Tee-nine-see

Sat Apr 14 19:52:41 UTC 2007

Wilson,

/s/ to /S/ in adult baby-talk is getting all phonological so far as I can see.

I'm also rethinking my stress placement. I said it was TEE-nine-see,
but I wonder if the TEE was not displaced (emphatic) stress, perhaps
even helped out by a local tendency to retract stress anyhow
(TENN-uh-see, KIN-tuck-ee).

On your 2nd point, if you're talking wayback, course you're right;
wouldn't no white southern people talk like they do without the input
you refer to. I was on your case because I was thinking of the
"recent history" distinction (i.e., our lifetimes). Now that I
rethink that, maybe some out there that wouldn't think our lifetimes
were included (completely) within the "recent history" designation.
Oh well.

dInIs

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: Tee-nine-see
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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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