Hello from a newbie

[A. Maberry]

Right you are, Beverly. We had a discussion of "The problem is is that" in
mid-December 2001 and on "is is" in January of 2001.

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu


On Thu, 17 Apr 2003, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> I've been working on the first construction for a couple of years now, and
> you're absolutely right--it's spreading like crazy.  I think we have a
> thread on this in the archives too--anyone?  (And it's not off topic at all!)
>
> At 03:03 PM 4/17/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> >Hi everyone - I just joined the List yesterday hoping as an amateur to
> >keep up better with what official dialectologists are thinking and
> >saying!
> >The things I've noticed lately - admittedly off topic; forgive me! -
> >include an epidemic of speakers saying "The point is is that ...." or
> >even "The problem was is that...", and the EMT's heard on my local
> >police scanner saying, "Transporting one non-emergent."  The latter may
> >be regional - I am near Mississippi State University, but the former, I
> >hear mostly on the radio from all over.
> >Another thing that has intrigued me for years is that occasionally on a
> >TV cop or detective show someone will say "I consulted a linguist at the
> >University and he said that caller has a West Texas accent."
> >Similarly, in a book, a woman was identified by consultation with a
> >linguist as being Native American because a specific pronunciation
> >feature indicated a bilingual childhood environment, etc.  I'm just
> >wonderng if the writers of these TV shows and books really have existing
> >"linguists" in mind, and, if so, how they know which linguist at which
> >university to consult, since dialectology is often very specialized.
> >In any case, the use of "you guys" has definitely filtered down to my
> >part of the country, mostly age-group specific as you might imagine.
> >
> >Jim
>