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tighty-whitey » tidy-whitey

Variant(s):  tidy-widy

Classification: English – /t/-flapping

Spotted in the wild:

  • Fruit of the Loom underwear gave nearly 100 percent of its corporate donations to tidy-whitey-wearing Republicans… (Gay and Lesbian Review, March-April 2005, p. 4)

The rhyming expression “tighty-whitey” or (plural) “tighty-whities” for ‘men’s briefs’ has been in use since at least 1990, sometimes in this order, occasionally with the elements reversed (”whitey-tighty”, “whitey-tighties”), and with several variant spellings (”tightie-whitie” and the like). Thanks to intervocalic flapping, “tighty” (with reference to tightness) was open to reinterpretation as “tidy” (with reference to neatness and cleanliness, certainly desirable qualities in underwear). See the discussion in my Language Log posting Tidy-whiteys.

The “whitey” element is open to reinterpretation for the same reasons, as “widy” (with reference to width), and at least a few speakers seem to have reanalyzed it, as Mark Liberman observed in his Language Log posting Raising and lowered those tighty whities.

| comment | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/03/20 |

centripetal » centripedal

Chiefly in:   centripedal force

Classification: English – questionable – /t/-flapping

Spotted in the wild:

  • “.. centripedal force and something called the center of gravity … This is called centripedal force and it causes the object to take a circular path, …” (www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/ everydaylife/SUV_Rollover_test.html)

Presumably with stress on the second syllable, so a result of intervocalic flapping neutralizing /t/ and /d/, represented in spelling by a “d”. Still, the “pedal” element might be a move towards something having to do with feet.

On 28 November 2004 I got 720 (raw, unexamined) Google web hits for “centripedal”, as against 6,260 for “centrifical” (q.v.) in place of “centrifugal”.

| 1 comment | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/03/16 |

medal » metal

Classification: English – /t/-flapping

From Estel Telcontar in e-mail, 28 November 2004, from his brother at age 13:

A group that he is in recently won a medal, and in conversation with him, I discovered that he thought “medal” and “metal” were the same word, and that the award was so named because it was made of metal.

[One of a large number of cases that turn on intervocalic flapping and the neutralization of /t/ and /d/. Often this merely yields a non-standard spelling, but sometimes that spelling can be rationalized.]

| comment | link | entered by Arnold Zwicky, 2005/03/16 |

catalytic » Cadillac

Chiefly in:   Cadillac converter

Classification: English – /t/-flapping – proper names

Spotted in the wild:

  • “We were a strong competitor throughout the competition, but then the Cadillac converter fell off, which hurt our emissions and place in the overall standings,” said Jonathan Copeland, co-captain, and vice president of SAE. (University of Wisconsin-Platteville press release, Apr. 9, 2003)
  • To take out the old one I had to unbolt from the Cadillac converter, then I ended up cutting it in half to get it out. (Explorer Street)

Analyzed or reported by:

| 1 comment | link | entered by Ben Zimmer, 2005/02/15 |

sordid » sorted

Classification: English – /t/-flapping

Spotted in the wild:

  • I’ve a rather sorted past, and by nature, I’m quite the fighter and I like a good challenge and fight. So, keeping that in mind, I’ve gotten myself into plenty actual fights. (link)
  • Abe learned about her sorted past as a high priced call-girl who worked for and with Stefano DiMera. (link)
  • OK, so you are interested in the whole sorted story of how we got dust mites to ride on our MEMS device. (link)
  • donnie darko is the dark and sorted tale of a senior in highschool with schizophrenia. (link)
  • For those unfamiliar, Cicero is a town carved out of a section of Chicago’s southwest side. It would usually be considered a ’suburb’ but with its close proximity to the city it’s almost like Chicago, and then with the system of government and long and sorted relationship with the governments of Chicago and the State of Illinois, it acts more like an autonomous town. (link)

Analyzed or reported by:

| 1 comment | link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2005/02/09 |
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