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Post by Kathy Lee on Jul 15, 2014 6:34:42 GMT -5
My father came from a large family. He was the 12th of 16! My grandmother was pregnate with my father and at the same time my grandmother's oldest daughter was pregnate also. Sounds weird but the daughter was grown and married. My father became an uncle as soon as he was born! There was a large age difference between the youngest and the oldest children. Because if this, the children were divided into two informal groups. So, the younger ones would have been referred to as the children because of the age difference. At school we now call the children ladies and gentleman or friends! As in, "Okay friends, it is time to line up for lunch."
groups.
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Post by ForeverWaltons on Jul 15, 2014 9:53:05 GMT -5
I had the same experience with kids and children. I was invariably a "child", not a "kid". It did not carry over to me however, as I now call the little blighters "kids" with no feelings of guilt. Regarding ants and awwwnts - in the rural South, that is pronounced like AINT! Right Forever?
Yes Clyde...here in the rural South it is Aint Sherry or Aint whatever their name is. Being raised like this and always hearing aint for aunt, when I hear someone say Aunt (awwwnt) it not only sounds funny to me (I know my aint sounds funny to them too) but it almost seems like they are trying to talk high flutin' to us Southerners. LOL!
Well, I speak my southern English just as natural as I please, I'm in the heart of Dixie, Dixie's in the heart of me. And someday when I make it, when love finds a way, somewhere high on lookout mountain I'll just smile with pride and say... that my home's in Alabama, no matter where I lay my head. My home's in Alabama, Southern born and Southern bred.
My Home's in Alabama by the country group Alabama
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Post by sdw on Jul 15, 2014 16:56:54 GMT -5
In 198 Kids and counting The Duggers oldest sons wife was pregnant at the same time as Michelle was pregnant,that was in 2009.
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Post by patriciaanne on Jul 15, 2014 19:15:09 GMT -5
I had the same experience with kids and children. I was invariably a "child", not a "kid". It did not carry over to me however, as I now call the little blighters "kids" with no feelings of guilt. Regarding ants and awwwnts - in the rural South, that is pronounced like AINT! Right Forever?
Yes Clyde...here in the rural South it is Aint Sherry or Aint whatever their name is. Being raised like this and always hearing aint for aunt, when I hear someone say Aunt (awwwnt) it not only sounds funny to me (I know my aint sounds funny to them too) but it almost seems like they are trying to talk high flutin' to us Southerners. LOL!
Well, I speak my southern English just as natural as I please, I'm in the heart of Dixie, Dixie's in the heart of me. And someday when I make it, when love finds a way, somewhere high on lookout mountain I'll just smile with pride and say... that my home's in Alabama, no matter where I lay my head. My home's in Alabama, Southern born and Southern bred.
My Home's in Alabama by the country group Alabama
I have never been one to put on airs. It comes from a nice comfortable feeling of not really worrying what people think of me. At one time in my life I happened to be dating someone whose family used the "upper crust" pronunciation of "aunt." I was raised pronouncing it "ant." He said to me one day, "Hmmm...I'm very surprised that someone with your education pronounces it 'ant'." I responded, "Well, I was raised by two people who were raised in the South Bronx. That's how they pronounce it and that's how they taught me to pronounce it and I think I would sound pretty darn pretentious if I changed it now."
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Post by JeriJet on Jul 16, 2014 8:06:54 GMT -5
When I was in grade school, any use of the term "kid" or "kids would be met by the teacher's knee-jerk response that kids were goats, so stop saying that. We'd been tuned to check ourselves and say "children" whenever "kids" was on our pre-tongues -- except when conversing with the other 99% of The World. (Also, calling your parent's female siblings your "ants." Everybody pronounced it that way, excapt before a grammar-fascist like your teacher. There you had to say "Awwwnt Martha" like some British fancy-lad snotnose, and let the other kids laugh at you. But everywhere else, including to her own face, she was "Ant Martha," and she was fine with it, Gawd Bless You Ant Martha!) So, of course, John Junior II, the farm guy desperately wanting to sound like a sophisticate, says "the chilren." Curse you, John-Boy!
Researching online and in some of my personal source books, sometimes as many as five pronunciations of "aunt" in America are given.... here's a good link to maps which show us exactly where various pronunciations are used: www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_1.html
This is a basic explanation: It depends on how you were brought up and where.... but the "ant" pronunciation is overwhelming the more popular.
The usual vowel of "aunt" in the United States is the /æ/ (Pronunciation Key of rant) except in New England and eastern Virginia, where it is commonly the “New England broad a,” a vowel similar to French /a/ and having a quality between the /æ/ of hat and the /?/[ah] of car.... The vowel /?/[ah] itself is also used.... In New England and eastern Virginia /?/[ah] or the /a/-like sound occur in the speech of all social groups, even where a “broad a” is not used in words like dance and laugh. Elsewhere, the “broader” a is chiefly an educated pronunciation, fostered by the schools with only partial success (“Your relative isn't an insect, is she?”), and is sometimes regarded as an affectation. Aunt with the vowel of paint is chiefly South Midland United States and is limited to folk speech.... The /æ/ pronunciation of aunt was brought to America before British English developed the /?/[ah] in such words as aunt, dance, and laugh. In American English, /?/[ah] is most common in the areas that maintained the closest cultural ties with England after the /?/[ah] pronunciation developed there in these words.... The "awnt" pronunciation appears limited to Black-speak....
Yikes.
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Post by e knight on Jul 16, 2014 18:01:33 GMT -5
There's a complex, whimsical terminology for the young of every species that has evolved over time. If something like "calf" can apply to cattle, whales, etc., then surely the term "kid" is allowed a bit of slippage. If a usage fills a gap, it'll make it into the official language in time.
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