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Vowel Movement: How Americans near the Great Lakes are radically changing the sound of English
Slate ^ | August 22, 2012 | Rob Mifsud

Posted on 08/24/2012 2:10:57 PM PDT by JerseyanExile

On July 4, 1960, the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard rang in Independence Day with a dire Associated Press report by one Norma Gauhn headlined “American Dialects Disappearing.” The problem, according to “speech experts,” was the homogenizing effect of “mass communications, compulsory education, [and] the mobility of restless Americans.” These conformist pressures have only intensified in the half-century since the AP warned “that within four generations virtually all regional U.S. speech differences will be gone.” And so as we enter the predicted twilight of regional American English, it’s no surprise that publications as venerable as the Economist now confirm what our collective intuition tells us: “Television and the Internet are definitely doing something to our regional accents: A Boston accent that would have seemed weak in the John F. Kennedy years now sounds thick by comparison.”

Before you start weeping into your chowdah, though, I have some news: All these people are wrong. Not about the Boston accent, necessarily; that one might really be receding. But American linguistic diversity as a whole isn’t dying—it’s thriving. Despite our gut-level hunch about the direction of the language; despite the fact that 70-cent, three-minute, off-peak, coast-to-coast long-distance calls that cost four inflation-adjusted dollars in 1970 are now free; despite cheap travel, YouTube, and the globalization of film and television, American dialects are actually diverging.

There are multiple examples of such divergence. But none is as dramatic, as baffling to linguists, and as mysteriously under the collective radar as what’s happening in the cities that ring the Great Lakes. From Syracuse, N.Y., in the east to Milwaukee in the west, 34 million Americans are revolutionizing the sound of English. Linguists first noted aspects of the change in the late 1960s.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; US: Illinois; US: Indiana; US: Michigan; US: Minnesota; US: Ohio; US: Oregon; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: americanaccents; canada; englishlanguage; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; greatlakes; illinois; indiana; language; michigan; minnesota; ohio; oregon; wisconsin
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To: Ezekiel
We just got back from the Maine coast....Funny to see most villages have a sign....That advertise *Chowdah* and Lobstahs*. LOL


121 posted on 08/25/2012 7:34:17 AM PDT by Daffynition (Our forefathers would be shooting by now.)
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To: Ezekiel

Many years ago, George Carlin [rest his warped, funny soul] did a monologue of *colloquialisms* that was brilliant! I’ve never been able to *find* it again.


122 posted on 08/25/2012 7:37:42 AM PDT by Daffynition (Our forefathers would be shooting by now.)
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To: Daffynition
a sign....That advertise *Chowdah* and Lobstahs*

Ayuh. ;-)

123 posted on 08/25/2012 7:48:10 AM PDT by Ezekiel (The Obama-nation began with the Inauguration of Desolation.)
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To: JerseyanExile
Nice article. Re the short o sound, a few years ago I heard Rush pronounce closet as clawset, whereas I say clahset. Rush's pronunciation sounded peculiar to me, but since then I have heard many people speak his version of closet and also do the same with other short os.

More recently I noticed Paul Ryan using the almost-two-syllable short a, as in cyat for cat.

124 posted on 08/25/2012 8:35:35 AM PDT by Marylander (Offendiphobia)
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To: GonzoGOP

We have that whiny sound in Chicago as well as the ‘dis’ and ‘dat’


125 posted on 08/25/2012 10:32:55 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
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To: Marylander
I heard Rush pronounce closet as clawset, whereas I say clahset

That's a Pennsylvania thing and probably a number of other places.

I know a guy in Pittsburgh named Bawb who has a jawb working in a shawp. I also know a guy in Cleveland named Bob who has a job working in a shop.

I know a goy from lawngoyland who can draw-ur great cartoons. I went to see the guy from Long Island to learn how to draw cartoons.

126 posted on 08/25/2012 10:40:53 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault (Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)
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To: Chi-townChief; carlo3b; ThreePuttinDude

My Chicago accent really comes out on words like “car” and “God”/”Wisconsin”/”C’mon!”


127 posted on 08/25/2012 11:16:37 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson (Born and raised on the north side of the city of Chicago, now living in St. Louis)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
Note: this topic is from 08/24/2012. Thanks JerseyanExile.

128 posted on 05/20/2018 4:12:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: SunkenCiv

Not to worry.

100 years from now the lingua franca will be Spanglish


129 posted on 05/20/2018 4:25:27 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: henkster

I was born in Indy and we don’t talk like that.


130 posted on 05/20/2018 4:30:50 PM PDT by dforest (Never let a Muslim cut your hair.)
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To: cripplecreek

Not exactly. For instance: In the City of Monroe people have southern accents because so many moved up from Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, you get the picture.

Out county, however, the accent is NOT southern at all. My spouse who is from Western Wayne county calls it Monrovian and he can pick it out when people speak. It is very fast speech and sometimes mumbly. I have been asked if I was from Cleveland...yeah, sort of, my family moved from that area 150 years ago.

Toledoans also have distinctive speech and since I have always lived so close to the border that is probably in there, too.

NO ONE I know says jab for job.


131 posted on 05/20/2018 4:50:38 PM PDT by madison10
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To: Boogieman

I’ve been trying to get rid of my chicago accent for over twenty years ;)


132 posted on 05/20/2018 4:54:00 PM PDT by Trillian
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To: Born to Conserve
We stop at Pancakes House!


133 posted on 05/20/2018 5:00:15 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: cripplecreek

“I have a shorter name for them.”

Is “sucker” still part of it?


134 posted on 05/20/2018 5:05:29 PM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin (Wisdom and education are different things. Don't confuse them.)
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To: cripplecreek

I have relatives buried in almost every cemetery in the UP.
When I called back to the remaining few above ground I enjoy hearing the accent. My wife and I took a tour of the UK years back and we were seated at a pub bar when a fellow patron asked if we were Canadians! We had to explain close but not quite!
Go Pack Go!


135 posted on 05/20/2018 5:50:14 PM PDT by TaMoDee (Go Pack Go! The Pack will be back in 2018!)
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To: Maceman

I have 2 daughters-in-law from TN. Folks from Tennessee don’t consider themselves “Southern”, at least that’s what their parents told us at the wedding rehearsals. But, some of them do have a “twang”.


136 posted on 05/21/2018 12:46:56 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
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To: cripplecreek

Southern Ohioans were drinking cwuffee back in the 70s.


137 posted on 05/22/2018 4:16:22 AM PDT by ThanhPhero
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To: Maceman

Where I live 60 years ago the speech was classic Southron which is soul melting when
in a soft feminine voice. That accent is almost entirely gone now and speech is almost all some sort of Midwest Standard. You have to go out a bit from Birmingham now to hear it.


138 posted on 05/22/2018 4:20:45 AM PDT by ThanhPhero (';)
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