[Linganth] Substitute x for y

[Patrick, Peter L]

>
> Re fish & chips twice.  Galey asks "Is there any item like fish and
chips
> which comes with an non-countable and a countable?"  I can't
immediately
> think of an English English example

The Jamaican staple "rice and peas".
Though Jamaican Creole has variable plural inflection with -s,
it would sound strange to me to leave off the -s in "peas" here -
which suggests that it is also a frozen item (not that I've
ever eaten, or would eat, frozen rice an peas!)...


>>But my most disappointing ordering experience was asking for a bitter
in
>>a pub and getting a Miller. (damned alveolar flap!)

As an American living in England I have tried to accommodate -- "out,
damned
flap!" and in with the glottals -- so that I can get what I order in a
pub.
But there are a few individuals who simply know in advance, or at any
rate
as soon as they hear a N American accent feature, what you really want,
regardless of what you say. I had the same sort of exchange as Alex last
week, except I said "bitter" three times in constant response to the
other
person's "lager". I can't see how this confusion could be linguistic -
it's
just that Americans are well known to only want lager (just as we all
want
ice in our drinks regardless of the season...), so that's what he wanted
to give me...

	-peter patrick-

Dept of Language and Linguistics
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK

E:  patrickp at essex.ac.uk
Ph:  +44 (0) 1206 87.2088
Web: privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp