Heard on The Judges

[Wilson Gray]

A late-twenty-ish _white_ woman from Texas named "Shakeerah."

That these names have spread beyond the 'hood is amazing. For snobbish
reasons, I've never even been able to cotton to them since back in the
day when such names identified their bearers as black.

I grew up with girls named Elvira, Rosemary, Diana, Barbara, Lilian,
Amy, Betty, Betty-Rose, Sarah, Jacqueline, Rosemarie, Carol, Gladys,
Agnes, Jean, Regina [rI dZin@] not [rI dZajn@], Carla, etc.n nothing
that couldn't be found in any ordinary book of female names.

-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