Mailring Defined

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 07:58 PM 8/8/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Iowa - where dialectical distinctions are truly difficult to discern).
> >Meaning that everyone in Iowa talks alike? - Bethany
>Pretty much. Grew up and educated in California and Boston area. Lived in Iowa
>for nearly 30 years. Where they are not immigrants there is little variation
>however... two rather bright people I have known in Iowa who had not had
>much schooling had the most consistent substitution of simple past for
>past participle (e.g., "I have went... ran... did... gave...) with NO
>(to me) appropriate past participles with any auxiliaries. Fascinating.
>I have not encountered this anywhere else. Otherwise, sigh, yes, they all
>sound alike and what differences there are take a true fanatic  to
>discriminate (a phonemic phanatic?). ;-) - Jan

Well, that's what we do on this list--discriminate sounds (and grammar, and
lexis).  Guess that makes most of us fanatics.

The use of simple past in perfective constructions is common all over the
country, even in Boston and California.  Who have you been talking to all
your life?