The American Spectator

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Talking Words

11.27.06 @ 12:01AM

TONGUE TUGS
Re: Lawrence Henry's To Accent or No:

Mr. Henry's fun essay, "To Accent or No," prompted a few observations. Trained theatre actors and singers will tell you that the secret to being heard and understood in a large theatre without amplification, is complete enunciation of your words, especially the final consonants. Twenty-five years back, when I took classes in both, I learned from several different teachers that the key was not as much volume, but enunciating the words completely. Speak naturally, in that you don't over-enunciate, but say all the constants and the rest will come naturally. If you do so any English-speaking audience will be able to hear you and understand you, even in large theatres. If you carry out this behavior in regular speech your accent disappears. The modern trend toward stage amplification removes this necessity.

The other observation is that accents are not regressing to a mean, but are mutating and combining in new and novel ways. This effect is very prevalent in English as our language freely borrows words from other languages and also creates new ones fairly spontaneously. There are many interesting examples of the mutation/creation of accents, including the creation of the British "posh" accent in the 18th century and the effect of colonization on old/new accents, particularly with the colonization of the British Empire. Both logic and illogic effects language use in many and varied ways. The result guarantees that accents will forever evolve.
-- Tom Abert

When I was working in International Law, I took a class called "Git the Souf Out Yo Mouf" (Get the South out of your Mouth). It was a course designed to teach people to speak without a discernable accent, a consummation devoutly to be wished when dealing with persons of foreign extraction on the telephone. This was pre-Internet so I spent a lot of time speaking by phone with persons whose English was heavily accented, and they did not need to deal with my michegoss of an accent -- not only had I a Southern Mama and a Northern Daddy, but I spent 17 years in Atlanta after growing up in a part of New York tenanted mainly by Italians from the Bronx, and you have never heard anything like the way I spoke. My teacher described it as "Bugs Bunny does Alabama." I now speak with what is called a Midwestern Television Announcer accent, and Germans in particular have commented that "You don't sound like an American."

However, I still yell in a Bronx accent (especially, my kids will remind me, "What the HELL ya doin'???") and when calling someone across a long distance, I tend to bark "Ey Frank EEE!" And the one "Southernism" I cannot stop is "y'all". That part of the South is stuck in my mouth.

As for relentless mispronunciation, my personal bete noir is the TV-speak "ADD-lt" for "adult" (which is of course pronounced "ad-DULT"). Where this came from I don't know, but it needs to disappear.
-- Kate Shaw
Toronto, Ontario

Mr. Henry's article hit the spot, or as Diane Smith says, "Spot on." We Texans are not to be lonely in the accent game Mr. Henry speaks of. Having grown up in Lyndon Johnson's Hometown of Johnson City, Texas, we spoke both cowboy and German. Around the Texas hill country there are many ranchers whose families migrated (legally) over a hundred years ago. Their accent depends on the location the grandparents came from. I discovered this after living in Germany for four years and working hard to learn the language. The highest compliment ever paid me was when my teacher told me she was sorry but that I had developed a Bavarian accent. I asked her why that was a problem and she answered, "Well, that is Southern accent and when you travel up north they won't understand you." I told her I had the same problem back home in the United States.

The one thing I know is that you and know two Texans anywhere you travel in the world. They are the first to find and greet each other with one particular phrase..."How much rain did ya get!" This happened to me in Germany, Washington, D.C., Kansas, Kentucky, and Arizona...all places we were stationed. Why receiving rain in another place was important to either Texan always made me laugh. Then I reasoned that rain and receiving it is always a part of the Texas mentality for here it is always a feast of rain or a famine/drought.

Happy Thanksgiving....
-- Beverly Gunn
East Texas Rancher

Another entertaining article from Mr. Henry; one of my interests is in regional accents and how it shapes opinions of others.

One of the most fascinating political ramifications of accents was from a PBS or Discovery Channel special I'd seen many moons ago. It focused on how the connotations of accents change over the years. For example, in the 1960's, an upper-crusty New England accent (imagine JFK saying "Harvard Yard") was supposedly a net positive to a presidential candidate, while a more "common man" accent like LBJ's Texas twang was a net negative.

Over time, the JFK accent has changed so that it's now perceived as a negative -- certainly John Kerry always seemed to me to be "talking to the help" when on the stump. By contrast, a Southern accent is more comfortable and down-home, which gives candidates like Dubya -- and Bill Clinton! -- an edge with the (IMO) most critical swing voters. By that I don't mean those who vacillate between parties -- I mean the 10% of the electorate which is ideologically innocent, only looking at the candidates a week or two before Nov. 7, and thinks, "Hmm, who looks and sounds most trustworthy?"

I do have to take two minor issues with Mr. Henry's close:

"My son Bud has noticed that his classmates' accents are less pronounced than their parents'. Absent some temporary fad, like slurry or Valley Girl, that is the established trend."

I live in Los Angeles, so perhaps I see different trends, but what starts out here in Hollyweird seems to propagate East. And what you'll see out here is a rise in 'gangsta street' accent, and Hispanic tones.

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