mark by hand (was: the curious phonology of Wisconsin)

[Wilson Gray]

On Nov 23, 2004, at 12:07 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: mark by hand (was:  the curious phonology of
> Wisconsin)
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>
>> Fritz,
>
> You obviously don't live where your namesake beer is sold; there your
> name would be familiar to every beer-belly in town.
>
> Of course familiarity does not always breed accuracy; when I was in
> Madison WI in the 12th Cent. there was a cheap beer (popular among
> the little moneyed) named Feuerbach pronounced 'fireback,' but the
> best local pronunciation of all the midwestern US German heritage
> beers was Griesedieck as 'greasydick.'
>
> dInIs

In addition to Griesedieck Brothers Beer, the Griesedieck Bros.
Brewery, a St. Louis-based company, also brewed Falstaff Beer, the
biggest-selling brand of beer in St. Louis through the 'Sixties, at
least, much to the chagrin of Anheuser-Busch, the biggest-selling beer
in the world, except not in its own hometown.

-Wilson Gray

>
>
>
>> Mark,
>> I didn't know about the '15' meaning.  Names are often so
>> interesting.  I have a kid whose last name is Breivogel.  He
>> naturally thinks that it has something to do with birds, but such is
>> not the case.  A Breivogel is not a bird, altho it probably alludes
>> it one.
>> My last name gets slaughtered all the time.  I am used to it and
>> even enjoy the variations I get.  ALmost no one here at the school
>> can even spell it.  I've gotten about 20 different spellings on
>> various notes.  Oh well. Pronunciations are just as amusing. My
>> favorite happened recently when I was in a Chinese restaurant and
>> paid with my plastic.  The lady who took it, who is from China,
>> informed me "you have a Chinese name--zhueng- ling." Now, if you
>> were to see me, you would never think I was Chinese. I don't know
>> how she ever thought I could have gotten a Chinese name, but she was
>> able to tell me what it means--something like 'trees in the mist' if
>> I remember correctly.  It's all good:)
>> Fritz Juengling aka Zhueng-ling
>>
>>>>>  mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU 11/23/04 08:07AM >>>
>> FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US> asks:
>>>>>
>> Just out of curiosity, are you sure it's 'mark by hand' and not 'mark
>> almond
>> (or tonsil)?'
>> <<<
>>
>> i've always been pretty careful (obsessive) with my wording,
>> punctuation,
>> capitalization, and so on. nowadays i usually use dragon
>> naturallyspeaking
>> to type, and am pretty careful with it, although the occasional speako
>> escapes my notice. when typing by hand, as now, i minimize shifts,
>> etc., and
>> sign "mark by hand" as an excuse to those who know about my
>> tendinitis.
>>
>> i know my last name means 'almond' in german. my grandfather's name
>> was
>> mandelbaum. when my father enlisted in the us army in ww2 he
>> shortened it. i
>> like to think his motive was to avoid a german-sounding name, rather
>> than to
>> avoid a jewish-sounding one. sometimes i say he cut down the trees
>> and left
>> only the nuts.
>>
>> aha! i hadn't realized that it also means 'tonsil' (similar shape;
>> french
>> also, "amygdale"?); thank you very much. but in this case, as you can
>> see,
>> "by hand" is away from the tonsils!
>>
>> it also means in some dialects '(group of) 15' in the same way that
>> eng.
>> "dozen" is '(group of) 12'.
>>
>> -- mark by hand
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African
> Languages
> A-740 Wells Hall
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824
> Phone: (517) 432-3099
> Fax: (517) 432-2736
> preston at msu.edu
>