Heard on The Judges: intune = "overhear"; a comment on ahruh.

[Wilson Gray]

The Bible says something about noticing the mote in one's neighbor's eye
while missing the beam in one's own eye. That was, for most of my life, my
attitude toward both implosion and twang: these are features peculiar to the
speech of hill-billies. Black speakers neither implode nor twang. That's
cracker-talk and *we* don't talk that way.
At the 1973 LSA summer institute, C.-J. Bailey asked me about implosion as a
feature of black speech. I had not not the slightest idea what he was
talking about, since, to the extent that I had ever given any conscious
thought to implosion, it was WRT to certain IPA symbols necessary for the
representation of random foreign, ah, I mean, "alien" or "international"
languages, of course, brought to my attention in Phonetics 101.

In an effort to clear up my confusion, Bailey proceeded to illustrate his
question by pronouncing "boy" with an implosive _b_.

Of course, at that point, I immediately understood to what speech-phenomenon
it was that he referred. Nevertheless, I was completely taken aback.
Stunned, even. Implosion a feature of *black* speech?!!! Surely, he did but
jest! It fair ain't no days like that! Why, implosion, ahruh-fulness, and
twang are the features by which the colored distinguish the better class of
Southern white folks from the
ret-to-kill-a-nigger-without-giving-it-a-second-thought po' whites upon
whose narrow, hunched shoulders the Southern white aristocracy rests the
pillars of racism.

Well, to conclude this brief excursion into autobiography, from hearing
myself on tapes, I know that I personally do speak with a [tw&IN], just as
Southern white folk do. Unfortunately, in my personal experience, whether
from listening to old-time country or urban speaking and singing or from
hearing black people of all social classes from, e.g. where the Southern
cross the Dawg to natives of Minneapolis, Philly, L.A., Saint Louis, etc.,
speak in person, I remain completely unaware of implosion as a salient
feature of *any* BE lect of any kind, as astounding as this may seem to
white people familiar with the phenomenon from reading about it or from
actually hearing it.

Perhaps I am, in my own way, similar to my friend who, in unmonitored
speech, *always* uses. e.g. "skreek" for "street." However, if you bring
this feature of his idiolect to his attention, he will say "street" as
easily and as clearly as anyone else would and deny *vehemently* that he has
ever in his life used any such pronunciation as "skreek."

A consequence of this is that there's no way to discuss the phenomenon with
him, since, for him, there is no evidence of its existence.

And <sigh!> that's also the case here.

-Wilson


On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 12:29 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Heard on The Judges: intune = "overhear"; a comment on
> ahruh.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson,
>
> Do you know anything about implosives in Southern Black English?
> William Stewart made mention of them in a 1966 paper, and I know they
> occur in other Southern varieties from Texas across to North Carolina.
>
> Herb
>
> On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 7:36 PM, 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:      Heard on The Judges: intune = "overhear"; a comment on
> ahruh.
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Fifty-ish, black,female speaker:
> >
> > "I saw [the defendant] conversating with my ex-husband. So, I
> > approached them till I was close enough to _intune_ what they was
> > saying."
> >
> >
> > Very likely, a nonce-form invented on the spot. But, you never know. I
> > once thought the same about _conversate_.
> >
> >
> > I've had occasion to hear cases involving black farmers from Georgia
> > and some involving white farmers from Mississippi. All speakers were
> > r-ful / rhotic! Is ahruh-lessness dying out, even down home?
> >
> > -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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org