same old

[Dennis R. Preston]

Not so fast Jesse. Mine is not mock-pidgin and would sound exactly
(to a nonsoutherner) like what is represented here. It is defintely a
result of the processes of consonant cluster reduction (/old/-->/ol/)
and /l/-vocalization (/ol/-->/o:/).

dInIs (who didn't never make no fun of no pidgins)



>On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 05:17:50PM -0700, Kim & Rima McKinzey wrote:
>>  I know we recently had a thread re hypercorrected/missing/added els
>>  in words like milk or calm etc., but this was a new one to me.  My
>>  first assumption is that "old" had long since become "ol'" and that
>>  it fell into the so-dark-it-disappeared category - at least to her
>>  hearing.  And then it was gone.  I can't remember if I ever heard her
>>  say it, but I'm sure I would have assumed that the el was there (just
>>  hiding in the dark).  In any case, here's the relevant sentence from
>>  an e-mail I got from my Oklahoma mother-in-law:
>>
>>  "Well, we were talking about him obeying the doctors orders and Ray
>>  not even listening...you got the idea he just wanted out and back to
>>  his same oh same oh."
>
>The assumption that "old" was progressively reduced to "oh" in this
>phrase is probably wrong. The original phrase (at least according
>to the evidence I've seen) was "same-oh same-oh", in a real or mock
>pidgin English among the U.S. military in East Asia; the "same ol(d),
>same ol(d)" version seems to be a later folk-etymologized form.
>
>Jesse Sheidlower
>OED

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736