Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?

[Wilson Gray]

Heighdy, Bill!

My family, when I was a child, at one time or another, lived in
Beaumont and Port Arthur (we called it "Po' Daahthuh." I was *shocked*
when I learned how to read.) However, we never lived in Orange, so we
didn't complete The Golden Triangle. :-)

When the late, great Joe Louis, a native Alabamian, was asked about
the future of Floyd Paterson, after he lost to Sonny Liston, Joe
replied, "He th'ough!" But, even in street-level black speech,
something like *thrr-* is the "standard" pronunciation. If you - i.e.,
anybody, not just Bill - can stand it, check out any
neo-blaxploitation flick.

-Wilson


On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Bill Palmer<w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Bill Palmer <w_a_palmer at BELLSOUTH.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I lived in extreme East Texas (Orange, to be specific...about 25 mi from
> Beaumont) as a boy, and, as Wilson has pointed out, "throw" was never heard,
> only "chunk". Â Also, in class, the word "zero" seemed to be
> unknown..."aught" (or, I suppose, "ought") was used exclusively. Â This was
> early 1950s...I wonder if that's still the case.
>
> Bill Palmer
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 8:35 PM
> Subject: Re: Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?
>
>
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>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Sigh! Dialect is as weird as language. Down home in East Texas, though
>> "throw" was known to us local-BE speakers, *chunk* - presumably
>> originally *chuck* - was by far the preferred term. The pronunciation
>> of *throw*, when it was used, as "th'ow" [Tow] was also very common.
>>
>> When we moved up (relatively) North to Saint Louis, I found that
>> *chunk* was rare to the vanishing point, usually a feature of the
>> speech only of those of us who were FOB - "fresh off the [Greyhound]
>> bus" - from behind the Cotton Curtain and not yet assimilated. *Very*
>> rarely, Saint Louis BE-speakers dropped the /r/ in thr-: "th'ow
>> (throw) th'ee (three)," etc. But the Spanish-like long, trilled [R]+
>> Â was definitely the standard in this environment.
>>
>> When I first moved to the Northeast, where people pronounce /r/ in
>> thr- as [r](?), so that, e.g. "three" sounds, to my ear, like *thuree*
>> [Tri], I was freaked out. I simply couldn't figure out how it was done
>> without inserting a fully-vocalized schwa, as in the Army's [T at Rijp],
>> used by some NCO's in counting cadence. Even in that pronunciation,
>> though, the trilled [R] was used.
>>
>> (I'm pretty sure that "R" means something different in the *real* IPA.
>> But, what can you do? So, gimme some slack, if you gnome sane.)
>>
>> -Wilson
>> .
>> On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Joseph Salmons<jsalmons at wisc.edu> wrote:
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>>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Joseph Salmons <jsalmons at WISC.EDU>
>>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> There's a set of cases where clusters with a voiceless fricative + r
>>> lose the r in some Southern speech. DARE gives r-less 'from' mostly
>>> from African-American speakers, but I'm betting that it exists in
>>> among white speakers -- almost sure of it.
>>>
>>> A few I have (still today, in unguarded speech) are with the voiceless
>>> interdental fricative -- notably in 'through, throw (throwed/threw/
>>> thrown)'. It's probably lexical for me at least, since most words
>>> sound bizarre without the r: Â 'three, thread, throttle, throne', etc.
>>> In a few, I can imagine variability but it's hard to tell up here so
>>> far from home: 'throes, throat'. Or maybe some part is phonological --
>>> lose the r before tense /u/ (but a rare enough combo that you can't be
>>> sure), variably before tense /o/, with the r-less 'threw'-form by
>>> analogy.
>>>
>>> Anyway, that's just a long clumsy prelude to a simple question: Does
>>> anybody know anything about this general pattern?
>>>
>>> Joe
>>>
>>> On Jun 16, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Mark Mandel wrote:
>>>
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>>>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>>>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Ahra-lessnes in white-Southern speech
>>>> (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Jonathan Lighter
>>>> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> My friend from rural Middle Tennessee - a distinguished attorney -
>>>>> always
>>>>> says "fum."
>>>>>
>>>>> Other than that and maybe one or two other items, he's got all his
>>>>> r's.
>>>>
>>>> And even that isn't r-lessness (arrhoticity), which AFAIK refers to
>>>> loss of *postvocalic* /r/.
>>>>
>>>> m a m
>>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> â?"â?"â?"
>> 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
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--
-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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