"Pop-pop" revisited

[Beverly Flanigan]

Here in SE Ohio it's sometimes Pawpaw and Mawmaw but more often Paepaw and
Maemaw (the first syllable has the low front vowel), usually spelled Papaw
and Mamaw.

At 06:11 PM 6/5/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>Some of these facts are clearly dialectal and have, I think, to do
>with the phonetic status of /a/. For me it is a lax vowel and cannot
>occupy open syllable position. For my Milwaukee wife it appears to be
>a tense vowel and can. She speaks, for example, of a 'ma and pa
>store' with the vowel of 'hot'; for me it must be a 'maw and paw
>store' with the vowel of 'caught.' (Canadians, many New Englanders,
>and all the west of the US who lack the caught-cot distinction are
>clearly beyond the pale - or below the pale-bucket line - in this
>discussion.)
>That phonetic fact, however, does not preclude distinctive uses of
>the forms themselves of course. For me, paw-paw and maw-maw (with the
>caught vowel, if you know what I mean) were grandparents.
>
>dInIs
>
>
>>>...I have never heard 'Papa/Papaw' used as a title for a grandfather
>>>(come to that,
>>>I don't think I've actually ever heard anyone use 'Papa' for a father,
>>...
>>Both of my parents called their respective fathers "Papa."  Maybe it
>>was a Yiddish thing?  My generation called my mother's father Grandpa
>>and my father's father ZAYdee.
>>
>>Rima
>
>
>--
>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
>Fax: (517) 432-2736