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Yearly Archives: 2011
Do Southerners Speak Slowly?
One of the most commonly held assumptions about American accents is one with arguably negative connotations. That would be the pernicious rumor that Southern people speak ‘slower’ than Northerners. I put this assumption in quotation marks, of course, because it … Continue reading
Posted in American English Tagged American Southern Accents, phonetics, stigmatized accents 15 Comments
Accents of the Pacific Northwest, Part II
Since moving across country, I’ve only had intermittent internet access. I’ll be more active here and in the comments once we get everything set up on Friday. A brief anecdote, however. As I foreshadowed some time back, I just moved … Continue reading
Foreign Accents
As much as I hate to admit it, ‘foreign’ accents don’t pique my interest the way ‘native’ accents do. That’s not to say I don’t love foreign languages. I’m fascinated by the grammatic intricacy of Navajo and the differences between … Continue reading
The Vowel in ‘Yeah’
Of English’s many alternatives to ‘yes,’ the word yeah is perhaps the most common. I’d go so far as to say there is some type of ‘yeah’ or yeah-like word in nearly every native dialect of English. Yet despite its ubiquity, … Continue reading
Why Americans Don’t Get ‘Dialect’
I first heard the word ‘dialect’ within a bizarre context. It was the 1980s, and some adult (whose identity I forget) used it as a euphemism for African American English*. It was something along the lines of, “He speaks dialect, … Continue reading
Speech Recognition and Accents
I don’t have time for a lengthy post today, which is unfortunate: the way software deals with regional accents deserves a longer discussion (led by someone more knowledgeable than me, frankly). Regardless, I want to share a Slate article apropos … Continue reading
‘Aunt’ in a New England Accent
Like many New Englanders, I pronounce ‘aunt’ with a broad-a (i.e. the vowel in ‘father’). This is one of several ways the New England accent retains a linguistic connection to its semi-namesake (for most other Americans, ‘aunt’ and ‘ant’ are homophones). … Continue reading
The Rise of ‘Be Like’
We dialect nuts scrutinize features of individual dialects, while perhaps ignoring features emerging in many dialects simultaneously. One of these is the meteoric rise of the phrase ‘be like‘ in many types of English. You may not recognize what these … Continue reading
American Ash
It’s time for us to talk about ash. ‘Ash’ refers not to the product of burnt charcoal, but rather the ‘short-a’ vowel symbolized by æ in the International Phonetic Alphabet. In both the British Received Pronunciation and General American dialects of English, this … Continue reading
‘Son’ in African American English
I don’t have time for a lengthy post today, so I’d like to briefly mention a dialect curiosity that has befuddled me for over a decade: the use of the word ‘son’ in African American Vernacular English. The word is … Continue reading