fricative voicing / done

[Dennis R. Preston]

Wilson,

I'm amazed that you go around saying so many thing your  were taught.
I was a childhood resister.

dInIs



>I've heard "roo[vz]" a lot, along with "hoo[fs]," but I still go (I know a
>guy whose surname is "Stilgoe") with "roo[fs]" and "hoo[vz]," as I was
>taught. BTW, is the vowel [u] as in "too" or
>[U] as in "took"? I use [u] in both forms, again as I was taught, though
>I've heard these words with [U] so often in so many diffrerent locales that
>I have to monitor my pronunciation, lest I slip unconsciously to the Dark
>Side. They're getting to be like "eether" vs. "eyether" or "eeconomic" vs.
>"eckonomic." "Yuh pays yuh money and yuh takes yuh cherce."
>
>-Wilson
>
>On 5/10/06, Daniel Ezra Johnson <johnson4 at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Daniel Ezra Johnson <johnson4 at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>>Subject:      fricative voicing / done
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>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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>>
>
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--
It should be the chief aim of a university professor to exhibit
himself [sic] in his own true character - that is, as an ignorant man
thinking, actively utilizing his small share of knowledge. Alfred
North Whitehead

Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1036 USA
Office: (517) 353-4736
Fax: (517) 353-3755

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