the facts on file dictionary of american regionalisms

[...]... there are at least five regional pronunciations, one as good as the other, these including the second syllable with the vowel of hurry; with the vowel of hat; with the vowel of hit; with the vowel of hate; and with the vowel of put There is no all -American pronunciation of American Similarly, many provincial Americans voted against what H L Mencken sarcastically called the caressing rayon voice” of. .. belonging to the East Anglians.” “Proper” London English of the 18th century influenced Tidewater Southern speech more than that of most American regions for the obvious reason that these Southerners (like Bostonians and New Yorkers) were from earliest times in closer contact with England than were other parts of the country This contact led the wealthy gentry in the region to ape fashionable Londoners down... a pamphlet called A Dictionary of Charlestonese “to assist sloppy talkers from other sections of the country to understand Charlestonians.” He defines cholmondely (pronounced chumley) as the brick thing on a Virginia Tidewater, a pleasing, soft dialect with little nasalization, has long been associated with the most aristocratic of Southerners It prevails along the coast from the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia... in other words, the voice of the people, in the last analysis, must decide and determine the voice of the people.” The only thing even approximating a standard in America is the speech of the best or most educated speakers of a region No one has ever found (or probably will find) the “perfect,” “proper” or “natural” speech I WHISTLIN’ DIXIE: SOUTHERN WAYS OF SPEECH S outherners were proud of their... As far as; the farthest “That’s all the far I all the fast can do it.” As fast as; the fastest “That’s all the fast I all the high As high as; the highest “That’s all the high I can jump.” all the longer As long as; the longest “Is that all the longer you’re staying here in West Virginia?” all the more As much as; the most; all “That’s all the more I know.” all the smaller As small as; the smallest... in southern Illinois, they are no better than the educated and uneducated speakers who pronounce greasy as greecy in the northern part of that state Linguist Raven I McDavid Jr told of how his stodgy college professors, literally interpreting the pronunciations indicated in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, fifth edition, criticized his educated South Carolinian pronunciation of the word American; ... down to their way of talking, a habit that remained long after their days of glory and one that, in turn, was copied from them by the plainer folk But while Southern seaport and plantation-owner speech was largely modeled on London English, inland speech had little chance of blending into a broad regional usage because of cultural isolation, thus resulting in the great diversity of local usages in the. .. time during the interview In fact, one of the touchstones often used by Southerners to distinguish the genuine cultured speaker from the pretenders is that the latter are too socially insecure to know the proper occasions for using ain’t, the double negative, and other such folk forms, and hence avoid them altogether.” Then again, some educated people in other regions use ain’t I? in place of am I not?,... Among the most amusing examples is the expression a fade barn that the editors of the Dictionary of American Regional English tried to track down for a couple of years The editors knew that the expression existed because field interviews had recorded it in North Carolina without establishing its meaning When a Raleigh newspaper joined in the search, the answer was quickly apparent Dozens of correspondents... upon acorns acorn tree A synonym for the oak tree across -the- track Poor or low-quality, as in “They’re across -the- track [or tracks] people.” It is probably based on the wrong side of the tracks, a common American expression used in the early 19th century when railroad tracks, which sometimes split a town in two, provided a clear social demarcation: well-to-do people living on the “right” side of the . alt="" the facts on file dictionary of a merican r egionalisms