ADS-L Digest - 4 Dec 2002 to 5 Dec 2002 (#2002-314)

[Dan Goodman]

> Date:    Thu, 5 Dec 2002 14:19:41 -0500
> From:    Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Teaching With a Kentucky Accent
>
> I tell my students that this prejudice will change as power and money
> move southward, as they now are.  Four presidents since LBJ have been
> from the South, and no one considers them dumb (well, maybe excepting
> the present one...),

Eugene McCarthy has been quoted as saying "I would not entrust Jimmy
Carter and his band of merry men with the job of snake control in
Ireland."

> and the two recent midwestern presidents, Truman
> and Eisenhower, didn't talk like the Eastern elite by any means.
> Congressional, corporate, and even media leaders are increasingly from
> the South and Southwest.  So patience--as Labov concluded a talk he
> gave a few years ago at SECOL, the South shall rise again!

Which, I suspect, won't solve the problem for people with the _wrong_
Southern accents. Or for those who come from places which "aren't
really part of the South."  And, of course, it might end up with
northerners being discriminated against on the basis of the way they
talk.

My native dialect (Hudson Valley) doesn't seem to be a handicap; Rod
Serling -- who to my ears is accentless -- did quite well, for
example.  I did have to adjust my vocabulary a bit for life in New
York City, a bit more for life in Los Angeles, and quite a bit more
for life in the Twin Cities.

I do have a speech problem, which is another matter.