flay / flea (and other "ea" words)

[Geoff Nathan]

If you live in Detroit you can't avoid it--it seems to have originated in the African American community, and it's sold at every craft fair in the area.

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> From: "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 12:14:50 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: flay / flea (and other "ea" words)
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: flay / flea (and other "ea" words)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> We discussed the strange history of "yeah" some time back. My
> interpretation
> is that the word of assent must go way back in speech, but I remain
> troubled
> by the startling paucity of clear-cut exx., no matter how spelled,
> before
> around 1900.
>
> I've never heard of "shea butter" either.
>
> JL
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> > Subject:      flay / flea (and other "ea" words)
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > In my Shakespeare class this morning, discussing _King Lear_, I got
> to
> > wondering out loud why the _Riverside Shakespeare_ , which professes
> to show
> > modernized spellings, gives the verb "flay" as "flea"--thereby
> ensuring that
> > most students will mispronounce and therefore misunderstand the
> word: "With
> > her nails / She'll flea thy wolvish visage" (1.4.307-08).
> >
> > I took the occasion (a "teachable moment," in the current cliche) to
> ask
> > the old favorite history-of-the-language "trivia" question:  What
> four
> > common current English words have that "ea" vowel spelling and
> preserve the
> > pronunciation /e/?
> >
> > The first answer proffered--to wide concurrence among the (female)
> > students--was "shea butter."  I had to be informed that the term
> designates
> > a substance or ingredient for skin softening.
> >
> > Gotta work on my vocabulary skills . . . .
> >
> > --Charlie
> >
> > P.S.  When we got to the word "yea," the students clamorously
> asserted that
> > the word is spelled "yay."  Of course, many of the traditional uses
> of "yea"
> > are obsolete, but is "yay" (so common in youthful e-mails as a
> general
> > signifier of approval or applause) the same word?  The OED is
> hesitant to
> > say so.  It's entry for the interjection "yay," marked "slang"
> (why?), says
> > "Phrh. f. 'yay' adv. [as in 'he is about yay tall'] used as an
> exclamation,
> > or f. 'yeah' adv. used similarly."  The adverb "yay," in turn, is
> said to be
> > "prob. f. 'yea.'"
> >
> > But isn't it more likely that the interjection "yay" comes directly
> from
> > "yea" (a resounding affirmation, the antonym of "nay") simply a
> variant
> > spelling, as my students intuited (the OED shows for "yea" about
> every
> > imaginable historical spelling except "yay"--including "yai"!)?  The
> OED's
> > earliest dating of the adverb "yay" is from 1960, whereas its
> earliest
> > dating of the interjection "yay" is from 1963.  But cheerleaderish
> "yay" is
> > easily traceable (in Google Books) back at least as far as 1921 (I
> haven't
> > searched very hard).
> > _____________________________________________________________
> >
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> >
>
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