Dialect clash

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM
Thu Sep 18 13:45:52 UTC 2014


I assumed it meant, "It was extremely challenging to find her a place to
live."

Really.

JL

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 10:09 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: Dialect clash
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 10:40 AM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I would say this. There would be a pause between bear and finding,
> > indicating the start of a new phrase. It only doesn't work when you write
> > it down.
> >
>
> The dialect clash lies the fact that, for some speakers, mainly black
> and/or Southern,
>
> It was a bear = There was a bear
>
> So,
>
> It was a bear, finding her a place to live
>
> doesn't change anything. But, of course, in real life, hearing my friend's
> Northern accent would have reset my internal grammar in time to preclude
> any misunderstanding.
>
> --
> -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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