Teaching With a Kentucky Accent

[Millie Webb]

Oregonians -- to the extent that Michiganders knew of their existence --
were thought to be obsessive skateboarding (some drug-using) Curt Cobain
fans (or however he spelled it), who dressed in at least half-rags, and
tried to sound like surfers, when they spoke in multiple syllables at all.
As I say, young Gen-X subculture types.  This was the stereotype I heard the
most at the time.  Then again, the classmates I spoke of were in Education
(sorry, I think I said English), and Michiganders tended to be quite
snobbish when it came to having a corner on the "correctness" market.  As
dEnIs has pointed out before.  I find it very odd that a people who
pronounce "milk" as [mElk], Wisconsin as [wEsconsIn], and have to say "ink
pen" for "pen", because they say [pIn] for "pen", claim to be the seat of
SAE.  Drove me nuts at the time, although I have since then decided it is
just "cute" and amusing.  :-)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fritz Juengling" <Friolly at AOL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 7:35 PM
Subject: Re: Teaching With a Kentucky Accent


> Out of curiosity, how were Oregonians stereotyped?  I didn't know anyone
back
> East ever even thought of Oregon.
> Fritz
>
>
>
> > Those vowel shifts seemed to be related to East Coast
> > city shifts, or West Coast bumpkin shifts (in the class's estimation at
the
> > time, that included "ValleySpeak", surfers, counter-culture Gen X
> > skateboarders, and other such stereotyped sub-groupings of Californians
and
> > Oregonians.
> >
> >
>