fricative voicing / done

[Daniel Ezra Johnson]

they used to tell us (massachusetts, 80's, upper-middle-class area) that
"done" meant cooked, so you were supposed to say "i'm finished" unless you
meant that you were ready to be eaten at table.

but my impression (erroneous, apparently, given some of the posts here)
was that everybody actually did say "i'm done".

it is interesting how as children we totally reject certain prescriptivist
nugget, accept others as valid without following them, and follow others.

and fascinating if there's a north-south divide (off-list i've heard an
east-west one proposed, too) on hou[s]es. i don't think the voiceless form
was too common in my neck of the words [stet that typo] but heard it at
college from another new englander.

my subjective evaluation of hou[s]es is as firmly non-standard but not
firmly lower-class. although i suppose it would fit into a lower-class nyc
stereotype, if not a boston one.

but it's part of that subset of forms from "other dialects" that i find
myself saying more and more anymore. can wi[f]es be far behind? did i ever
say roo[v]s?

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