[SPAM:####] Re: yet another spam eggcorn

[Wilson Gray]

On Sep 8, 2004, at 11:37 AM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      [SPAM:####] Re: yet another spam eggcorn
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
> On Sep 8, 2004, at 6:40 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>> (or is it simple illiteracy?)
>> ===================
>>
>> From: "Intercourse ignition " <KBTEJIKDSY at jaydemail.com>
>> Subject: Getting hard is easy
>> Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 11:19:24 +0100
>>
>> Satisfy YOURSELF & LOVED once
>>
>> <http://123getnow.com/zen/?avta>Take Viagra
>
> by some sort of odd synchronicity, this one comes in on the heels of a
> report of the *opposite* replacement, from my friend Ken Rudolph:
> -----
> Apparently this guy is belgian; but still it's a unique and appealing
> usage to me...
>
> From: "TheDoc" <thedoc at theclinic.net>
> Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis
> Subject: pete sampras at the us-open
> Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 13:40:49 +0200
>
> Sometimes, i wonder if pete sampras would attend the us open or even
> watch it on tv. or like lendl , have nothing to do with it at all.
>
> many former pro tennis player said goodbye to the sport ones they
> retire.  I wonder why ?
> ------
>
> as dInIs pointed out, final devoicing is very common in american
> english.  well, final voiced obstruents are weakly voiced for most
> speakers; voicing tends to cut out early.  (this is a kind of
> lenition.)  i believe that some trace of the voicing remains in the
> lengthening of the preceding vowel, though.
>
> i *think* that the devoicing of final voiced stops in AAVE is a
> separate phenomenon, the spread of the (fortitive) glottalization of
> final voiceless stops to the corresponding voiced stops, which then (of
> course) lose their voicing.
>
> arnold
>

It almost goes without saying that this reminds of some linguistic
anecdote or other. A white friend of mine, born in Darien, CT, and
living in San Jose, CA, asked me to teach him to say "cool" the black
way. We had a problem. because he kept saying either "cooo" or "coowul"
and not "cool." On the other hand, when I first heard of Motrin through
white colleagues, I thought that it was named "Moltrin." I.e., I heard
"Motrin" as "mole-trin" and pronounced it that way till someone brought
the error to my attention.

-Wilson Gray