Non-coda r-loss in Southern speech?

[Wilson Gray]

Heighdy, Bill!

Yes, I did use "aught." It goes way back. I''m 72 and I learned it
from my grandmother, born in the 1890's!

If you feel like chatting about East Texas talk, get in touch with me or

Lee Murrah <mclee at murrah.com>

either here or privately. He's originally from Lufkin. I'm a native of
Marshall, but now I live in Boston. They don't use ahra's around here,
neither, but it's a whole 'nother dialect.

As a hobby, Lee is compiling a lexicon of (East) Texanisms.

BTW, do / did y'all use _potentest_, pronounced like "pote-niss"? As
in: "She('s) just / jes'  the potentest thing (pote-niss thang)! =
"She's really cute / pretty /etc.!"?

That blows the mind of New Englanders!

-Wilson

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Bill Palmer<w_a_palmer at bellsouth.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> 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?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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: 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?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> 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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>>> header -----------------------
>>> 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:
>>>>> ---------------------- 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 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
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> 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
>>>>
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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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-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