Standard US English Dialect?

[Tom Zurinskas]

I think this is wonderful.  I'm looking for a model of best spoken English.  I assume m-w.com is such a model.  I do quibble about "awe-dropping" for some words and the initial sound of short i ~i instead of short e ~e for words starting with "ex".

I would think that the best English as a standard should be easiest to understant.  Coming from the FAA where English is the standard language of Air Traffic Control, I would be interested to know which accent is clearest and least misunderstood.

Note that the FAA teaches that number 9 be pronounced NIE-ner to preclude confusion with 5.  These are too close phonetically.

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




> Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:44:33 +0200
> From: preston at MSU.EDU
> Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> Yes, DC always does surprisingly well, but the East Coaster the South
> is the better it does as well. SC higher than GA, GA higher than AL,
> etc....We actually have some qualitative evidence for this; some of
> the fieldworkers asked respondents why they ranked the DC area so
> high, and many said that they figured good English was spoke in the
> capital. This seemed truer of southern and south midland respondents
> than of northern ones (who know they speak the best English).
>
> dInIs
>
>
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender: American Dialect Society
>>Poster: David Bowie
>>Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>From: Dennis Preston
>>> Poster: LanDi Liu
>>
>>>
>>
>>>> As far as NYC middle class goes, that means very little as far as
>>>> accents go. Because of the large amount of people that live in NYC
>>>> that weren't born there, and the fact that different boroughs in NYC
>>>> have different accents to begin with, and the fact that class and
>>>> accent aren't so easily correlated anymore, I don't think anyone could
>>>> say what a NYC middle class accent is. So probably the people in
>>>> Japan and China (and elsewhere) think capital = standard. Most people
>>>> think Beijing Chinese is standard, but that's a myth as well.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Washington DC is the capital of the US, not NYC.
>>
>>And of course, in dInIs's own work (see "Where the worst English is
>>spoken"), you find that Washington DC does remarkably well in US folks'
>>ratings for correctness--so maybe this capital==standard (or at least
>>nearly standard) thing works in the US, as well.
>>
>>David, who grew up near enough to DC to disbelieve that NYC's really as
>>important a city as it seems to believe
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of English
> Morrill Hall 15-C
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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