Standard US English Dialect?

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Apr 16 00:14:53 UTC 2008 

At 6:49 PM -0500 4/15/08, Scot LaFaive wrote:
>  >Did I say right or wrong English?
>
>Did you use the words "right" and "wrong" this time? No. But you did
>say you were looking for the "best spoken English," which implies that
>one type of English is more wrong than another. You have been talking
>about right and wrong English for as long as you have been on this
>list, so that is why I brought it up. The reason I am lecturing you
>(yes, I will admit that I am) is because you are on a list made up of
>language lovers, including many linguists, and I would guess that most
>people here don't believe that one English is more right than another,
>especially not the linguists. As such, you continually waste your
>cyber breath lecturing people who spend their lives studying linguists
>to describe, not prescribe. In my view, you are like a Catholic going
>to a Buddhist temple and telling them that Nirvana is just wrong.
>
>Scot

Well said, Scot.  And I'm glad we're the Buddhists.

LH

>
>On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 5:26 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Pay attention Scott.  Did I say right or wrong English?  No.
>>Someone here has written about "Where the worst English is spoken"
>>and thus they have a clue about "best" English.  Why don't you
>>lecture that person about "right and wrong" and get off my case.
>>
>>  Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>  See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional
>>Poems" at authorhouse.com.
>>
>>
>>  > Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:04:54 -0500
>>  > From: slafaive at GMAIL.COM
>>  > Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>  > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  >
>>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  > Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  > Poster: Scot LaFaive
>>  > Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>  >
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >
>>  >>I would think that the best English as a standard should be easiest
>>  > to understant.
>>  >>I would be interested to know which accent is clearest and least
>>misunderstood.
>>  >
>>  > There are so many things wrong with these statements that I'm a little
>>  > befuddled about how to respond.
>>  >
>>  > I hope you see that what is easy for one person to understand isn't
>>  > necessarily easy for another. Being from the Midland North I might
>>  > have trouble understanding someone from the bayous of Louisiana, but
>>  > they should understand each other quite well. It seems like you
>>  > consistently fail to realize this (or just enjoy provoking others):
>>  > "proper" English (or any language) is relative to who is speaking and
>>  > listening. There is no right or wrong English when people are
>>  > communicating.
>>  >
>>  > Scot
>>  >
>>  > On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Tom Zurinskas  wrote:
>>  >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  >> Sender: American Dialect Society
>  > >> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>  >> Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>  >>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >>
>>  >> I think this is wonderful. I'm looking for a model of best
>>spoken English. I assume m-w.com is such a model. I do quibble
>>about "awe-dropping" for some words and the initial sound of short
>>i ~i instead of short e ~e for words starting with "ex".
>>  >>
>>  >> I would think that the best English as a standard should be
>>easiest to understant. Coming from the FAA where English is the
>>standard language of Air Traffic Control, I would be interested to
>>know which accent is clearest and least misunderstood.
>>  >>
>>  >> Note that the FAA teaches that number 9 be pronounced NIE-ner
>>to preclude confusion with 5. These are too close phonetically.
>  > >>
>>  >> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>  >> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional
>>Poems" at authorhouse.com.
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>
>>  >>> Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:44:33 +0200
>>  >>> From: preston at MSU.EDU
>>  >>> Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>  >>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>  >>>
>>  >>> Yes, DC always does surprisingly well, but the East Coaster the South
>>  >>> is the better it does as well. SC higher than GA, GA higher than AL,
>>  >>> etc....We actually have some qualitative evidence for this; some of
>>  >>> the fieldworkers asked respondents why they ranked the DC area so
>>  >>> high, and many said that they figured good English was spoke in the
>>  >>> capital. This seemed truer of southern and south midland respondents
>>  >>> than of northern ones (who know they speak the best English).
>>  >>>
>>  >>> dInIs
>>  >>>
>>  >>>
>>  >>>
>>  >>>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  >>>>-----------------------
>>  >>>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>  >>>>Poster: David Bowie
>>  >>>>Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>  >>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>From: Dennis Preston
>>  >>>>> Poster: LanDi Liu
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>>
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>>> As far as NYC middle class goes, that means very little as far as
>>  >>>>>> accents go. Because of the large amount of people that live in NYC
>>  >>>>>> that weren't born there, and the fact that different boroughs in NYC
>>  >>>>>> have different accents to begin with, and the fact that class and
>>  >>>>>> accent aren't so easily correlated anymore, I don't think
>>anyone could
>>  >>>>>> say what a NYC middle class accent is. So probably the people in
>>  >>>>>> Japan and China (and elsewhere) think capital = standard. Most people
>>  >>>>>> think Beijing Chinese is standard, but that's a myth as well.
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>> Washington DC is the capital of the US, not NYC.
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>And of course, in dInIs's own work (see "Where the worst English is
>>  >>>>spoken"), you find that Washington DC does remarkably well in US folks'
>>  >>>>ratings for correctness--so maybe this capital==standard (or at least
>>  >>>>nearly standard) thing works in the US, as well.
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>David, who grew up near enough to DC to disbelieve that NYC's really as
>>  >>>>important a city as it seems to believe
>>  >>>>
>>  >>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>  >>>
>>  >>>
>>  >>> --
>>  >>> Dennis R. Preston
>>  >>> University Distinguished Professor
>>  >>> Department of English
>>  >>> Morrill Hall 15-C
>>  >>> Michigan State University
>>  >>> East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>>  >>>
>>  >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>  >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>  >>
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