Tee-nine-see

[Doug Harris]

Like you, dInIs, I grew up in the Louisville area in the same period -- with
a couple of years in the middle up Morehead and Mt Sterling way -- and I
seem to think we emphasized the NINE sylabobbel.
Something else I remember from the time I was maybe ten or eleven was a
saying a Lexington-resident aunt of mine said was an "old" one, or maybe she
said it was a "common" one. Either way, I never to this day have heard
anyone but her say "spit is a horrible word, but it's worse on the end of
your cigar." I neither smoked nor spat much in those days (nor do I do
either today!), and I couldn't quite fathom what the saying was meant to
mean. I'm still not quite sure, and I'm still wondering why the memory of
her reciting that to a cousin of mine while we were on a (local) bus has
always been such a vivid memory.
(the other) doug
================
>I grew up in the Louisville area, 1940's and 50's and used TEE-nine-see
(stress on first not second syllable, and 'see' not 'shee' in the last).
Wilson, you just got to stop thinking that everything you said when you was
little is Black. Lots of us white guys out here say the same stuff. If you
want to be shocked by white guys, save it for Imus.
>
>The palatalization is interesting in your form. (I take the 'see' form to
be more widely distributed.) Is it the influence of the following high front
vowel? I'm having trouble thinking of comparatively weakly stressed
/-Vnsi##/ strings. (I can think of /-VnsiC/ forms like "linseed".) "Unseat,
"unseemly," etc... are all in stressed syllables and seem to me very
unlikely to go to /sh/ so perhaps it's the sequence plus the lenition of the
weaker stress that promotes the palatalization in your form.
>
>Finally, if this is formed from "teensy," as it almost certainly is (itself
already surely a development tiny -> teeny -> teensy), are there other
examples of a "diminutivizing infix" of this sort? (Of course, it could be
an augmentative augmenting the notion "small.")
>
>This will teach me to get up early on Saturday.
>
>dInIs

>>Subject:      Re: Query for Charlie-nim
>>-----------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>>Are y'all familiar with the term that's pronounced something like
"tee-NINE-shee"? It means "very small" and is used instead of "itty-bitty"
or "teeny-tiny." When I was in the Army, I heard this used by Texans of all
races, creeds, and colors from all over the state. I learned it from my
mother and my grandmother - I hated any story that  began, "Whin yew wuh
jes' a tee-nine-shee baby ..." Until my Army days, I was under the
impression that this word was peculiar to the women in my family. You can
imagine my shock when I first heard it fall tripppingly from the tongue of a
white farm boy from Mundy, Texas. Later, I heard it used by GI's from
Weslaco, Dallas, Odessa, Midland, Tyler, Galveston, etc., etc. But that was
fifty years ago.
>>>
>>>So, I was wondering whether any y'all were familiar with this term? Is it
peculiar to Texas or is it also used elsewhere?
>>>
>>>-Wilson

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

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