Terlet

[Jonathan Lighter]

My grandfather, born in Manhattan in 1884, unaffectedly used all of these
forms - to the extent that conventional orthography can represent them.  He
never lived in any other borough.

I believe I mentioned long ago that his pronunciations were remarkably like
Archie Bunker's. Carrol O'Connor was a great screen exponent of white,
working-class NYC dialect.

JL

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 6:00 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Terlet
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Years ago, when I lived in NYC, I specifically remember someone using =
> the word "berld" in a sentence of the sort "I berld an egg."
> I think he lived in Queens, and he was speaking naturally.
> =20
> Original message from Laurence Horn, Sun 3/21/2010 3:40 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Terlet
>
> <snip>
>  Presumably, there's hypercorrection going on:  if you're aware that
> your "boids" are supposed to be "birds", you'll turn your toilets
> into "terlets".  Again, this is all stereotypical, and I have no idea
> how much of it is based on reality.
>
> LH
>
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