The Innovative Usage Thread

[Haplogy]

I find it peculiar that pretty much anyone who knows their IPA is happy to tell you that <j> in English is pronounced [d͡ʒ], while in my opinion, it sounds a lot more like [dʲ].

[Shihali]

I find it peculiar that pretty much anyone who knows their IPA is happy to tell you that <j> in English is pronounced [d͡ʒ], while in my opinion, it sounds a lot more like [dʲ].

I'm a fossil that retains pronunciation of "long u" as /ju:/ and to me <do> /du:/, <dew> /dju:/, and <Jew> /d͡ʒu:/ are all distinct in clear speech; the tip of the tongue is further back for each one and the release is different for <Jew>. (In fast speech, my /dj/ slips back to [d͡ʒ].) Whence come these English speakers you listen to?

[clawgrip]

My student worker calls videocassette tapes "VCRs". I'm guessing by analogy with "DVDs" <=> "DVD [player]".

I guess that's okay if you consider them to be Video Cassette Records.

[Jetboy]

My Shakespeare teacher has an expression "get dead" she likes to use semi-comically for "die," as in "And at the end of the play, Lady Macbeth gets dead." However, I noticed her use it transitively for the first time, meaning "kill," while we were discussing Richard III: "Richard gets Clarence dead." Apparently, it's an ergative verb. Well, then again, I suppose if we replace "dead" with "killed," it still works, so maybe it's just that "get" is an ergative verb.

[Vuvuzela]

A friend of mine, who speaks a very colloquial English dialect, instead of saying "Give me a (thing)" says "(thing) me out." Recently, I heard him use it outside the imperative;when telling a story, he said "and then he papered me out, and..". This got me a wee bit curious; I wanted to find out if this could, in his dialect/idiolect replace "to give" in any situation. So I asked him "If I were to engage in sexual intercourse with a female person, and I were to contract a venereal disease, would it be appropriate to say 'she Chlamydiaed me out'?"
He said that it would sound weird, leading me to believe that one may only be considered to have been "(thing)ed out" if one had wanted (thing). But as I asked the question, I noticed an odd thing that occurs in my own idiolect. I say "(adjective) person" even when a word exists for "(adjective) person". This extends to agent nouns. I've caught myself saying "book-writing person" for "author"; "Football-playing person" for American Football player; and "food-cooking person" for Chef. It does not, however, extend to titles, I wouldn't say that Queen Victoria was an "England-ruling person".

[Arzena]

I've been using drinken too much for comfort

[TaylorS]

I've realized that "tooken" is my usual past participle of "take".

[Pinetree]

I often use "embiggen" in place of "enlarge"

[Travis B.]

I've been using drinken too much for comfort

Not drinken, but often dranken here. But that ties into my dialect's whole tense/aspect thing with its past participles, which is a mess (it exists in alternation with drunken, drunk and drank).

I've realized that "tooken" is my usual past participle of "take".

OTOH, I do use tooken a good deal. The same considerations apply with it here, though (it exists in alternation with taken and took).

We've discussed all these IMD in length, so I am not going to get into them again unless someone really wants to know.

[Travis B.]

I often use "embiggen" in place of "enlarge"

Now that is quite the case of taking on neologisms there.

[Shrdlu]

Speaking of dialects, wasn't there a guy here that said that he spoke an American dialect where the whole syntax was reversed and shit and stuff?

^edit: here comes the remember-train:
He posted an example that went something like: "Strange my way of speaking it certainly is".

[Travis B.]

Speaking of dialects, wasn't there a guy here that said that he spoke an American dialect where the whole syntax was reversed and shit and stuff?

^edit: here comes the remember-train:
He posted an example that went something like: "Strange my way of speaking it certainly is".

If someone said that, I certainly missed it. (Unless it was in the C&C forms, where then I certainly did miss it).

I strongly doubt such a dialect exists, but I should note that English syntax is much more flexible than people credit it with. For instance the example you give there is somewhat odd, but you can get away with it if you are trying to be poetic.

[linguoboy]

I strongly doubt such a dialect exists, but I should note that English syntax is much more flexible than people credit it with. For instance the example you give there is somewhat odd, but you can get away with it if you are trying to be poetic.

It doesn't sound "poetic" to me. Take away the resumptive pronoun and it's something I can well imagine saying myself.

Can't remember if we've already discussed this: /hai(t)θ/ for height. First time my coworker used it, it was right after saying width, so I thought it might be an isolated analogical error. But he went on to say it twice more on its own nearly an hour later.

[Bob Johnson]

Speaking of dialects, wasn't there a guy here that said that he spoke an American dialect where the whole syntax was reversed and shit and stuff?

^edit: here comes the remember-train:
He posted an example that went something like: "Strange my way of speaking it certainly is".

Yes, I'm very familiar with this dialect. I was raised in an area of Tennessee with many valleys, at least an hour's drive away from anywhere of importance. My family and everyone else in our remote valley spoke perfect unaltered 17th century English, just as the first colonists on the Mayflower did. The valley to the southeast spoke with unmarked OSV order as you describe. Unfortunately with the advent of television and the invention of General American, both dialects began to undergo language death. In the modern world, anyone who still claims to speak such dialects must be treated as a unique individual of special importance, and accorded as much attention as is appropriate.

[Shrdlu]

I can't tell if you're mocking me or not. Come to think of it, I probably should written "claimed" instead of "said". Ah, fuck... now I have an mental picture of the post in my head. He wrote something about how elaborate the tense and aspect system of his dialect was and then ended with that quote, probably as an joke or to illustrate his point. If I only knew how the guy was I could point you all towards the post.

[Travis B.]

Can't remember if we've already discussed this: /hai(t)θ/ for height. First time my coworker used it, it was right after saying width, so I thought it might be an isolated analogical error. But he went on to say it twice more on its own nearly an hour later.

This may still be an isolated, idiosyncratic innovation nonetheless.

[Torco]

Speaking of dialects, wasn't there a guy here that said that he spoke an American dialect where the whole syntax was reversed and shit and stuff?

^edit: here comes the remember-train:
He posted an example that went something like: "Strange my way of speaking it certainly is".

Yes, I'm very familiar with this dialect. I was raised in an area of Tennessee with many valleys, at least an hour's drive away from anywhere of importance. My family and everyone else in our remote valley spoke perfect unaltered 17th century English, just as the first colonists on the Mayflower did. The valley to the southeast spoke with unmarked OSV order as you describe. Unfortunately with the advent of television and the invention of General American, both dialects began to undergo language death. In the modern world, anyone who still claims to speak such dialects must be treated as a unique individual of special importance, and accorded as much attention as is appropriate.

yodaspeek

[Drydic]

Can't remember if we've already discussed this: /hai(t)θ/ for height. First time my coworker used it, it was right after saying width, so I thought it might be an isolated analogical error. But he went on to say it twice more on its own nearly an hour later.

I have this as well. And it's definitely affricated. Dunno if it's some weird influence of the spelling or influence from width (which I'm more inclined to believe), but it's definitely there. Heights though is solidly [haits].

[Travis B.]

Can't remember if we've already discussed this: /hai(t)θ/ for height. First time my coworker used it, it was right after saying width, so I thought it might be an isolated analogical error. But he went on to say it twice more on its own nearly an hour later.

I have this as well. And it's definitely affricated. Dunno if it's some weird influence of the spelling or influence from width (which I'm more inclined to believe), but it's definitely there. Heights though is solidly [haits].

Okay, so with this in consideration it may likely be dialectal rather than being idiosyncratic.

[finlay]

Can't remember if we've already discussed this: /hai(t)θ/ for height. First time my coworker used it, it was right after saying width, so I thought it might be an isolated analogical error. But he went on to say it twice more on its own nearly an hour later.

I have this as well. And it's definitely affricated. Dunno if it's some weird influence of the spelling or influence from width (which I'm more inclined to believe), but it's definitely there. Heights though is solidly [haits].

Okay, so with this in consideration it may likely be dialectal rather than being idiosyncratic.

wait, so with one data point it's idiosyncratic, with two it's dialectal?

[Travis B.]

Can't remember if we've already discussed this: /hai(t)θ/ for height. First time my coworker used it, it was right after saying width, so I thought it might be an isolated analogical error. But he went on to say it twice more on its own nearly an hour later.

I have this as well. And it's definitely affricated. Dunno if it's some weird influence of the spelling or influence from width (which I'm more inclined to believe), but it's definitely there. Heights though is solidly [haits].

Okay, so with this in consideration it may likely be dialectal rather than being idiosyncratic.

wait, so with one data point it's idiosyncratic, with two it's dialectal?

To determine this, more data points would obviously be desired, but with two data points for individuals who are not known to know each other indicates that it probably is not some individual's isolated innovation, that it is an innovation that likely caught on with a larger grouping of people allowing two separate people to pick it up. This would be less so if the two individuals were known to know each other, as then there is the possibility that the innovation did not spread very far and could still possibly be called "idiosyncratic", but this is not known in this case. (One could say that there is also the possibility that the two people individually separately innovated the same feature, but with this kind of feature that is probably less likely.)

[Nortaneous]

heighth is common, i've probably heard it more often than not

[linguoboy]

"Barba faces a suspension hearing at her school today. Her father, Michael Barba, is calling her punishment “extensive” and is demanding she be allowed to return to school, that the suspension be erased and that she be allowed to submit the project as school work." [Source: http://www.care2.com/causes/take-action ... video.html]

Not sure if this is simply a malapropism or if "extensive" is actually moving into the territory covered by "excessive".

[Jetboy]

I ran across <isn't> online recently, which I interpreted as indicating stress on the second syllable– except I can't imagine anyone saying /ɪ.ˈzn̩t/. I'm not sure whether that's some sort of formatting error, a writing convention, or actually reflective of a pronunciation.

I also managed to mentally produce "bebearded" meaning "having facial hair"

[Shrdlu]

Isn't, along with dosn't is the way I learnt to spell at school, also isn't is correct according to the spell-checker.