Merkins

[Tom Zurinskas]

I've never consciously heard "merkins" for "Americans" until a post I got
from an Australian who spelled it out so I suppose they say it that way in
the outback.  I do know folks from Philly call the state of Maryland
"Merlin".

It would be a good thing to see where our personal dialects are from.  I've
put my name, country and years lived in various states in my personal
signature.  I assume from what I gather here, that dialect is locked in at
age 5.  All agree?  Personnally I find that after college in TN my speech
changed there and changes to a southern drawl when I go back there or to a
Southern state.

Tom Z

Tom Zurinskas   USA CT20, TN3, NJ32, FL-4+
See truespel.com and the 4 truespel books at authorhouse.com.





>From: Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: Merkins
>Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 22:27:04 -0400
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Merkins
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 12:40 PM 10/19/2006, you wrote:
> >I don't think changing traditional spelling (tradspel) is doable.  Ted
> >Roosevelt in consort with Andrew Carnegie tried and couldn't change a
>word,
> >even through an executive order.  Webster was the last success, at least
>in
> >USA.
> >
> >So the only thing possible to influence is pronunciation, keeping it
> >consistent with tradspel to help learners by maintaining letter sound
> >correspondance.  But I see no mechanism to do that except for our
>schools.
> >Now that "phonemic awareness" (Stanovich) is seen to be the "single most
> >important attribute exhibited by successful readers" (to paraphrase),
>there
> >may be more action in that area.  I think the trend away from phonics in
>the
> >past for early reading teachers has fostered disparate pronunciations.  I
> >advocate for USA English the Writing to Read approach by IBM of the 80's,
> >only using truespel, which has no special symbols.
> >
> >"Merkins".  Is that an Ausy term?
>
>No, no--'Merkins' is a tried and true American English
>pronunciation!  Listen to Newt Gingrich (if you can stand to), and you'll
>hear him call us "Mer(a)kins" (I'd put a schwa in there).  It's
>Philly/Baltimore/east Pennsylvania dialect, and maybe more (NJ? Del?).  The
>first syllable is the same as in 'Murray'.  Recall our
>Mary/merry/marry/Murray discussion a while back?  Another problem with the
>alphabetic principle--people just won't obey it!
>
>
>
> >Tom Z
> >
> >
> >>From: RonButters at AOL.COM
> >>
> >>Do you advocate, then, quite different spelling conventions (more than
> >>the=20
> >>trivial differences that we now see) for the England, Scotland, Wales,
> >>Irela=
> >>nd,=20
> >>Jamaica, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc.? Or should
>they
> >>a=
> >>ll=20
> >>have to speak Merkin? It seems to me that this would make English a MUCH
> >>mor=
> >>e=20
> >>DIFFICULT language to learn as a 2nd language.
> >>
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> >
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