New Jersey Dialects

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 20, 2004, at 3:09 PM, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Bethany K. Dumas" <dumasb at UTK.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: New Jersey Dialects
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> You are correct, dinis - I reversed 'em. I would have to practice a
> lot to say
> /-de/.

Don't do it, Beth! Until I was in my late '30's, I had never heard
thrVX pronounced without trilling/rolling/flapping the "r." Then, I
found myself living in a place where local speakers do not have this
feature in their pronunciation. I was much intrigued, since I couldn't
even imagine how it was possible *not* to trill "r" in that
environment. Nevertheless, after much practice, I eventually discovered
how it was done. Then, to my chagrin, I suddenly realized that the
trill was gone (pun intended) from my own speech! Now, I have to
practice saying thrips  thrust  three  throng  through  etc., to make
sure that the loss of the trill doesn't become a permanent feature of
my own idiolect. It's a true, true saying, "Let well enough alone."

-Wilson

>
> Beth'ny Kay
>
>> ===== Original Message From American Dialect Society
>> <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> =====
>> Bethany,
>>
>> I think you mean "Not me" not "Me too." Alice said she had the latter
>> (the /e/ form). If you don't have an /i/ form I'm gone reassess where
>> you're from.
>>
>> dInIs
>>
>>>>>> particular feature they were picking at was a tendency (which I
>>>>>> have no
>>>>> knowledge if it's so or not) to pronounce the names of the days of
>>>>> the
> week
>>>>> as "Mondee, Tuesdee" etc instead of "Monday, Tuesday".
>>>>
>>>> What's the difference?
>>>>
>>>> /i/ vs /e/. I have the latter, and the former sounds distinctly
>>>> unnatural to me.
>>>
>>> Thanks, Me too, It sounds really weird to me to hear /-de/.
>>>
>>> Bethany
>