[Ads-l] /hud/

[Paul A Johnston, Jr]

When I lived in the Chicago suburbs as a boy (1956-64), /hud/ was the name for any sort of juvenile delinquent (or more likely, wannabe j. d.--the town was too "Leave It To Beaver"-ish to have many real hoods.  But it was always /hud/,never /hUd/, which is what you wore on top of a parka in the winter.  I've never met anyone else who used this pronunciation.

Paul

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jonathan Lighter" <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 8:57:02 AM
> Subject: /hud/
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      /hud/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I was surprised - no, startled - thirty-odd years ago when I first
> heard a Chicagoan pronounce "hood" (hoodlum; dangerous  criminal)
> with
> the vowel of "too."
> 
> Back where I come from, "hoodlum" has that vowel, but "hood"  never
> does.
> 
> The point of all this is that the 1930 movie _Doorway to Hell_,
> starring Lew Ayres as Chicago's top mobster, employs the / u /
> pronunciation:
> 
> "You better take your /hudz/ out of Rocco's territory."
> 
> JL
> 
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> 
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