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eye dialect

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eye dialect

–noun
the literary use of misspellings that are intended to convey a speaker's lack of education or use of humorously dialectal pronunciations but that are actually no more than respellings of standard pronunciations, as wimmin for “women,” wuz for “was,” and peepul for “people.”

Origin:
1920–25
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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eye dialect  
n.  The use of nonstandard spellings, such as enuff for enough or wuz for was, to indicate that the speaker is uneducated or using colloquial, dialectal, or nonstandard speech.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Encyclopedia

eye dialect

the use of misspellings that are based on standard pronunciations (such as sez for says or kow for cow) but are usually intended to suggest a speaker's illiteracy or his use of generally nonstandard pronunciations. It is sometimes used in literature for comic effect

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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