sumetary

[Paul Johnston]

Tom:
The BBC now has non-RP speaking newscasters, or at least did when I
was last in the UK in 2002.  BBC Scotland had speakers of a posh
variety of Scottish Standard English before I moved there in 1973,
though the national newscasters were at least near-RP.

Yours,
Paul Johnston
On Apr 1, 2009, at 1:46 AM, Tom Zurinskas wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: sumetary
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
>> And of course we know from the findings of historical linguistics
>> that there's a strong correlation between the presence or absence of
>> phonic instruction and the likelihood of sound change... ;-)
>>
>>
>> LH
>
> Got any studies you can cite one way or the other?
>
> I wonder how many of us were actually taught any kind of correct
> pronunciation.  I remember being taught not to pronounce the "t" in
> "often" so I don't.  How many other of us when doing our 10
> spelling words per week in grammar school were told how to
> pronounce our words correctly?  I sure was.
>
> I understand in UK there's a movement to teach pronunciation in
> grammar school.  I think BBC pronunciation is the model.
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> see truespel.com
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
>> Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:23:13 -0400
>> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
>> Subject: Re: sumetary
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
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>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Laurence Horn
>> Subject: Re: sumetary
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>
>> At 6:54 AM +0000 3/31/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>> Thanks, Herb, for that interesting clip in which Bill ~Lubbaaf talks
>>> about the Great Lake Northern Cities Vowel Shift (for short vowels).
>>> (I didn't see his last name spelled but I can spell it phonetically
>>> in truespel). He says that around the great lakes cities certain
>>> vowels are changing. This area contains cities such as Cleveland,
>>> Detroit, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffaloe (about 34M people). It used
>>> to be the USA English standard pronunciation for media. Some
>>> examples are:
>>>
>>> saying "block" the same as "black"
>>> saying "buses" the same as "bosses"
>>>
>>> Other short vowels are swapping too. ~Lubbaaf says we are growing
>>> apart linguistically even with massive media exposure. To me this
>>> is a bad thing. It should be changed and can be changed.
>>>
>>> I speculate that the main reason for this is that many schools have
>>> dropped phonetic or phonic instruction for teaching reading and gone
>>> with "whole language" or "whole word" approach. This forbids
>>> teaching the alphabetic principle that letters stand for sounds, so
>>> kids are taught that they have to learn words visually, and thus
>>> pronunciation is not linked to spelling and can vary capriciously.
>>> Huge mistake.
>>>
>>
>> And of course we know from the findings of historical linguistics
>> that there's a strong correlation between the presence or absence of
>> phonic instruction and the likelihood of sound change... ;-)
>>
>>
>> LH
>>
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