08.17.08

Sunday funnies

Posted in future of the language, language change, pronunciation, regionalisms at 11:32 am by Bill Brohaugh

I grew up in a town whose most famous native son is Frank King, creator of the Gasoline Alley comic strip (premiered 1918) once common in the Sunday comic pages. Growing up, I knew the comics section of the Sunday newspaper as the “Sunday funnies.” Certainly people in other regions called it that, too. Not that I cared, back when. As a youngster in moderately rural Wisconsin (Tomah, specifically, population 5,460 at the time), I didn’t know and therefore didn’t care that terminology might differ in other regions—I was then oblivious to such concepts as terminology and regions.

Until just recently, I had no idea that—oof-dah!—such colloquialisms as “Sunday funnies” might represent linguistics on the cusp (and maybe even at the lip of the eave trough, what some of you might know as a “rain gutter”) of language change.

Wisconsin lies at the edge of many of the most significant changes currently underway in American English. Learn more about what makes Wisconsin English remarkably distinctive and worth studying!

What? Drinking fountains the world over are now being called “bubblers“!? Maybe. Maybe not. The quote is from the Wisconsin Englishes website, where some serious stuff is going on, what-hey?:

Two major vowel changes in the US meet in Wisconsin. The eastward change is where the words caught and cot are pronounced essentially the same. The westward change is where vowels rotate in what is called the Northern Cities Shift ( bit > bet > butt > bought > baht > bat; six > sex > sucks > Saux’s > socks > sax ).

Doncha know! Allow me a juvenile giggle over the “six > sex > sucks > Saux’s > socks > sax” progression. As a native Wisconsinite, this progression makes me wonder about what really goes on in Sauk City. Methinks that sax/socksophones are not involved.

I love this site, because it takes a marvelous Everything You Know About English Is Wrong “I’m-serious-but-I-don’t-take-it-with-funereal-solemnity” attitude.

Bottom line, because it’s Sunday and we all need an injection of funnies, I’ll leave you with something I rarely promulgate (a word seldom used in the comics/funnies/funny papers)—an internet list. In the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy (with some of the verbal things prioritized), “You might be from rural Wisconsin if . . .”

You know that “combine” is a noun.

You can make sense of “upnort” and “batree”.

Pop is the only name for soda.

You know that “creek” rhymes with “pick”.

You hear someone use the word “oof-dah” and you don’t break into uncontrollable laughter.

You know what knee-high by the Fourth of July means.

You know how to polka, but never tried it sober…

You know it is traditional for the bride and groom to go bar hopping between the reception and wedding dance.

You know the difference between “Green” and “Red” farm machinery, and would fight with your friends on the playground over which was better! [Brohaugh notes: I grew up with Red, but much prefer Green.]

You buy Christmas presents at Fleet Farm.

You spent more on beer & liquor than you did on food at your wedding.

Every wedding dance you have ever been to has the hokey pokey and the chicken dance.

Your definition of a small town is one that only has one bar.

The local gas station sells live bait.

You or someone you know was a “Dairy Princess” at the county fair. [Brohaugh notes: Wasn't me. Honest.]

You let your older siblings talk you into putting your tongue on a steel post in the middle of winter.

You think Lutheran and Catholic are THE major religions. [Brohaugh notes: Add Packer fandom—see next entry.]

Football schedules, hunting season and harvest are all taken into consideration before wedding dates are set.

Saturday you go to your local bowling alley. [Brohaugh notes: Vlasek's Bowling Alley, to be specific. Alas, it's no longer there.]

There was at least one kid in your class who had to help milk cows in the morning… phew!

You have driven your car on the lake.

(Side note: David Benjamin has written a superb memoir of growing up in my home town of Tomah, Wisconsin, just a few years ahead of me in the categories of school grades and age. I recommend The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked primarily for its grace and style, then for its sharp observations on growing up in the ’50s. It’s a much better read than, say, an aged comic strip, an internet list or a snarky language blog . . .)

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