change from the bottom up

[James C Stalker]

How could your mother use SOL in 1906.  Surely it is an IM or text messaging
initialism like LOL.  Didn't everything start with the internet?

JCS

Beverly Flanigan writes:

> SOL!  My mother used that phrase all the time (as a proper 1906-born
> woman,
> she wouldn't swear openly, of course).  I know what it means, but where
> does it come from, anyone?  And do younger people know it, I wonder?
>
> At 11:01 AM 4/19/2007, you wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: change from the bottom up was re: accusative cursing
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>>
>> Not to mention certain pronunciations and turns of phrase that are now
>> felt as standard. Several years ago, I came across a reprint of a
>> perhaps century-old book with a title something like, A Lexicon of the
>> Speech of the Southern-Alabama Negro. Though I've tried for the past
>> couple of years to track down this publication, I've not been
>> successful. I've been hoping to see it mentioned by someone here, but,
>> so far, I''ve been SOL. IAC, the number of now-ordinary words and
>> phrases that the compiler specifies as peculiar to the speech of black
>> Southern-Alabamians is quite surprising. Unfortunately, I can recall
>> only one trivial example: the pronunciation of the verb, "stamp," as
>> though it was spelled "stomp," a pronunciation that some authors, e.g.
>> Roger Abrahams, WRT the speech of black Philadelphians, still
>> considered to be only a black thang as recently as the '60's.
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>> On 4/17/07, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>> > Subject:      Re: change from the bottom up was re: accusative cursing
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>> >
>> > I agree, though Black English is not the only source.  However, it
>> certainly has contributed a great number of (more or less) identifiable
>> slang expressions to general American English since the Swing Era and
>> especially since the 1960s.
>> >
>> >   Slang by (my) definition originates in contexts regarded as
>> indecorous by speakers of prestige dialects.
>> >
>> >   JL
>> >
>> > Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM> wrote:
>> >   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > Poster: Amy West
>> > Subject: change from the bottom up was re: accusative cursing
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>> >
>> > Hmmm...I like CPE; however I wonder if my students will be more
>> > confused if I use that while our Longman's Writer's Companion uses
>> > SWE.
>> >
>> > I'm much more interested by the "phonetic changes work up" statement.
>> > I've run across a similar analysis relating to slang terms entering
>> > the language in a chapter in _Slam Dunks & No-Brainers_ where the
>> > author argues that many slang terms work their way "up" from Black
>> > Vernacular English into the dominant dialect. Being a newbie, I
>> > wasn't sure if this was a consensus view in the field or not.
>> >
>> > ---Amy West
>> >
>> > >I use, and prefer, the term Conventional Plublic English, rather than
>> > >Standard English, because, of course, there are no language standards,
>> just
>> > >lots of opinions, and opinions influence conventions, but not
>> standards.
>> > >Labov's, Wolfram's and Trudgill's research indicates that phonetic
>> changes
>> > >work up rather than down suggests that conventions, not standards, are
>> > >altered from below. Have you looked at your son's pants lately?
>> > >
>> > >JCS
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ---------------------------------
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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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>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University

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