greaser

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 28, 2005, at 10:56 AM, sagehen wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: greaser
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
>> On Jul 28, 2005, at 12:51 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: greaser
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> --
>>> --------
>>>
>>> On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 22:14:46 -0400, Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Jul 27, 2005, at 6:06 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> -----
>>>>> The Living Age, Volume 14, Issue 176, Sep. 25, 1847
>>>>> "The Battle of Monterey", p. 619/2
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps I did feel a little weak in the jints when I seed the
>>>>> officers
>>>>> unbuttonin their shirt collars, and the men throwin away their
>>>>> canteens
>>>>> and haversacks, as they was marchin rite strait up to them ar
>>>>> works,
>>>>> whar the greasers was waitin for us, every devil with his gun
>>>>> pinted
>>>>> and his finger on the trigger; I know'd they was
>>>>
>>>>> gwine
>>>>
>>>>> to let us have it, and I felt monstrous uneasy till it cum.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?
>>>>> frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Flivn%2Flivn0014%2F&tif=0062
>>>>> 5.
>>>>> TIF
>>>>> -----
>>>>
>>>> Does this mean that "gwine" was once a feature of at least one
>>>> dialect
>>>> of European-American English? Or was the speaker black?
>>>
>>> The speaker is described simply as "a Western volunteer, recently
>>> returned
>>> from Mexico." I know there were "freedmen" who served in the Mexican
>>> American War, but given the speaker's "unmarked" status in the
>>> narrative,
>>> I think we can safely assume he was intended to be Euro-American.
>>>
>>> Mark Twain is quoted in the OED as telling his publisher in 1882,
>>> "I's
>>> gwyne to sen' you de stuff," but that looks like it's merely a bit of
>>> dialect-minstrelsy.
>>>
>>>
>>> --Ben Zimmer
>>>
>>
>> Thanks, Ben.
>> So, that the speaker was white and that "gwine" hasn't always been
>> regarded as a peculiarity of Negro dialect is a distinct possibility.
>> "Veddy interesting," as they used to say on Laugh-In.
>>
>> -Wilson
> ~~~~~~~~
> My first  thought was /Irish/, triggered by the "jints" but then I'd
> have
> expected "divil," so that didn't work.  Then I briefly wondered,
> /written
> testimony?/  but the gross spelling inconsistencies made that unlikely.
> /Inept eye dialect/ is my current notion, which makes me think it
> unreliable as a reference for "gwine."
> Using "rite" and "strait" and "cum" suggest simply plugging in
> conventional
> markers to indicate uneducated speech, since they have no phonemic
> advantage.
> A. Murie
>

So, the use of "gwine" is meant only to suggest a white man
demonstrating the lack of intelligence, sophistication, education, and
general level of stupidity traditionally associated with your typical
Negro. Oh, well. There's nothing interesting about that.

-Wilson