Dueling impressions

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:21 AM -0700 9/8/04, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>On Sep 8, 2004, at 8:01 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>>I was once chatting with a Kentucky-born, white linguist about
>>dialects. In the course of the conversation, he asked me about the
>>implosive consonants of BE. I was caught off guard. I asked, "Implosive
>>consonants of Black English? What implosive consonants?" He replied,
>>"You know. As in 'boy' and so forth." When I heard his example, I was
>>totally flabbergasted. The type of pronunciation that he considered to
>>be a defining characteristic of BE is one that I've always considered
>>to be a defining characteristic of the speech of "country"
>>White-English speakers!
>
>me too.  in " 'Bama" 'Alabama' with an implosive b, most
>stereotypically.  (i think that b is by far the most affected consonant
>-- possibly the only affected one, for many speakers.)

I've heard (and maybe said) "Damn" with an implosive D, but would not
expect it in e.g."dollars", "donuts", or "demonstratives."

L