Brooklynese in N.O.

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 11:56:58 -0700, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>Has anybody traced the origin of the "middle-school teacher" legend ?
>"Middle school" itself is a middle 20th C. concept, right ?

Here's one data point (with transplanted workers instead of teachers):

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"Brooklynese, Y'awl", Washington Post, Oct 13, 1974, p. G12
Dis, dat, mudda, fadda, woik, and y'awl. It's pure Brooklynese, reported
dying out in New York City but flourishing in a New Orleans melting pot
called the Irish Channel. ...
No one seems to know when they began mangling vowels and slashing
consonants in the finest Brooklyn tradition.
"Some say a boatload of workers came down from New York before the turn of
the century and stayed, but that's just a theory," says Dr. George
Reinecke, a professor of English at the University of New Orleans.
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--Ben Zimmer