Re: New Words

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 07:11:40AM -0800,
> Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
> > dialect form of "being".
> >
> > > Or do you mean "bein'", the American short
> > > form?
> >
> > I hate using apostrophes in inappropriate
> places.
> > Dialects that have -in for -ing have nót
> dropped
> > a letter.
>
> Yes, they have.  They've droped the -g.  :)
Perhaps there's a misunderstanding. I'm not
talking about Standard English speakers who drop
a G there. I'm talking about people whose
dialects don't have the G there at all. Anyway,
would you advocate us adding the apostrophe to
the infinitive? We dropped the -en from that one,
you know.

> More to the point, there is no such word in
> English as *bein.  Regardless
> of how you pronounce it, the written form is
> "being",
The written form in Standard American / British /
Australian / Canadian / Etcetrian English is
"being" - I agree. "Bein" is not a Standard word
(while "bein' " is a Standard spelling).

> and if you're digressing
> from the standard spelling you need to indicate
> that somehow.  -in' is the
> usual way of doing so.
In Standard, I agree. I'm not talking about SAE.
I'm talking about dialects that don't have the -g
(really the [N] sound) in that position. They
aren't dropping a G. Prescriptively compelling
them put an apostrophe there boggles me.

Padraic.


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