plausible?

[Donald M. Lance]

Andrea Vine, Tue, Oct 5, 1999, said:

>I must admit that I would
>have some trouble listening to the news in San Fernando Valley, Bronx, Boston,
>or South Texan.

Then you haven't listened to Dan Rather, from Wharton TX.  The Coastal Bend
accent is there in spite of all his training at Sam Houston State
University.

Walter Cronkite also has Texas sounds, having moved there at the age of 10.

And Tom Brokaw certainly has an Inland North accent.

And Barbara Walters is completely devoid of regionalism, isn't she?

Note that I'm using "accent" to refer to vowel-consonant-syllable system.

It's the register than makes the difference, rather than underlying regional
(or other) accent.

> Where there's a myth, there's often a fact.  I suspect that the fact
> underlying the myth of homogenization of American dialects is that certain
> public-use registers like tv and radio announcing, acting,
> professionals-on-the-job, etc are sounding more alike.  Some people, like
> English teachers, use this register all the time.  But out there in the
> trenches where the buck hits the road (to mix metaphors) people choose and
> apparently prefer to maintain and promote regional, socio-economic, and
> ethnic variation.

DMLance