Mountain Man Linguistics

Been a brutal year here in Wisconsin, as the state and the university are being steadily and intentionally destroyed.

So, some good news is welcome: Paul Reed, one of the rising stars in the fields of American dialectology and sociolinguistics, is back at blogging, here. Check it out and keep an eye on his work ... you'll be glad you did.

Ask The Verb: Duck, duck, gray duck

Oooh, this new feature could keep me busy ... I've already gotten a couple of questions and none so far from the people who were bugging me to try this Ask The Verb thing. The very first query was a question posted as a comment on the last post:

Well, here's one: has anyone ever come up with an explanation as to Minnesota's "duck, duck, grey duck" phenomenon? It seems bizarre that something like that would be so universal within Minnesota but stop pretty much right at the border.

A rich and beautiful question, as it happens, for multiple reasons:

• First, the link is to an old piece by James Lileks, of Gobbler fame. Good start!
• Second, this is a very robust view — people in the Upper Midwest firmly believe that the game is called that in Minnesota but 'duck, duck, goose' or something else in other places. The Dictionary of American Regional English reports the relevant variant in Minnesota and only there. So, the first pass at the data suggests that the generalization holds.
• Third, it raises a cool broader issue: We always say that dialect features don't recognize state lines. How can we get exceptions to this?

We can get some more data on this, first: Mister Poll actually has a poll on the question (here). [If you're going to answer the poll, do it before you continue reading, if you're not already ruined for those purposes.]

[Resume reading …] The results suggest a heavy concentration in Minnesota but a good smattering of attestations outside of the state, especially in Wisconsin. So, the boundary doesn't look so firm, crossing the Mississippi River.

But I think there's more here: Some features have emerged or are emerging as stereotypes of state speech. In Wisconsin, that's bubbler for 'drinking fountain'. That term is the answer you get if you go around asking Wisconsinites what linguistic features they associate with the state. In fact, I hear this often from people who report that they don't use it and who do have a full palette of Wisconsin / Upper Midwestern features. Just a hunch, but I think duck, duck, gray duck has caught on in just that kind of role in Minnesota.