Tee-nine-see

[Wilson Gray]

It could very well be that the final syllable is "-see" in the
canonical, so to speak, pronunciation and that I heard "-shee" because
that was what I expected to hear. However, I don't think that we have
to get all phonological in order to explain its existence. In my
experience, the conscious shift of /s/ to [S] is a common feature of
adult "baby-talk."

Come on, dInIs! You have to admit that, if it wasn't for us, y'all
still be talking like Shakespeare! :-) Not that there's anything wrong
with that.

Speaking of The 'Speare, back in the '50's, some scholar once wondered
in print whether an otherwise unknown "Will Shakeshaft" might actually
have been a punning on "William Shakespeare." Unfortunately, further
deponent recalleth not.

BTW, Nicholas "Hadrian V" Breakespeare was the only Pope whose native
language was English. His only other claim to fame is that he issued
the Papal bull which
declared that England had the right to rule Ireland.

-Wilson

On 4/14/07, Doug Harris <cats22 at frontiernet.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Doug Harris <cats22 at FRONTIERNET.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Tee-nine-see
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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--
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'l Clemens

"Experience" is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it, again.

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