Midland (was "anymore" = "not previously but now")

[Wilson Gray]

Thanks, Gordon!

As coincidence would have it, I have a very good friend from Erie. He
introduced me to such forms as, e.g. "The clothes need washed." My
wife tries to avoid using these, but she never notices when *I* use
them.

-Wilson

On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 11:00 PM, Gordon, Matthew J.
<GordonMJ at missouri.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Midland (was "anymore" = "not previously but now")
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In traditional dialectology (e.g. Kurath) the NE corner of PA (including Scranton) was part of the Northern dialect region and more recently Labov's Atlas of North American English finds it still to be. Interestingly, on the other end of the state, Erie PA seems to switching its regional allegiance from Northern to Midland.
>
> - Matt Gordon
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Wilson Gray [hwgray at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 4:19 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: "anymore" = "not previously but now"
>
> Where, exactly, is Midlands speech located? As a person whose academic
> knowledge of the dialectology of the U.S. is best described as
> "trivial" (my college linguistics prof thought that we would be more
> open-minded and less opinionated WRT the "proper" linguistic forms, if
> we studied the dialectology of the Bantu language family, instead), it
> seems to me that the term, "Midlands," in view of its "obvious"
> meaning, *ought* to exclude the speech-area extending from Scranton,
> PA to, but probably not including, Albany, NY.
>
> I've googled the term, of course, but the name of my hometown, Saint
> Louis, had its own little section. So, I read that part - FWIW, I
> consider it to be accurate - and skimmed the rest, without finding any
> clear definition of "Midlands" that would exclude NE PA.
>
> BTW, _youse_ is alive and well among ordinary folk, around these
> parts. E.g., waitstaff routinely ask, "What'll yooz ( _oo_ as in
> "book") have?" or "How may we serve yooz?" There appears to be a class
> distinction, since my wife never uses this form and considers it
> "uneducated."
>
> -Wilson
>
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>



--
-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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