Heard on The Judges: sE > to BE

[Mark Mandel]

My daughter observed that I talked differently with the garage
mechanic than at home or with friends. I can't readily give examples
from my own speech, though.

m a m

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Some may recall that I once claimed that, regardless of a speaker's
>  usual register, he tends to move it toward the working-class norm,
>  when using slang or slang-like expressions.
>
>  Middle-class, black, male speaker complaining about his cheating wife:
>
>  She was unbelievable, your honor! She _wadn_ cool at at all. She would
>  call me at work to find out when I was coming home, so that she would
>  know how much time she had to do her _thing [TaeIN]_!"
>
>  -Wilson
>  --
>  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 American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
Mark Mandel

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