Unemployment lingo

[Dave Hause]

I haven't noticed a racial difference but it seems to me that Ft. Leonard
Wood is a fair bit whiter than the Army as a whole, so your second
explanation seems likely.
Dave Hause
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, March 09, 2009 11:01 AM
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:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dave Hause <dwhause at JOBE.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Unemployment lingo
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> FWIW, this may have been originally primarily military:  during  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;  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.  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;  I believe the same thing
> happened
> after WWII and Korea.  Locally (Ft. Leonard Wood, MO), I hear people who
> have undergone this describe themselves as having been "rifted" rather
> than
> "riffed."  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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