Spring is sprung
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The start of today's newsletter from Amy Stoller:
As also linked on her website, Amy's newsletter
… congratulates client Anna Deavere Smith on her Medal for Spoken Language, given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters to those who have set the highest standard in the use of language in spoken address.
You can get a glimpse of Anna Deavere Smith's "use of language in spoken address" on YouTube, for example here:
martin schwartz said,
March 21, 2022 @ 8:19 pm
As an old New Yorker (Bronxite), I'd say that "loin" for "learn"
etc., "dis" for "this" etc. are decidedly Old Brooklyn, but not
general in New York English (yes, "Noo Yawk" is very familiar to me).
Anthony said,
March 21, 2022 @ 9:29 pm
As a New Yorker born and bred (Manhattan), it was news to me that there was an 'r' in LaGuardia. It was pronounced la-gwad-ee-uh. I have no idea how non-New Yorkers pronounce it, but I bet I'd be surprised.
martin schwartz said,
March 21, 2022 @ 11:57 pm
No doubt that preconsonantal r-deletion is common in NYC.
Philip Taylor said,
March 22, 2022 @ 3:23 am
I first heard "De spring is sprung" about sixty years ago, from the father of a friend (both were English). I remember it as :
Amy Stoller said,
March 22, 2022 @ 7:17 am
Thanks for the plug, Mark!
I'm especially proud of having contributed to Anna's idiolect work on Let Me Down Easy, Notes from the Field, and some smaller projects along the way.
@Martin, you are of course right that I meant very Old Skool indeed. The use of /ɜɪ̯/ in NURSE words is, so far as I know, obsolete in current New York City English. But it was never confined to any single borough; it was certainly (soitenly) heard in Manhattanites once upon a time.
@Anthony, I had a roommate who spelled seltzer as seltza on our shopping list. I thought she was kidding—she wasn't. She wrote it as she said it, and had never noticed the spelling on labels. This was in the mid-1980s. So go know.
@Philip, there have been several versions of the poem published over the years. I chose the one I used in my newsletter for compactness.
In case it matters to anyone, I'm a third-generation New Yorker myself.
Mark P said,
March 22, 2022 @ 8:35 am
Many years ago when I was in high school, I had an elderly Latin teacher who was a native Southerner, probably from NW Georgia where I went to school. She had a distinctive accent typical of upper class little old ladies, and, at least in my memory, her “bird” sounded something like “boid.” It might have had a slightly different sound, but it was close. It might have been closer to an “eh” or “uh” than an “oi” but it was a long time ago.
Linda Seebach said,
March 22, 2022 @ 9:57 am
I grew up on Long Island – that meant Nassau and Suffolk to us, and definitely not Brooklyn or Queens. The assumption by outsiders that Long Islanders would say, e.g., "erl boiner" or "soylern steak," was taken as an insult.
When I was around 12, a family from Brooklyn moved in and we teased those kids without mercy until they leaned to speak English.
D. L. Gold said,
March 22, 2022 @ 3:02 pm
"I grew up on Long Island – that meant Nassau and Suffolk to us, and definitely not Brooklyn or Queens."
Although in physical geography the toponym Long Island has always designated the entire island, Linda Seebach is right in implying that in social or human geography its meaning has shrunk.
At one time in human geography it had the same meaning as in physical geography (for example, the Battle of Long Island, now usually called the Battle of Brooklyn, was fought largely in Kings County) and at least up to the 1960s at least the eastern part of Queens County was considered to be on Long Island in human geography.
This article has details:
Gold, David L. 1999. "The Changed Status of Long Island in Human Geography: On Physical versus Human Geography in the Definition of Place Names." Beiträge zur Namenforschung. New Series. Vol. 34. No. 2. Pp. 173-190.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:18 pm
I was born in NYC in 1941 and grew up in the Bronx.
No native speaker I knew said "hoid" for "heard" etc., but I
remember my NYC-born uncle from Brooklyn saying
"the car needs earl", clearly a hypercorrection.
When I was teaching at Columbia U. I had a student who was
a middle aged Irish-American priest who had dis for this and dese for these, etc., which I assumed were Brooklyn traits since I had heard Brooklynites speak that way.
Maybe Dutch substratum. Of course this trait, like "hoid",
is also characteristic of Yiddish accents.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:19 pm
I'm 81 and grew up in the Bronx.
No native speaker I knew said "hoid" for "heard" etc., but I
remember my NYC-born uncle from Brooklyn saying
"the car needs earl", clearly a hypercorrection.
When I was teaching at Columbia U. I had a student who was
a middle aged Irish-American priest who had dis for this and dese for these, etc., which I assumed were Brooklyn traits since I had heard Brooklynites speak that way.
Maybe Dutch substratum. Of course this trait, like "hoid",
is also characteristic of Yiddish accents.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:38 pm
@Mark P: I just heard/saw Muddy Waters' (born in Mississippi) 1966
performance of Got My Mojo Workin'. He says "woikin'" and
'"woik", so maybe that NURSE trait is also Southern.
@Amy Stoller: So when is that NURSE pron. attested for NYC at large? I have no doubt that a dialectologist of American English
would be thoroughly acquainted with such matters; I'm largely
ignorant of this interesting subject.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:40 pm
Idiot AT judge thinks I keep saying the same thing.
@Mark P: I just heard/saw Muddy Waters' (born in Mississippi) 1966
performance of Got My Mojo Workin'. He says "woikin'" and
'"woik", so maybe that NURSE trait is also Southern.
@Amy Stoller: So when is that NURSE pron. attested for NYC at large? I have no doubt that a dialectologist of American English
would be thoroughly acquainted with such matters; I'm largely
ignorant of this interesting subject.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:42 pm
Idiot AT judge thinks I keep saying the same thing.
@Mark P: I just heard/saw Muddy Waters' (born in Mississippi) 1966
performance of Got My Mojo Workin'. He says "woikin'" and
'"woik", so maybe that NURSE trait is also found in the South.
@Amy Stoller: So when is that NURSE pron. attested for New York City at large? I have no doubt that a dialectologist of American English
would be thoroughly acquainted with such matters; I'm largely
ignorant of this interesting subject.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:45 pm
Idiot AT judge thinks I keep saying the same thing.
I'll try to fool it by changing some words.
@Mark P: I just heard/saw Muddy Waters' (born in Mississippi) 1966
performance of Got My Mojo Workin'. He says "woikin'" and
'"woik", so maybe that NURSE feature is also found in the South.
@Amy Stoller: So when is that NURSE pron. attested for Noo Yawk City at large? I have no doubt that a dialectologist of American English
would be thoroughly acquainted with such matters; I'm largely
ignorant of this interesting subject.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:47 pm
Idiot AT judge thinks I keep saying the same thing.
I'll try to fool it by changing some words.
@Mark P: I just heard/saw Muddy Waters' (born in Mississippi) 1966
performance of Got My Mojo Workin'. He says "woikin'" and
'"woik", so maybe that NURSE feature is also found in the South.
@Amy Stoller: So when is that NURSE pron. attested for Noo Yawk at large? I have no doubt that a dialectologist of American English
would be thoroughly acquainted with such matters; I'm largely
ignorant of this interesting subject.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:48 pm
Idiot AT judge thinks I keep saying the same thing.
I'll try to fool it by changing some words.
@Mark P: I just heard/saw Muddy Waters' (born in Mississippi) 1966
performance of Got My Mojo Workin'. He says "woikin'" and
'"woik"
@Amy Stoller: So when is that NURSE pron. attested for Noo Yawk at large? I have no doubt that a dialectologist of American English
would be thoroughly acquainted with such matters; I'm largely
ignorant of this interesting subject.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:51 pm
Idiot AT judge thinks I keep saying the same thing.
I'll try to fool it by changes and nonsense words.
Kabobble fooglefanger shmabibble farfelfinger.
@Mark P: I just heard/saw Muddy Waters' (born in Mississippi) 1966
performance of Got My Mojo Workin'. He says "woikin'" and
'"woik"
@Amy Stoller: So when is that NURSE pron. attested for Noo Yawk at large? I have no doubt that a dialectologist of American English
would be thoroughly acquainted with such matters; I'm largely
ignorant of this interesting subject.
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:53 pm
I meant AI, but my ruse succeeded.
MS
martin schwartz said,
March 22, 2022 @ 5:59 pm
oy, sorry! the revenge of the computa.
MS
Adrian Bailey said,
March 24, 2022 @ 12:59 pm
I wonder what proportion of people say spring starts on March 21(ish), and how many on March 1. Although as a child I learned from most sources that it was the 21st, I don't know where that convention sprang from, and it never made a lot of sense. Summer ends at the end of September??
These days I pin the seasons to the appropriate bunch of months, so winter is Dec-Jan-Feb.
Philip Taylor said,
March 24, 2022 @ 5:56 pm
I have no idea what proportion of people […]; all I can is that Spring starts for me on the date of the vernal equinox : before that, I can say (for example) "the weather is positively spring-like today" but I cannot say that once the (astronomical) spring has actually started.
Philip Anderson said,
March 25, 2022 @ 3:10 pm
@Martin Schwartz
If an Irish-American priest said ‘dis’ and ‘dese’, that was surely an Irish accent – no need to look back to the Dutch.
Philip Anderson said,
March 25, 2022 @ 3:22 pm
The astronomical spring starts at the vernal equinox (northern hemisphere), the meteorological spring on the first of March.
It seems odd for summer to begin on Midsummer’s Day.
Michèle Sharik Pituley said,
March 25, 2022 @ 10:19 pm
My dad was born in 1919 in "Joizy" City & grew up "amongst de Kat-lix and Eye-talians". I was born in 1969, his last child, and raised in rural southwestern Ohio. Cincinnati had an independent UHF TV station & I grew up watching the 3 Stooges, the Bowery Boys, & some (not a lot) of Keystone Kops. I always thought it funny that the Bowery Boys said "Pittsboig" instead of "Pittsburg".
Flash forward a few decades & I was in Germany visiting my cousin who, like my mother, was born & raised in Emsland. She pronounced Papenburg as "Papenboig" (the ending g was a bit aspirated (?)) and that made me wonder if that's where "Pittsboig" came from.
I have a 61 year old friend who was born & raised near Pittsburg, and claims to have never heard anybody say "Pittsboig". I think her family mainly watched musicals rather than the Bowery Boys.
Michèle Sharik Pituley said,
March 25, 2022 @ 10:20 pm
"Papenboig" — now that I think about it, it was more like "Pop-m-boig".
Anthea Fleming said,
April 3, 2022 @ 6:15 am
Back in the 1950s in Melbourne, genuine American accents of any kind were very seldom heard in the wild.(Lots of fake ones.) I was taught this as an example of New York pronunciation – probably Brooklynese-
Toity poiple boids
Sittin on da koib
A choipin an a boipin
An a eatin doity woims.
It was recited at me because I was known to be a bird-watcher.
I would like to know if anyone else has met it. Apologies if it's too frivolous for this blog.