Tee-nine-see

[James C Stalker]

Mr. Shakeshaft's line must live on.  His descendent lived in London about 10
years ago, along with a Mr. David Hardwick, who taught at the War College in
London.

JCS

Wilson Gray writes:

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



James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University

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