old hat

[James Smith]

I pronounce them the same or differently, depending on
emphasis and context.  Typical use is "y at r" for both,
but "your" can be the same as "yore" and "you're"
something like "you'@r" (almost not a contraction:
maybe I'm not really using "you're" when I say this
but  rather actually saying "you are", but were I to
write what I think I say, I'd use the contraction).


--- Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> You mean there's a difference ?  I don't understand
> what you're driving at.
>
>   JL
>
> Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: old hat
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The use of "your" for "you're" and the use of
> "you're" for "your" in writin=
> g
> are so common, in my experience, as hardly to be
> worthy of mention. But I a=
> m
> surprised to see that this phenomenon is so old,
> though.
>
> Likewise, there are people who pronounce "your" as
> though it was spelled
> "you're" and who pronounce "you're" as though it was
> spelled "your." In my
> experience, this is a peculiarity of some dialects
> of White (American)
> English. I didn't become aware of it until I joined
> the Army in the late
> '50's. I found - and find - this usage *extremely*
> annoying, to the extent
> that I once foolishly tried to get such speakers not
> to use it. Needless to
> say, I had no success whatsoever. They didn't even
> understand what I was
> driving at. So, I just had to learn to live with it.
>
> I'd like to think that the pronunciation influences
> the spelling, but I hav=
> e
> no evidence for this beyond wishful thinking.
>
> -Wilson
>
>
>
> On 3/3/06, Jonathon Green wrote:
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Jonathon Green
> > Subject: Re: old hat
> >
> >
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
> >
> > George Thompson wrote:
> > > [...] I notice the nearly 100 year gap in the
> OED's citations between
> > 1796
> > > and 1893, and that both these are from
> dictionaries.
> > Nice _NY Sporting Whip_ stuff, George. A couple
> more mid-century
> > 'free-range' examples:
> >
> > 1841 in _The Gentleman's Spicey Songster_ [song
> title] 'Mother H's
> > Knocking Shop; or, A Bit Of Old Hat!'
> >
> > c.1864 'The Female Auctioneer' in Anon. _The
> Rakish Rhymer_ (1917) 137:
> > And if your [sic] fond of nice=97 _old hat_, /
> I've some that you can buy=
> .
> >
> >
> >
> > JG
> >
> >
>
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James D. SMITH                 |If history teaches anything
South SLC, UT                  |it is that we will be sued
jsmithjamessmith at yahoo.com     |whether we act quickly and decisively
                               |or slowly and cautiously.

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