origin of dese dem dose in NYCE

Sun Feb 12 19:01:51 UTC 2012

Ah, but (and I love saying that) the German "deses" are in
representations of otherwise heavily accented immigrant English. (Just
as the AAVE equivalent is in heavily accented nonwhite speech.)

The classic NYC dese, dat, dis, dem, & dose (at least in print and in
the movies) appear in the speech of people who generally sound like
white Americans - if lowbrow.

BTW, during the Civil War, Germans were regarded as being roughly as
thickheaded as the Irish, if less entertaining.  Lovers of literature
will recall that Stephen Crane's Henry Fleming got bonked on the head
by a skedaddling German.

JL

On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 1:42 PM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: origin of dese dem dose in NYCE
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Does "wid" for "with" count?
>
>     [jokers on the Fulton Ferry begin a clamor of shouts typical of the
> old fire department:]  Another yelled =93Jump her, boys! Jump her!=94  Anot=
> her,
> =93Bust her! Let her go!  Yer goin asleep.=94  =93Turn on the water!=92  Tu=
> rn it
> off!=94  =93Lend us your bouquet-holder!  Give us a blast!  Hit him wid a
> spanner!=94
>     NY Commercial Advertiser, January 29, 1881, p. 3, col. 4
> (from my notes; I will look for earlier specimens there)
>
> Found by searching Proquest's 19th C periodicals and its file of NYTimes &
> NYTribune, for "dese" together with "bowery"
>
> [a little girl at a German's butcher's stall, with her dog]
> Vot you vants, Eh?  ***  Shoost a little liver?  Vell--  ***  And dere's a
> pone for de leetle tog.
> SATURDAY NIGHT IN THE BOWERY.
>
> *Christian Union (1870-1893); *Mar 29, 1871; 3, 13; American Periodicals
>
> pg. 206
>
>
> [the Rev. Charles E. Berger speaks, "in a loud, gutteral tone of voice" and
> a strong German accent}
> Dese honorable peebles vat vas in dis auditorium must know dat the [sic]
> church is only a deater; vhy, Henrich Vard Peecher preeches in a deater. .
> . .
>
> AN ORIGINAL AFTERPIECE: LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE IN A BOWERY MUSEUM
>
> *New York Times (1857-1922); *Nov 17, 1885; p. 2
>
> I didn't pursue this tactic fully.  The earliest "dese" seem to be from
> representations of German accents.  A lot of the results before I added
> "bowery" were from representations of southern black speech.  Many probable
> false matches, of course.
>
> GAT
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> My theory:
>>
>> If the Dutch SWAG goes back far enough (i.e., before the 1930s), the
>> Germans were overlooked for the following reasons:
>>
>> 1. A Dutch influence would be far from obvious, therefore especially
>> exotic, interesting, and romantic, and requiring the most ingenuity to
>> think of and appreciate.
>>
>> 2. It was pleasant to believe that the features in question were
>> wonderful, albeit annoying, holdovers from the nearly forgotten days
>> of Peter Minuit.
>>
>> 3. To believe otherwise would be to admit that recent immigrants might
>> be responsible and would thus be subverting the noble English tongue.
>>
>> 4. Hmmm. German immigrants..... Well, they were higher on the ethnic
>> applause-o-meter than the Irish, Jews, Italians, Poles, Russians,
>> Hungarians, Greeks, Chinese, Syrians, etc.   But if German and
>> Austrian immigrants (who obviously didn't have the Darwinian mojo to
>> make it in Central Europe) might be responsible, so might romantic,
>> ambitious, pioneering, sharp-trading Dutch settlers in their steepled,
>> pilgrim-style hats.
>>
>> 5. So it was the Dutch.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      Re: origin of dese dem dose in NYCE
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>> >
>> > As a matter of history, New Amsterdam was the only large Dutch
>> > settlement in North America. They had smaller villages on the
>> > Connecticut, Hudson and Delaware rivers: the Puritans threw them out
>> > off the Connecticut, the Swedes replaced them on the Delaware, only
>> > the Hudson River contingent remained after the British takeover.
>> > DanG
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Ronald Butters <ronbutters at aol.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Poster:       Ronald Butters <ronbutters at AOL.COM>
>> >> Subject:      Re: origin of dese dem dose in NYCE
>> >>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>> >>
>> >> Isn't it the case that this phenomenon is by no means confined to New =
> =3D
>> >> York? Did the Dutch settle Boston  and New Orleans too? And the =3D
>> >> situation is compounded by the fact that in syllable-final position,
>> one =3D
>> >> also hears [f].
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Feb 11, 2012, at 8:02 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> I am very confused. I was under the impression that the use of
>> >>> articles starting with a d instead of th started in NYC about 350
>> >>> years ago, when the town was called New Amsterdam. The Dutch never
>> >>> left, and I suspect their influence on the NY accent didn't, either.
>> >>>=3D20
>> >>> DanG
>> >>
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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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>
>
>
> --=20
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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