Howya Doin? Contracted Speech

The Language Lady’s “No-Business-Like-Shoe-Business” Award for Linguistic License goes this summer to Kenneth Cole’s flagship Rockefeller store: The backdrop for the July window display had two wall-sized panels with July written in bold across the panels. On either side of July were gray-colored words that, on close inspection, were questions that used that word “July” in an unusual way:

July about your weight? July about how much you make? July about walking the dog? July about renting a house in the Hamptons? July about your age? July about what you did last night? July about the report? Why July to me?

Whoever dreamed that up deserves some major props (Didn’t know I knew rap slang popularized in the 1990’s, did you? “Props” is short for “proper respect.”) for using linguistic contraction in such a timely and seasonal manner. English is full of such contraction, or reduction, in our everyday speech: Whadja do daday? Didja hafta say that? I’m gonna letcha have it. Wanna go? Even the most articulate speakers, if they want to sound natural, use this type of reduction in their speech – or risk sounding too formal and stilted. But until the Kenneth Cole window display, I had never seen “did you lie” rendered as “July.” And in July! Nice.

Of course, we have Woody Allen to thank for this: his “Annie Hall” (1977) brought this type of speech into mass awareness. In the movie, Woody, playing the insecure, neurotic character Alvy Singer, who feels painfully aware of his “outsider” status because he is Jewish, complains to his friend about what he perceives as an anti-Semitic remark. Alvy says:
“You know, I was having lunch with some guys from NBC, so I said, 'Did you eat yet or what?' And Tom Christie said, 'No, JEW?' Not 'Did you?'...JEW eat? JEW? You get it? JEW eat?”
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaPBhxXhprg&feature=related)

It just so happens that in English, it’s easier to say words or syllables with “d” followed by “u” as a “j” sound. Try saying these out loud: graduation; “how bad you are;” “could you/would you …”

(Likewise, “t” + “u” creates a “tcha” sound, as in “nature,” or “congratulations,” when we say, “get you” and it sounds like “getchu.” That’s why when some people pronounce “mature” as “ma-toor” instead of “ma-tchoor” it sounds pretentious. But Dictionary.com says both pronunciations are correct.)

This kind of informal speech no doubt exists in other languages but, not being at native level in any, I can only give a few examples. Languages like Spanish and Japanese pronounce every syllable with more or less equal stress, making reduction less likely. However, in some Spanish-speaking countries, the “s” in words gets dropped before a “p” or “t” : i.e., “espantoso” will sound like “eh-pantoso” and “estado” will sound like “eh-tado;” for example, I believe Puerto Ricans do this all the time, whereas such pronunciation in Argentina will have people laughing at your baby-talk. In French, the “ne” often gets dropped in a spoken negative sentence: “Je ne sais pas” is typically heard as “je sais pas;” “je n’ai pas d’argent” is said, “J’ai pas d’argent” -- though never in writing.

The other day I overheard a very proper-French receptionist speaking on the phone, and she was apologizing to the person on the other end; but instead of saying, “Je suis desolee,” (zhe swee desolay) or “I’m sorry,” she was saying (repeatedly, with some insistence) what sounded like, “Shwee desolee.” That sound is just the sort of speech captured in a linguistically groundbreaking French book called "Zazie dans le metro" (1959) by Raymond Queneau:

“Doukipudonktan” is the first word of this antic novel (Louis Malle directed the 1960 movie), which is peppered throughout with many such strange-looking phonetic renderings of colloquial speech. Even French readers do not immediately recognize all these renderings. “Doukipudonktan” is actually “D'où qu'ils puent donc tant,” or “Why do they stink so much?” Other such compressions include: “Skeutadittaleur” = “Qu’est-ce qu’il t’a dit, alors?” or, “So what did he tell you?”; “Izont des bloudjinnzes”= “Ils sont des bluejeans,” or “They’re bluejeans;” “Kouavouar” = “Quoi a voir?” or “What’s there to see?” “Lagosamiebou” or “La gosse a mis la boue” or “The girl has flown the coop.” All this is meant to convey the very working class-ordinary joe sort of people these characters are. Same as when we write that way in English. The difference is, we do it in English all the time – in novels, ads, comic books, and in our own shorthand-style of writing (I’m gonna, do you wanna, see ya,” etc.) In French and Spanish (and no doubt other languages) this type of speech is spoken, but rarely conveyed in writing – even in comics like Asterix or Tin Tin.

So, we’re lucky: instead of my having to write, “I’ve got to go,” all I hafta write is, “Gotta go!” or, text message-style, “G2G.”