dialect in the comics

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> I agree that "Dade" isn't right for "dead" in Mississipean. Â Call me
> over-charitable, but I assumed the _day-ed_ phonetic spelling was
> intended to be understood as "day" followed immediately by "Ed" (or
> "ed" as in editor), so very close to "day-id", and not at all close
> to "Dade".
>

'Ey, Lair! Whut up?

Yes, I agree with you. By adding the winking smiley, I attempted to
convey that my preference was entirely whimsical. When I compare -id
to -ed, in this case, I can't claim that any choice made between the
two spellings is other than right arbitrary. I'm not consciously aware
of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if deep therapy disclosed that my
choice was affected by my prior, long-term relationship with "da_i_d."
Like, all that's required is the insertion of _y_: "dayid."

Perhaps the inventor of _daid_ was taught, as I was, that the name of
the the letter _A a_, [eI], is its canonical pronunciation, obviating
the need for a _y_ in giving a spelling to [deI.Id].

Youneverknow.

--
-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

Once we recognize that we do not err out of laziness, stupidity,
or evil intent, we can uncumber ourselves of the impossible burden of
trying to be permanently right. We can take seriously the proposition
that we could be in error, without necessarily deeming ourselves
idiotic or unworthy.
–Kathryn Schulz

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