diction (was velarized /l/ and Billy Holiday)

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

A small quibble, but it seems odd for a linguist to use the term "diction" to 
mean "enunciation." I've always thought that "diction" properly referred to 
word choice (cf. "dictionary"), but perhaps I have spent too many years in 
English Departments. I see that NOAD lists both meanings, and associates the 
"enunciation" meaning with singing, but I've always thought of it as something of a 
solecism (not to get prescriptive on y'all: I'm just DESCRIBING what I 
thought was the social distribution of the usage).

dic•tion ...  n. 1 the choice and use of words
and phrases in speech or writing: Wordsworth campaigned
against exaggerated poetic diction.
2 the style of enunciation in speaking or singing: she
began imitating his careful diction.
–ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (denoting a word or phrase):
from Latin dictio(n-), from dicere ‘to say.’
dic•tion•ar•y )

In a message dated 3/5/09 10:06:15 PM, hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM writes:


> This afternoon I was listening to a recording of Billy Holiday singing
> "Crazy he calls me."  In the line "The impossible will take a little
> while" she has a schwa before the final /l/ of "impossible" and I
> don't hear any distinctive velarization of the /l/.  There are several
> other post-vocalic /l/s in the song, and they don't show much
> velarization either.  Post-vocalic /l/ is a consistent problem for
> American English singers, since the raising of the back of the tongue
> towards the velum constricts the oral cavity and reduces the overall
> resonance of the syllable coda.  Some voice teachers and choral
> conductors will spend time training their singers to use only a
> non-velarized /l/, as a number European languages widely represented
> in the vocal and choral literature do.  My CD of Billy is, of course,
> a copy, and I don't know how good the master was.  It's entirely
> possible that the fidelity is not good enough to support much in the
> way of diction comments, but my impression is otherwise.  Billy's
> diction is superb.  Every word she sings is clear, even on a copy of a
> copy of a 1949 recording.  Billy had little or no formal vocal
> training, so the fact that she doesn't velarize /l/ much, if at all,
> wouldn't be the result of vocal training.  Is it a feature of her
> variety of AAE?  Is it idiosyncratic to her distinctive vocal style?
> 
> Herb
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 




**************
Need a job? Find employment help in your area. 
(http://yellowpages.aol.com/search?query=employment_agencies&ncid=emlcntusyelp00000005)

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