Saturday, April 11, 2009

Illinoisian, Wisco

Just noted by a set of people: The word "Illinoisian", mildly disparaging term for people from the Land of Flat, south of Wisconsin, is pretty rich in connections, containing the right strings of sounds for:
  • ill
  • annoy
  • noisy
Question: Which one inspired the term? Or could it be more than one?

Sorry, it was a loooooong week. On a happier note, somebody alerted me to a notable attestation of Wisco, adj. 'from/of/in Wisconsin': The Volebeats' 1997 album, Sky and the Ocean, has a nice tune on it "Two seconds", which opens with this:
Just a guy from a Wisco town …
They were from Detroit, but I don't know what Sconnie connections they had. The /t/ in town is virtually unaspirated, something you can get from certain speakers from here, but the pronunciation is pretty much shot through with things that presumably aren't regional, like reminisce with an /o/ like middle vowel. But it's a really nice song, as you can hear for yourself here.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Mondegreen alert.

From thelyricarchive.com

Two Seconds lyrics

Just a guy from a west coast town, got four walls to bring him down.

Mr. Verb said...

Awwww, crap. I listened repeatedly and was sure. Oh well, thanks.

Anonymous said...

I've never been able to break the habit, whenever I see the word "Wisconsin", of internally pronouncing it "Win's Cousin". I also stumble when I type it.

Two questions occur: (a) Do other people do this? (b) Does it matter how an Australian pronounces Wisconsin anyway?

The Ridger, FCD said...

Huh. The fact that the VOL is on her head and the rest isn't made my eye break it into VOL EBEAT - and I was wondering if it was a Univ of TN music e-zine...

Preconceived notions. They rule us.