film=fillum

[Wilson Gray]

In my entire life, I've met only one native-speaker of English - this
kind of thing is typical of the English spoken by the Dutch - who used
this "ellum fillum" pronunciation: my late stepfather. In his case,
this may well have been due to a  speech defect, since he was born and
bred in St. Louis, where this anaptyxis is unknown. Hence, he would
have had no model to copy.Those who remember the late cartoonist, Jimmy
Hatlo, may also recall that his characters not only used "ellum fillum"
for "elm film," but also "inkum [ingk at m] (tax)]" for "income."

-Wilson Gray

On May 28, 2005, at 1:07 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: film=fillum
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> At 10:15 AM 5/28/2005, you wrote:
>>>> There aren't many words with /lm/ --which is a pretty marginal
>>>> cluster
>>>> in English (elm is often ellum, too).  A lot of the dialects that
>>>> gave
>>>> birth to American English--Scots and Southwestern English for two,
>>>> disallow this cluster.  We inherited that, so we, like those
>>>> dialects,
>>>> break the cluster up by inserting a vowel in between.  The same
>>>> dialects
>>>> also tend to disallow /ln/ as in kiln, > kill.
>>>
>>> Is this epenthesis /lm/ > /l at m/ really universal in Scots, even at
>>> the end
>>> of a monosyllable? My little "Concise Scots Dictionary" doesn't show
>>> it (it
>>> does show "kiln"/"kill"/"kell" /kIl/), and at a glance neither does
>>> the SND.
>>>
>>> It is said that this is common in Irish English too. Several such
>>> epentheses are conventional in Gaelic according to my limited
>>> understanding, which might could influence Scots and Irish English,
>>> and I
>>> suppose maybe Southwestern English might be influenced by Cornish in
>>> parallel fashion?
>>>
>>> If some US-ans ("we" in the above) inherited this from Scots etc.,
>>> why
>>> didn't I, or most of my US-an acquaintances? Is it regional in the
>>> US?
>>>
>>> -- Doug Wilson
>> ~~~~~~~~~~
>> Elwy Yost, longtime host of TVOntario's "Saturday Night at the
>> Movies,"
>> always said "fillum," which suggests a Welsh connection also.
>> A. Murie
>
> Stupid me, I took "southwestern" to be a little too restrictive
> probably.
> Of course Welsh would probably have a bigger influence overall than
> Cornish
> or Manx or whatever.
>
> Another word for this vowel-epenthesis is _anaptyxis_, apparently.
> Isn't
> that a cute word? Maybe not used every day by some of us laymen.
> [Sometimes
> pronounced "anapatickasis"? (^_^)]
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>