Regional accents

Thu Dec 28 22:12:44 UTC 2006

On Dec 28, 2006, at 12:38 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> How did I miss this one for so long?  Prompted by today's "Sylvia"
> daily comic strip.
>
>> Daily Mail
>> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?
>> in_article_id=401843&in_page_id=1770
>> Cows with regional accents? Pull the udder one
>> By ANDREW LEVY Last updated at 22:37pm on 22nd August 2006
>>
>> hey have one word in their vocabulary and it's a single syllable
>> at that.
>>
>> But farmers claim cows appear to 'moo' in regional accents, despite
>> their limited conversational skills...

this is 100% codswallop.  much posting on Language Log (and
elsewhere).  this is probably the best item:

   http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003494.html

my advice is: never, ever, allow yourself to be interviewed by the
BBC.  just slam down the phone and don't answer the e-mails.  they
will still cite you inaccurately, and you'll have to try to fix
things in other media, but at least they won't have "quotes" from you.

there's also, apparently, no point in trying to get them to fix
things.  a good story is a good story, who gives a fuck about the truth.

in addition, whatever they published will live on:

  http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003979.html

arnold

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