fruneral

[Jonathan Lighter]

Many white Southerners say "srimp."  And North Carolinian Frank Proffitt, who sang the version (sort of) of "Tom Dooley" that the Kingston Trio cleaned up on, sang "_stobbed_ her with his knife."

  I may have mentioned that non-North American varieties of English have supposedly diverged so far from how we now talk (note ethnocentricity), that TV news often provides subtitles when running footage of talking Brits and others.

  The scary thing is that sometimes they're necessary.  It took me a good while to get used to the Gecko guy.

  I remember reading a comment somewhere by a Londoner who had seen _Mary Poppins_ and thought that Dick Van Dyke's (admittedly execrable) "Cockney" accent was actually his customary exotic American dialect.

  (For an Irish example of hit-or-miss comprehensibility, check out the movie version of _The Snapper_.  It lacked subtitles, but I really needed them.  There was another film, set in Glasgow, which was comparable.  Maybe that one had the subtitles.)

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: fruneral
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Those pronunciations are all (stereo)typical of BE. "Scrimp" for
"shrimp" is another one. It's "srimp" for me, but I've heard "scrimp,"
"stob" for "stab," etc. a beaucoup on e.g. BET, especially on the
comedy shows. Sometimes, a comedian's whole shtik wil consist of
speaking with a Deep-Southern, country accent. A good example is
Richard Pryor's "Mudbone" bit. Of course, Pryor could also do urban
accents, cf. "Wino Meets Dracula" and "Wino Meets Junkie." Of course,
this wasn't Pryor's whole shtik, but y'all gnome sane.

-Wilson

On 8/7/06, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
> Subject: Re: fruneral
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 8/7/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone know how authentic the Gecko's current accent really is?
> >
> > If the guy who voices him *isn't* really a native, blue-collar Londoner,
> > shouldn't he get some sort of dialect award?
>
> It's British actor Jake Wood, who also has a role on EastEnders.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Wood
> http://www.duncans.tv/2006/geico-gecko-voiced-by-jake-wood
>
> The second link calls Wood's accent "a hybrid Cockney London style" --
> not sure what's hybrid about it. Sounds quite a lot like David Beckham
> to me.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have
found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be
imposed upon them.

Frederick Douglass

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