Fw: Teenage speak and beyond

[Dennis Preston]

How strange to find the details of well-known vowel shifts
characterized in such a way.

dInIs


>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>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>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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