"No pork on my fork"

[Jonathan Lighter]

I had a friend in grad school who grew up near Arab, Alabama.  He said it was always pronounced "AY-rab."

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "No pork on my fork"
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On Jun 20, 2005, at 4:45 PM, Mullins, Bill wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Mullins, Bill"
> Subject: Re: "No pork on my fork"
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> --------
>
>> During the Korean-War era, a friend of mine was stationed at
>> Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville. According to him, GI's
>> referred to the locals as "doo-wahs," because of a feature of
>> the local dialect. Instead of saying, "huh? or "what?" or
>> even "say what?", the locals said, "_Do_ what?"
>>
>> Thanks to Jerry Springer, I can testify that "do what?" is
>> still used in this way, though, unfortunately, I can't say
>> where, since the "guests" don't always mention their home
>> states or hometowns. To my ear, "do what?" has the same
>> intonation pattern as "say what?"
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>
> I still say "do what?" in the context you mention (reared in Middle
> Tennessee).
>
> And that would have been the KO-re-un war . . . (strong emphasis on
> the initial syllable)
>

Needless to say, I don't think that you'll have any problem believing
that the same people who say "JAY pan" also say "KO rea." ;-)

-Wilson


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