Query: Midwestern Female Speech More Accented than Male?

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

What I meant was that I don't know of any evidence that the presuppposition
of the question is correct. Before we can ask "why" we have to ask if the
women really do "have a much more pronounced accent than the men" (and
perhaps also what are the standards for judging "more pronounced." It is
often the case that women are in the vanguard of linguistic change in
progress (measured by variable rule quantifications)--at least those changes
that eventually are successful throughout the community. But that is not true
just of midwestern women, nor is it necessarily true of those features that
would seem most salient to an outsider. And the features that would seem most
salient to an outsider would vary according to who the outsider was and what
his or her frame of reference was.


In a message dated 3/17/2000 3:16:16 PM, gbarrett at americandialect.org writes:

<< On Friday, March 17, 2000, RonButters at aol.com wrote:
>
>In a message dated 3/17/2000 12:39:17 PM,
>gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG writes:
>
><< Why do midwestern women (Iowa/Minnesota) have a much more pronounced
>accent than the
>men? >>
>
>says who?
>

I dunno if you meant to send this to me or just the list, but only I received
it.

Your response was my response exactly. I suspect the conclusion has something
to do
with the perceived nasality of higher female voices, but I don't know
nothin'. >>