"Pop-Pop" revisited

[Beverly Flanigan]

And one more:  If she did say Papa, that's not far from Papaw, which IS
grandfather in much of the Appalachian/South Midland region (Mamaw is
grandmother).  In fact, I've heard Papa and Mama used for grandparents too,
but rarely.

That doesn't negate your suggestion that Pop Pop might also have wider
currency, of course.  The books I have on British English don't deal with
lexical variation very much, but I wonder if anyone knows whether either
Papa/Papaw or Pop Pop is used in Britain?

And Rowling does rhyme with bowling, in her pronunciation.

At 08:25 AM 6/3/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>On  Fri, 13 Feb 2004 13:29:26 -0600,   Joan Houston Hall
><jdhall at WISCMAIL.WISC.EDU> wrote on the
>Subject: "Re: slider/Slyder(R), Gut-bomb"
>
> >There's a nice map in Volume IV of DARE showing "pop-pop" to be found
> >chiefly in PA, NJ, DE, MD.
>
>and several other people (including myself) wrote in support of this
>geographical distribution of "Pop-Pop" for "grandfather".
>
>However, last night (June 2) the A&E cable network had a two-hour show, which
>I taped,  on J. K. Rowling and the Harry Potter movies.  (Note:  the show
>consistent had "Rowling" rhyme with "bowling", not "howling").  In the show
>Richard Harris stated:
>
><quote>
>My granddaughter called me and said, "Pop-Pop," she said, "If you don't play
>Dumbledore, I will never speak to you again."
><end quote>
>
>At least I heard it as "Pop-Pop", and I played the tape three or four times
>to check.  Harris mumbled the title; it could have been "Papa" but that sounds
>unlikely as a title for one's grandfather.
>
>Two obvious hypotheses:
>1)  "Pop-Pop" has a wider distribution than the DARE data suggests or
>2)  Harris's granddaughter lives in the Middle Atlantic States
>
>        - James A. Landau