New "lumpkin," "girney"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Nov 17 21:44:03 UTC 2007


At 9:14 PM +0000 11/17/07, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
>Also the middle name of the linguist Peter 
>Patrick (?), who is, I think, a descendant of 
>the governor.

Well, I can narrow it down: if you're referring 
to the linguist at Essex, he's Peter L. Patrick, 
and his e-mail if you want to ask him yourself is
<patrickp at ESSEX.AC.UK>.

More fully, his sig info is:

Prof. Peter L. Patrick
Dept. of Language and Linguistics
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ, U.K.
patrickp at essex.ac.uk
(+44) 1206  872088
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp


LH

>I could not find LUMKIN on Urban Dictionary.
>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dennis Preston <preston at msu.edu>
>
>Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:15:34
>To:ronbutters at aol.com
>Subject: Re: New "lumpkin," "girney"
>
>
>Yep. Former Gov. of Georgia.
>
>dInIs
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail
>>header -----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       ronbutters at AOL.COM
>>Subject:      Re: New "lumpkin," "girney"
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Isn't Lumpkin an important family name in the
>>American South? My memory is that there is a
>>Lumpkin Ave in Athens, GA.
>>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
>>
>>Date:         Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:32:58
>>To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] New "lumpkin," "girney"
>>
>>
>>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 wonÌt 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
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>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

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



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