Unemployment lingo

[Jocelyn Limpert]

I used to hear it more often used by blacks simply because they comprise so
much of the DC government work force -- and you'd mainly hear it from those
with the lower grade jobs, but not always. The worst thing I've heard in DC
in recent years is the all too common use of "conversate" -- and used
frequently and when trying to speak so-called "proper English"!

On 3/9/09, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Unemployment lingo
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Are the people who use "rifted" black? Use of doubled past endings
> like "riffed-ed" is liked-ed in BE. Of course, speakers could
> re-analyzing "riffed" as "rift," so "rifted" wouldn't be a doubled
> past, in that case.
>
> -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
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 9:04 PM, Dave Hause <dwhause at jobe.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Â  Â  Â  Dave Hause <dwhause at JOBE.NET>
> > Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Unemployment lingo
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > FWIW, this may have been originally primarily military: Â during Â
> Vietnam, a
> > fair number of career enlisted men had gone through officer candidate
> school
> > because the tradtional West Point and ROTC production wasn't keeping up
> with
> > the mortality for second lieutenant platoon leaders; Â survivors got
> promoted
> > up to about major during the war, but as the force shrunk, many of these
> > didn't have the education the Army wanted. Â The reduction in force then
> > didn't totally force people out but many reverted to their previous
> enlisted
> > grades to remain until they could retire; Â I believe the same thing
> happened
> > after WWII and Korea. Â Locally (Ft. Leonard Wood, MO), I hear people who
> > have undergone this describe themselves as having been "rifted" rather
> than
> > "riffed." Â Happens with the civil service work force now, rather than
> the
> > military.
> > Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net
> > Waynesville, MO
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Herb Stahlke" <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> > To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 5:38 PM
> > Subject: Re: Unemployment lingo
> >
> >
> > I've heard RIF mostly from teachers and local school boards.
> >
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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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