Question about Scottish

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 10:29 AM 2/18/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>On Feb 18, 2004, at 9:38 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>
>>At 10:03 AM 2/18/2004 -0500, you [mark mandel] wrote:
>>>...a bit of dialect transcription in, I think, one of Andrew Lang's
>>><Your Color's Name Here> Fairy Books. The story was a Jack tale, and
>>>the
>>>giant was Cornish iirc. In this one Jack does several (probably three)
>>>stunts, using trickery or legerdemain to seem to be doing something
>>>that
>>>he really can't do, but that the huge, strong (and stupid) giant can,
>>>or
>>>thinks he can. Each time he dares the giant to match his deed, and the
>>>giant says "Hur can do that!"  (In the last stunt Jack stabs himself
>>>in
>>>the stomach, where he has hidden something under his shirt to provide
>>>blood, and of course the giant follows suit and kills himself.)
>>>
>>>I thought "Hur? Her? Oh well, weird dialect item." But it's just (I
>>>now
>>>assume) r-less British English transcription for a schwa-like vowel...
>>
>>Interesting--kind of like Uh (= I) with prevocalic aspiration?  Like
>>'it'
>>--> 'hit' in earlier English (and still not uncommon in Appalachian
>>English)?
>
>um, that arrow is pointing the wrong way.  "hit" was the older form
>(with the initial h of "he" and "him").
>
>arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)

Yes, of course!