New "lumpkin," "girney"

[Dennis Preston]

And the Urban Dictionary has a rather different
sense of "lumkin" from any of these.

dInIs



>---------------------- Information from the mail
>header -----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject:      New "lumpkin," "girney"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>OED has _lumpkin_ for an oaf in the year 1901
>only.  But today Meredith F. Small has a
>different idea
>[http://www.livescience.com/history/071116-hn-baby-monkeys.html]:
>
>   "Nothing makes a person sound more idiotic than the presence of a new baby.
>
>   "Our voices climb quickly into the
>stratosphere of the human vocal range and our
>words squeak out in a way that annoys everyone
>within earshot.
>
>   "We also start to babble senseless, often embarrassing, phrases.
>   'Oooooh, sweetums, lumpkin, cutie-cutie' "
>
>   Female macaques seems to make a distinctive sound around macaque babies:
>   "Around babies, females also make a call
>called a girney, a whining sound that apparently
>goes well with a grunt.
>
>   "Sounding like wheezing, puffing calliopes,
>females approach the mother or the baby.
>Although they look rather scary in their
>excitement, the noises apparently signal, 'I'm
>no threat. I wonít hurt the baby.' "
>
>   JL
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Be a better pen pal. Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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