Standard US English Dialect?

Wed Apr 16 13:42:04 UTC 2008

So now I'm not a language lover, but others are, and I detract from their love.  Is that it?  SAMPA in 1987 addressed the problems with IPA notation as did I.  I suppose they were not language lovers either.  XSAMPA addresses the problems with SAMPA.  No love there?  Somebody here wrote about "Where the worst English is spoken".  He must not be a language lover, either, right?  Yet you do not address that.

I started truespel in 1987, the same year SAMPA started.  How old were you then, 5 or 6; the great lecturer, just learning to read.  What have you done in your young life that we should be impressed with.  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 18:49:41 -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?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>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  wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>> 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
>>>>
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