Bad Taste Breakthrough! PLUS New Phoneme! (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

By my count, even "bip" contains three significant contrastive sounds, Three
phonemes.

A vocal imitation of an electronic "beep" (more like "eeeee" actually, but
audibly distinct in pitch from / I / or even / I:: /)  contains just one.

JL

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 11:40 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <
Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: Bad Taste Breakthrough! PLUS New Phoneme! (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
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> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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>
> So if Rowan and Martin had said, "You bet your sweet bip" then it would
> be okay for William Shatner to talk S#*!.  As it is, Shatner is a
> trailblazer and edgy.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> > Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
> > Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 10:30 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>  > Subject: Re: Bad Taste Breakthrough! PLUS New Phoneme! (UNCLASSIFIED)
> >
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Bad Taste Breakthrough! PLUS New Phoneme!
> > (UNCLASSIFIED)
> >
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > --------
> >
> > "Bippy" has too many sounds to be a phoneme. It's a lexeme, and
> they've
> > always been a dime a dozen.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 10:36 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <
> > Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> > > Subject:      Re: Bad Taste Breakthrough! PLUS New Phoneme!
> > (UNCLASSIFIED)
> > >
> > >
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ----------
> > >
> > > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> > > Caveats: NONE
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
> > > > Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
> > > > Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 7:27 AM
> > > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > > > Subject: Re: Bad Taste Breakthrough! PLUS New Phoneme!
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Pronounced the same as _S#*!_ ?
> > > >
> > > > No kidding, if people do start saying (*Beep!*) to euphemize
> > certain
> > > > monosyllables, it will have become a phoneme of English.
> > >
> > > As did "bippy" -- "you bet your sweet bippy", from Laugh-In, late
> > 1960s.
> > >
> > > >
> > > > A very bizarre one, but a phoneme nonetheless.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> > > Caveats: NONE
> > >
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> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> > truth."
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> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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