antedating (?) "Katy, bar the door" (1890)

[Dennis R. Preston]

Wilson,

It's very doubtful that this orthographic /r/ indicates a phonetic
one. In reading the JC Harris stories, for example, folk who don't
know southern speech interpret such things as Br'er Rabbit as BRY-er
or some such silliness. We know, of course, that it is is "brother"
(bruh) and that Harris was using the "r" to indicate vowel quality
(usually wedge or lengthening, as in "bar" in your quote I think, or
both).

dInIs

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: antedating (?) "Katy, bar the door" (1890)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>"When she say that, hit's 'Katy, bar _ther_ do',' then, _fer_ she's
>gwine _ter_ do it."
>
>I assume that the passage is a bit of eye-dialect BE.
>
>Therefore, FWIW, I note that shwa [I spell it this way because I
>choose to] is replaced by shwa+r in this way in some fairly rare
>dialects of BE to this day. A ninety-ish cousin of mine from down home
>in Texas uses it and I've heard it used by the odd speaker/singer from
>bluesman to hiphopper. It sounds rather strange, hearing someone use
>an "r" where nobody else does, whereas the person doesn't use "r"
>where the standard, at least, does use one.`
>
>-Wilson
>
>
>On 10/3/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: antedating (?) "Katy, bar the door" (1890)
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  On 10/3/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>  >
>>  > 1888 _Current Literature_ Dec. 499/1 When she say that, hits 'Katy,
>>  > bar ther do, then, fer she's gwineter do it.
>>  > [HNP Doc ID 229263831]
>>
>>  Sorry, missed some punctuation in there:
>>
>>  1888 _Current Literature_ Dec. 499/1 When she say that, hits 'Katy,
>>  bar ther do', then, fer she's gwineter do it.
>>
>>
>>  --Ben Zimmer
>>
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>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
15C Morrill Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-353-4736
preston at msu.edu

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