positionality = "social status or position"

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Wed Aug 29 14:31:24 UTC 2007


On 8/29/07, Dennis R. Preston <preston at msu.edu> wrote:
>
> What evidence do we have that the casual pronunciation of 'w' as
> "dubya" is Southern?

DARE says the pronunciation is "chiefly Sth, S Midl". First cite given
is 1941, from a transcription of a black male speaker from East Texas
(_AmSp_ 16.1, "Negro Speech of East Texas" by Oma Stanley, p. 14).


--Ben Zimmer

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