Query: Midwestern Female Speech More Accented than Male?

Tom Kysilko pds at VISI.COM
Sat Mar 18 00:07:32 UTC 2000


At 12:33 PM 3/17/2000 -0500, Grant Barrett quoted:
>
>Why do midwestern women (Iowa/Minnesota) have a much more pronounced
accent than the
>men?

As a midwestern layman, I can't say if this is the case.  However, I'll
swear to the following difference:

In the early '70s I lived in Highwood IL, a small Chicago suburb between
Highland Park, Fort Sheridan, and Lake Forest.  It was largely Italian,
indeed, largely Modenese.  In good weather, five nights a week you could
hear men speaking Italian at the bocci ball courts in the middle of town
(Sempre rosso!).  On Wednesdays you heard women there speaking English (Hit
the pallina!).

My armchair sociolinguistic take was that the women acquired English
(and/or the attitude that English was the prestige language) faster through
their closer contact with their children, schools, etc.

Supposing that the quoted generalization has any truth to it, it may be
that until the last generation or two, midwestern men were much more likely
to have public lives with a more geographically extended speech community.
Again, armchair sociolinguistics.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Tom Kysilko        Practical Data Services
  pds at visi.com       Saint Paul MN USA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



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