[Ads-l] "Wemmin"

[Laurence Horn]

Then there’s the classic eye dialect spelling of “wimmin” for the plural—the idea being, I remember learning at some point, that (as with “wuz” in ”We wuz robbed”) if there *were* a non-standard pronunciation, the speaker being depicted would use it.  Is there a specific term for such phonologically vacuous non-standard spellings?  “Eye dialect” is more general, isn’t it?

LH

> On Jan 23, 2017, at 1:50 PM, Yagoda, Ben <byagoda at UDEL.EDU> wrote:
> 
> Never heard “wemmin,” but in country music the singular has long been pronounced along the lines of “waw-man.”
> 
> Ben
> 
>> On Jan 23, 2017, at 12:15 PM, Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>> 
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Marc Sacks <msacksg at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      "Wemmin"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Yesterday an acquaintance of mine noted an oddity in his own speech, namely
>> that he pronounces "women" as "wemmin." He doesn't know anybody else that
>> says the word that way and has no idea where he got the pronunciation.
>> Someone asked him if he was from nowthwestern Ohio; he's not. I asked him
>> if he pronounces "milk" as "melk" (I'm a Pittsburgher); nope.
>> 
>> Does any of you a region of the country where people talk about "wemmin,"
>> or is the poor guy on his own with this one?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Marc Sacks
>> 
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> 
> 
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