Terms for familys; was Re: Heard on The Judges

[Barbara Need]

My cousin's widow (Lafayette, Indiana, born early 1900s, now
deceased) would use first name in the plural to refer to a family:
e.g., Dons or Carols, meaning Don and his family or Carol and her
family. I think I have heard others in that family group use it as
well, but I won't swear to it. (I suppose it could formally be a
genitive, but I processed it as a plural--and I didn't like to noodge
kinfolks about language quirks--they thought I was weird enough!)

Barbara


On 26 Jan 2008, at 9:53, Mark Mandel wrote:

> Meaning "Mom and her family", "John and his family"?
>
> m a m (not M&M or Eminem)
>
> On Jan 26, 2008 12:05 AM, Dave Hause <dwhause at jobe.net> wrote:
>>>>
>
>> My wife uses that (central Illinois but idiolect probably mostly
>> from her
>> grandmother - southern Indiana/northern Kentucky) or at least
>> almost - it
>> sounds to me more like "Mom 'n 'em"and the "them" may be no more
>> than her
>> mother's sister.
>> Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net
>> Waynesville, MO
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>
>> "Mommanem" etc. is a shibboleth of Pittsburghese.
>>
> <<<
> <http://www.americandialect.org>
>
> Wilson had written:
>>>>
>
>> The speaker was a late-thirtyish white man from Saint Louis:
>>
>> "I know that it was _John-nem_ [nEm] on the boat."
>>
> <<<
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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