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jerry_friedman@yahoo.com
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 5:02 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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Salvatore Volatile wrote:
| Quote: | jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
Bob Cunningham wrote:
...
I know, of course, that when the _New Yorker_ article said
"tawk", the intended pronunciation was almost surely
[tO:k], but how many _New Yorker_ readers would know that?
I strongly suspect that the intended pronunciation was a diphthong,
something like [tU@k], and that the great majority of _New Yorker_
readers knew that. And I have some suspicion that you knew it too.
For instance, if you listened to the recording that Michael Hamm made
for a.u.e.
No big whoop.
|
Everything I said there? Or should I infer that some of what I said
was too unimportant to say "No big whoop" about?
--
Jerry Friedman
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Ben Zimmer
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 5:43 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
| Quote: | Salvatore Volatile wrote:
jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
Bob Cunningham wrote:
...
I know, of course, that when the _New Yorker_ article said
"tawk", the intended pronunciation was almost surely
[tO:k], but how many _New Yorker_ readers would know that?
I strongly suspect that the intended pronunciation was a diphthong,
something like [tU@k], and that the great majority of _New Yorker_
readers knew that. And I have some suspicion that you knew it too.
For instance, if you listened to the recording that Michael Hamm made
for a.u.e.
No big whoop.
Everything I said there? Or should I infer that some of what I said
was too unimportant to say "No big whoop" about?
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http://google.com/search?q=site:snltranscripts.jt.org+no-big-whoop |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 5:55 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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Ben Zimmer wrote:
| Quote: | jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
Salvatore Volatile wrote:
jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
[...]
I strongly suspect that the intended pronunciation was a
diphthong,
something like [tU@k], and that the great majority of _New
Yorker_
readers knew that. And I have some suspicion that you knew it
too.
For instance, if you listened to the recording that Michael Hamm
made for a.u.e.
No big whoop.
Everything I said there? Or should I infer that some of what I
said
was too unimportant to say "No big whoop" about?
http://google.com/search?q=site:snltranscripts.jt.org+no-big-whoop
|
Like, hellO-O?
--
Mike.
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Robert Lieblich
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:07 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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"jerry_friedman@yahoo.com" wrote:
[ ... ]
| Quote: | I regret that you didn't comment on the most important point in the
article, which is that the speech of northeastern Ohio became the U.S.
standard. Northeastern Ohio in the '30s, of course, not now.
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And that, children, is why I (born Cleveland, Ohio, 1940) have no
(i.e., a U.S. standard) accent.
Feel free to genuflect at leisure.
--
Bob Lieblich
Just ask those with whom I have boinked |
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John Lawler
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:37 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> writes:
| Quote: | http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051114ta_talk_seabrook
Thank you. I found that quite interesting.
I'm mystified, though, by the "eah" sound he mentions ("the
raised 'a' in words like 'past' (peahst)". I'd like to hear
a recording of it. When I try to pronounce it as it's
spelled, it doesn't sound like any English I've ever heard.
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That'd be the [i@] that shows up as a reflex of [ae] in the
Northern Cities Chain Shift. When I say my son Ian's name
fast, I have actually gotten "isn't that a strange name for
a boy?" as a response. They were hearing Ann, shifted.
Rather like the analogous entry in Jim McCawley's "Day in
the Month of May that are of Interest to Linguists"
(http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/daysinmay.html)
May 5, 1403.
The Great English Vowel Shift begins. Giles of Tottenham calls for
ale at his favorite pub and is perplexed when the barmaid tells him
that the fishmonger is next door.
| Quote: | I was disappointed to see that he used "aw" to represent a
sound, evidently assuming that all readers pronounce it the
say he does, and ignoring the fact that millions -- possibly
a majority -- of Americans won't understand it to be a sound
different from "ah" or the "augh" in "caught".
He ends the piece with a sentence containing the spelling
"tawk". A great many of his readers will wonder about the
strange spelling since to them it doesn't represent any
different pronunciation than it would if it were spelled
"talk".
Coming from a student of dialects over a wide geographical
area, his parochialism in the choice of pronunciation
symbols is surprising.
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Labov may well not be responsible for
these terms or representations, Bob.
He didn't write it, don't forget.
Bill is ..um.. very far from averse to precise description and
transcription. But that doesn't necessarily extend to the New
Yorker, which is very heavily edited, and undoubtedly has a policy
on eye dialect and phonetic spelling.
I'm more interested in the book and CD, actually.
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler Michigan Linguistics
----------------------------------------------------------------
Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers.
My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.
-- Flannery O'Connor |
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jerry_friedman@yahoo.com
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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Mike Lyle wrote:
| Quote: | Ben Zimmer wrote:
jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
Salvatore Volatile wrote:
jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
[...]
I strongly suspect that the intended pronunciation was a
diphthong,
something like [tU@k], and that the great majority of _New
Yorker_
readers knew that. And I have some suspicion that you knew it
too.
For instance, if you listened to the recording that Michael Hamm
made for a.u.e.
No big whoop.
Everything I said there? Or should I infer that some of what I
said
was too unimportant to say "No big whoop" about?
http://google.com/search?q=site:snltranscripts.jt.org+no-big-whoop
Like, hellO-O?
|
I could wish to imply that I have a mind above such things as
television (ill-bred word!) comedy, but I saw one of those skits once.
--
Jerry Friedman |
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Salvatore Volatile
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 9:06 pm
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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jerry_friedman@yahoo.com wrote:
| Quote: | A Google Groups search for "Michael Hamm recording" found a post that
mentioned this site: <http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/recording.html>.
The site is still "live", and it would have been kind of me to check
whether the recordings still work, but my speakers are broken. I call
your attention particularly "coffee" and probably also "long".
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And BTW, Michael Hamm's speech is a good example of one particular dialect
of Brooklyn (Fourth Largest City in America), if my ears are hearing
things rightly. |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:56 pm
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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On 9 Nov 2005 12:45:22 -0800, "jerry_friedman@yahoo.com"
<jerry_friedman@yahoo.com> said:
| Quote: | Bob Cunningham wrote:
|
[...]
| Quote: | "Talk", "tawk", "tahk", "tock", "taughk": all would be
pronounced the same.
I know, of course, that when the _New Yorker_ article said
"tawk", the intended pronunciation was almost surely
[tO:k], but how many _New Yorker_ readers would know that?
I strongly suspect that the intended pronunciation was a
diphthong, something like [tU@k], and that the great
majority of _New Yorker_ readers knew that.
|
If the pronunciation symbol "aw" is to have any value at
all, it should stand for the vowel that dictionaries use to
represent the sound of "aw" in words that have that
collocation of letters, like "awful", "lawyer", "saw", or
"mawkish". I haven't seen any dictionary that doesn't show
that sound to be [O:] or [O], either by explicitly showing
that IPA symbol, or by saying it's the vowel of "or", which
for many people is [O:]. ( In your case, the pronunciation
of "aw" may be closer to [o] if I remember correctly some
formant-analysis results I got from your speech.)
| Quote: | And I have some suspicion that you knew it too.
|
I certainly did not. [tU@k] is close to [tUk], the usual
pronunciation of "took". I can't imagine anyone saying
"talk" that way, but I'll believe it's so if you insist.
| Quote: | For instance, if you listened to the recording that
Michael Hamm made for a.u.e.
|
I'm not aware of any recording Michael Hamm made for any
reason. I would listen to it if I had any idea where to
look for it. Would someone be so kind as to tell me? |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 12:12 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:37:02 GMT, jlawler@umich.edu (John
Lawler) said:
[...]
[about, I assume, the _Atlas of North American English_ by
William Labov et al]
| Quote: | I'm more interested in the book and CD, actually.
|
In that connection, I reed with considerable interest the
following (at http://www.mouton-online.com/anae.php ):
Starting in January 2006, the content of the book
and the multimedia CD-ROM along with additional
data will also be available online.
Those who don't want to wait can buy it for $515.00 from
Amazon. I think I'll wait. |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 12:20 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 17:12:30 GMT, Bob Cunningham
<exw6sxq@earthlink.net> said:
| Quote: | On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:37:02 GMT, jlawler@umich.edu (John
Lawler) said:
[...]
[about, I assume, the _Atlas of North American English_ by
William Labov et al]
I'm more interested in the book and CD, actually.
In that connection, I reed with considerable interest the
following (at http://www.mouton-online.com/anae.php ):
Starting in January 2006, the content of the book
and the multimedia CD-ROM along with additional
data will also be available online.
Those who don't want to wait can buy it for $515.00 from
Amazon. I think I'll wait.
|
Correction: Make that $515.20. |
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jerry_friedman@yahoo.com
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 1:22 am
Post subject: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker article |
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Bob Cunningham wrote:
| Quote: | On 9 Nov 2005 12:45:22 -0800, "jerry_friedman@yahoo.com"
jerry_friedman@yahoo.com> said:
Bob Cunningham wrote:
[...]
"Talk", "tawk", "tahk", "tock", "taughk": all would be
pronounced the same.
I know, of course, that when the _New Yorker_ article said
"tawk", the intended pronunciation was almost surely
[tO:k], but how many _New Yorker_ readers would know that?
I strongly suspect that the intended pronunciation was a
diphthong, something like [tU@k], and that the great
majority of _New Yorker_ readers knew that.
If the pronunciation symbol "aw" is to have any value at
all, it should stand for the vowel that dictionaries use to
represent the sound of "aw" in words that have that
collocation of letters, like "awful", "lawyer", "saw", or
"mawkish".
|
I agree that that would be preferable. The idea of this sort of eye
dialect is probably that if you misspell a word in a context where
you're talking about pronunciation, people will take it to mean a
different pronunciation and infer the appropriate one from context--in
this case, the pronunciation of /O/ in what Richard would call
non-prestige New York speech and Labov would call Brooklynese.
| Quote: | I haven't seen any dictionary that doesn't show
that sound to be [O:] or [O], either by explicitly showing
that IPA symbol, or by saying it's the vowel of "or", which
for many people is [O:]. ( In your case, the pronunciation
of "aw" may be closer to [o] if I remember correctly some
formant-analysis results I got from your speech.)
|
I've never recorded any speech for the Web or e-mail. I have the
feeling my /O/ is between [O] and [A].
Now that you mention it, a friend of mine and I recently recorded two
phone conversations (with relatively unmonitored pronunciations) for
her art installation. They must exist as some kind of sound file
somewhere. Any interest, anyone?
| Quote: | And I have some suspicion that you knew it too.
I certainly did not. [tU@k] is close to [tUk], the usual
pronunciation of "took". I can't imagine anyone saying
"talk" that way, but I'll believe it's so if you insist.
|
The vowel is probably lower than (what I think of as) [U], but I feel
sure it's a good bit higher than [O]. And it's definitely a diphthong.
As Labov pointed out, you could hear this sound from New York firemen
if you heard the post-9/11 coverage, and as Richard slyly hinted, you
could have heard it in _Saturday Night Live_'s "Coffee Talk" sketches,
the title of which was probably chosen to highlight the sound. There
are millions of Americans with the accent, so that's why I suspected
you'd heard it.
I don't insist that you believe anything--see (or hear) below.
| Quote: | For instance, if you listened to the recording that
Michael Hamm made for a.u.e.
I'm not aware of any recording Michael Hamm made for any
reason. I would listen to it if I had any idea where to
look for it. Would someone be so kind as to tell me?
|
A Google Groups search for "Michael Hamm recording" found a post that
mentioned this site: <http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/recording.html>.
The site is still "live", and it would have been kind of me to check
whether the recordings still work, but my speakers are broken. I call
your attention particularly "coffee" and probably also "long".
--
Jerry Friedman |
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Salvatore Volatile
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 6:24 am
Post subject: Re: Michael Hamm recordings [was: Re: US Dialects in New Yor |
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Bob Cunningham wrote:
| Quote: | Thank you. The recordings still work and are of
satisfactory quality, but I wish Michael had spoken at a
more leisurely pace.
The before-and-after-New-York sound files are now resident
on my hard disk. I may do some formant analysis on them
eventually, but I would have been more eager to do that if
he hadn't sounded like he was in a tremendous rush to be
somewhere else. Rapid speech makes formant analysis more
difficult.
|
Even folks from the sleepy and bucolic hamlets of southern Brooklyn
(NTBCW South Brooklyn, which is in northwestern Brooklyn) tend to talk a
fair amount faster than folks from Northern Utah. |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 8:06 am
Post subject: Michael Hamm recordings [was: Re: US Dialects in New Yorker |
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On 10 Nov 2005 10:22:40 -0800, "jerry_friedman@yahoo.com"
<jerry_friedman@yahoo.com> said:
| Quote: | Bob Cunningham wrote:
|
[...]
| Quote: | I'm not aware of any recording Michael Hamm made for any
reason. I would listen to it if I had any idea where to
look for it. Would someone be so kind as to tell me?
A Google Groups search for "Michael Hamm recording" found a post that
mentioned this site: <http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/recording.html>.
The site is still "live", and it would have been kind of me to check
whether the recordings still work, but my speakers are broken.
|
Thank you. The recordings still work and are of
satisfactory quality, but I wish Michael had spoken at a
more leisurely pace.
The before-and-after-New-York sound files are now resident
on my hard disk. I may do some formant analysis on them
eventually, but I would have been more eager to do that if
he hadn't sounded like he was in a tremendous rush to be
somewhere else. Rapid speech makes formant analysis more
difficult.
| Quote: | I call your attention particularly "coffee" and probably also "long".
|
--
Bob Cunningham, Southern California, USofA
Down with Miss Thistlebottom:
Let's hear it for "like" as a conjunction! |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 8:07 am
Post subject: Re: Michael Hamm recordings [was: Re: US Dialects in New Yor |
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On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 04:24:37 +0000 (UTC), Salvatore Volatile
<me@privacy.net> said:
[...]
| Quote: | Even folks from the sleepy and bucolic hamlets of southern Brooklyn
(NTBCW South Brooklyn, which is in northwestern Brooklyn) tend to talk a
fair amount faster than folks from Northern Utah.
|
Why? |
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