meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military history

[George Thompson]

John Wayne?  Nuts!

Fats Waller: One never knows, do one?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, January 28, 2010 3:55 pm
Subject: Re: meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military history
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> One of the most memorable quotes turning on the word "do" (though not
> in the
> meaniningless sense) is in John Wayne's much adored/maligned movie of
> _The
> Alamo) (1960).
>
> A pair of illiterates face instant, obvious, and inescapable death:
>
> I. A.:  Do this mean what I think it do?
>
> I. B: It do!
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 2:39 PM, Geoff Nathan <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Geoff Nathan <geoffnathan at WAYNE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military
> >              history
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I will not get into the historical debates on this, but can
> recommend an
> > interesting take that our local syntax/semantics reading group
> wrestled our
> > way through this week.  It's not well-written but has an interesting
> > semantics-based argument for indigenous development:
> >
> > DEBRA ZIEGELER (2004) Reanalysis in the history of do: A view from
> > construction grammar Cognitive Linguistics 15–3, 529–574
> >
> > Geoffrey S. Nathan
> > Faculty Liaison, C&IT
> > and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
> > +1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
> > +1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)
> >
> > ----- "Amy West" <medievalist at W-STS.COM> wrote:
> >
> > > From: "Amy West" <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > > Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 2:09:49 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> >  > Subject: meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military
> > history
> > >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> > > Subject:      meaningless-do from Welsh and medieval English military
> > > history
> > >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > I've been reading the first chapter of McWhorter's _Our Magnificent
> > > Bastard Tongue_   where he lays out the argument for meaningless-do
> > > coming into English from Welsh. (As a medievalist I bristle at his
> > > characterizations of the Middle Ages.) The part of the argument
> > > dealing with why it doesn't show up in writing until the 1300s is,
> I
> > > think, tortured and unnecessarily convoluted. My suggestion is that
> > > it doesn't show up until then because that's about when it entered
> > > Middle English. I think it is more likely related to England's
> > > occupation and conquest of Wales in the 1200s and the use of Welsh
> > > troops  in English campaigns from that point on (Adam Chapman of U
> of
> > > Southampton has been investigating the Welsh soldiers in the English
> > > armies) than to the Anglo-Saxon settling of England in the 400s-500s.
> > > I can buy meaningless-do coming in from Welsh. I just can't buy it
> > > not being reflected in the written language for hundreds of years.
> > >
> > > ---Amy West
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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