fruneral

[Paul Johnston]

I agree about the Gecko--whoever does the voice is GOOD.  Never mind
that the only geckos you'll see in London are in Regent's Park Zoo.
I have taught courses on British dialects off and on for twenty years
and it's nice to have an illustration everyone knows.  I used to send
my students to BBC America and have them listen to Tommy Walsh of
Ground Force (for straight down-the-line working class London) and
Handy Andy Kane of Changing Rooms (for really broad, council-estate-
type Cockney) but not everyone had the Beeb on cable.  Now we got
someone everyone can see.

Paul Johnston
On Aug 7, 2006, at 2:01 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: fruneral
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> Does anyone know how authentic the Gecko's current accent really is?
>
>   If the guy who voices him *isn't* really a native, blue-collar
> Londoner, shouldn't he get some sort of dialect award?
>
>   JL
>
> Nancy Hall <nhall at ESSEX.AC.UK> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Nancy Hall
> Subject: fruneral
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> Has anyone heard the pronunciation "fruneral" for "funeral"?
>
> There are websites where the word is consistently spelled this way
> (e.g.
> http://blog.myspace.com/17375928).
>
> One blogger describes this pronunciation as British: "His language is
> full of colourful British expressions. He says 'Fruneral' instead of
> Funeral and 'Birfday' instead of Birthday"
> (http://www.jade-leaves.com/Ceit/ela/ela1_2.PDF). Another internet
> chatter implies it is AAVE: "I think boots is one of the coloreds. I
> wonder if he says 'scrawberry', 'credik' and 'fruneral' too?"
>
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