Bush

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'm curious too.  I watched the whole thing and didn't notice a shift.

  Is Charlie (and/or CNBC) suggesting that The Prez's public accent is not merely an idiolect (no cracks, please) but a fraud?

  I've read various movie reviews in my day that complained one second-rate star or another "switched accents" back and forth in the middle of a film, but except for the case of Kevin Costner in _Prince of Thieves_ , few of these complaints seemed to me to have much merit. (This is not the same thing as complaining that an actor's put-on accent is just bad.  Those complaints are usually quite true, as in the case of Costner.)

  My guess is that the reviewers usually zero in on a phrase or two that would go unnoticed by virtually everybody. just as a way of further dissing a film they already hate.

  (_Prince of Thieves_? I hated it!)

  JL

David Donnell <David.Donnell at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: David Donnell
Subject: Re: Bush
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't know what details CNBC described, but I've frequently heard
Bush use contrasting pronunciations of the word "war". He switches
between pronouncing it as "wore", and pronouncing it to rhyme with
"far".

I consider the former the more std, more ubiqitous pronunciation; I
associate the latter with parts of the midwest & Texas.
(Corrections/more info welcome.)

But I'm also curious about what CNBC described.

DD
Missourian in NYC

>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Charles Doyle
>Subject: Bush
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I didn't watch or listen to the president's press conference
>yesterday (I'm not a masochist!). But late last night I heard a
>commentator on CNBC talking about it. He noted that, at one
>particularly tense moment, Bush lost his infamous emulation of
>TexSpeak and reverted to his native New England dialect. I wonder
>what details the commentator was observing, phonologically speaking?
>
>--Charlie

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



---------------------------------
Got a little couch potato?
Check out fun summer activities for kids.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org