Harrse, Hoss, Hawse

The simple, tragic tale of a rat named Grip, who could not make up his mind, was a piece of red hot news last week. William Cabell Greet, professor of Phonetics and the History of English at Barnard College, Columbia University, assembled seven men from scattered parts of the U.S. to tell the tale of Grip to wax discs in a recording studio of the Victor Talking Machine Co. The idea: to preserve for posterity accurate specimens of U. S. dialects.

Normal in every respect were the spoken words of a man from St. Louis, Mo. He sounded exactly like this: "Once there was a young rat who couldn't make up his mind. Whenever another rat asked him if he would like to go out with him, he would answer, 'I don't know.' "

Samuel Stoney, Manhattan architect, native of Charleston, S. C., gave an accurate imitation of Gullah (early Negro) dialect: "Once deh bin ah nyung rat wat couldn't muk up eh mine. Whenebber duh turrah rat ax um ef e would like tuh come oudt widdum, e would muk ansuh, 'I dunno.' "

Gullah contains many strange idioms and words such as buckra (meaning white man or devil). According to Dr. Greet, Gullah and the language of Cape Cod are the only genuine dialects within the U. S.

Conspicuous among the U. S. inhabitants who appeared and spoke in their accustomed accents at the recording studio was the Vermonter with his kued for could, his enser for answer, his cahft for coughed. Also conspicuous was the Middle Ohioan with his doan for don't, his then for than.

The words, horse and laugh, suffered the following variations:

Man from Maine: harrse, larf. Bostonian: hoss, lough. Texan: hawse, lawf.

The results, in the form of phonograph records, will be put on sale in September at $1 each. Dr. Greet expects to make 14 records by December, including those of a Manhattan truckdriver, a Tennessee mountaineer, a pure Philadelphian. Eventually, he hopes to make 50 records.