Re: General American (was "y" and "r" (Uusisuom))
| From: | Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, April 1, 2001, 18:02 |
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On Sun, 1 Apr 2001, Scott W. Hlad wrote:
> I can't speak to the subject of "General American," but as a native speaker,
> I can assure you that listening to someone who grew up in say Alabama or
> Mississippi (no offence intended nor implied) I with my
> Pennsylvanio-Michiganian-Albertan must really struggle to keep up and
> understand just as I would with the Cockney or Liverpudlian in England.
>
> As the pronounciations vary so widely when does it cease to be a
> pronounciation or accent issue and become a dialectical issue. My
> sister-in-law (from Tennessee) will routinely say that she is "fixin' to
> make supper," whereas I would say "I'm just about to make supper."
<wry g> I had a friend in Houston who felt really dumb in some class
when she couldn't understand the teacher's pronunciation of "cotton"
-[t@n] vs. her own pronunciation (and mine) ending -[?n] (with a syllabic n).
My vocabulary is more confused than anything else, but I run afoul of
things like soda vs. pop, pail vs. bucket, and cringe with my sister "to
nuke [food item X]," apparently meaning "to microwave"; I grant that she
and I have become somewhat blasé about the North Korean nuclear threat to
South Korea (where most of our relatives live), but....
YHL
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