Lot of road noise in the background, so he probably is driving a truck. He's here in Texas and trying to buy a handgun.
It’s the little nuances. It is usefull to be a skilled and cunning linguist. Many applications. That is all.
Thank you for the straight factual reply! I was wondering if he brought it up in conversation. When I talk with black students, it takes but a minute or so for them to bring up racism somehow.
“I can often tell just by the tone of someone’s voice their ethnicity”
Musicians can do this also and it is not hard so I will back you on this. There is a certain “Timbre” to the vocal chords of different races. Very rarely is this not the case, Charley Pride had many people fooled for awhile back in the day.
I find that black voices tend to be more smooth, while white voices sound clipped and crystal-like.
It isn’t absolute, but that’s what I do find.
Yup. Got a call from Amex one day. Asked where she was calling from and she said "Miami". I asked her how far Miami was from New Dehli.
***********I can often tell just by the tone of someone’s voice their ethnicity. Word choice, pronunciation and expressions used...it’s not that difficult. ***********
Same here, I’ve always been able to tell. The only person who ever fooled me is a black friend I’ve known for 30 years, if I didn’t know he is black already, his telephone voice might fool me. Otherwise, I always know if the person on the other end of a phone call is black or white. As you said, minor vocal inflections, pronunciation, words and expressions they use...usually hispanics are easy to spot too, as well as asians.
After I got out of the navy I was in a bar with a couple of friends in Texas, suburb of Houston. We met an out of state guy, and one of them asked where he was from. Before he could answer I said Ohio. Blew his mind, exactly where he was from. I had a friend in the navy who I worked with every day for 2 years who was from Cleveland suburbs. I knew the local dialect well. He was from Cleveland too.
Some locations have their own very distinct dialect. Ohio, New York City has several. South Louisiana cajuns. And of course, wackifornia valley girls...lol
If you pay attention, you can even tell what section of NYC a person is from. Oh, and Boston...definite dialect there too. Hard to spell phonetically, bah’stahn...just certain words at some times can pinpoint a location. Listen to a new yorker say “car” (cahh) or “market” (mah’kit”) or “store”. (stoah) plenty of examples if you think on it a bit.
I noticed when I was a kid though, people like Walter Cronkite, Johnny Carson and many actors had little or no local accent. I never could figure out where Cronkite was from. That’s a practiced quality. Finally found out Carson was from Indiana, but not by listening to him. I learned from them, once I was an adult (but far from grown up) most people could not figure out where I was from, and were shocked when they found out I grew up in Louisiana, then moved to Texas at 17. WHAT??? No way! In the navy, out of state, I had to pull out my driver’s license quite a few times and show people a Texas address. I always tried to mimic that no dialect quality Cronkite had.
I’d be concerned about how I responded in a situation like this. As you did, I would certainly refuse an out of state sale, and probably just say “bye” at that point, and hang up. I probably would not bring up politics if I suspected a set up by some ATF twit. As another post suggested, that could result in retaliation.
I don’t have any guns for sale, I do plan to sell a bow I can’t pull any more, 45# Bear recurve, 70’s vintage. I don’t think that would draw any attention of this nature but I guess you never know. But if anyone were to ask, I could be completely truthful and say no, I have no guns for sale. Local or otherwise. I do hope I’m being overly cautious though...
I told my parent’s plumber in Phoenix he was born and raised within 5 miles of the Brooklyn Bridge, New Jersey side. Freaked him out.
Another guy, I told him, “Philly”, and he said, Sure, but which SIDE?”
Bouncer at the casino near Seattle? “Bronx”. “How’djew doodat?”
Cashier in Tacoma claims UP Michigan, but he’s in witness protection from Jersey and hates it when I say so.
Especially the guys from Mumbay are very recognizable.