Yags: the story thus far

[Larry Trask]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Kevin Tuite writes:

>  Also from Britain is a type of "-a/e+s/z name slang especially
>  prevalent in the '80s", by which Charles becomes "Chas" and Nigel is "Nezz"
>  (mentioned by Jasmin Harvey).

Indeed, though such formations are far from dead.  My name is 'Larry',
and I am often addressed as 'Laz' or 'Lazza' by my British friends.
My British wife addresses her best friend, Marian, as 'Maz' or 'Mazza'.
The British politician Michael Heseltine is commonly referred to as
'Hezza' in the satirical magazine Private Eye -- though I doubt that
his friends call him this.

I think this may be Australian, too, since I've encountered Australian
'Bazza' for 'Barry', at least in print.

Of course, my friends and I, like the editors of Private Eye, are not
young people -- though I doubt most of us would think of ourselves
as '80s people.  I'm more of a '50s person, I think -- especially
in my deeply fossilized American English, which is only occasionally
updated by new Americanisms passed on to me by my wife, who watches
Frasier and ER.

When I was a kid, absolutely everybody pronounced the /hw/ in words like
'white' and 'why', and so I learned to do this too.  Years later, my
mother noticed that my younger brothers were omitting the /h/ in these
words, and she condemned this new style as "sloppy".  But now I've
been joined at Sussex by a younger American colleague, and she tells
me that she considers the use of /hw/ to be "pretentious".

I think I could cope with a slightly more stately pace of linguistic
change.


Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: 01273-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: 01273-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)