Accent (was Re: Iran Conflict, A Future Conflict?)

[Guest guest]

Re:

> That [Massachusetts] accent alone is reason enough for the South to >secede

again it is so pompous.

People, not sounds, behave pompously. When you have certain feelings

about a politician (or a TV character, or whomever) and attach those

feelings to the sounds he makes, that says a lot about the politician

and/or about you - it doesn't say a thing about his sounds.

Two hundred fifty years ago - give or take a few decades - the same

Massachusetts accent meant a hick - and people called its sounds

uncivilized - because 200 and 250 years ago, the vast majority of

folks who talked that way lived in tiny fishing-villages or backwoods

farms instead of sailing on yachts and going to " Hahvahd. "

At around the same time, certain southern USA accents (that people

now associate with stupidity and deep poverty) stood for

ultra-fashionable culture, wealth, pomposity, etc., because a lot of

the people who spoke that way happened to own vast quantities of land,

houses, gold, slaves, etc.

About one hundred fifty years ago, around the time that the

Massachusetts accent became popular (because people using that accent

had become rich and therefore popular), the accent that people have in

places like Ohio and Illinois (the same accent that newscasters now

try to learn if they didn't grow up with it) ranked as a " hick " accent

.... because most of in the people who sounded that way lived in

desperate poverty and danger.

What sounds " proper " now (take " proper " either in the sense of

" accepted public behavior " or in the sense of " unacceptably pompous

behavior " ) sounded ludicrously " hickish " and countrified back then ...

.... what sounds ludicrously hickish and countrified today sounded

proper once, and may - who knows? - come to sound proper again

(without actually changing its sounds along the way).

When a group's reputation goes up (or down), so does the reputation of

the way it talks.

Yours for better letters,

Kate Gladstone

Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

handwritingrepair@...

http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

325 South Manning Boulevard

Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

telephone 518/482-6763

AND REMEMBER ...

you can order books through my site!

(Amazon.com link -

I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)

[Guest guest]

Re:

> That [Massachusetts] accent alone is reason enough for the South to >secede

again it is so pompous.

People, not sounds, behave pompously. When you have certain feelings

about a politician (or a TV character, or whomever) and attach those

feelings to the sounds he makes, that says a lot about the politician

and/or about you - it doesn't say a thing about his sounds.

Two hundred fifty years ago - give or take a few decades - the same

Massachusetts accent meant a hick - and people called its sounds

uncivilized - because 200 and 250 years ago, the vast majority of

folks who talked that way lived in tiny fishing-villages or backwoods

farms instead of sailing on yachts and going to " Hahvahd. "

At around the same time, certain southern USA accents (that people

now associate with stupidity and deep poverty) stood for

ultra-fashionable culture, wealth, pomposity, etc., because a lot of

the people who spoke that way happened to own vast quantities of land,

houses, gold, slaves, etc.

About one hundred fifty years ago, around the time that the

Massachusetts accent became popular (because people using that accent

had become rich and therefore popular), the accent that people have in

places like Ohio and Illinois (the same accent that newscasters now

try to learn if they didn't grow up with it) ranked as a " hick " accent

.... because most of in the people who sounded that way lived in

desperate poverty and danger.

What sounds " proper " now (take " proper " either in the sense of

" accepted public behavior " or in the sense of " unacceptably pompous

behavior " ) sounded ludicrously " hickish " and countrified back then ...

.... what sounds ludicrously hickish and countrified today sounded

proper once, and may - who knows? - come to sound proper again

(without actually changing its sounds along the way).

When a group's reputation goes up (or down), so does the reputation of

the way it talks.

Yours for better letters,

Kate Gladstone

Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

handwritingrepair@...

http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

325 South Manning Boulevard

Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

telephone 518/482-6763

AND REMEMBER ...

you can order books through my site!

(Amazon.com link -

I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)

[Guest guest]

This was fascinating too!

They are just now airing one of the best shows in Swedish TV-history; one

about various Swedish accents. The conclusion arrived at by the linguistic

investigator was exactly the same as yours, Kate. Namely that the accent of

whichever region happens to be the most prosperous and trend-setting at any

given time will always be the one that sounds most " proper " (plus somewhat

arrogant) and the other ones " hick " because of how we percieve the people

speaking it.

It's a bit like looks too. When poor folks were starved and skinny, the

ideal was too look like the round, well-fed upper class. Now its the other

way around. Same with skin tone. When being indoors was a sign of not having

to do outdoor manual labor it was considered attractive to be very pale -

until a tan instead would signal that you could afford to take long holidays

on the beach of some exotic location.

Inger

Re: Accent (was Re: Iran Conflict, A Future

Conflict?)

Re:

> That [Massachusetts] accent alone is reason enough for the South to

> >secede again it is so pompous.

People, not sounds, behave pompously. When you have certain feelings

about a politician (or a TV character, or whomever) and attach those

feelings to the sounds he makes, that says a lot about the politician

and/or about you - it doesn't say a thing about his sounds.

Two hundred fifty years ago - give or take a few decades - the same

Massachusetts accent meant a hick - and people called its sounds

uncivilized - because 200 and 250 years ago, the vast majority of

folks who talked that way lived in tiny fishing-villages or backwoods

farms instead of sailing on yachts and going to " Hahvahd. "

At around the same time, certain southern USA accents (that people

now associate with stupidity and deep poverty) stood for

ultra-fashionable culture, wealth, pomposity, etc., because a lot of

the people who spoke that way happened to own vast quantities of land,

houses, gold, slaves, etc.

About one hundred fifty years ago, around the time that the

Massachusetts accent became popular (because people using that accent

had become rich and therefore popular), the accent that people have in

places like Ohio and Illinois (the same accent that newscasters now

try to learn if they didn't grow up with it) ranked as a " hick " accent

... because most of in the people who sounded that way lived in

desperate poverty and danger.

What sounds " proper " now (take " proper " either in the sense of

" accepted public behavior " or in the sense of " unacceptably pompous

behavior " ) sounded ludicrously " hickish " and countrified back then ...

... what sounds ludicrously hickish and countrified today sounded

proper once, and may - who knows? - come to sound proper again

(without actually changing its sounds along the way).

When a group's reputation goes up (or down), so does the reputation of

the way it talks.

Yours for better letters,

Kate Gladstone

Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

handwritingrepair@...

http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

325 South Manning Boulevard

Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

telephone 518/482-6763

AND REMEMBER ...

you can order books through my site!

(Amazon.com link -

I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)

FAM Secret Society is a community based on respect, friendship, support and

acceptance. Everyone is valued.

Don't forget, there are links to other FAM sites on the Links page in the

folder marked " Other FAM Sites. "

[Guest guest]

Jill,

I don't think Bush goes out of his way to sound like a hick, rather he just doesn't hide his accent. I think also that if he did, the press would be all over him for being a phony. After all, they don't like that he vacations in Crawford Texas rather than the Hamptons or some place in the northeast near the big cities, clubs and hoi poloi. They have resented that from day one. Kind of funny that. I watched some programs last week about DC politics and it seems the Presidents after Washington were judged most, by DC insiders, on their ability to throw a party and serve up booze. The few tea-totallers were very unpopular with the DC crowd.

If American politics are bad, the Parliamentary systems elsewhere are even worse. In some governments there can be dozens of parties. These parties have to get together and form fragile coalitions which are nothing but compromises that no one likes, and the government can be overturned with a simple no confidence vote. All of that makes for a really nasty game of political infighting.

In the US, we technically have two main parties with a spectrum in each. You generally know that Republicans lean right while Democrats lean left. That's not always true, however, though there are more left leaning Republicans than right leaning Democrats.

Technically the Congressmen don't represent all the people, just the people from their districts. Most of them seem to think that they best serve them by bringing in federal money for all kind of projects and such. They do have a duty to the nation as a whole, however, and I think that should trump the home district at times.

I have a lot of reforms in mind, things that would be very simple and easy to put in place. I don't expect that any of it would ever happen though because the politicians wouldn't want their power limited and they wouldn't want to be held accountable to the very laws and regulations that they pass.

[Guest guest]

mentions:

> the big cities, clubs and hoi poloi.

" Hoi polloi " (which the quoted material misspelled) means " the average

people, " not " the elite. " If you don't believe me, look it up (even on

Google).

Yours for better letters,

Kate Gladstone

Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

handwritingrepair@...

http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

325 South Manning Boulevard

Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

telephone 518/482-6763

AND REMEMBER ...

you can order books through my site!

(Amazon.com link -

I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)

[Guest guest]

I spent 15 years in the Eastern Caribbean, and I have retained some amount of the diction.

Actually, I am fairly skilled in being chameleon-like when it comes to speaking, and can pass fairly easily in a variety of situations. I sometimes do it for my own amusement.

Amy

Accent (was Re: Iran Conflict, A Future Conflict?)

I have been told by others (in the same country as me) that I have an unusual accent - people in this country (UK) cannot quite place where I come from. Does anyone else have an unusual accent - or have people comment so?I wonder if it is to do with tone of voice or something?>> Being from the midwest, I was subconciously or indirectly taught that > southern accent = hick. I'm in the south now and still have that bias > to some extent but I'm getting better at losing it. I have picked up > a slight southern accent and when I go back to the midwest I hear a > midwestern accent, where I used to hear no accent at all. How we're > taught and raised has children has a powerful effect on what we > believe. Often we think we're right but we just have a different > perspective. >

[Guest guest]

Ever since I first began to talk, I've sounded as follows:

- to my parents/family/friends and to most other Americans, I sound

British (Americans who have lived in the UK sometimes say that I sound

like a " blend " of various accents from all over the UK)

- to some Americans, I sound like " Brooklyn mixed with British " (as

one put it) - I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and so did my parents, so

none of us knows where the " British " part would have come from

- to most people from other English-speaking nations (e.g., the UK), I

sound definitely American *but* they often say I don't pronounce

sounds or words quite like any American they have ever heard in TV/on

the radio/over the phone/in person

- a few people (one or two in the UK, one in the USA) who had studied

medieval English (or who had heard medieval English, e.g., Chaucer,

read aloud on the air by history-of-English-pronunciation experts)

claim that I sound [direct quote] " *exactly* like some time-traveler

from a few centuries ago who has learned to speak modern-day English

but who still has a really thick accent from a previous form of the

language. WHERE did you grow up, Kate? Or should I ask: WHEN? "

I can't say my speech has held me back professionally (though it did

leave me laughed at throughout my youth). My work requires me to often

speak in public, which I plainly could not do if my hearers did not

undersand me well. (Written evaluations at workplaces in my job -

audiences and sometimes employers fill these out - usually ask for an

evaluation of the speaker's clarity and understandability. On this

point, I've never gotten less than 5 [ " best " ] out of a possible 5.)

Wrong planet ... or wrong century?

;-)

Yours for better letters,

Kate Gladstone

Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

handwritingrepair@...

http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

325 South Manning Boulevard

Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

telephone 518/482-6763

AND REMEMBER ...

you can order books through my site!

(Amazon.com link -

I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)

[Guest guest]

Re:

> ... other children automatically assumed I was from

> somewhere else, even when I had grown up in the same area as them

> ...

Join the club, - other children *in* *my* *own* *family*

automatically assumed I came from somewhere else!

So did others - young and grown - who *knew* *darned* *well* that

I had grown up in the area!

Just what does it take for a grandma to /1/ see her grandchild brought

home from the hospital, then /2/ baby-sit that kid regularly from then

on, love the kid a lot ... and still feel *sure* that this kid somehow

actually came from England?

(No joke - before I'd turned three, Grandma [probable

Asperger's herself] nicknamed me " Bundle from Britain. " )

Yours for better letters,

Kate Gladstone

Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

handwritingrepair@...

http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

325 South Manning Boulevard

Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

telephone 518/482-6763

AND REMEMBER ...

you can order books through my site!

(Amazon.com link -

I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)

[Guest guest]

I talked like I was from boston but I never lived there, that is what I was told I sounded like.ojmalm <ojmalm@...> wrote: I learned to speak from the T.V. I had and I still much of a posh Eastern-Norwegian accent and but I was born and raised in Central Norway -- where they have a kind of "hick" accent. I used to hate when people asked me where I came from as a kid.

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[Guest guest]

I talked like I was from boston but I never lived there, that is what I was told I sounded like.ojmalm <ojmalm@...> wrote: I learned to speak from the T.V. I had and I still much of a posh Eastern-Norwegian accent and but I was born and raised in Central Norway -- where they have a kind of "hick" accent. I used to hate when people asked me where I came from as a kid.

Bring photos to life! New PhotoMail makes sharing a breeze.

[Guest guest]

>

> Re:

>

> > I'd like to hear all you talk, especially you, Kate!

>

> Give me a call, sometime! You can reach my husband and me in Albany,

> New York at 518/482-6763.

>

>Oh, dear, you didn't think I was Mike, also, did you? I'm , a

girl. I wasn't hitting on you! I was assuming you knew I was a female,

why I don't know! All right, that does it, I'm always going to sign my

name from now on!