dialects

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Jun 22, 2006, at 7:43 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:

> ... The only sense I can make out of the radio comment [by Bob
> Beard, on Morning Edition, 6/20/06], to Steve Inskeep] is that
> native speakers of American English who live all their lives west
> of the Mississippi cannot be localized further just by listening to
> their pronunciation.
>
>   This may be true, but I doubt it. It certainly was not true in
> the past. Even now I can't believe that people bred and born in
> North Dakota, for example, very often sound like people from
> Southern California.

or Utah.  or, omigod, Texas.  and so on.  the idea is deeply,
irretrievably silly, and i find it astonishing that Bob Beard should
be maintaining that "all the accents are on the East Coast".  but
then he has a "Are You a Yankee or a Rebel" test (which gives you an
overall score), and supplied "A Glossary of Quaint Southernisms" for
the NPR website,

   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5496546

(Bethany et  al., steel yourselves).

arnold

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