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#92938 02/07/03 05:44 AM
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"Raunchy", where I come from, usually means something sexually suggestive, a bit grubby ... I suppose you could get to "smells off" or "smells bad" from there!

- Pfranz

#92939 02/07/03 10:29 AM
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I'd understand humming to mean filled with really good vibes. Or either going along just swimmingly.


#92940 02/07/03 11:17 AM
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"Raunchy", where I come from, usually means something sexually suggestive, a bit grubby

It certainly has this as its more common meaning but I learned it as "smelly" in high school. It might have been a bit of local slang which then dispersed when we all left.


#92941 02/10/03 10:49 AM
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hawking and horking sound the same

I felt some embarrassment when, on asking an American colleague one time, “What bird’s that?” he replied, “That’s a hock.” Normally I’m pretty quick with these differences, but I had already identified it as a hawk and was waiting for him to tell me what kind – him bein’ a huntin’ type an’ all. So, what is he telling me? I thought, and was trying to recall a type of hawk that was called a hock. Decided I must’ve misheard. I *knew it wasn’t a bottle of overly sweet white wine! Of course, I had asked too broad a question for the answer I wanted and he had to repeat himself three times before I caught on.

As a non-rhotic speaker I pronounce hawk and cork alike and, for that matter, caulk. My colleague would pronounce ‘cork’ almost as I would, non-rhotic certainly, but perhaps with an almost unnoticeable diphthong (but not an intrusive ‘r’). His hawk, however, was ‘hock’. Does this suggest an origin on the east coast perhaps? He was living in California at that time but I don’t know his home state.



#92942 02/10/03 11:13 AM
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but not an intrusive ‘r’

Intrusive!? Intrusive!? It belongs there! It's not intrusive!

The 'r' at the end of California is intrusive!


#92943 02/10/03 11:42 AM
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You're right. Intrusive was not correct, and is not what I meant. Mental muddle. Mea culpa.

The 'r' is there, has every right to be there, and whether you acknowledge its presence or not comes down to early training.

Point I was trying to get at was whether these were linguistic clues to where this guy came from?[rising inflection]


#92944 02/10/03 11:59 AM
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His hawk, however, was ‘hock’. Does this suggest an origin on the east coast perhaps?
Hi, Sweet Thing--no. Some East Coast-ers get weird with their r's, as in hahbah for harbor and Porscher for Porsche. But we normal US'n's and even those ones pretty much say hawk for hawk. Though I'm not saying that nobody says hock for hawk, hock is a different word and I would hope people would make sure they distinguish the sounds of the two (yes, I am an optimist). The vowel sound of hawk is the same as in jaw, law, paw, etc. And although I believe ought really ought to have a slightly different vowel sound, around these parts it's the same: hawk, ought.


#92945 02/10/03 02:08 PM
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Yes, hock for hawk is a regionalism, but I'm not entirely sure wherefrom. I'm kind of hearing it being said by a Chicagoan (of which I was/am one of {you can take the boy out of Chicago…}) so maybe it's a mid-western thang. I think I can hear it from a Wisconsonian or a Minnesotan. musick? tsuwm?


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If any of us owned the Dictionary of American Regional English, we could LIU:

http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html

Vol. IV just out!


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Didn't someone post a link to a site that has such like? I remember soda/pop/tonic/cocola. That's word choice but didn't it have pronunciations, too?


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