Standard US English Dialect?

Tue Apr 15 23:49:41 UTC 2008

>Did I say right or wrong English?

Did you use the words "right" and "wrong" this time? No. But you did
say you were looking for the "best spoken English," which implies that
one type of English is more wrong than another. You have been talking
about right and wrong English for as long as you have been on this
list, so that is why I brought it up. The reason I am lecturing you
(yes, I will admit that I am) is because you are on a list made up of
language lovers, including many linguists, and I would guess that most
people here don't believe that one English is more right than another,
especially not the linguists. As such, you continually waste your
cyber breath lecturing people who spend their lives studying linguists
to describe, not prescribe. In my view, you are like a Catholic going
to a Buddhist temple and telling them that Nirvana is just wrong.

Scot

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 5:26 PM, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> 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: Standard US English Dialect?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Pay attention Scott.  Did I say right or wrong English?  No.  Someone here has written about "Where the worst English is spoken" and thus they have a clue about "best" English.  Why don't you lecture that person about "right and wrong" and get off my case.
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com.
>
>
> > Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:04:54 -0500
> > From: slafaive at GMAIL.COM
> > Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society
> > Poster: Scot LaFaive
> > Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >>I would think that the best English as a standard should be easiest
> > to understant.
> >>I would be interested to know which accent is clearest and least misunderstood.
> >
> > There are so many things wrong with these statements that I'm a little
> > befuddled about how to respond.
> >
> > I hope you see that what is easy for one person to understand isn't
> > necessarily easy for another. Being from the Midland North I might
> > have trouble understanding someone from the bayous of Louisiana, but
> > they should understand each other quite well. It seems like you
> > consistently fail to realize this (or just enjoy provoking others):
> > "proper" English (or any language) is relative to who is speaking and
> > listening. There is no right or wrong English when people are
> > communicating.
> >
> > Scot
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Tom Zurinskas  wrote:
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> >> Sender: American Dialect Society
> >> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
> >> Subject: Re: Standard US English Dialect?
> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> 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
> >>
> >> _________________________________________________________________
> >> More immediate than e-mail? Get instant access with Windows Live Messenger.
> >> http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_instantaccess_042008
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> More immediate than e-mail? Get instant access with Windows Live Messenger.
> http://www.windowslive.com/messenger/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Refresh_instantaccess_042008
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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