Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?

Wed Jun 17 20:19:24 UTC 2009

Thanks Wilson

Did you (or do you?) use "aught" for "zero"?

Your mention of Joe Louis's ""th' ough" reminded me that, when I was a boy
in Orange, boys (all of them white, in my experience) would threaten each
other that they would "knock your teeth down your th'oat"

Bill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?

> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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>>> header -----------------------
>>> 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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>>>> header -----------------------
>>>> Sender: Ã, Â Ã, Â Ã, Â American Dialect Society
>>>> <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>> Poster: Ã, Â Ã, Â Ã, Â Joseph Salmons <jsalmons at WISC.EDU>
>>>> Subject: Ã, Â Ã, Â Ã, 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: Ã, '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:
>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender: Ã, Â Ã, Â Ã, Â American Dialect Society
>>>>> <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>>> Poster: Ã, Â Ã, Â Ã, Â Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>>>>> Subject: Ã, Â Ã, Â Ã, 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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>>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>>
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>>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> -Wilson
>>> Ã¢?"Ã¢?"Ã¢?"
>>> 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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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> -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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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