Teaching With a Kentucky Accent

[A. Maberry]

I think of the following description of Oregonians as mostly applying to
the Puget Sound region, the home of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, the flannel-
shirts grunge-look, skateboards, etc. For me, Gen(eration)-X is more of a
historical marker for the generation born between 1961 and 1981 that isn't
really typical of any one area. I never though to the grunge movement or
Gen-X members, especially those from Washington or Oregon to have much
connection with surfers or surfer speech (consciously or otherwise).

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu


On Mon, 9 Dec 2002, Millie Webb wrote:

> 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.
> > >
> > >
> >
>