14.0015 misspellings

From: Humanist Discussion Group (willard@lists.village.virginia.edu)
Date: Tue May 16 2000 - 19:30:15 CUT

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                    Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 15.
           Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   <http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
                  <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>

             Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 20:17:10 +0100
             From: "Tarvers, Josephine K." <tarversj@exchange.winthrop.edu>
             Subject: Re: 14.0008: Misspellings

    >From one of my linguist friends...

    Jo Koster Tarvers
    Department of English
    Winthrop University
    Rock Hill SC 29733-0001
    803-323-4557
    tarversj@winthrop.edu
    http://faculty.winthrop.edu/tarversj
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Jack W. Weaver [mailto:WEAVERJ@winthrop.edu]
    Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 10:15 AM
    To: tarversj

    Jo, 10 May

    The Humanist Discussion Group's queries are linguistically interesting. I
    would suggest that a professional British linguist (e.g., Michael
    Montgomery) be consulted, despite the fact that the query seems to have
    originated in London. "Mabe" is simply a word spelled as it sounds,
    however. I've seen it spelled that way and also "maby," in the mountains of
    North Carolina. I see it as a semi-literate rendering, more than English as
    a Second Language, however. Ulster speech might pronounce it that way, too.
    It would be nice to know the names of the writers, to see if they really
    are of French derivation.

    "Understanding your predicament of trust and how difficult it is to explain
    in good faith to you about your" appears to be an attempt to use
    quasi-legal language, very likely (again) acquired by ear. "Relized" for
    'realized' sounds like Ulster/American, or mountain speech, too. So does
    'there (for "their") own business.' Could those Louisianians have
    originated in Tennessee or Kentucky? Having grown up in the mountains of
    N.C., I can understand them quite well. But I heard the same sounds in the
    Ards Peninsula in County Down. A learned Queens University of Belfast
    geographer pointed out a stone object to me by saying, "See that tare
    {tower} in the field yonder?" I might as well have been talking to someone
    in Boone, N.C.

    As you can see, I can't produce any specific documents. Michael Montgomery
    might be able to do so. His E-Mail address is "N270053@vm.sc.edu." If you
    don't know him, mention my name with your query.

        Best,

    jack Weaver



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