Race/racism and the late Prof. Frederic G. Cassidy

[Wilson Gray]

Among what group of peoplehas Shug more commonly been known as "Shuggie'?

Does anyone else remember James Ralph Jordan, the late, great football
and basketball coach of the former Alabama Polytechnic Institute at
Auburn, now known as Auburn University? He was known as "Shug" - from
"Sugar Cane" - Jordan. His surname had the standard Southern
pronunciation of, approximately, "Jerdan."

For some reason, /or/ has special pronunciations in the South. Down
home in East Texas, not only does "Jordan" have the same pronunciation
as it has in Alalbama, but also the pastor of the colored Catholic
church, Fr. Giovanni Maggiore, in whose name    /or/ precedes a vowel
and not a consonant, was known locally as "Fathuh Muh_joo_rih."
I've already mentioned the pronunciation of -orn as "own." Even -arm
is peculiar, e.g. "farm" is non-distinct in pronunciation from "foam."

-Wilson

On 11/2/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Race/racism and the late Prof. Frederic G. Cassidy
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 11/2/06, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Wilson's mention of Shug Otis reminds me of how, last year while
> > teaching _The Color Purple_, I had such a struggle discouraging the
> > students from pronouncing the character Shug's name so as to rhyme
> > it with "hug."  But then, there really isn't a good way to represent the
> > nickname or common (Southern?) epithet clipped from "sugar"
> > orthographically.
>
> Mr. Otis has more commonly been known as "Shuggie", actually. For the
> benefit of anyone who didn't know how to pronounce the name there's a
> song on his 1970 debut album with the rhyming title "Shuggie's
> Boogie".
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

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