Work on regional variation in mass/count nouns?

[Charles Doyle]

OK, Wilson, I'll mention them!

As a child and adolescent, I also heard Czech (as well as German) spoken on the streets of my hometown--especially on Saturdays when the farmers would bring their families into town to partake of the cultural life (the [last!] picture show, the domino parlor, the two "meat markets" that served link sausage and soda crackers on plank-and-sawhorse tables covered with pink butcher paper). There IS a good book on the Czech Texans--by two Aggies whose names (and the title of the book) elude me at the moment.

As for the Texas Germans, those in the Fredericksburg/New Braunfels/Luckenbach nexus considered themselves aristocratic compared with the somewhat more recent immigrants to the Weimar/Schulenburg area (Weimar was my hometown).

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 14:40:35 -0400
>From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: Work on regional variation in mass/count nouns?
>
>How come nobody ever mentions the Texas Czechs, whose best-known representative is probably Sissy Spacek ([SpaCEkova] "Sparrow" in Czech, which has fixed, word-initial main stress)?
>
>More nearly OT, didn't Johannes Meusebach or some such person found a German colony in Texas with its center at Fredericksburg?
>
>-Wilson
>
>On 5/14/07, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>>
>> The part of Texas in which I grew up had a numerous populaton of 2nd- and 3rd-generation Germans. Occasionally a child would enter first grade knowing no English, and several of my schoolmates had parents who spoke only German.
>>
>> Among the English speaking Texans of German descent, all the "Germanisms" mentioned here were characteristic features of the dialect: "a scissor" (also "a pant"--though that's used more widely now), "wash my hairs," "get some (or drink a bunch of) beers," etc.
>>
>> I believe there have been studies of Texas German English, but I have no citations at hand.
>>
>> --Charlie
>> _____________________________________________________________
>>
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>> >Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 10:57:09 -0500
>> >From: Joseph Salmons <jsalmons at WISC.EDU>
>> >Subject: Work on regional variation in mass/count nouns?
>>
>> >
>> >A striking and even stereotyped feature of Upper Midwestern English
>> >is the use of what most of us have as count nouns as mass nouns and
>> >vice versa. Here in Madison 'a scissor' or 'a scissors' is utterly
>> >common, while 'going to wash my hairs' is a stereotype of Milwaukee,
>> >but actually used. (These two are often regarded as Germanisms, a
>> >possibility noted in DARE, for example.) There appear to be some
>> >other regional differences -- like 'let's go have a beer' vs. 'let's
>> >go have some beers' -- where the latter is the norm here (and in the
>> >East?), but only the former was familiar to me growing up in the South.
>> >
>> >In looking around for literature on this, I haven't found anything
>> >that treats such differences generally as a regional pattern. DARE
>> >has a few mentions for particular entries, but only a really brief
>> >note in the intro about it. In the ads-l archives, folks touch on
>> >this occasionally for particular words, but I don't see much broader
>> >discussion there either. Arnold Zwicky's handout on "Counting Chad"
>> >gives examples along the way to providing what looks like the best
>> >account of what's going on linguistically with this, but naturally
>> >doesn't focus systematically on regional differences.
>> >
>> >Surely there's more out there in the published lit, right? And surely
>> >folks have lots of examples of this, right?
>> >
>> >Thanks for any suggestions,
>> >Joe
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> 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 tongue has no bones, yet it breaks bones.
>
>                                           Rumanian proverb
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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