Re: Country Names -- Local Pronunciations

Joe:
> From: "John Cowan" <cowan@...>
> > Joe Fatula scripsit:
> >
> > > Has it not been in use in England's English?  Over here in America, I'd
> use
> > > "I guess" as the more default-ish form, with "I suppose" as an
> alternative
> > > How is it used in England?
> >
> > It used to be regularly denounced throughout the 19th and first half of
> > the 20th centuries as a hideous Americanism, despite the copious evidence
> > from Chaucer and Shakespeare among many others that it was old and
> > deep-rooted in the common tongue
>
> Old, perhaps, but still an Americanism.  I'm pretty sure it was wiped out
> from English English by the 19th century
I don't know of any research on the matter, nor of searchable corpora of
demotic speech from the relevant period. I do know that (a) British
intuitions about what is an isn't an Americanism are notoriously unreliable
and (b) the extent of linguistic variation within Britain has always
been underestimated and continues to be so.

--And.

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