Re: a little help


"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...

> John Atkinson wrote:
>>
>> "Colin Fine" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...
>>
>> > I do think of shortenings in -o as Australian, but the only example I
>> > can
>> > think of (apart from Abo, which doesn't really count) is 'chicko roll',
>> > which occurs in one of Eric Bogle's songs about Australians.
>>
>> Why doesn't Abo count? It sounds to me completely typical.
>
> It's not a truncation + o. It's just a truncation.

Except that <aborigine> (/&b@rIdZ@ni:/) has /-@-/ , not /o:/ (or /VU/ or
/oh/, depending on which symbol one prefers for the "long O" phoneme in
<abo>).

It's no more a pure truncation than /dEro:/ is a truncation of /dEr@lIkt/,
or /kA.mpo:/ a truncation for /kA.mp@nseIS@n/.

"O" addition is a feature of working class spoken language, not something
invented by the literati who were conscious of how words were spelled.

> (Hmm, it could've been the model for the Australian habit.)

Seems unlikely to me.

>> "Chiko Roll" (note spelling), on the other hand, is a brand name, and
>> therefore somewhat dubious.
>
> Brand name for what?

A sort of spring roll. Originally it did contain chicken, though not in its
present-day manifestation, as Brian notes.

John.


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