"last stitch effort"

[Wilson Gray]

On Sep 24, 2004, at 1:39 PM, 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:      Re: "last stitch effort"
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> --------
>
> On Sep 23, 2004, at 3:13 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
>> On Sep 23, 2004, at 5:16 PM, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>>>
>>>> How
>>>> about "artificial insimilation"?
>>>
>>> totally new to me, not in any of the standard lists, and no google
>>> hits
>>> at all (web or groups).  contrast this to "inclimate weather", which
>>> is
>>> pretty common.
>>>
>>> wilson, do you have some actual cites?
>>
>> Unfortunately, no. I heard "artificial insimilation" on the Jerry
>> Springer Show about a month ago. I started to note it, but then I had
>> second thoughts, since it could have been merely a slip of the tongue.
>> And, given the lack of other cites, that's very likely to have been
>> the
>> case.
>
> yes.  [I] instead of [E] before [m] is just the ordinary raising.  [l]
> for [n] could just be perseveration of the [l] in "artificial", perhaps
> encouraged by avoidance of successive nasals [m...n].
>
> arnold
>

Does this count as an eggcorn? In the song, Angel Child, Sam
"Lightnin'" Hopkins , a Texas blues man, sings:

Hwussuh mattuh wit poppo sweet li'l angem chile?
[,,,] matter with papa's sweet little angel child?

Then, doing the standard blues singer's repetition of lines, he sings
quite clearly:

What's to mattuh wit poppo sweet li'l angem chile?
*What's to matter* with papa's sweet little angel child?

Changing word-final schwa to /o/ and pronouncing "angel" as "angem" are
pretty much standard, so to speak, in Southern BE. Loss of possessive
/s/ is universal, if the ubiquitous "baby mama" and "baby daddy" are
any indication. Non-deletable word-final /s/ tends to be pronounced as
a kind of /h/, as in [feix] for "face." When my grandparents were still
alive, I called them "Mommo" and "Daddo." (If anybody is wondering, I
called my father "Big Daddy" and my mother "Mother Dear," pronounced
"mud-DEE@" by the - pace Larry - less educated, even in the North.) As
a child, I also used "angem" and "what's to matter?"

-Wilson