Hoosier, asshole, etc.

[Herbert Stahlke]

Bev,

Retroflexed /s/ in storm, stream, university, snow, straight, and district
all fit what I've been hearing.  However, an /S/-like consonant in
[laeStjir] could be palatalization, and if it is, it should sound different.
I have a grad student in my phonetics class who comes from California via
all over who regularly retroflexes initial /s/ in any onset or coda cluster
and sometimes before a V.  I also mentioned Powell's pronunciation to a
colleague of mine (not a linguist) who has the same pronunciation he has.
She mentioned that she comes from a town in CT about 20 miles (can you go
that far in CT) from Powell's hometown.  I'll be interested to hear what
your grad student comes up with.  This is certainly ripe for study.  If you
have the facilities, some palatogram evidence might be interesting.  I
suspect some of the [s,] I hear from Nashville types is not native but
influenced by social context in the country music industry, so there's a
possible social layer in this as well.  I haven't paid a lot of attention to
post-/r/ [s,], but of course that assimilation wouldn't be surprising.
Swedish, BTW, does that generally.  "Lars" is [lar,s,].

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Beverly Flanigan
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 1:15 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Hoosier, asshole, etc.


Hey, WE'RE the Athens of the Midwest!

Seriously, though, I also heard the 'Hoosier' = "who's your," "who's here,"
etc. when I lived in Bloomington in the '70s; these are pretty generally
spread, I think.

On the "lisped" pron. of 'asshole,' I wonder if this is an example of Herb
Stahlke's earlier notice of retroflexed /s/?  I've been meaning to get back
to that issue (see ADS-l, Feb. 4), because I've been collecting examples
ever since of what sounds very close to /S/ in lots of words, and not just
in the /str/ clusters familiar in Labov's Philadelphia study and my own
Cleveland students (I've noticed it in Cokie Roberts and Colin Powell
too).  An OU student radio announcer who sounds like a white Northerner or
North Midlander has it in 'storm', 'stream', 'university', 'snow',
'straight', 'district', and even "last year" [laeStjir].  (The /S/ is not
exact but approximate.  Herb, does this sound like what you're hearing?  I
have a grad student who wants to work on this--advice welcome!)

At 12:06 PM 3/25/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>As a person who attended Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana from 1961
>to 1965 I once invented a faux etymology or at least I think I did of the
>word "Hoosier"
>
>According to my faux etymology I suggested that it came from "I know your
ma
>but who's your pa."
>
>It wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone else had invented this
>obvious play on words before I did but I have no knowledge that anyone did.
>
>This brings me to a couple phrases which were current during my time at
>Wabash.
>
>The first is "Indianapolis is the asshole of the Earth and Crawfordsville
is
>44 miles up it." which refers to the distance between Naptown as we called
>Indianapolis and Crawfordsville.
>
>The second refers to Crawfordsville's claim to be "The Athens of the
>Midwest"--I own a wine cup which has this inscribed on it..
>
>This is probably idiosyncratic but a college friend of mine who was from
>Baltimore once said that those who live in Crawfordsville tend to lisp and
>thus are not able to pronounce the word "asshole" correctly.
>
>Looking for answers to the origins of these phrases and words I am,
>
>Page Stephens
>
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <AAllan at AOL.COM>
>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 7:47 AM
>Subject: Re: Earliest Citation for "Who's Your Daddy?"
>
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail
>header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       AAllan at AOL.COM
> > Subject:      Re: Earliest Citation for "Who's Your Daddy?"
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----
> >
> > Don't forget one of the purported origins of the 19th-century "Hoosier".
> >
> > - Allan Metcalf