duke and dook

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:19 AM -0400 9/23/04, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
>In a message dated 9/23/04 12:25:20 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>
>>  What of "Dukies", though?  I've heard Dick Vitale refer to Dukies
>>  3,578 times, and it was ['dukiz] each time, but I don't know if
>>  that's a fact about Dick Vitale or about Dukies.
>>
>
>I don't suppose that Dick Vitale is a southerner? (Who IS Dick Vitale,
>anyway?)

Dick Vitale, who tends to refer to himself as Dickie V., is a hyper,
fast- and loud-talking former basketball coach who has been a
(college) basketball announcer--or, as he characterizes himself,
"college basketball's top analyst and ambassador"--for the last
couple of decades.  He's definitely not a southerner.  My
recollection was that he's from Detroit, but the web-based info
suggests he actually hails from East Rutherford, NJ (presumably in
the shadow-to-be of the Meadowlands Sports Complex).  Linguistically,
he's responsible for popularizing such argot as "diaper dandy" (for
freshman stars) and "PTPer" (for "prime-time players"), and purveying
other trademark cliches ("Awesome, baby!").

>At any rate, since Duke has been invaded by Yankees (since about 1965) the
>old distinction between "Duke" and "dook" has pretty much disappeared. There
>was a day when wicked students from Chapel Hill used to drive over to Duke and
>paint "dook" on the campus bridge--a reference to (1) the Yankee pronunciation
>of "Duke" and (2) the distinction between "Duke" (the famaily name,
>pronounced [dyuk] by the locals) and "dookie" (then a local
>euphemistic alternative to
>'caa-caa'). Those days are no more.

While Dickie V uses the non-palatalized version of "Dook", I agree
with Alice in the claim that even those who say [djuk] would use
[dukiz] derisively.  What I don't know is whether this is prompted by
the association with the barbarian non-palatalizing Yankees, with the
scatological euphemism, neither, or both.

larry