Fw: Teenage speak and beyond

[Richard Vallis]

I assume you're being facetious by declaring one chooses one's  speech
pattern to fit what one is saying.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael H Covarrubias" <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU>
To: <rvallis at optonline.net>
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Teenage speak and beyond


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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Michael H Covarrubias <mcovarru at PURDUE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Fw: Teenage speak and beyond
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> Quoting Richard Vallis <rvallis at OPTONLINE.NET>:
>
> >  In what appears to be an attempt at speech sophistication, the
> adolescent
> > girl (and occasional guy) characteristically distorts the vowel sounds,
> > especially  the  "e" as in the word best.  Best becomes "bast" or
> "bost" or
> > "bus."  Better becomes "batter" as the mouth opens wide to accommodate
> this
> > apparently classy way of enunciating.  Other vowel sounds are similarly
> > affected by the sophisticatedly wide open mouth.  Bush becomes "bahsh"
> and on
> > it goes, endlessly.  What's more daunting, is that the individual
> continues
> > this distortion into post adolescence and beyond when a young person's
> > apparent need for "fitting in" and peer pressure would seem to be
> > diminished.
> >
> > Television personalities and actors have generally been purged of it,
> but it
> > maddeningly rears itself, wide-mouthed, in commercials.  What's
> surprising is
> > that most listeners don't seem to notice the bend in pronunciation
> until it's
> > pointed out to them....
> >
> > Richard Vallis
> >
> ---------------------
>
> I wonder if this is related to the 'a' > 'ah' (think 'cat'>'cot')
> alternation
> that I've noticed in a few commercials. One commercial is I believe for a
> hotline for girls town (or some similar adolescent support group). One of
> the
> girls in the commercial says (paraphrase) "I'd have to lose 10 pounds to
> fit
> into that" -- the vowel in "that" is pretty close to [a].
>
> In another commercial, this one for the Dirt Devil Kone vacuum cleaner,
> the
> designer, Karim Rashid, pronounces "that" (in the phrase "that way" with
> [a]
> instead of the "ash" vowel.
>
> I hate to judge someone's intentions by pronunciation but the context of
> both
> these passages allows me some comfort in claiming that they're attempts
> "at
> speech sophistication." The girl is playing the part of the vain, body-
> conscious
> superficial peer, and Karim is...well anyone who thinks a vacuum cleaner
> should
> be a fashion statement is obvious trying a little too hard to be
> sophisticated.
>
> Here's a url for the vacuum cleaner commercial.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuJeT6aFBvs
>
> Michael
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>    English Language & Linguistics
>    Purdue University
>    mcovarru at purdue.edu
>
>    web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
>   <http://wishydig.blogspot.com>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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