ToTN

[Jonathan Lighter]

I grew up saying "quarter of," but at some point it got replaced by "quarter to."

  But the more important question, Wilson, is when you started hearing "tighten my jaws." (Ca. 1969 in my young life.)

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: ToTN
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Both "quarter till" and "quarter to" are fine with me, as well as both
"quarter past" and "quarter after," whether spoken or written. But
"quarter 'til" bites the big one in writing.

As it happens, I myself use "quarter of," but only because I heard it
used by Northeasterners when I was stationed at the old Fort Devens,
MA, in 1959, thought it sounded cool, and decided to use it myself.

OTOH, the use of "my man," which I began to hear from other black GI's
in 1961, used to tighten my jaws, because I equated it with Britspeak
"my man." From Brit books and movies, I knew that it was used mainly
or only to address or about social inferiors: "Here, my man. Take this
luggage to my suite." "Don't get shirty with me, my man!" The book and
movie title, My Man Godfrey.

-Wilson

On 6/29/06, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Beverly Flanigan
> Subject: Re: ToTN
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I know I've mentioned this before, but a book editor once wanted to change
> my dialect example "quarter till" (South Midland, also South?) to either
> "quarter to" or "quarter 'til." I had to vehemently protest and tell her
> to go look at a dictionary. I won, of course.
>
> At 04:03 PM 6/29/2006, you wrote:
> >Prolly a useless comment, given that it's more like whining about a
> >pet peeve than like anything else, but I've *always* known that both
> >TILL and UNTIL are good English words as long as I've been relatively
> >fluent in the English language, ca.sixty years. It's passing strange
> >is that people born in the '50's-'80's, seemimgly out of nowhere, have
> >decided that there's something wrong with the spelling or the use of
> >TILL without so much as cracking a dictionary or a grammar. As for
> >people who can't handle what may be termed "slang spelliings" or even
> >"joke spellings" like "nite" and "thru," let them go back to arguing
> >that "ain't" ain't a word.
> >
> >-Wilson
> >
> >On 6/28/06, Grant Barrett wrote:
> >>---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>-----------------------
> >>Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>Poster: Grant Barrett
> >>Subject: Re: ToTN
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>I've responded back channel to Geoff, but he's misconstrued a couple
> >>of things that happened on the show.
> >>
> >>I think Geoff misunderstood what I was going to say about "till." I
> >>was going to say what he said, only without the details: that "till"
> >>is a perfectly okay form. But he did it better than I could and the
> >>show was better for it.
> >>
> >>"Keep up the fight" means "keep caring enough about language to get
> >>into arguments over it" not "keep fighting to preserve language the
> >>way it is."
> >>
> >>Grant Barrett
> >>Double-Tongued Word Wrester
> >>http://www.doubletongued.org/
> >>
> >>The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English (May 2006, McGraw-Hill)
> >>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071458042/
> >>
> >>
> >>On Jun 28, 2006, at 18:33, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
> >>
> >> > today's Talk of the Nation, on words and the web, with grant barrett,
> >> > geoff pullum, and martha barnette:
> >> >
> >> > http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5518444
> >> >
> >> > and geoff's reactions:
> >> >
> >> > http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003299.html
> >> >
> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >>------------------------------------------------------------
> >>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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