Vowel surgery: brain op boy baffles doctors after waking up with 'posh

[Tom Zurinskas]

So he's hit on the head and starts speaking "no dialect" English, which he struggled to pronounce before.  Where do you hit them and how hard to get rid of the dialect. ;)

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.










> Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:45:58 -0700
> From: wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Vowel surgery: brain op boy baffles doctors after waking up with 'posh' RP accent
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: Fwd: Vowel surgery: brain op boy baffles doctors after waking
> up with 'posh' RP accent
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'll see your posh accent and raise you native fluency:
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=481651&in_page_id=1770
>
> Students of art and literature will recall that Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee was transported to Camelot by means of a clonk to the head. And when Stan Laurel was hit on the noggin in "A Chump at Oxford" (1940), he became the very posh and very brilliant Lord Paddington.
>
> So such cases boast strong precedent in farce and fantasy.
>
> One trusts that acceptable corroboration will soon be forthcoming in regard to both real-life incidents.
>
> JL
>
> James Harbeck  wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: James Harbeck
> Subject: Fwd: Vowel surgery: brain op boy baffles doctors after waking up
> with 'posh' RP accent
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=HXRW04DD4CJMZQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/09/18/nvoice118.xml
>
> Vowel surgery: brain op boy baffles doctors after waking up with 'posh'
> RP accent
> By Laura Clout
> Last Updated: 2:31am BST 18/09/2007
>
> A ten-year-old boy who underwent life-saving brain surgery has
> astonished doctors by emerging with a different accent.
>
> William McCartney-Moore fell seriously ill with a rare strain of
> meningitis last March and had an operation to remove fluid on his
> brain.
>
> But in the weeks since his treatment, William, from York, has lost
> his northern twang and acquired the elongated vowels of received
> pronunciation (RP).
>
> His mother, Ruth McCartney-Moore, said: "He survived the operation
> and the most amazing thing is that he came out of surgery with a
> completely different accent."
>
> The family first noticed the change in William's accent after he left
> hospital in April: "We went on a family holiday to Northumberland and
> he was playing on the beach and he said 'Look, I've made a sand
> castle' but really stretched the vowels, which made him sound really
> posh."
>
> "We all just stared back at him - we couldn't believe what we had
> heard because he had a northern accent before his illness. He had no
> idea why we were staring at him - he just thought he was speaking
> normally."
>
> William's illness began with a headache and a high temperature, she
> said. "A few days later he had a massive seizure."
>
> William was rushed to hospital and doctors found he had meningitis
> and empyema - or pus on the brain - and he was operated on.
>
> Mrs McCartney-Moore, 45, a music teacher said: "All the doctors and
> surgeons thought he was going to die. Before he went in I cut off a
> lock of his hair to keep.
>
> "He lost everything. He couldn't read or write, he couldn't recognise
> things and he'd lost all his social skills."
>
> But 18 months on, William has made a near-total recovery.
>
> His mother added: "It's bizarre, but I think it has worked in his
> favour because we all smile when he does it and it has brought a bit
> of humour into the situation."
>
> Phil Edge, the head of therapy services for international charity
> Brainwave, said it is rare for a child to change accents after
> surgery.
>
> "Some people believe . that the [brain] cells that are damaged can't
> be replaced and other cells take over - so here he has re-learned how
> to speak with a different accent.
>
> "It is not very common, I have worked here 20 years and can't think
> of an instance where a child has spoken with a different accent after
> surgery."
>
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