Terlet

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Yes, Joel's question is a sensible one and is basically the same one I have been asking about the "hypercorrection" scenario. It seems more probable to me that there is what Jonathan termed "lightly articulated" r-coloring that is variably present all along. The key factor is in the ears of the stereotyping outsider-hearers, not the mouths of the dialect speakers.    (Of course, our dialects do not tell us to say anything, our brains do.)
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-----Original Message-----
From: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
Date:         Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:28:27
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] Terlet

I think I was unclear.  If someone's dialect told him instead of
"toylet" to say "terlit" *and* he was a-rhotic, what would he say
instead?  It was half a joke and half a question if there was any
such pronuciation.

Joel

At 3/22/2010 10:40 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>My grandfather absolutely had a rhotic element in "terlet" (and "erl") as
>well as in "boid" and "thoity-thoid."  In fact, "boid" and "thoid" don't
>*look* anything like they sounded. The intial vowel (or part of the
>diphthong) was, as Larry suggests, / ^ /, perhaps slightly fronted.
>
>The "r" in question, however, was not maximally articulated.
>
>I remember making the Archie Bunker connection the evening the show
>premiered. It may be that I've never heard a closer approximation of my
>grandfather's phonology in the media - and rarely in real life.
>
>JL
>
>
>
>On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 10:05 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      Re: Terlet
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 9:55 AM -0400 3/22/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > >At 3/22/2010 09:45 AM, Paul Johnston wrote:
> > >>Used to be New York City/Brooklyn/Hudson County, NJ as a
> > >>hypercorrection, reflecting the verse/voice (or bird/Boyd) merger.  I
> > >>have heard it, but only from really old speakers.
> > >
> > >What would an a-rhotic Brooklynite say?
> > >
> > >Joel
> >
> > My impression is that the merger yields something closer to [t^ilIt]
> > or [b^id], with a central onset, but "boyd" is as close as the
> > standard orthography lets us get, so the stereotype ends up "boyd"
> > and doesn't represent the centralized (and non-rounded) onset of
> > "toilet".  But then there's probably a lot of variation on the exact
> > location of the diphthong.
> >
> > LH
> >
> > >
> > >>Paul Johnston
> > >>On Mar 21, 2010, at 4:17 PM, Sam Clements wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > >>>-----------------------
> > >>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > >>>Poster:       Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
> > >>>Subject:      Terlet
> > >>>----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>>---------
> > >>>
> > >>>From what dialect/region would one find the word "terlet" to mean =
> > >>>"toilet?"
> > >>>
> > >>>Sam Clements
> > >>>
> > >>>------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >>
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> >
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> >
>
>
>
>--
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>
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