Singer/finger

[Tom Zurinskas]

The "ng" aint no big thing.  The real problem is the lack of realization of the preceding vowel.http://tinyurl.com/bmem7ll

Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, Tenn 3, NJ 33, now Fl 9.
See how English spelling links to sounds at http://justpaste.it/ayk


 > 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Singer/finger
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Jim Parish <jparish at siue.edu> wrote:
> 
> > A discussion on another list has raised a question in my mind. Are there
> > English dialects that do not make the /N/ - /Ng/ distinction, as in
> > "singer" vs. "finger"?
> >
> 
> The distinction wasn't made in the BE of my childhood in East Texas. Both
> "singer" and "finger" had only [N]. Everywhere else, black speakers *used
> to* make the standard distinction: si[N]er vs. fi[Ng]er But, that's
> definitely not true, anymore. Where I live now, in Northeast Pennsylvania,
> the major HMO is Geisinger, Inc. In one of the local TV ads, a white
> spokesmodel pronounces the name of the firm as "Gei[s]i[N]er." In the other
> TV ad, a black spokesmodel pronounces the name of the firm as
> "Gei[s]i[Ng]er." This is the only difference in dialect between the two
> models.
> 
> Of course, the correct pronunciation is "Gei[z]i[N]er." ;-)
> 
> I'm 76. So, this wholesale replacement of [N} by [Ng] in BE is a phenomenon
> that seems to have come out of nowhere for no reason. The Academy should
> have banned this annoyance from the literary form of the dialect back in
> the '70's, long before it became common enough to annoy me, {Yes. I now
> understand my grandparents' absolute refusal ever to use any word other
> than "wheel" for the kind of velocipede that had come to be commonly
> referred to as a "bicycle" in my childhood.] Perhaps - and, at best, this
> rises only to the level of a WAG - the driving force behind this change is
> rap and hip-hop. Nearly every rapper from anywhere in the country, using my
> laughingly-meager collection of about twenty hip-hop/rap sides on my iTunes
> as my source, has replaced [N] with {Ng]. But this tiny collection does
> include speakers from Saint Louis, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Oakland,
> Washington, DC, Baltimore, New York, Norfolk, and Philadelphia.
> 
> Before rap became hip, I'd heard only a single black speaker, an Army buddy
> from Wake County, NC, fail to use [N] in "singer."
> 
> Wonder whether Marshall, Texas, has switched from "si[N]er, fi[N]er" to
> "si[Ng]er, fi[Ng]er."
> 
> Youneverknow.
> --
> -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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