Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 00:51:18 -0500

From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: "Regionalisms", ADS in today's NY Times



This is from the Week in Review Section, The New York Times, 16 November

1997, pg. 7:



WORD FOR WORD/ Regionalisms

In Plainspoken English,

America's Still Whopperjawed



Ask any computer expert trying to design workable voice-recognition

technology for standard American English: Despite predictions that Americans

would all be speaking by now in a bland, homogenized dialect of network TV

newscasters, the United States remains a country of stubbornly persistent

regional accents, idioms and slang.

"Regional differences in pronunciation remain, as do differences based

on social class, occupation, ethnic group, gender," says Allan Metcalf, a

professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill', and the executive

director of the American Dialect Society. (Shouldn't that be "executive

secretary"? Ah, it's the Times! Allan will be "THE executive director" of

the ADS forever!--ed.) "That's because if people have to choose between

talking like the TV and talking like their friends, they'll choose their

friends (or be laughed at by them.)"

Near Philadelphia, Michael Lawrence Ellis III, an amateur linguist

fascinated by accents and regionalisms, publishes a series of regional

handbooks under the title "Slanguistics," and maintains a popular web site

(www.slanguage.com) that collects regional pronunciations and phrases from

correspondents all across the country. Here are some recent ones (syllable

inflections were not provided).

JOE SHARKEY



Atlanta

Ahm feelin' puny (I don't feel well)

Fizzshoe (If I were you...)

Mash the button (Press the button)

Tick a rat (Make a right turn)

Warshin' patter (Laundry detergent)

Austin, Tex.

You sure clean up nice (You are looking very good today)

Baltimore

Ball Mer Orals (The local baseball team)

Chest Peek (The large bay)

(...)

Chicago

Cheek Ah Ga (Name of city)

(...)

Dallas

All y'all (A collective plural of y'all)

(...)

Knoxville, Tenn.

Air (What 60 minutes equals one of)

You-uns (Y'all, Tennessee style)

(....)



This article brings up several old saws I have with the American Dialect

Society and The New York Times.

A Michael Ellis of Southwest Missouri State University is an ADS member;

this Michael Lawrence Ellis III is not. Why isn't a person like this a

member? Are the $35 dues too high? Would he become a member at $20? Has he

heard of us? I keep saying--over and over--that 517 members is too small.

And I keep saying--over and over--that the ADS needs to treat popular

speech, that we need to have an online magazine (maybe called AMERICAN

POPULAR SPEECH, and maybe with the American Name Society joining in) that

would cover movies, television, books, plays, and current news events in a

scholarly and reliable way, for consumption by the general public.

As for The New York Times, it's notable that they give large space to

nonscholarly work (who ever heard of a pronunciation guide without the proper

pronunciation symbols?), while ignoring legitimate ADS scholars. When's the

last time they picked up on something from American Speech?

"If news does not appear in The New York Times, it really hasn't

happened."--ADS member William Safire in the same section, page 15, col. 3.

Why doesn't this guy write back to an ADS member who writes to him?

Do I have to wait six years? Is he happy that it's making me ill?