Heard on [adult swim]: "clique" > [klik]

[Arnold Zwicky]

On May 20, 2009, at 5:52 PM, i wrote:
>>
>> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Wilson Gray
>> Sent: Wed 5/20/2009 2:38 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject:      Re: Heard on [adult swim]: "clique" > [klik]
>>
>> ... As ("... among the young"?! I'm 72, the approximate age of
>> everyone
>> who was in high school ca. 1950-1954) claims found in books, how does
>> a person decide whether some claim is prescriptive untruth, whereas
>> another random published claim is descriptive truth?
>
> the "among the young" is a piece of a quotation from me.  which merely
> said that it was very widespread among the young in the U.S., *not
> that* it occurred only there, or even mostly there, and is consistent
> with the variant being very widespread in many other groups (as i
> believe it is).

an addendum to say something about why i responded to wilson's posting
on "clique" in the first place.  if wilson had merely said that he
hadn't heard the [i] variant before, that it was new to him, would
have been no problem.  but instead his posting had a tone of
disbelieving astonishment, which i think is inappropriate for a
dialect scholar.  so i cited some of the material, historical,
descriptive, and prescriptive on the matter.  not all that there is,
just what i dredged up in about a half hour of searching -- which, i
add, wilson could have done for himself.

arnold

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