A couple of Saint Louis oddities

[Gordon, Matthew J.]

The pronunciation of 'sundae' with a final schwa is one of the features identified as local to STL by Tom Murray in his work on the dialect. I don't recall any mention of 'tassel' in those works.

The local pronunciation of 'sundae' appears to be dying out at least among the wider speech community. Still, I don't believe it's as stigmatized as the other STL stereotype: "farty" for '40' (which is the stand-in for the for/far merger Beverly mentioned).

-Matt Gordon


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Beverly Flanigan
Sent: Mon 11/20/2006 4:13 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: A couple of Saint Louis oddities
 
When I get my paper grading done, I'll look for a reference cited at the
recent NWAV conference in Columbus on "sunda" in St. Louis.  "Tossel"
wasn't mentioned, but I've heard that in Minnesota too; I always suspected
it was just a fancified pronunciation of the hat piece to distinguish it
from "corn tassels," which we had plenty of up there.  (The "tossel," as
you know, hangs down from the "toboggan."  We've covered this in the
distant past, I think.)

Incidentally, the "for/far" homophony was also discussed at NWAV, as was
"innit"--undoubtedly an invariant and very common British tag unrelated to
Hinglish (which is studied in the code-switching and new Englishes literature).

Beverly

At 04:49 PM 11/20/2006, you wrote:
>Wilson,
>I'm not sure about the distribution of "sunda" but "tossel" might be
>widespread.  I've heard it from my wife and brother-in-law (Cleveland, OH)
>and from my MI students.  I wonder for how many people "tossel" means
>specifically corn tassel, too.
>
>Paul Johnston
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Date: Sunday, November 19, 2006 3:05 am
>Subject: A couple of Saint Louis oddities
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------
> > ------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      A couple of Saint Louis oddities
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ------------
> >
> > The pronunciation of "sundae" as though it were spelled "sunda" and
> > the pronunciation of "tassel" as though it were spelled "tossel."
> >
> > -Wilson
> > --
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
> > complaint to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -----
> > -Sam Clemens
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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