Dialect split

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Mon Nov 13 21:15:57 UTC 2006


On the Judge Joe Brown show, a black woman from Kentucky is suing her
ex, a black man from Tennessee. There was nothing special about his
version of BE. But, if I couldn't see that the woman is clearly black,
I would assume that she was white, judging by her intonation pattern,
twang, and, especially, by the r-fulness of her speech.

-Wilson
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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.
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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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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