I am talking about the midlands in the U.S. and not in England.

Nathan Bierma wrote an excellent column this week about Murray's and Simon's (Eds.) new book, "Language Variation and Change in the American Midland: A New Look at 'Heartland' English." Unfortunately it costs a whopping $156! I will look at it in the library.

I was especially intrigued about what is called the "low back merger" that was written about by a Missouri linguist, involving a vowel change. I am not quite sure what that is, but it leads people to rhyme "Don" with "dawn" and "collar" with "caller." Interestingly, this linguist found that Missouri is split into 3 parts where some rhyme these words as above and some parts don't. It is strange to think that pronunciations vary that much even within states.

I also thought it humorous that the Swiss Amish in northeastern Indiana refer to all outsiders, both American and German visitors, as "the English."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I am talking about the midlands in the U.S. and not in England.

So Sunflower's post about "carry-in" should be in Bierma's arsenal of expressions. Is it?

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the Swiss Amish in northeastern Indiana refer to all outsiders, both American and German visitors, as "the English."

And we call everyone who comes to the USA from southern countries "Mexicans." Hmmmm.... I have an Argentine/German daughter-in-law. I wonder if she knows she's a Mexican?