Re: USAGE: intrusive "r" [was Re: (Offlist) Re: ASCII IPA]

Quoting Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>:

> On Wed, 21 Aug 2002 23:11:39 -0500 "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>
> writes:
> > Quoting "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>:
> > > So, in both cases, South Dakotan _idear_ and Texan _cuss_, it
> > seems
> > > the odd addition or lack of rhoticness is defined in the UR.
>
> > I forgot to add that _cuss_ is a separate lexical entry
> > from _curse_.  The distinction is whether you're invoking
> > the supernatural or not: with the former, you aren't, with
> > the latter, you are.
>
> Not necessarily, at least from my experience.  I never remember hearing
> "cuss" in a natural, 'living language' context when i was growing up, and
> i still hardly ever hear it except from people who speak a substantially
> different dialect of English from mine.  We always distinguished between
> "mummy's curse" (your latter) and "curse word" (=cuss, your fomer)
Right, I was speaking about *my* dialect and the South, as
the context should have made clear  I didn't mean to imply
that people who use "curse" in my former sense can't distinguish
between the two usages, just that in *my* speech the two
meanings are both phonologically and semantically distinct,
and do not overlap in usage.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
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