Posted on 01/25/2005 7:28:57 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
Students get lesson in how Americans talk from 'NewsHour' ex-anchor
By Katie Humphrey
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Y'all better get ready because the Texas drawl is the future of American English -- at least according to journalist Robert MacNeil, who has spent many years studying and chronicling how Americans talk.
Maybe it's because of country music or migration from north to south, but any way you look at it, the number of people speaking with a Southern dialect -- particularly "Texan" -- is on the rise, MacNeil told about 270 area high school students who gathered at the campus of Advanced Micro Devices on Monday afternoon.
"Talking Southern may ultimately become the most normal way of talking American," he said, recalling a study from the 1990s that found that 76 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds and 41 percent of people older than 65 in the United States used "y'all" on a regular basis. And that was before President Bush took office.
MacNeil, former executive editor and co-anchor of "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour," used Monday's discussion as a prequel to his evening speech at the University of Texas' LBJ Library, part of KLRU's Distinguished Speaker Series.
The discussion focused on MacNeil's latest book, "Do You Speak American?" and his Public Broadcasting Service documentary of the same title, which aired on KLRU in early January. In the documentary -- MacNeil's first since retiring in 1995 -- he travels across the United States to explore the slang, dialects and quirky accents that give American English its linguistic diversity.
"Most people are really interested in language because it's something that we all own and it belongs to all of us," MacNeil said, adding that even slang-happy teenagers can find linguistics interesting if it is presented in the right way. "Only when they saw the series did they realize that it didn't have to be boring at all."
Students laughed as they watched MacNeil mimic a "Surfer Dude" accent using a 69-word sentence that included the word "like" 13 times. Then he slipped into a slow Southern drawl to share some typical Texas phrases with the students.
"Texas is known for its wonderfully colorful metaphors and expressions," he said, including sayings such as "meaner than a skillet full of rattlesnakes."
"The great skill in Texas is to not copy these expressions but to create your own," he said. "Our language is constantly changing."
But our perceptions of certain dialects are not, he said. While working on the documentary, MacNeil said he met people who faced discriminated for talking differently: an inner-city student who "talks black," an immigrant who speaks Spanglish and a New Englander who drops the r's in words.
"While we are very careful about what we say about all kinds of things, we permit ourselves a certain degree of racism when talking about language," he said.
As a result, people have learned to be bilingual in a sense, speaking a formal standard English and a more informal dialect, depending on the situation, he said.
Sarah Mendoza, a senior at Del Valle High School, said she noticed changes in her classmates' speech patterns as they asked MacNeil questions.
"People talked differently here than when they are at home or with their friends," she said. "Some of them stuttered or tried to use a bigger vocabulary."
One student's use of the word "proliferation" did indeed draw gasps from his peers.
This is really why the journalists hate Bush. He has the Texas twang.
Robert MacNeill's 8 part "The Story of English" was superb. Why isn't it on DVD ?
In the 'Oh, Pioneers' I loved where he pointed out how many American English expressions are based on poker (anything "deal", underhanded, etc..).
As late as the 70s, you could tell which county a Texan was from by his accent. Things have become more regionalized, but there are still at least 20 different ones.
The same is true in the rest of the South.
So9
Pur-da-nal-lees
Burn-et
Man-chack-ka
What's so hard about that?
:)
A couple of my favorites are Gruene, Refugio and Lometa.
---------------------------------
Y'all bettah git ready cuz da Texas drawl
iz da future o' American English -- at least
according ta journalist Robert MacNeil,
who has spent many years studying an' chronicling
how Americans jive. don't make me shank ya!
---------------------------------
Well, helpful people
put up an ebonics page.
We need a drawl page . . .
Calling Professor Higgins. Henry Higgins please please pick up the courtesy phone.
You can speak any way you want, but if you can't speak an intelligible standard english as well, then you are economically and socially worthless outside your 'hood' and deserve the contempt you receive.
So9
I've also heard it Burn-it.
So9
Humble = Umble
Damn "H's"!
Minner Wells Bump
Now, that Redneck ways is a funny thread. Plenty of funny pics.
Texas twang ping.....
I am so proud of my Yankee wife; she now calls us to supper by telling us to go warsh our hands.
Now she will tell you that she is fix'n supper or fix'n to do something and if she's doing something, she's working on it.
You could also tell where in Texas they were raised by the way that they danced (C&W mind you). Outside of Texas, you were noted as being Texan again by the way you C&W danced. Real Texans don't line dance, that's tourist stuff.
Hehehe, thanks for the ping Arrowhead!
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