"di?nt" (with glottal stop)

[Wilson Gray]

On Nov 16, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "di?nt" (with glottal stop)
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> This deleted tap [dInt]

This pronunciation was used by white kids in St. Louis, back in the
day. These kids would now, as is your humble correspondent, be
approaching their 70's all too quickly. BTW, what about "no I never,"
used by these same white no-longer-kids, as opposed to the "no I
didn't" used by us coloreds? Is/was that widespread? And how about the
use of "youse" by white kids in St. Louis in my day, when everyone
claimed that this usage was peculiar to Brooklyn, NY? St. Louis is a
kind of Rodney Dangerfield of dialectology. It don't get no respect.

-Wilson Gray

>  or [dIn?] is what I hear in my nieces in Minnesota,
> and I assume it's widespread.  I glottalize intervocalically, as do
> most
> people I know here in Ohio.  Does anyone say [dIDnt] except perhaps in
> formal speech?  (D = flap, n is syllabic.)
>
> At 01:14 AM 11/16/2004, Zwicky wrote:
>
>> just a warning...  the spelling <di'nt> (or similar things) is often
>> used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is
>> simply deleted.  not the same thing as a pronunciation with an
>> intervocalic glottalish bit.
>>
>> i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic
>> glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all.  this is
>> not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a
>> catchphrase.
>>
>> arnold
>