Posted on 12/31/2009 11:04:42 AM PST by don-o
For some examples, tune in to Hannity's show in the afternoon and hear young (I assume) females who speak in some sort of Valley Girl / Munchkin combination of vocabulary and inflection.
In the interest of equal treatment, many young males also exhibit poor communication skills; but poor in a different way. Many sound like remarkable apes who have learned rudimentary human speech.
What is the cause of this loss of standard speech?
This has been troubling me for quite some time. The last day of the year is a good time to get it out of my head and out there for discussion.
Thank you for letting me share!
I call BS.
Barbara Jordan.
Even though I might disagree with her political persuasion, I could give her a respectful hearing.
I call BS.
Might need some help over here.
I have traveled the country a fair amount and actually enjoy accents and dialects.
I have to agree with you, Cali Valspeak and Jersey Goombah are the two most unpalatable accents I’ve ever encountered, and Jersey wins the annoying contest. Loud, crude and hostile sounding.
Dunno the answer to that one, but I’m with you on the wondering.
I would think it’s along the same line as hip hop/rap. I can’t even stand the beat of those, much less the words.
A great deal of it has to do with education and peer pressure, I’m sure. I speak very differently than I write, unless I’m intentionally doing dialect.
Another pet peeve: than and then
Than is a choice
Then is a period of time
There are many versions of Southern pronunciation, and far fewer versions of “Southern dialect” per se. My difficulties with local speech in Tennesee were pronunciation variants, not the whole array of differences that constitute “dialect.” With an “accent,” the speaker is using the same words in the same way as the uncomprehending listener; he’s just pronouncing them differently.
A true “dialect” has all the requirements for clear and complex communication, even if it differs from the “standard” for that language. However, when people are speaking in phrases and fragments, that is not “dialect”: it’s being poorly taught in their native speech. A dialect may put sentences together differently from the standard, but it makes sentences; it structures complete thoughts and conveys them. However, when a culture is degraded, it handicaps verbal expression no matter which language form the people use.
John McWhorter says “American Black English” is simply a non-standard English dialect, just as “Way Back in the Hills Appalachian” and “How Those Island People Talk” are non-standard English dialects. In modern society, with our mass media and standardized education, the use of a non-standard dialect for all communication *often* signals a rejection of the learning process that is part of becoming a function citizen.
OK, here’s another answer. Because we are social animals by language. I won’t put up with an animal like Jim Leher or any other such palsied authority.
OmiGawd!, my daughters say “Think yao.” I’d repressed the memory. (Not Anoreth, of course. She never associated with people who talked funny.)
Some comedian did a whole show on country speech. He was making fun of his own family and it was hysterical. I wish I could find it online but it was so long ago.
My cousin born and bred in California moved to Jawjuh in her twenties, and she speaks just like them. It is transfered like a virus it seems. hee!
I hear ya!
Ooh, yer justa soond soiderr, ya are. Hoi toid’sa comin, lol.
Di-int. That’s a classic Carolinas accent that I’ve also heard from a Virginian. They also end words with certain diphthongs such as “show” with a smorgasbord of vowel phonemes that come out (essentially unspellably) as “shoiy.”
You definitely need to listen to some down east’ers! LOL
It’s a whole different world!
The local bubba variant is:
Jeatchet?
Gnaw Jew?
Gnaw, Yauntto?
Shore!
Hoi toide’s already here. Thar’s mullets in the collard patch! LOL
Attention deficit disorder.
My little boys sometimes call me “Mami,” because we go to a Spanish church service and socialize with Latin Americans.
Never heard anyone called “Dod,” though. “Aks” is apparently a very old variant of “ask,” and can be found in British publications and letters from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Look, I’m the guy. And as I remember it:
I went into a bar, there’s a robot bartender.
The robot says, “What will you have?” I said, “Martini.” The robot bring back the best martini ever and says to me, “What’s your IQ?” I say, “168”. The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, space exploration and medical technology.
I leave, but I am curious, so, I go back into the bar. The robot bartender says, What will you have?” I say, “Martini. Again,, the robot makes a awesome martini, gives it to me, and says, “What’s your IQ?” I say, “100.” The robot then starts to talk about NASCAR, Budweiser and John Deere tractors.
I leave, but find it fascinating, so I think I will try it one more time. I go back into the bar. The robot says, like, “What will you have?” I say, “Martini”, and the robot brings me another awesome martini. The robot then says, “What’s your IQ?” I say, “Uh, oh, about 50.” The robot leans in real close and says, “So, you guys still happy you voted for Obama?”
That’s how I remember it.
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