Grammar Girl's "needs done" survey

[Eric Nielsen]

As a navy brat, I moved to--and alternately assimilated the speech patterns
of--Idaho, California, Scotland, South Carolina, and Connecticut before the
age of 11. At each new school the kids thought I talked funny--I  probably
still do.

When I worked in Scotland in my early-twenties I fell back into the local
dialect enough that when I was in London people thought I was Scottish.

Eric


On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 2:47 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Grammar Girl's "needs done" survey
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> All I know is, coming from Brooklyn, watching too much TV, getting an
> Ivy League education, and living most of my adult life in Europe left
> me with at least three distinct ways of speaking, depending on my
> audience and not including other alterations made for rhetorical
> purposes.
>
> I certainly don't know if anyone else can understand my situation.
>
> DanG
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Grammar Girl's "needs done" survey
> >
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> >
> > On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 1:45 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> >> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> >> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: Grammar Girl's "needs done" survey
> >>
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> >>
> >> At 9/7/2011 01:16 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >>
> >>>On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 12:11 PM, Ben Zimmer
> >>><bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
> >>> > with folksy dropped g
> >>>
> >>>You mean "with the standard dropped g of Black English, Southern
> >>>English, Southwestern English, Western English, etc.," of course.
> >>>
> >>>When you make a point of describing Obama's speech as "folksy," here,
> >>>you make it appear that you think that his use of "dropped g" is
> >>>unnatural or artificial, that he's merely faking it in order to appear
> >>>down with the common people or some such thing.
> >>>
> >>>OTOH, if you had written "with gutless dropped g," implying an effort
> >>>on Obama's part not to appear to be too erudite, hence too uppity or
> >>>too biggity, lest he annoy any Republicans who may have condescended
> >>>to concern themselves with what he had to say, well, naturally, I'd
> >>>gladly cosign that.
> >>
> >> How did he pronounce " rebuildin' " when he was at Harvard?
> >>
> >> Joel
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> > Judging by the manner in which my own speech changes - white roommates
> > from MIT and Harvard: "We can always tell when you're talking to one
> > of your [black] friends on the telephone, because the way that you
> > talk completely changes!" - my WAG is that, surrounded by white people
> > and under standard temperature and pressure, he probably monitored the
> > living shit out of his speech and used "building." But it's a real
> > motherfucker, trying to maintain that shit at all times and a nigger
> > can't help but occasionally be slipping up. Know what I'm saying?
> >
> > BTW, you've no doubt noticed that Obama talks a lot less white than
> > Colin Powell does. Of course, Powell doesn't have the advantage of an
> > Ivy League background, probably has to go all the way back to old
> > master in order to find any purely-European ancestry and is most
> > definitely, by his own admission an Affirmative-Action baby. Hence, he
> > probably feels much greater preaaure not to come off sounding like
> > some random, ignorant-assed nigger in front of the white folk.
> >
> > Of course, I'm wasting my time here, explaining it to you, because, it
> > goes without saying, you already have a full understanding of what it
> > means to be a nigger in America, of course. Your question was clearly
> > meant only as a ploy to enable a nigger to go into this shit for the
> > benefit of white folk who don't possess your insight into the black
> > condition and, hence, lack any kind of understanding of this shit at
> > all.
> >
> > For that, I wants to thank you.
> >
> > --
> > -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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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