accusative cursing

[Wilson Gray]

Speaking of /waz/, in BE as I know it, [waz], [w^z], and [w at z] (both =
"wuz" in eye-dialect) occur. But the latter two occur only away from
stress. I was in my thirties before I became aware of the fact there
are other dialects in which "was" is pronounced [w^z], even under
citation stress. A TA casually mentioned it in a phonetics class, just
as though that pronunciation in that environment were perfectly
ordinary. Since that time, I've come to notice that many, many BE
pronunciations that I use and which I had always considered to coinide
with Northern-white pronunciations in fact do not. No wonder that that
dialect test from a couple of months back had only a single comment on
my speech pattern: "Southern." It just goes to show you. The phonetics
of so-called "General American" can't be learned from a book.

-Wilson

On 4/14/07, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: accusative cursing
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Around here many folks say / waz /.  One of them must have introduced "wuz" to indicate phonetic deviance.
>
>   JL
>
> Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: accusative cursing
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12:34 AM -0400 4/14/07, James Harbeck wrote:
> >Funny thing how spelling can make so much difference in some of these
> >things. Pretty much everyone in Canada pronounces "stupid" as
> >['stupId] and not ['stjupId], but if you spell it "stoopid" that
> >indicates that the person is speaking in a low-grade, uneducated
> >manner. Likewise, many high-price Brits pronounce "ate" as [Et], but
> >if you spell it that way ("et"), it's emblematic of a country hick.
> >And so on. The implication being, evidently, that these people,
> >forced to exhaust themselves writing it down, would write it that
> >way... ditto with "nekkid," I suppose.
>
> Along the same lines, consider the spelling of _was_ as "wuz" (as in
> the fan's complaint about an umpire's decision, "We wuz robbed"!). I
> remember reading that explained as the way people who spoke that way
> would write it, even though everyone else pronounces it "wuz" too.
> "Luv" is analogous but a bit more complicated (when it's not being
> used to indicate a non-standard British pronunciation with a rounded
> vowel).
>
> LH
>
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-----
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