Herb, thank you. This is very interesting. I have heard this from more than one person, but there is one in particular that I can check, so I am going to find out where she is from. I don't have a sense that this vowel shift has really hit Seattle--but it may be catching!
Edith

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 11:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Question: Language change and malapropism

I wonder of the flush/flesh confusion might not be a feature of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift.  I hadn’t heard of the NCVS going all the way to the west coast, but it has gotten at least as far as Minneapolis and St. Louis.  If you’re not familiar with this sound change, it’s a change that has taken place over the past century in the major cities around the southern shores of the Great Lakes, extending from about Syracuse west through Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee.  From those centers, it has spread out to smaller cities so that it’s found now in Fort Wayne and Indianapolis as well as in Lansing and Traverse City.  In this change, which effects quite a number of vowel sounds, the vowel /ae/, as in “cat” raises to /E/ (“pet”/) and even gets as high as /i/ (“seat”), so that the name “Anne” sounds like “Ian”.  In the process, /E/ gets moved back to /A/, as in “cut”, so that “bed” sounds like “bud”.  This set of shifts would, then, account for “flesh” sounding like “flush”, but then I don’t know if there’s any other sign of NCVS hitting Seattle, or if, maybe, this speaker came from the Great Lakes states.

 

Herb

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wollin, Edith
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 2:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Question: Language change and malapropism

 

I've been hearing the same problem with another phrase here in Seattle: "This needs to be flushed out." I'm not even sure if they are really saying "fleshed" and it just doesn't sound that way to me or if they know they are saying "flushed" and the meaning of "flesh out" has stuck to the whole phrase for them and they don't notice that they are saying almost the opposite of what they mean.

 

This is how we entertain ourselves in meetings!

Edith Wollin

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda DiDesidero
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 9:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Question: Language change and malapropism

Thanks for responding, Herb.

Yes, the students pronounce blase /blah- ze/.  I have heard it is from a rap song that has that refrain, but I'm afraid that I'm not that familiar with rap music.

 

What bothers me about the "chock it up to experience" example is that the student has no idea what 'chock/chalk' means--the phrase has become a linguistic whole for this student.  She has no clue that she is writing about metaphorically making a chalk mark or tally.  So this might be isolated BUT the /blah--ze/ is not.  I'm actually wondering if this could be thought of as onomatopeia.

 

Thanks.

Linda

PS I know what you mean about cot/caught and hock/hawk--we lived in Chicago for several years, but now we are back East where all my NE Philly relatives say things like "Yeeah, lez go howme"

 

 


-----Original Message-----
From: Stahlke, Herbert F.W. <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 09:26:43 -0500
Subject: Re: Question: Language change and malapropism

Interesting questions.  Do they pronounce "blasé" with two syllables or as if it has a silent e?  The chock/chalk confusion may arise from a sound change, the a/aw merger that is found in a band about 100 miles north to south from about Pittsburg west to the Mississippi and then everywhere west of the Mississippi north of a line from about St. Louis to El Paso.  These speakers pronounce "cot" and "caught" with the same vowels, which, depending on area, may be either both /a/ or both /aw/.  There was until recently a store in here in Muncie called "The Muncie Hawk Shop".  At first I thought it was a similar confusion of "hawk" and "hock" until I spoke to the owner and learned that it was intentional.  Because he had an earlier felony conviction he could not be bonded and therefore could not get a pawnbroker's license, so instead he opened a buy-sell shop.  By spelling the word "hawk", which this area pronounces the same as "hock", he was able both to be within the law and to given the impression of functioning as a "hock shop".

 

Another widely used form of a different sort is "hone in on" for "home in on".  The Merriam Webster Dictionary of English Usage dates this usage to 1978, citing it in a primary campaign speech by George H. W. Bush.  I have since found it in such places as the New York Times Magazine.  I still reject it in student writing, which is, I fear, every bit as pedantic and tendentious as rejecting "most unique".

 

Herb

 

 

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Linda DiDesidero
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 8:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Question: Language change and malapropism

 

The discussion of the broadening of the meaning of 'unique' is interesting, but I see a different problem that I might call widespread malapropism.

 

My students often create terms or use them as malapropisms--and these may be derived from rap music or these may have their roots in Microsoft Word's spell-checker. Does anyone else know anything more about this?

 

One frequently occurring example is the word 'blase' to mean "bla-bla-bla" or 'yadayadayada".  My students will actually say: "blase blase blase" thinking that it is equivalent to these other terms.  So when this phrase enters widespread use, can we say that the meaning of 'blase' has altered?  (even though most students who use it in this context do not know that they have altered a meaning; they think they have learned a new word.)

 

The other phenomenon has to do with what we might call homonyms, such as:

 

'chock it up to experience'

"she was a pre-madonna"

 

While these examples are clearly homonyms--and you think that the person had heard the phrase and has just spelled it incorrectly, perhaps with the aid of a spell-checker--they really do express concepts that are fundamentally different from the ones they mimic.

 

Chalking it up to experience is different than chocking it up (or chucking it up) to experience.

 

A prima donna is a different concept than a pre-Madonna, even though they both involve females.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Linda DiDesidero

 

 

 

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