strong enough = 'able'

[Jonathan Lighter]

>FWIW, I read _strong_ as being used here ironically to mean
"(intellectually) weak" or "stupid."

This interpretation seems to me unlikely, because the speaker's tone was one
of amusement but not, I think, of irony.  He seemed to think that if Hamlet
had killed Claudius right off, he'd have saved himself a lot of trouble
later. It would have improved the play. But who's to say?

As for "ghos'," my point was to emphasize the informal,
working-class quality of the longer utterance from which the ex. was
lifted.  If he'd said, for example, "I'm gonna," I'da wrote "gonna" too.
Even though we both have an underlying "going to."

JL



On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 11:11 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: strong enough = 'able'
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > "'Cause if you strong enough to believe in _ghos'_, you strong enough to
> > believe what _ghos'_ say!"
>
> This attempt at eye-phonetics make it appear that the speaker is using
> the singular, "ghost," in the singular in an environment in which a
> whiter and/or more-educated speaker would use the plural, "ghosts."
>
> This is by no means the case. The speaker has /gosts/ underlyingly,
> just any other native-speaker of English has. If eye-dialect has to be
> used - and here it clearly doesn't have to be, since the question
> isn't about pronunciation - _ghos's_ is the way to go. This
> more-or-less better represents [gows:] with a long final [s:] < /sts/.
> Cf. The Bee-Gees' use of word-final [s:] in their song, Massachusetts,
> wherein [s:] is from /ts/, in whose I was surprised to hear it. OTOH,
> /st, ts, sts/ --> [s:] is regular in BE in all registers, unless, as
> your humble correspondent is wont to do, the speaker is attempting to
> speak to a white person in his own language.
>
> FWIW, I read _strong_ as being used here ironically to mean
> "(intellectually) weak" or "stupid."
>
> Otherwise, there's no particular reason to laugh. YMMV.
>
> Besides, _able_ is usually used to mean "able," as in the fixed phrase,
>
> "Everybody ain't able."
>
> Roughly,
>
> "Not everybody has the money / the intelligence / the intestinal
> fortitude / the luck / the muscle / the strength of character or other
> ability such that he can do a deed like that."
>
> --
> -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
>
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