[FL-LIST] dialect test

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Sat Dec 2 02:55:26 UTC 2006


In the blues song, "Whoopln' an' Hollerin'," the singer "corrects"
"[My baby] gone," standardly, so to speak, in BE rhyming with "lone,"
to "[My baby] gorn" as in "corn." This "correction" was probably
influenced by his knowledge that words like "corn" and "torn" are
pronounced "cone" and "tone."

-Wilson

On 11/30/06, RonButters at aol.com <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       RonButters at AOL.COM
> Subject:      =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20[ADS-L]=20[FL-LIST]?
>               = =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=20dialect=20test?=
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In a message dated 11/30/06 3:47:01 PM, flanigan at OHIO.EDU writes:
>
>
> > At 10:54 AM 11/30/2006, you wrote:
> > >In a message dated 11/30/06 6:05:33 AM, mamihoka at TCUE.AC.JP writes:
> > >
> > >
> > > > I've found this test very interesting, because my results is 'you may
> > > > think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but
> > > > when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying
> > > > questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" ,,,'.
> > > >
> > > > I am a nonnative speaker of English and I do have Japanese accent on
> > > > my English.
> > > >
> > >
> > >Apparently I am from Japan, too, since I got the same response. No one ha=
> s
> > >EVER accused me of being from Wisconsin. Still, "inland North" is not too=
> =20
> > far
> > >off for someone from east-central Iowa.
> > >
> > >The quiz could be far more accurate if it were not obsessed with the
> > >"ah"/"awe" distinction. It missed entirely the Southern pronounciation of
> > >"on." No
> > >mention of the diagnostic word "tour." A true dialect test (as opposed to=
> =20
> > an
> > >"accent" test would have included some lexical and morphological question=
> s.
> >=20
> > But I am an "ah/awe" splitter (the quiz's obsession, I agree),
> > and my "on" rhymes with my Northern "Don," not with "dawn" (as is the case
> > in southern Ohio and the South).=A0"
> >=20
> >=20
> > In large parts of North and South Carolina, "on" and "gone" rhyme with "bo=
> ne"=20
> ...
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam Clemens

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