LINGUIST List 6.1132

Sun Aug 20 1995

Qs: Borrowing, Huehnergoetter, 'to where/whenever'

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <dseelyemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. Alexis Manaster Ramer, Q: Borrowing of the term for '1'?
2. " (Hiwis Wode, Huehnergoetter
3. , 'To Where' As A Subordinator: Request for Tokens
4. , 'Whenever' in Aberrent Uses in Southern American English

I have been collecting examples of borrowed numerals 1-10 recently
(for a paper to appear in 1997 in the Wiener Zeitschrift fur die
Kunde des Morgenlandes). Curiously, while '1' is quite UNstable
and frequently replaced by neologisms, I do not seem to have any
examples of it being borrowed, and would appreciate any. (Note:
I have lots of examples of borrowing from 4 on and a handful involving
2 and 3. I could use more such examples involving 2 and 3).

Will post a summary.

Alexis Manaster Ramer

Recently I came across the German word Huehnergoetter (sg. Huehnergott, the
translation would be something like chicken god(s)) which is used to refer
to a certain kind of stone you can find on the beach from time to time.
These stones have one or more holes in them. I'm very interested in the
etymology of 'Huehnergoetter' but I could not find any information so far.
The only slight hint I got is that this word is very frequently used by
German boy scouts. Does anyone know anything about this term or are there
similar names in other languages?
Gerd Krohn, English department, University of Kiel, Germany

1. I'm looking for tokens of 'To Where' used as a subordinator in Southern
American English. To be more specific, I'm not looking for ordinary locative
occurrences, as in [We drove TO WHERE the accident had happened], but for
occurrences such as these:
 o I'm gonna weld the legs of that chair to where it won't wobble.
 o It's to where I don't even care anymore.
 o He glued it together just so, to where there's no chance
 they'll come apart.

2. I'd sure appreciate tokens from anyone who'd be kind enough to e-mail
or post them--and it'd be great if you could mention the age, gender, class,
etc. of the speaker, and geographic origin.

3. You know my e-mail address. By post I'm
 Bradley Harris
 Department of English
 The University of Memphis
 Memphis, Tennessee 38152.

4. Thanks a bunch!

1. I'm collecting unusual uses of 'whenever' in Southern American English.
I'm interested, inter alia, in substitutions of 'whenever' for ordinary 'when',
as in
 o Whenever my husband and I got married, it was a rainy day.
(And, yes--this informant's only been married the once!)

2. If anybody's got any similar or related tokens, I'd be grateful,
especially if accompanied by a note on gender, ethnicity, origin, etc. etc.
E-mail's great, or you can send info to
 Bradley Harris
 Department of English
 The University of Memphis
 Memphis, Tennessee 38152

3. Thanks, yall!