Another phenomenon of Saint Louis BE: Flap into Trill

[Wilson Gray]

While browing hrough the iTunes holdings, I came a across a jam called
S.T.L.O.U.I.S., by an unknown artist - i.e. the record label has lost
track of or never knew his name . In his rap, everywhere that you
would expect a flap, this guy replaces it with the sound spelled #rV-,
-VrrV, or -VrC- in Spanish: hard liquor > harr(!) liquor (possibly
some other phenomenon), gotta > gorra, shouda > shourra, better >
berra, etc.

Much else has changed, since my youth, there. A city that once had a
population of nearly 900,000 now has a population just over 300,000.
The rapper, as do all Saint Louis rappers that I've ever listened to,
makes referernce to the intersection of Kingshighway [Blvd] and
Natural Bridge [Rd], giving me the impression that this is now the
center of black night life in Saint Louis. Not back in the day! I'm
quite familiar with Kingshighway, up to a point. But I'd have to look
on a map to find Natural Bridge.

Kingshighway began as "el Camino real," when the area was under the
control of Spain (cf., e.g. DeSoto, MO, and [San Juan de] Pelosi, MO.)
But I have no idea how Natural Bridge came to get its name. There may
have been a natural bridge in the area, but that area was then so far
beyond the boundaries of the colored part of town that I was never
motivated to concern myself with the solution to this conundrum.

-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

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