Teen lingo site posted by Patti Kurz

Wilson Gray wilson.gray at RCN.COM
Sun Feb 27 03:29:49 UTC 2005


This lexicon cites all BE terms ending in -ool as ending in -oo, e.g.
"cool" is spelled "coo." As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a
problem teaching a white fellow-GI how to pronounce the blackenized
(IIRC, this word appears in "The Nigger Bible"; IAC, it's not original
with me) version of "cool." He kept hearing it and pronouncing it as
"coo." This was in 1961. So, clearly, nothing has changed.

On the other side of the coin, a white colleague had to pull my coat to
the proper pronunciation of "Motrin." I hadn't yet seen this name
spelled out and I heard and reproduced its pronunciation as
"mole-trin."

-Wilson Gray



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