accusative cursing

James C Stalker stalker at MSU.EDU
Fri Apr 13 03:59:38 UTC 2007


Ok.  So I guess 58,700 "nekid" hits loses.  Not only do I have
unconventional English pronunciation, I have unconvetional spelling of
unconventional English.  Google prompted me with "do you mean nekkid?"
Google and Larry are on the right side.

I had not thought through my original question, which I now think is more
complex.  Why do we have a particular alternate spelling for a given spelled
word?  We have "nekkid" and "nekid."  LH suggests that we need the double K
to indicate the higher mid front tense glided vowel, and that single K
indicates the lower lax nonglided mid front vowel.  I'm not sure about that.
We can look at doublets, which is what started all of this: beckon/bacon
(with the interesting twist that Patty Loveless sings "beckoning" as
"baconing"); trek/track, trekking/tracking; tech/tek.  A small body of data,
but a set that suggests that K does not determine the preceding vowel.  If
we look a probablistics studies pf spelling, such as Early Reading
Instruction: What Science Really Tells Us about How to Teach Reading By
Diane
McGuinnesshttp://books.google.com/books?id=geCphXcHm30C&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=
english+spelling+probability&source=web&ots=9VR0Y8gT9e&sig=Y_nQGmmUaPEVhKBMv
eE7uG2Gr4E#PPP1,M1 and Robert Hall, Sounds and Spelling in English), we can
come the conclusion that the vowel spelling is the determiner;
probilistically, a give us /ey/; e gives us /e/, so naked will produce /ey/
as the vowel and /e/ will produce /e/ as the vowel.

I woudl submit that the "ekk" spelling is a sociolinguistic respelling:
accurate vowel (unconventional), inaccurate spelling (nonstandard).  We
really want you to know that these folks are ignornant.  They not only can't
talk, they can't spell!

Unfortunately, I no longer have students so I can't test this hypothesis on
them, but I'll try to tackle my neighbors to check it out.

JCS

Laurence Horn writes:

> At 9:25 PM -0400 4/10/07, James C Stalker wrote:
>> Laurence Horn writes:
>>
>>>
>>> a.k.a. "nekkid"?
>>>
>> If you wish, but since it isn't a real word, who cares about the
>> spelling?
>
> Not a real word?  "nekkid" has 822,000 raw google hits.  That doesn't
> necessarily make it a real word, but it does seem to suggest it's a
> real semi-standardized variant of one (cf. "purty", "nucular").  We
> need the double -k- in "nekkid" (rather than spelling it "nekid") to
> denote ['nEkId] rather than either ['nE(y)kId] (= the standard
> pronunciation of "naked") or ['nIkId] (the standard pronounciation of
> "knee-kid").
>
> LH
>
>> In part, I josh, but not wholly.  Are there conventional spellings for
>> conventionally unacceptable pronunciations in unacceptable dialects,
>> except
>> maybe in DARE?  Why do we need the double k?  As with Wilson, musings
>> rather
>> than real questions.
>>
>> JCS
>>
>>
>>
>> James C. Stalker
>> Department of English
>> Michigan State University
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University

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



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