NYT: "blather" from Pa.?

[Paul Johnston]

At least abide and blather could come from Ulster Scots, too, though
the usual form is "blether" there.  However, in Border Scots and in
Ulster in some positions (and in  a lot of 17c-18c Scots), the /E/
vowel would have been phonetically [ae], and might have come in with
the vowel of cat. The Ulster/PA connection is well-documented, though
there's a goodly Yorks/Lancs continent among the Quakers.

Yours,
Paul Johnston
On Apr 1, 2008, at 1:30 PM, Benjamin Zimmer 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: NYT: "blather" from Pa.?
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>
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:29 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>> From a New York Times article about Obama's campaigning style in
>> Pennsylvania:
>>
>>  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/us/politics/01obama.html
>>  "Pennsylvania's culture, as the historian David Hackett Fischer
>> noted
>>  in his book 'Albion's Seed,' is rooted in the English midlands,
>> where
>>  Scandinavian and English left a muscular and literal imprint. These
>>  are people distrustful of rank, and finery, and high-flown words. It
>>  should come as no surprise that the word 'blather' originated here."
>>
>>  Hackett doesn't actually claim...
>
> I meant Fischer, of course.
>
>> that "blather" originated in
>>  Pennsylvania, but argues that it's one of many importations from the
>>  North Midlands to the Delaware Valley (which itself may be a
>>  questionable claim):
>>
>>  "Not only the pronunciation but also the vocabulary of the England's
>>  North Midlands became part of American midland speech. In the word
>>  lists of Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire we find the
>>  following terms, all of which took root in the Delaware Valley:
>>  _abide_ as in "can't abide it," _all out_ for entirely, _apple-pie
>>  order_ to mean "very good order," _bamboozle_ for deceive, _black
>> and
>>  white_ for writing, _blather_ for empty talk, [...] None of these
>>  words was invented in America, though many have been mistakenly
>>  identified as Americanisms. All were carried from the North Midlands
>>  of England to the Delaware Valley, and became the basis of an
>> American
>>  regional vocabulary which is still in use today." (_Albion's Seed_,
>>  pp. 472-3)
>>
>>
>>  --Ben Zimmer
>>
>
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