Re: THEORY(?): ARSE (was: RE: [CONLANG] Latin (was Language universal?)

John:
> And Rosta scripsit:
>
> > > I don't know if it was a euphemism, or just an ordinary sound change
> > > [ars] > [a:s] > [&s].
[...]
> > Or is the idea that the phonology of this taboo word has been borrowed
> > into high prestige rhotic accents from low prestige nonrhotic accents
> > (New England Proletarian, Southern, AAVE), as has happened, for instance
> > among young southern Brits who tend to replace local /bA:st@d/ with
> > 'hard' 'gritty' northern /b&st@d/?
>
> That can't be the direct explanation: nonrhotic dialects don't front [A]
> to [&] when historic [r] is lost.  Perhaps the true history is
> [ars] > [a:s] > [as], with [&s] then created by "interdialectal
> borrowing with analogical sound change".
>
> I don't know the proper name for this process, but I can give an
> example.  A child speaking a rhotic dialect and whose idiolect did not
> yet contain the word "God" /gAd/ borrowed the word from another child
> who spoke a non-rhotic dialect.  The second child's /gAd/ became
> the first child's /gArd/, homonymous with GUARD.
Is this perhaps the origin or dialectal US /warS/ _wash_?

[stuff that had me ROTFL snipped but kept to be treasured]

> (This next verse is irrelevant, but I can't resist it; in some editions of
> the King James Bible, words not present in the original but supplied by
> the translator are *italicized*, making a comic contrast with the modern
> use of italics for emphasis, thus:
>
> 1 Kings 013:027 And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they
>         saddled *him*.)
I'm a non-Xian non-churchgoer (tho a KJV fan), but have occasionally failed to
avoid hearing services broadcast, and the highchurchier ones appear to employ
a style of KJV reading where the italicized words are read with emphasis.
(Ray wd probably know more about this.) So the verse would be equally
funny when read aloud.

> 2 Peter 002:016 But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with
>         man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet.
Peter? (If a joke, I don't get it.)

--And.

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