church sign

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Fri, 21 Jan 2005 14:49:09 -0500,   Beverly Flanigan
<flanigan at OHIOU.EDU> wrote:
>
>  Here's another sign I just noticed:
>  A predominantly black church in Athens has this in its outdoor sign
>  case:  "Help us build a bridge over trouble waters."  The pastor is an AAE
>  speaker and a professor of African American Studies at OU.  Good example of
>  final t/d deletion reflected in spelling.

First, it is quite likely that the sign was put up not by the
pastor/professor but by the sexton or the office secretary of the church.  Second, as best as
I can recall, on the Simon and Garfunkel recording of "Bridge Over Troubled
Waters" the /d/ in "troubled" is either missing or extremely weak, and is
easily interpreted as /trouble waters/.  This may even have been deliberate, as the
second syllable of "troubled" is (if I remember correctly) stretched out, and
S and/or G may have decided that ending that syllable with the stop /d/ would
have been jarring in that long legato passage.

     - Jim Landau

Aside to Wilson Gray:  good point on "Anglo".  I don't know why I wrote
"Anglo" when I meant "white", as I was meaning to say that "he don't" is NOT
restricted to AAVE.  Anyway, I'm sure there are numerous Lationos who say "he
don't".