EYEDIALECT

Eye dialect

Eye dialect is the use of nonstandard spelling for speech to draw attention to pronunciation. The term was originally coined by George P. Krapp to refer to the literary technique of using nonstandard spelling that implies a pronunciation of the given word that is actually standard, such as wimmin for women; the spelling indicates that the character's speech overall is dialectal, foreign, or uneducated. This form of nonstandard spelling differs from others in that a difference in spelling does not indicate a difference in pronunciation of a word. That is, it is dialect to the eye rather than to the ear. It suggests that a character "would use ...

The above text is a snippet from Wikipedia: Eye dialect
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

eye dialect

Noun

  1. Nonstandard spellings, which however do not change pronunciation, deliberately used by an author to indicate that the speaker uses a nonstandard or dialectal speech.
  2. A set of such nonstandard spellings, collectively used to reflect a certain form of speech.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: eye dialect
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

Need help with a clue?
Try your search in the crossword dictionary!