Jay! Don't you know why many of us subscribe!? 😂. Please feel free to reminisce more, especially about Reagan and WFB.
BTW being from the Chicago area, I too am familiar with "keister". Had no idea until now it was a Midwest word. Same with "pop". I thought that's what everyone called soda until I visited Connecticut when I was about 18. People laughed and laughed when I said it at a backyard barbecue I was attending.
"So you mean in the stores, the actual signs say 'pop'?"
Forgive me if you can for going on, Jay, but tales of acquired speech always inspire me to tell this true tale:
I was born and raised a New York kid - attended elementary, secondary and university classes in the Borough of Bronx. At age 19 I started my first job; bank teller at the Consolidated Edison Savings and Loan Association on 14th Street in Manhattan.
The clients were all Con Ed employees or retirees, and the bulk of the retirees were elderly Irish laborers, many of whom came in quarterly to have their savings interest posted to their bankbooks (this was long before electronic or online banking).
One old gentleman chatted me up a bit and then asked: When did ye get off the boat?"
"Excuse me?" I replied. "From home," he said. "When did you come over?"
I told him that I was born, raised and educated in New York. "Oh, ye can't fool me," he said,
"I know a Waterford accent when I hear it. How long have ye been here?"
It took me a while to figure it out, but the man was correct about the accent. Born in 1940, I was the first of five siblings. From infancy until I was ten, my maternal grandmother was a member of our household. My very earliest memory is about chatting with her on our porch, as we waited for my dad, an air raid warden during WWII, to come home after the all-clear.
Her pronunciations and speech patterns are with me in some form to this day. I have been accused of being from Ireland, England, and Canada, but nobody has ever suggested I might be a kid from the Bronx.
I knew someone who sounded pretty much the same whether he said "Mahler" or "Marlowe." It usually turned out to be "Mahler." (The highest tribute he gave to a piece of music was to call it "Mahleresque," but that's a different story.)
Also, a childhood friend of his from London mentioned to me how much my friend and his brothers got away with on account of their accent.
I am from Louisiana: that state where when shows are filmed within its borders usually had subtitles so that the audience can follow the dialogue.
I married a young lady from Illinois. I had just graduated from LSU School of Dentistry in New Orleans. Her parents asked if I had considered practicing dentistry in Illinois? I responded that my chances of supporting their daughter were much better back home where I could communicate with my patients without a whiteboard.
Have you heard Tom Holland (of The Rest is History fame) in comparison to his brother, James? They have two completely different accents. I get the impression James's is more "authentic," (i.e. he comes by it naturally) and that Tom's has been influenced by Cambridge.
My sister married a USAF pilot. They were stationed for several years in the Netherlands, which she absolutely loved. They sent their kids to Dutch schools, and after a couple of years, the kids were fairly fluent in Dutch. Outside of a few common words, my sister never learned much Dutch, but by the time they left, she'd begun speaking English with a Dutch accent.
Years ago, I (Connecticut born & bred) was having a conversation with someone from the South. After a few minutes, he asked if I was mocking him. What? Well apparently I unconsciously adopted his accent at some point. That's the only time in my life I've been called out, but I've since noticed myself doing the same thing on similar occasions.
I've sung in choruses for many years where it's important to hear and correctly repeat the pronunciation of foreign words. Practice makes perfect as they say, and I suspect that's my excuse.
Anyway, when I hear people being accused of "appropriation," it usually occurs to me that they might just have a good ear.
Thanks Jay for this very interesting and informative article. I absolutely love linguistics. I find it so fascinating to learn about the various accents in the USA and the UK. I live in Southeast Tennessee in a small rural area. My accent is slightly different than someone from Middle or West Tennessee. I'm particularly interested in the dialects of the UK. I watch a lot of British TV and I always notice a Northern accent, versus a Posh Accent. Also, a Cornish is different.
In my neck of the woods , the whole Southern US has a wide range of accents and dialogues.
Surprised that only a few have commented on your last two quite humorous pronunciation observations. I have several examples from my career as a middle school teacher in a district near Princeton, NJ where the large majority of students were Asian and most of them bilingual. They developed in my classroom over the years as students adapted to my Philadelphia mispronunciations (think "Mare of Easttown," though not as exaggerated).
Students often chuckled when they first heard many of my "bloopers," which I eventually stuffed into a sentence that would cause a brief moment of silliness that would enable me to bridge into the next part of a lesson. Students passing me in the hallway with friends who never sat in my classroom would sometimes ask me to "say it" and the group would laugh out loud as they passed.
Went something like this, "I gotta go to Waula Waula, Warshington to get my dawg a ball of wooder."
"Well, don’t get me to reminiscing."
Jay! Don't you know why many of us subscribe!? 😂. Please feel free to reminisce more, especially about Reagan and WFB.
BTW being from the Chicago area, I too am familiar with "keister". Had no idea until now it was a Midwest word. Same with "pop". I thought that's what everyone called soda until I visited Connecticut when I was about 18. People laughed and laughed when I said it at a backyard barbecue I was attending.
"So you mean in the stores, the actual signs say 'pop'?"
"Uh, yeah."
Thanks for the smiles that this column brought.
Forgive me if you can for going on, Jay, but tales of acquired speech always inspire me to tell this true tale:
I was born and raised a New York kid - attended elementary, secondary and university classes in the Borough of Bronx. At age 19 I started my first job; bank teller at the Consolidated Edison Savings and Loan Association on 14th Street in Manhattan.
The clients were all Con Ed employees or retirees, and the bulk of the retirees were elderly Irish laborers, many of whom came in quarterly to have their savings interest posted to their bankbooks (this was long before electronic or online banking).
One old gentleman chatted me up a bit and then asked: When did ye get off the boat?"
"Excuse me?" I replied. "From home," he said. "When did you come over?"
I told him that I was born, raised and educated in New York. "Oh, ye can't fool me," he said,
"I know a Waterford accent when I hear it. How long have ye been here?"
It took me a while to figure it out, but the man was correct about the accent. Born in 1940, I was the first of five siblings. From infancy until I was ten, my maternal grandmother was a member of our household. My very earliest memory is about chatting with her on our porch, as we waited for my dad, an air raid warden during WWII, to come home after the all-clear.
Her pronunciations and speech patterns are with me in some form to this day. I have been accused of being from Ireland, England, and Canada, but nobody has ever suggested I might be a kid from the Bronx.
That is marvelous, Paddy B. Thank you.
I knew someone who sounded pretty much the same whether he said "Mahler" or "Marlowe." It usually turned out to be "Mahler." (The highest tribute he gave to a piece of music was to call it "Mahleresque," but that's a different story.)
Also, a childhood friend of his from London mentioned to me how much my friend and his brothers got away with on account of their accent.
I am from Louisiana: that state where when shows are filmed within its borders usually had subtitles so that the audience can follow the dialogue.
I married a young lady from Illinois. I had just graduated from LSU School of Dentistry in New Orleans. Her parents asked if I had considered practicing dentistry in Illinois? I responded that my chances of supporting their daughter were much better back home where I could communicate with my patients without a whiteboard.
! Love it.
Have you heard Tom Holland (of The Rest is History fame) in comparison to his brother, James? They have two completely different accents. I get the impression James's is more "authentic," (i.e. he comes by it naturally) and that Tom's has been influenced by Cambridge.
👍
My sister married a USAF pilot. They were stationed for several years in the Netherlands, which she absolutely loved. They sent their kids to Dutch schools, and after a couple of years, the kids were fairly fluent in Dutch. Outside of a few common words, my sister never learned much Dutch, but by the time they left, she'd begun speaking English with a Dutch accent.
Very interesting. Thx.
Years ago, I (Connecticut born & bred) was having a conversation with someone from the South. After a few minutes, he asked if I was mocking him. What? Well apparently I unconsciously adopted his accent at some point. That's the only time in my life I've been called out, but I've since noticed myself doing the same thing on similar occasions.
I've sung in choruses for many years where it's important to hear and correctly repeat the pronunciation of foreign words. Practice makes perfect as they say, and I suspect that's my excuse.
Anyway, when I hear people being accused of "appropriation," it usually occurs to me that they might just have a good ear.
Yes! Thx.
Thanks Jay for this very interesting and informative article. I absolutely love linguistics. I find it so fascinating to learn about the various accents in the USA and the UK. I live in Southeast Tennessee in a small rural area. My accent is slightly different than someone from Middle or West Tennessee. I'm particularly interested in the dialects of the UK. I watch a lot of British TV and I always notice a Northern accent, versus a Posh Accent. Also, a Cornish is different.
In my neck of the woods , the whole Southern US has a wide range of accents and dialogues.
Wonderful. Thank you, Suzanne.
Surprised that only a few have commented on your last two quite humorous pronunciation observations. I have several examples from my career as a middle school teacher in a district near Princeton, NJ where the large majority of students were Asian and most of them bilingual. They developed in my classroom over the years as students adapted to my Philadelphia mispronunciations (think "Mare of Easttown," though not as exaggerated).
Students often chuckled when they first heard many of my "bloopers," which I eventually stuffed into a sentence that would cause a brief moment of silliness that would enable me to bridge into the next part of a lesson. Students passing me in the hallway with friends who never sat in my classroom would sometimes ask me to "say it" and the group would laugh out loud as they passed.
Went something like this, "I gotta go to Waula Waula, Warshington to get my dawg a ball of wooder."
! 👍
Spot on, Jay. About Clinton, my father, who voted for him twice, used to say “he’s a hillbilly with brains“. He meant it more or less as a compliment.
Smart guy, your dad.
Jay,
I just stopped by to let you know that today, as is the case more often than not, I felt delight while reading your newsletter. You are a treasure.
Rob
I’m so glad! Thx.
Higgins: An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him.
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get,
Oh, why can't the English learn to
set a good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scots and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
In America, they haven't used it for years!
❤️