t--w'at?

[Wilson Gray]

Thanks for the compliment, Larry! From now on, just blow in my ear and I'll
follow you anywhere. ;-)

-Wilson

On 4/23/06, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: t--w'at?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >It seems to me that Paulson's analysis involving word-internal phonology
> is
> >unnecessary, if we can make the simplifying assumption that Rochester
> >maintained the the W-WH diistinction. The voiced -d of "united" is simply
> >unvoiced by the following voiceless [hw-] of "what." This allows us to
> >discard the action-at-distance hocus-pocus involving the unvoicing of
> >word-final -d by a preceding word-internal -t- followed by a -V- and does
> >away with the need to concern ourselves with the punctuation problem.
> >
> >-Wilson
>
> Beautiful, Wilson.  If I ever actually publish my paper (which is not
> about the Earl of Rochester as such), I'll definitely adopt your
> quite plausible analysis.  If only I had a better feel for
> phonological processes I might have come up with something along
> those lines--but then I keep forgetting that Rochester (like my wife,
> but unlike me, and possibly unlike Paulson) would have distinguished
> "(-t +)what" from "(-t +)watt".  Speaking of which, I just realized
> that the British jocular "wot" spelling is probably intended to
> signify the voicing of the initial glide.
>
> Larry
>
> >
> >On 4/22/06, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>  -----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> >>  Subject:      Re: t--w'at?
> >>
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  At 6:13 PM -0400 4/22/06, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >>  >FWIW, I first heard "twat" as the punchline of a ca.1955 joke about
> an
> >>  >airline stewardess who asked a passenger whether he would like some
> TWA
> >>  tea.
> >>  >In the '70's, a former president of the Linguistic Society of America
> >>  >published a paper in which he tried to relate "twat" to "thwait" and
> >>  >"thwite." In 1985, I mentioned to a friend that a woman friend had
> >>  referred
> >>  >to the girl friend that had recently dumped me as "a little twat." He
> was
> >>  >shocked! shocked! that a woman would use such language.
> >>  >
> >>  >The OED Online says that it can be used to mean "buttocks" in the U.S
> .
> >>  >That's news to me.
> >>  >
> >>  OK, with all these philological diversions I can no longer resist
> >>  (although no doubt I should).  This is from a paper of mine (don't
> >>  ask), referring  here to the Earl of Rochester, notorious Restoration
> >>  rake, letch, and general ne'er-do-well, and his ode to Nothing:
> >>  ==============
> >>  Upon Nothing, Rochester's ode to the 'Great Negative' as
> >>  only-begetter, is universally acclaimed as 'the strongest effort of
> >>  his Muse' (Samuel Johnson, cited in Griffin 1973: 266), 'undoubtedly
> >>  one of his darkest and finest poems' (Greene 1974: 117), a profound
> >>  satire on the Genesis story of the creation ex nihilo, and more
> >>  generally 'a devastating attack on revealed religion' (Paulson 1971:
> >>  118-21) , but Paulson chides the poem's otherwise perceptive
> >>  commentators for overlooking the bawdy pun concealed within the
> >>  second of the poem's seventeen stanzas.  The key line is reproduced
> >>  here as it appears in the standard Bodleian Library text.
> >>
> >>  Nothing! thou elder brother even to Shade:
> >>  Thou hadst a being ere the world was made,
> >>  And well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid.
> >>
> >>  Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not,
> >>  When primitive Nothing Something straight begot;
> >>  Then all proceeded from the great united What.
> >>          Rochester [1674?]/Adlard 1974: 112-13
> >>
> >>  But a reliable early manuscript punctuates the cosmogony somewhat
> >>  differently:
> >>
> >>  Then all proceeded from the great united-What?
> >>          Danielsson & Vieth 1967: 153
> >>
> >>  Comments Paulson (1971: 119-20):
> >>
> >>  When the line is spoken aloud the combination of final plosive
> >>  consonants t and d in united cause the final d to be pronounced more
> >>  like t...The final t sound in united becomes a part of the last word
> >>  in the line producing t-W'at? (twat)...Rochester deliberately used
> >>  the dash and question mark, I think, to inform the pun and emphasize
> >  > the great question, giving the query... a pose of quizzically ironic,
> >>  wide-eyed ignorance...Figuratively and literally, "the great
> >>  united-What?" is the vagina and womb of Nothing, from which "all
> >>  proceeded".
> >>
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> >>
> >
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