Enit?

[David Gene Lewis]

Ownership- perhaps I used the wrong word, but Jeffrey's original statement
said something like "enit is non-native" which I believe implies some
degree of ownership. However there is likely to be a better way to term
this concept. He may have meant origin or origination is his statement.
This does not discredit my assertation that the social context would
really determine a word's meaning.
David

 On Wed, 23 Jun 1999, Mike Cleven wrote:

> At 10:21 AM 6/23/99 -0700, David Gene Lewis wrote:
> >I disagree that the word enit is non-native, I would think the social
> >context would truly determine the meaning of the word. The native use of
> >the word would be different from the non-native use and would have
> >phenomenological connections which do not exist in the non-native world. I
> >have heard this word used extensively on the reservations in Oregon and I
> >do not always understand what is meant. What ever the origin of the word,
> >that would not necessarily determine the word ownership. Besides it is
> >hard for me to make a firm determination of origination over e-mail.
>
> I'm not sure I've ever heard of a language being "owned"; except by
> chauvinists, that is.  Do Jargonists 'own' the phrases "from the sticks" or
> "he's a skookum guy", or "he's some kind of high muckamuck from the
> government"?
>
> Anyway, there's another "variant" of this in B.C., perhaps definable as a
> subset of the Canadian habit of mumbling and muttering instead of clearly
> articulating consonants; "i(d)nit" where the 'd' is passed over "within"
> the 'n'.
>