Bushspeak

[Bonnie Osborn Briggs]

I think that part of it is that the Bushs aren't originally from Texas.
G.W.'s mother, Barbara, is from Maine and his father, grew up mostly in
Connecticut because that is where his father was Senator.  Maybe he is
dialectically confused?

Bonnie Briggs
The University of Memphis

leslie savan wrote:
>
> Forget for a moment George W. Bush's extra syllables, missing words, and
> creative etymologies ("Insurance," he said in the last debate, is "a
> Washington term.") What about those words that he pronounces correctly
> but rips into like a tariff, uh, terrier? When a big word, usually of
> three or more syllables, comes along, he often seems to overemphasize a
> syllable and/or bite hard on one of the latter consonants: "America
> today is in the midst of an eduCAtion recession." "Our goal is a
> drug-free soCIety." "PhiloSOphy" is SO hard. His "authoriTY" almost
> sounds like Cartman on South Park is saying it. "PracTIcal" practically
> TICKles.
>      I realize that some of this may be Bush's way of speechifying, an
> attempt to sound like an orator. But, to my nonlinguist ears, he seems
> to overpronounce or overremember some words as if to show he can
> pronounce and remember them.
>      Has anyone else noticed this tendency? Is there a name for (or
> research into) this kind of speech? Is it, in part, a Texas thing? Has
> anyone heard Bush speak this way in more relaxed conversations? Why does
> the man who may be our next president bite those big words so hard?