Another "$100 Misunderstanding" (1)

[Wilson Gray]

On Aug 13, 2004, at 1:51 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Another "$100 Misunderstanding" (1)
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> Yes, I'm sure larry is right that there are right-minded, idiomatic
> "shat" speakers (who are not "whoomers" at all).
>
> It's funny how the vernacular forms of one variety speak strike
> speakers of other varieties as posh (never funny how they strike
> others as dull, dim-witted, etc...). I have, quite idiomatically and
> from working-class input, an /a/ in the second syllable of "pajamas,"
> for example, which my Milwaukee 'puh jae muh' speaking wife loves to
> twit me about. Now that I think about it, she also likes to get on my
> case about my /a/ in the first syllable of 'envelope.' Both strike
> her as phony and/or posh (if one may use 'and/or' between 'phony' and
> 'posh').
>
> dInIs

dInIs, you say "puh jae muh" and dare admit it publicly? For shame!;-)
However, I'm not sure how to characterize someone who thinks that
there's something phony about the pronunciation, "on vuh lope," which
is clearly the preferred - by me, any way - pronunciation.;-) BTW, my
late stepfather, a native of Saint louis, though of Arkansas ancestry,
made this odd distinction in his speech: noun = "IN veh lup"; verb =
"in VEH lup." Of course, there's nothing of interest in his verb form.
But I've always felt that he was the only English-speaker on earth or
in Saint Louis, at least, to use that peculiar pronunciation of the
noun. And it's also odd that he was able to resist all his life the
pressure to to switch to one or the other of the "correct"
pronunciations.

-Wilson

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>> At 12:49 PM -0400 8/13/04, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>>>> Neither of these corresponds to  my 'shit' which is just like my
>>>> 'hit' - hit, hit, hit and shit, shit, shit.
>>>
>>> dInIs
>>>
>>> PS: Like Wilson, I was also flabbergrasted by 'shat' and also use it
>>> to poke fun, although I'm not sure at who (maybe at people who would
>>> say "at whom"?).
>>>
>> I've always had "shat" (for the preterit; not sure about the
>> participle) but never regarded it as in the same category as "whom".
>> It is a nice, strong verb, after all.  For those interested in other
>> variants, see my "Spitten Image" paper, p. 44 of AS 79:1 for some
>> 19th c. cites on the participial form "shitten", including the
>> evocative "shitten-end-up" ('upside-down'; 'having a foetid breath').
>>
>> larry
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>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
>         Asian and African Languages
> Wells Hall A-740
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
> Office: (517) 353-0740
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>