[Ads-l] It's an intrusive L!

[Wilson Gray]

For dekkids, I've heard Fats Domino sing:

I'm walking to New Orleans
New Orleans is my home
That's the reason, while I'm going
I'm walking to New Orleans

And, during that time, I've attempted to winkle out to meaning of the third
line,

"That's the reason, _while_ I'm going."

In a sudden, blazing flash of insight, I've come to realize that what we
have here is a failure to recognize the insertion of an intrusive L to
break up the hiatus between the preceding (IPA) [a] of "why" and the
following (IPA) [a] of "I," instead of the more-common intrusive R or even
the nearly-standard glo?al onset/glo?al catch. Hence, the correct reading
of the third line is,

"That's the reason _why_ I'm going."

It's obvious.

-- 
-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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org