[Ads-l] Children's speech sprinkled into serious adult discourse: Gulfie

[Jonathan Lighter]

In this case, "Gulfi" and "Gulfie" may be inextricably entwined in the
orthographic unconscious.



JL



On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 12:41 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Jun 29, 2017, at 12:32 PM, Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU> wrote:
> >
> > I would also consider the context, which includes "Saudis", "Emiratis",
> and "Qataris". Could the Arabic suffix be playing a (subconscious?) role?
> >
> > Jim Parish
>
> So then rather than “Gulfie”, as in the transcript Jerry provided, or
> “Gulf-y” with the adjectival -y suffix as I argued for, it should really be
> “Gulfi”.  Maybe so.
>
> Maybe the Pentagon consultant wishes he (or she) wasn’t involved in
> Saudi-Qatari Gulfi squabbles but instead enjoying some wine and pasta on
> the Amalfi coast.
>
> LH
> >
> >
> > On 6/29/2017 11:08 AM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
> >> An example of children's speech appearing for effect in an entirely
> serious conversation is "Gulfie" (i.e., the Arabian Gulf); small children
> often add the -ee sound to nouns to indicate something diminutive and/or
> endearing, e.g. piggy.  A Pentagon consultant, upset at the effort of the
> Saudis to isolate and blockade U.S. ally Qatar, said: 'This isn't just some
> kind of Gulfie dust-up, where we can go out and hold everyone's hands...
> .The Saudis have handed the Iranians a gift and we're on the outside
> looking in.'
> >>
> >>      The quote appears in the next-to-last paragraph of the following
> article:          http://www.theamericanconservative.com/
> articles/tillerson-and-mattis-cleaning-up-kushners-middle-east-mess/
> >>
> >> 'The full paragraph says:
> >>
> >> 'The Saudis and Emiratis have told us repeatedly that they want to
> weaken Iran, but they've actually empowered them," a senior Pentagon
> consultant who works on the Middle East told me. The Saudi actions, this
> official went on to explain, have backfired. Instead of intimidating the
> Qataris, the Saudis have "thrown them into the arms of the Iranians." The
> result is an uneasy, but emerging Turkish-Qatari-Iranian alliance backed by
> Russia. "This isn't just some kind of Gulfie dust-up, where we can go out
> and hold everyone's hands," this Pentagon consultant says. "The Saudis have
> handed the Iranians a gift and we're on the outside looking in."'
> >>
> >> G. Cohen
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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