Posted on 01/05/2005 2:58:23 PM PST by Ellesu
He may have enjoyed a career in journalism for 40 years but Robert MacNeil, who is hosting the upcoming PBS special, "Do You Speak American?" originally wanted to be an actor.
The man who co-hosted "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour," wrote several books, earned impressive journalism awards and headed several TV specials, says he was struck by a revelation about his acting ability. After dropping out of college to pursue an acting career in New York, he came up against the hard reality of little success in that life.
Having grown up in Nova Scotia, he returned to college in Canada and worked his way through by doing small radio shows and working for the Canadian Broadcasting Company until he graduated and went off to Britain to become a playwright.
"That's what I wanted to be. The plays didn't sell, and my prospective father-in-law didn't approve of a son-in-law with no prospects. So I became a journalist. I worked for five years for Reuters."
While MacNeil underplays it, he eventually signed on as a news correspondent for NBC out of London and worked on some of the most interesting news stories of the day -- the civil war in Algeria, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis.
His stints with newsman Jim Lehrer began in 1975 and continued for 20 years when finally, MacNeil says, he longed to "do other things."
One of those "other things" is "Do You Speak American?" a three-part series that airs 8 to 11 p.m. tonight (check local listings). In this program, MacNeil indulges his passion for all kinds of English from the reeeeeeallly cool patois of the Valley Girl to Spanglish, Ebonics and Maine's stoic Eastern twang.
"My first memoir about my childhood is called 'Wordstruck,' a title which Jim Lehrer suggested. And it's about growing up with words and language and books and noticing very early that different people within my own family spoke differently. My mother said 'gar-AJ' and her father, who grew up on the south shore of Nova Scotia, said 'GAR-aj.'
"I began noticing very early that people said things differently. There was no television in those days; we listened to the radio a lot.
"And Canadian radio then had a lot of different accents on it. The news we listened to during the Second World War was the news from the BBC, ... and they had a program from the West Indies every week with West Indian music. I loved all the West Indian dialects," he says.
"When I moved to Britain as a young man, ... I loved all the different British accents. So I became something of a collector of funny accents and things like that. Not that I can reproduce them very well.
"But if you were a North American living in Britain, you weren't placeable in class terms by the way you spoke, as British people are, which gives you a wonderful kind of free entry into all levels of British society. ... I could interview people from any walk of life in any regional dialect and be accepted by them."
"Do You Speak American?" is, in a way, a follow-up to "The Story of English," which he did for PBS a few years ago.
While he was preparing that (which involved all the English-speaking world) he longed to tell more about American dialects, where they came from and why they survive.
MacNeil, 73, has been married three times and has two children each from his first two marriages. "I would rather I had got it right the first time," he smiles, "but I've got it right now and we're about to celebrate our 20th anniversary," he says.
"And my oldest child just had her 47th birthday and when your children begin getting that old, you think 'What was I doing at 47?' I was teamed with Jim Lehrer on 'The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.' "
Now he wants to return to writing novels, an endeavor that was interrupted by a nonfiction work and the TV show. "Writing is hard," he shakes his head.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/features/2979330
1. Robert MacNeil was on Imus today, speaking about his new book on vernacular American English as it is spoken today. Far from becoming completely homogenized, he says, some dialects are becoming more pronounced than ever. Among the developments he cited:
-- More than half of Americans now say "y'all". (If you're a Texan, you might not have known it was less than 100 percent.)
-- The speech of black Americans is in many places becoming more distinct from "standard" English, not less.
-- "Californian -- the use of surfer- and Valley Girl-speak, the rising inflection at the end of declarative sentences -- has become distinct, and is emulated by young people in many places. Dude.
Second, the rising inflection at the end of a declarative sentance makes people sound like they aren't certain of anything they are saying. Rising inflection suggests a question, not a declaration (and not just in English). Using the rising inflection in a declaration makes it sound like you are asking for approval for or are uncertain of everything you are saying.
Second, the rising inflection at the end of a declarative sentance makes people sound like they aren't certain of anything they are saying. Rising inflection suggests a question, not a declaration (and not just in English). Using the rising inflection in a declaration makes it sound like you are asking for approval for or are uncertain of everything you are saying.
Not to Canadians. To us, rather, it's an invitation to join in conversation or to continue in a conversation already enjoined.
It's a pleasant, welcoming, and well-understood idiomatic quirk for us Canucks. It's so much better than ending every sentence on that mind-numbing, dull-as-a-thud down note that most people use (especially vexing when you are delivering lines in a play, or reading aloud from a book).
Remember: "drawer" is pronounced "draw," "idea" is pronounced "idear," "forest" is pronounced "FAR-est" and "Orange" is pronounced "ARE-ange!"
My Newarkie father still says "yous," despite the fact that he had a successful career in the auto industry.
In early modern English (aka Shakespeare's time), "you" was considered either formal second person singular or both formal and informal second person plural.
"Thou" has always been a term of familiarity, denoting one person.
"Ye" was a more common familiar second person plural than "you." "Ye all" was a redundancy that became popularized by the Scots and Irish in the 17th and 18th centuries, who carried it over with them to America (particularly the south).
Q: What's the plural of "y'all"?
A: All y'all
In my neck of the woods?
Zero.
I hate that.
I mean: I hate that? Or something?
Really (thud).
I can't stand it. I keep wanting to ask them: "Are you asking me or telling me?"
I like simple declarative sentences that end on a down note. It lets me know the person isn't BS'in me (thunk).
In Chicago, the correct phrase is 'you guys'. No accent or weird stressing on the phrase, unless you're from the south side perhaps.
Even though I've only viewed snippets from the series-taken from a few, select episodes-it was one of the most interesting experiences I've ever had while watching the "boob tube."
Really (high sing songy note)?
I've never thought about it like that, eh? (sliding scale high note)
From your tag, it appears that you're Celtic. (Marginally enthusiastic thud) Scottish, Irish, Welsh? (each with a varying degree of high note)
So would the directions to separate groups be something like this:
All y'all go over here.
All y'other y'all go over there!?!?
The overwhelming impression they all left me with is that they are very reserved and very nice.
Their accents still crack me up.
You hear that kind of thing in the army a lot.
Like: "Y'all keep your feets moving!"
When you play "Scotland the Brave" do the New Mexico mothers tell their children to come inside?
I love the pipes. My mum was born in Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis on Harris, Outer Hebrides. MacKenzie, with MacDonald her mum's maiden name.
My cousin was a world class junior piper. Went to the Edinburgh tattoo, things like that. It's a wonderful instrument, no matter what the naysayers may say.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.