
North Midlandly courteous to engage in such overt name-calling.

That same Iowan said in DC that we might oughta spend some of our energies looking at
chunks of discourse, so I thought I'd better do some serious homework to make up for
violating protocol yesterday.

On a somewhat related topic....   Bethany Dumas quoted one of my better e-mails in DC
(about dialects of TV news anchors) and later told me that she wished I had expanded on my
reference to 'register'.  OK, Bethany, I've now given you some more on register (supra).
What I meant in implying that the phenomenon of register is what in effect (for many
Americans) "neutralizes" regional dialect in the broadcast presentations of the Inland
Northerner, the South-South Midlander, the Canadian, and Babwa Wawa is that we have
certain expectations of how one should behave linguistically in reading the news on
national TV, and all of these announcers handle the register of news-announcing very
well.  Register is the set of linguistic features (diction, vocabulary, syntax,
morphology, intonation, sincerity-marking, etc.) that one uses (or one expects to hear or
read) in linguistic interchanges in specific socio-psycho-politico-informational
situations.  As I've indicated above, some of these expectations may differ from one
cultural region of the country to another, and some expectations do not vary, or should
not range far from expectations, as in broadcasting the news.  Yes, Mr. Iowan, I think
that even the Louavillian could clean up his language, if he chose, and be a successful
newscaster, never giving away his N'abny IN provenance.  Readers may notice that I did not
include 'pronunciation' or 'accent' in the parenthetical list of features above.  As long
as the other features are held constant, regional accent (or even a speech impediment) is
essentially, but not totally, irrelevant to successful performance in a register,
including the telling of jokes.

Sorry about all the in-group references, but Hey! this is e-mail, and the ADS Listserve.
If you want to know more, join ADS and come to the annual meetings.

DMLance


====================
A construction site boss was interviewing men for a job, when along came a New Yorker.
"I'm not hiring any wise-ass New Yorker," the foreman thought to himself, so he made up a
test hoping that the New Yorker wouldn't be able to answer the questions, and he'd be able

to refuse him the job without getting into an argument"

Here's your first question" the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number

9."

"Without numbiz?" the New Yorker says. "Dat's easy'" and proceeds to draw three trees.

"What's this?" the boss asks.

"Ain't you got no brains? Tree 'n tree n' tree makes nine."

"Fair enough," says the boss "Here is your second question. Use the same rules, but this
time the number is 99."

"Dare ya go," he says.

The New Yorker stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just
drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Dare ya go," he says.

The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99"

"Each a da tree's is dirty now! So it's dirty tree, 'n dirty tree, 'n dirty tree. Dat's
99."

The boss is getting worried he's going to have to hire him, so he says "Alright, last
question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100."

Mr. New York stares into space again, then he picks up the picture again and makes a
little mark at the base of each tree, and says, "Dare ya go. A hunnert."

The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred."

The New Yorker leans forward and points to the marks at the tree bases, and says, . . . .
. . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?

A little dog comes along and craps by each tree, so now you've got dirty tree an' a turd,
dirty tree an' a turd, an' dirty tree an' a turd, which makes one hundred. When do I
freakin' start?