Schultz: nothing

[Jonathan Lighter]

That may well be actor John Banner's real accent. He was born in Vienna in 1910 and according to IMDb couldn't speak English when he came to the U.S. in 1938.

  JL



Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Lynne Murphy
Subject: Schultz: nothing
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, I was wrong...there is no final devoicing in Hogan's Heroes' Schultz's
"I know nothing"--and there is interdentality as well. You can hear it
here:



But when I say it as a catchphrase (not that anyone I talk to gets it), I
always devoice. I suppose that just proves that a little knowledge of
German (extremely little, in my case) is a dangerous (to catchphrases)
thing.

Nevertheless, what struck me on the TVLand list is that many of the things
listed as catchphrases would not be perceived as catchphrases if they were
to be pronounced without the original prosodic or dialectal
characteristics. Which is to say, before I read who had said them, I
didn't recognise them as catchphrases, and then when I got the speaker
info, I agreed immediately (for most) that they were catchphrases.

Lynne

Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department
Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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



---------------------------------
Cheap Talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.

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