Geddadavit?
« previous post | next post »
From John Allison's Scary Go Round for 12/23/2016:
I'm trying to reconcile two apparently-incompatible pieces of knowledge, while simultaneously admitting to a scandalously inadequate knowledge of British dialectology:
- "Flapping and voicing" (as in liter==leader and at all==ad all) is an American characteristic
- Eye dialect of British origin often has things like get out of it==geddadavit
I get that there's a class difference between the sort of people who pronounce the /t/ in Peter as a voiceless unaspirated stop (so that it almost sounds like "pizza" to Americans), and the sort of people who pronounce it as a glottal stop.
But where does get out==geddout come in? Is it that the glottal stoppers do flapping and voicing of intervocalic /t/ before word boundaries? That would provide part of the explanation for "innit". Or is get out==geddout a different group entirely?
There's doubtless an extensive literature on this question, probably going back to Henry Sweet, but I seem to have missed it somehow.
Update — Responding to Sidney Wood in the comments:
It's plausible that some of the settlers of North American brought flapping and voicing with them. What I'd like to understand, and don't, is the historical, geographical, and social interaction among flapping, voicing, glottalization, and deletion of non-onset /t/, and the relation to lenition phenomena for other places and manners of articulation.
And Jarek Weckworth offers a partial answer from Wells (1982: 324-5) — which I ought to have checked:
"Indeed, there is another variant which also has a strong claim to be considered 'typically Cockney', namely the voiced tap (T Voicing, vol. 1, 3.3.4) [r], as [ˈbʌɾə] butter, [ˈʃæəɾɪd] shouted. It is also common intervocalically across word boundaries where the syntactic linkage is close: [(ˈ)ʃʌɾˈʌp] shut up, [ˈgɒɾɪʔ] got it. The use of [ɾ] appears to be connected with the rate at which the person is speakiɾg, since [ɾ] does not occur in slow speech, in hesitation, or before pause. Interestingly, though, Sivertsen claims that this alveolar tap (or 'flap', as she calls it; she writes it [t̬]) is regarded by her Bethnal Green informants as 'the normal, "correct" variant' (1960: 119); she continues, 'the alveolar stop, at least when it is strongly affricated in [the environment 'V V], is looked upon as being too "posh" for a Cockney to use: [ˈbetˢə] better is "posh", [ˈbet̬ə] is normal, and [ˈbeʔə] is "rough"'."
From this it follows that it's in "competition" with glottalization in some positions. Some people would understand it as "free variation" but of course there isn't such a thing as free variation IRL. Maybe speech rate is indeed the main factor. I'm not aware of studies investigating this in London…
The Sivertsen reference is Eva Sivertsen, Cockney Phonology, Oslo Studies in English 8, 1960. Our library has a copy, which I look forward to reading.
I've also found out about Susan Fox, The New Cockney: New Ethnicities and Adolescent Speech in the Traditional East End of London, Springer 2015, which I've requested via interlibrary loan.
Peter Howard said,
December 24, 2016 @ 7:31 am
Perhaps compare Flanders and Swann "Transport of Delight" as London bus driver and conductor, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVHbF0jAzMw
around 1:41 in.
Simon Wright said,
December 24, 2016 @ 7:50 am
(Meant to be) Cockney, I think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yHrpPRYgYM at 1:45
Geddadavit? • Zhi Chinese said,
December 24, 2016 @ 7:52 am
[…] Source: Language Geddadavit? […]
boynamedsue said,
December 24, 2016 @ 7:59 am
The dialect feature is old-fashioned Cockney, not really found in modern non-standard Southern English dialects, I think you can still hear it in the North East though. It's probably a conscious reference to Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas who used a form of Cockney which looked antiquated even in the '80s.
If you look at movie renditions of Cockney from the 50's, they used something like [d] for /t/ in every position, but IRL I've only ever heard it at word boundaries personally, so it may be that "theatrical Cockney" misrepresented this feature.
Robert Coren said,
December 24, 2016 @ 9:28 am
I have a slightly vague memory of an old "Fred Basset" strip (a British strip whose title character was a basset hound) in which someone, I think one of a crowd of fox hunters that Fred had somehow got into the middle of, shouted something like "Geraddavit!" I'm to sure of all the details, but I'm pretty sure about the r.
What's "Gercha" supposed to be?
Nathan Weston said,
December 24, 2016 @ 9:39 am
"Gercha" is another way of saying "clear off" (from "get out of here", maybe?) but I've only heard it in the famous Chas and Dave song, rendered as "Gertcha":
https://g.co/kgs/hHqVNI
Sidney Wood said,
December 24, 2016 @ 9:51 am
London Eastend cockney has had glottal stops between vowels for a couple of hundred years at least. I grew up in Kent, with glottal stops before consonants, but intervocalic voiced (or flapped etc) /t/ when stress is reduced. No intervocalic glottal stops, but aspirated /t/ with unreduced stress. The expression "get out of it" means (1) go away or (2) that's nonsense, and perhaps more. Consider the possibility that English settlers in North America brought the flapped /t/ with them.
[(myl) It's plausible that some of the settlers of North American brought flapping and voicing with them. What I'd like to understand, and don't, is the historical, geographical, and social interaction among flapping, voicing, glottalization, and deletion of non-onset /t/, and the relation to lenition phenomena for other places and manners of articulation.]
Milan said,
December 24, 2016 @ 9:54 am
@Robert Coren:
Not sure, but I think "Gercha"="Got you!", assuming that it is supposed to be read with a non-rhotic pronunciation.
Sidney Wood said,
December 24, 2016 @ 9:57 am
@Robert Coren:
"gercha" is "got you" with schwa in "got" and affricated t+y. Writing "er" for schwa only works for non-rhotic accents, probably nonsense for rhotic accents.
Phillip Minden said,
December 24, 2016 @ 10:04 am
Juncture.
boynamedsue said,
December 24, 2016 @ 10:43 am
@Sidney Wood
Glottal stops have existed in London for 200+ years, but they weren't universal. In this from 1946 there are a lot of glottals, but also at least 2 of the sounds which get represented in folk orthography as "d" in this type of sentence, "out in" at 2.30 and "ought to" at 2.38, to me they sound to be unvoiced alveolar stops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMlbPV7bTi0
There's a modern example, albeit from the very conservative speaker Chas Hodges, here at 1.20, in the middle of "cut it", he also sings it a few times in his performance of "gertcha".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv2yi6_rorI
Sid James used to do this even more noticeably, though of course he was actually a South African playing a Cockney.
Robert Coren said,
December 24, 2016 @ 10:59 am
@Sidney Wood: Yes, I was an adult before I understood why Christopher Robin said his bear's name was "Winnie-ther-Pooh".
Adam Roberts said,
December 24, 2016 @ 12:12 pm
My understanding of 'Gertcha' (I was born and raised in south east London in the 60s/70s) is that it's a Cockney shortening of 'get your', which in turn in an abbreviation of the phrase, as it might be, 'get your arse out of here', chopped off before the profanity.
Brigham said,
December 24, 2016 @ 3:07 pm
@Sydney Wood I'm pretty sure "gercha" here is "get you [out/away]" not "got you". Taken in context with "get out of it", the speaker is clearly trying to shoo away what appears to be a couple of yetis.
Brett said,
December 24, 2016 @ 5:13 pm
With that nose, Santa really looks like the Ice King.
John Swindle said,
December 24, 2016 @ 7:10 pm
"Raus mit 'em!" instead of "gotcha!", then.
Jarek Weckwerth said,
December 25, 2016 @ 7:59 am
Tapping is indeed a (stereo)typical feature of London. Wells (1982: 324-5):
"Indeed, there is another variant which also has a strong claim to be considered 'typically Cockney', namely the voiced tap (T Voicing, vol. 1, 3.3.4) [r], as [ˈbʌɾə] butter, [ˈʃæəɾɪd] shouted. It is also common intervocalically across word boundaries where the syntactic linkage is close: [(ˈ)ʃʌɾˈʌp] shut up, [ˈgɒɾɪʔ] got it. The use of [ɾ] appears to be connected with the rate at which the person is speakiɾg, since [ɾ] does not occur in slow speech, in hesitation, or before pause. Interestingly, though, Sivertsen claims that this alveolar tap (or 'flap', as she calls it; she writes it [t̬]) is regarded by her Bethnal Green informants as 'the normal, "correct" variant' (i960: 119); she continues, 'the alveolar stop, at least when it is strongly affricated in [the environment 'V V], is looked upon as being too "posh" for a Cockney to use: [ˈbetˢə] better is "posh", [ˈbet̬ə] is normal, and [ˈbeʔə] is "rough"'."
From this it follows that it's in "competition" with glottalization in some positions. Some people would understand it as "free variation" but of course there isn't such a thing as free variation IRL. Maybe speech rate is indeed the main factor. I'm not aware of studies investigating this in London…
Jarek Weckwerth said,
December 25, 2016 @ 8:26 am
Oh BTW, it's also heard in General British (some say "increasingly"). It's mentioned by at least the latest edition of Gimson's pronunciation of English, and Bette Hannisdal's PhD thesis found it as one of the main variants across word boundary (as poitned out by Wells/Sivertsen above) for some words in BBC newspeople. My own main reservation is that most of the time it sounds more like a [d] (to my ears) than your stereotypical American/Australian tap.
BTW2: My favourite clip to demonstrate the "Cockney" range of variability for/t/ is this, from Guy Ritchie's Lock, stock and two smoking barrels. Granted, it's acted, but the actor is in fact a "Cockney". (Sorry for the vignette video; people apparently do this to fool YT's piracty detection algorithms. If you insist on not watching copyrighted content on YT, then I recommend trying o watch the film in its entirety elsewhere. A very respectable take on black comedy, and the original for Snatch.)
Sidney Wood said,
December 25, 2016 @ 6:54 pm
Regarding the distribution of flapped/voiced /t/, I mentioned what I was confident about. I've no reason to quarrel about it being more widespread. But it's definitely a British phenomenon too. However, I am inclined to quarrel with suggestions that something's new when it's been around for a long time.
'Got you, get you, get your" are all possible interpretations of "gercha". I prefer 'got you' because it can stand alone, while 'get you' and 'get your' are incomplete. 'Got you' in this context would mean e.g. 'I've caught you' or 'I've hit you'.
Otherwise, following the story back, a couple are stuck on Svalbard, they've built an igloo for shelter, but are attacked by wendigos (which I learn are malicious evil spirits from Algonquin folklore). The santa figure has come to the rescue.
Happy New Year.
Kate Bunting said,
December 26, 2016 @ 6:16 am
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gertcha
I've never lived nearer to London than around 200 miles, but I have occasionally heard "Gertcha" in Wiktionary's second sense; as an expression of contemptuous disbelief.