Re: accent with b -> p


Douglas G. Kilday wrote:
> "Allan Adler" <ara@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...
>
> > "Douglas G. Kilday" <fufluns@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> > > Yes. The spoof was "The Catchandhammer Kids" by Harvey Kurtzman and
> Bill
> > > Elder. It was reprinted in one of the MAD paperbacks which, alas, I no
> > > longer possess. The dialogue began as serious German (except that
> > > "Sehnsucht" was incorrectly written as two words, if memory serves) but
> > > quickly "progressed" into such utterances as "der Telefunken gehen
> > > geringing". Hans and Feets ended up as hardened criminals.
> >
> > On further reflection, I think it is more likely that it was Hans and
> Feetz.
>
> That's probably correct. I wish I still had the text ...
>
> > I've also been reading parts of Ulysses and found, in the section where
> > Bloom and Dedalus are at the cabman's place, a sailor pronounces the
> > word "titties" as "diddies", indicating an accent with t->d. I could be
> > mistaken, but I don't think an Irish accent has that feature. What could
> > it be, given the setting?
>
> Perhaps it was an Irish word for 'titties' or, more likely, the conflation
> of an Irish word with the English word. In a monograph published in ANSNP
> (if memory serves; I lack the reference), Enrico Campanile discussed a
> number of possible Celtic loanwords into pre-shifted Germanic (besides the
> well-known 'ape', town', 'iron', etc.) and among them was 'tit' (WGmc
> *titta), which EC regarded as _possibly_ borrowed from Celtic; the protoform
> was etymologizable on the basis of a Common Celtic verb for 'suck'. The
> library was about to close when I ran across this monograph, and I didn't
> record the attested Celtic forms.
>
> Of course, if an Irish-speaker reports that there is no such word, this
> explanation fails.

Very impressive! One of the words for "teat" in Irish is dide. This
may be the source of "diddies" in the sailor's converstation

.