"Gwine"

[Wilson Gray]

I think that we'd be safe assuming "goin" instead of "going" as our
source for "gwine," And how about "bile" for "boil"? We probably could
come up with several more, if we put our moinds to it. ;-)

-Wilson

On Feb 28, 2005, at 11:08 AM, James A. Landau wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Gwine"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> "gwine" appears in Stephen Collins Foster's "Camptown Races":
>      "Gwine to run all night
>        Gwine to run all day..."
>
> During the Civil War there was a song, or perhaps jingle, known as
> "Jine the
> Cavalry".  It was, I believe, popular among Jeb Stuart's Confederate
> cavalry.
> Note that in this case is is /oin/ rather than /oing/ that is rendered
> /ine/.
>
> I have no further evidence whatsoever, but the existence of these two
> phonetic items in mid-Nineteenth Century Southern (or pseudo-Southern)
> songs suggests
> that /oin/ --> /ine/ was fairly common among Southerners (whites?
> blacks?),
> or perhaps was merely a common convention among Southern song-writers.
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> A few days ago Wilson Gray quoted the following two-liner:
>      Square: Crosstown bus pass this way?
>      Hipster: Doo-dah
>
> Stephen Collins Foster is hip?
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Off-topic:
>
> Is it only in New Jersey, or is it a worldwide phenomenon amongst the
> English-language press, that the Pope is said to have had a
> "tracheotomy" rather than
> a "tracheostomy"?
>
> The Philadelphia Inquirer recently, discussing a sex scandal in the
> Pennsylvania State Police, referred in a sub-head to "the scandalized
> State Police".
>
> A karaoke version of "Impossible Dream" contains the following
> transcription
> error, which rather reverses the meaning:
>        To fight for the right
>        Without question or cause
>
> An African-American seventh grader informs me that natives of
> sub-Saharan
> Africa should be referred to not as "blacks" but as
> "African-Americans."
>
>            - James A. Landau
>