Reading Johanna's mail reminded me of an experience as a very young adult.
"I were a going down that there road once an' I be attacked like from all these
dogs."
I heard this about 30 odd years ago, just can't remember if it was Yorkshire,
England or South in Somerset ( used to travel a lot then and wasn't consciously
interested in linguitics at the time!). It was fascinating. He obviously dropped
into a dramatic present as he went on something similar to:

"an' likes I be a farmer I knows what to do"
He thought it was his story but we were amazed by his dialect!
I definitely remember kids writing " sithy here", in their essays at a school in
Yorkshire, which confused me until a colleague explained that some old folks still
used "thee"!
'He don't', along with 'aint' + even 'aint not' were, and I imagine are, still
common among London school kids.

Johanna speaks of working class dialects. We were told it was uneducated English. It
sometimes seems to me it's like the clothes you choose to wear. Where am I? What do
I put on? Which of my dialects do I use? I think the more we make school kids aware
of this the less uncomfortable they feel about accepting grammar descriptions and
rules.
My friend was near to divorce as she couldn't bear visiting her husband's family who
lived on some Scottish island. It was not because of the isolation but because her
'educated', white collar worker of a husband dropped into this wierd dialect which
she couldn't understand and seemed to forget his 'real English' as she called it.
I can understand him as, although most of my family lived around London, my father's
roots were in Newcastle upon Tyne. Even the kids born down south could spout bits of
the 'Geordie' dialect. " Haddaway les gaan yem' ( come on. Let's go home) It made
you belong to the family: the Call of the Clan.

I also remember a situation when I was out for a bargain and wanted to talk to the
manager about the price of a leather living room suite. He was on the phone so I
waited and waited. If I want something I have an amazing will power and patience. I
had obviously been listening very carefully out of linguistic habit! When at long
last he came to speak to me, there I was talking with 'his' dialect. I honestly
didn't mean to do it, but I had picked up even his pauses and stance! He must have
felt very 'at home' as I got it really cheap with free delivery!
I don't want to ramble on but I think the sociological side can be really fun.I can
also imagine out of work linguists offering courses to social workers and police
about the group dialects in their districts to ease communication in these areas or
is this already being done? We had a rare time with students from China, I think,
who really got us all mixed up with their responses to question tags.
I told the 'sithy' kids it was OK but not many people in London would undertstand
that expression. So the next step is how many other expressions are they and where
can we use them. I think kids love being chameleons.

Patsi



Johanna Rubba wrote:

> 'He/she/it don't' is extremely common working-class dialects of English.
> I heard it growing up in southern New Jersey from white and non-white
> folk alike; and I hear it on this coast as well, again from all sorts of people.
>
> In general, subject/verb agreement patterns vary somewhat wildly across
> dialects of the English-speaking world. If we were to sample Britain
> alone, we'd find several variations. I remember hearing a radio play set
> in one of the Jersey islands. The dialect was quite remarkable; as I
> recall, the number agreement was pretty much the reverse of standard
> dialects: 'I were', 'you was', 'he were', 'we was' ... it was fascinating.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
> One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-259
> • E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
>                                        **
> "Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
> but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~