~chooldrin

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Oct 19 05:41:44 UTC 2006


So, WRT the 27% of native speakers of English who don't speak the
ill-defined General American dialect, they will simply be shit out of
luck for some random number of years, until enough teachers have been
trained to go out into the hinterlands and teach the heathen to speak
and write the new standard dialect.

BTW, where is the center of this General American dialect, in case
that I want to get the jump on other non-speakers of this
pswaydo-standard?

-Wilson


On 10/18/06, Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at wmich.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Johnston <paul.johnston at WMICH.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: ~chooldrin
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> there's actually more variation among newscasters than you think.
> How about someone like Bob Schieffer, then?  Watered down, but still
> distinctly Texan.  Dan Rather watered his Houston-area Texan way down
> when he was on his own show.  But I remember his appearances on David
> Letterman where that shone through too.  And he always pronounced
> "spatial" and "special" the same, and was known to say
> "Worshington".  Admittedly, there's a lot more homogeneity than most
> varied speakers would have.
>
> And no, they don't speak Kalamazooan, quite, despite my students'
> opinions.
>
> Paul Johnston
> On Oct 18, 2006, at 9:57 PM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: ~chooldrin
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > ---------
> >
> > The major dialect of Engish in the world  is general American at
> > 73% of
> > native speakers. That's the place to start for a standard.  But I
> > should
> > assume we are talking "American" here in the ADS>
> >
> > I use m-w.com and American Heritage Talking dictionary for my
> > pronunciation
> > sources.  Quite standard.  I think national media newscasters use
> > quite a
> > standard dialect.
> >
> > Tom Z
> >
> >
> >> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >>
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >> Subject:      Re: ~chooldrin
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> ----------
> >>
> >> It seems to me that a major problem for the concept of devising a
> >> system of phonetic spelling for English is that of choosing the
> >> dialect to use as its basis. All those speakers who don't have the
> >> chosen dialect as their native speech will have a much *harder* time
> >> trying to learn to read and to spell. They're first going to have to
> >> learn the standard as though it were a foreign language.
> >>
> >> If this sort of thing was easy or even possible, why haven't any of
> >> those countries, such as Germany, that already have a designated
> >> standard dialect of their language tried to go phonetic? What's going
> >> to be done WRT homonyms?
> >>
> >> -Wilson
> >>
> >> On 10/18/06, RonButters at aol.com <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> -----------------------
> >>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>> Poster:       RonButters at AOL.COM
> >>> Subject:
> >> =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20[ADS-L]=20~chooldri?
> >>>               = =?ISO-8859-1?Q?n?=
> >>>
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> ----------
> >>>
> >>> In a message dated 10/18/06 1:02:13 PM, truespel at HOTMAIL.COM writes:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> That way we end up with a phonetic language that's
> >>>> easy to learn.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> Nah, English was a lot easier for me to learn than Spanish,
> >>> French, or
> >>> Russian.
> >>>
> >>> And then there are the Chinese, who have no "phonetic principle"
> >>> at all,
> >> but
> >>> they learn Chinese and can readily read each others' writing even
> >> though, when
> >>> spoken, the dialects are mutually unintelligible.
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
> >> complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> >> -----
> >> Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
> >> a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
> >> race. He brought death into the world.
> >>
> >> --Sam Clemens
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
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>


--
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
race. He brought death into the world.

--Sam Clemens

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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