Collegiate "geek" in the '70s (was Re: Synonymy avoidance)

[Jonathan Lighter]

I've  always said /vaz/ even though I can't afford any.

Didn't this "distinction" really start out as a joke ?  Does anybody(except a few uptight linguists) really observe it ?

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Collegiate "geek" in the '70s (was Re: Synonymy avoidance)
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At 11:13 AM -0500 3/11/05, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>The "exact synonymy" rule surely applies to varieties, not languages.
>"Ya'll" and "you guys" appear to be exact synonyms in the fiction
>called "English," but they don't co-exist in one brain (except for
>bidialectal speakers), although bidialectal speakers are quick to
>begin to make distinctions, as I do now for "greazy" and "greasy."
>"Greazy" is really greasy, "greasy" is lightly and delicately oiled.

and similarly the classic [veys] (< $200) /[vaz] (> $200) example
(where the latter is often taken to be more costly)

>
>Remember, there are no such real things as languages.

exactly; this was my (attempted) point with the (admittedly
imperfect) "hella"/"wicked" example earlier in the week

>dInIs (who is happy to admit them as social constructs of enormous importance)
>
agreed on this too

L


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