Richard A. Spears

[Wilson Gray]

No, it's weirder than that, Jon. For some reason, /E/ becomes [^]
before /S/ as well as before "j" as in "Jack." E.g., "flesh" becomes
"flush," "mesh" becomes "mush," etc.
OTOH, "sludge" becomes "slurge," "flush" becomes "flursh,", "mush"
becomes "mursh." These can be mixed in a single person's idiolect. My
mother says "sledge," but also says "jurdge" (judge).

Also, BE pretty much lacks "zh"  as in "Jacques," having only "dzh" as
in "Jack." I noticed that some people said "garazh" and "roozh," but I
was in my 40's before I realized that "zh" was not a sound foreign to
English and that people were saying "zh" on purpose and not because
they were just naturally stupid or had some speech defect that kept
them from saying "garadzh" and "roodzh."

-Wilson



On 1/4/07, 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: Richard A. Spears
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Sludge hammer," eh ?
>
>   I have a white friend who, when faced with the possibility of professional disaster, occasionally says, "I'm just waiting for the 500-pound shit hammer to come down." I first heard him say it about 1984.
>
>   I now find thousands of raw Googlits for "shit hammer," of variable specified poundage.
>
>   He's from the South. Blacks live in the South. So "sludge hammer" could have suggested "shit hammer."
>
>   A new folk etymology - with a Google twist !
>
>   JL
>
> Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: Richard A. Spears
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have the abridged, paperbacked, 3rd ed. of Spears. It's possible
> that anything that I pick out may well have been covered in the
> original, unabridged edition. You never know.
>
> And, of course, I'd be more than amazed, if I came up with anything
> that would send The Man (Jon) or any of the other pros back to the
> drawing board, to coin a phrase. However, I am flattered that Jon is
> pleased to comment on my commentation! You can't beat that with a
> sledge (pronounced "sludge" in BE; this can be startling, if you're
> not accustomed to hearing people speak of "sludge hammers") hammer, to
> coin another phrase.
>
> -Wilson
>
>
>
> On 1/4/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> > Subject: Re: Richard A. Spears
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > "Take off like a big-ass[ed] bird" is not uncommon in WWII novels.
> >
> > "Unass" didn't start appearing in print (AFAIK) until Vietnam.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > Wilson Gray wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Wilson Gray
> > Subject: Richard A. Spears
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _Slang and Euphemism_
> >
> > lacks "take off [like a big bird]" = "leave hurriedly." The long form
> > I'm familiar with from my Army days. Military jargon, for some reason,
> > appears to hold more fossils than civilian slang. Long forms such as
> > "shitcan [someone]," "hit the [fart]sack," "be a [shit]heel, a
> > dip[shit], a dick[head]," etc. still live, in the barracks.
> >
> > lacks "un-ass," which I first heard from Korean-War vets before I was
> > "in the war," myself.
> >
> > I'm doing this commentating on Spears just because I can. So, there''s
> > no reason to expect anything of use to serious scholars to come out of
> > this. It's strictly FWIW and "for fee-U-N," to use a bit of slang left
> > over from my mother's girlhood."
> >
> > -Wilson
> > --
> > 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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> > http://mail.yahoo.com
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>  __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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

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