yea/ yeah

[sagehen]

>Really a jumble.
>
>  I recall a 1917-18 article mentioning - no, recommending -  that pupils
>in American grammar schools be restrained from saying "yeah" (already
>under taboo as "slovenly") on the interesting ground that it sounded too
>"Teutonic."
>
>  Yeah-voll, mine hair !
>
>  JL
 ~~~~~~~~
Interesting!  Before I read this post, but while catching up on this thread
I  stopped to think for a minute about my own "yeah" & realized (rather to
my surprise) that my "yeah" tends strongly toward the German "Ja!" in some
of its functions.
 I also realized that  my pronunciation varies a lot depending on how I'm
using it.  I don't just mean register, which, of course, entails a lot of
variability in pronunciation.  I wonder if others find the same is true for
them.........?
 [I am almost entirely of British Isles extraction going back to before the
American Revolution & no one in my family  speaks German except as  a
language student.]
That strong antipathy toward anything German was a lot like the "freedom
fries" of embarassingly recent memory.  Lots of things got targeted as too
Teutonic during WWI & many underwent name changes or worse.
AM

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W stands for >:<  War ____Waste___Wiretaps____Witchhunts  >:<
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