"momanem" at the Oscars

[Wilson Gray]

It takes a lot of practice to get rid of your in-group dialect,
especially when that dialect is spoken with only slight variations all
over the country.

Things have changed, since I lived in L.A. My old 'hood is now Little
Korea and the black people who lived there now live in West L.A. Once
upon a time, though, West L.A. was the Jewish part of town.
Occasionally, I went to that part of town to shop and, as far as I
could tell by speech patterns, I might as well have been in Noo Yawk.

Of course, a true Noo Yawka probably wouldn't have gotten that
impression. The first time that I heard Philadelphia BE spoken, it
sounded nearly as distinct from Saint Louis BE as Bronx BE did. Even
Chicago and K.C. BE are distinct from the Saint Louis variety, to my
ear. *But,* in all cases, it's only the phonology that's distinct. The
syntactic structure of BE is, as, once again, Labov has pointed out,
surprisingly similar all across the country.

Like, I didn't even notice the former Philadelphia Fresh Prince's
"momanen." OTOH, I was surprised to hear my brother the judge, say
"I'm-a VP" for "I'm going to VP," as opposed to the "I'm-ong" that I
use. Once again, this shift was something that Labov had pointed out.
Yet, though he was born in Saint Louis, my brother has lived in
Sacramento for the past 51 years and has never even visited anyplace
behind the sun, beneath the magnolias, down South, back home, etc.
Nevertheless, he uses what *was*, in my opinion, a syntactic structure
peculiar to old, former sharecroppers trying to make it as blues
singers.

-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.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      "momanem" at the Oscars
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At the Oscars, Will Smith (raised in West and Northwest Philadelphia) just
> introduced the category of sound mixing with the following:
>
> "Sound mixers have been called the superheroes of post-production -- and not
> just by their momanem. Other people say it too."
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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