"Authentic pronunciation"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/3/2010 12:52 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Back at the '72 Summer LSA (remember those days, Ron?), friends who
>weren't native speakers of English continually asked me whether a
>friend of mine was a native speaker of U.S. English. My friend was
>from Minnesota and I didn't notice anything particularly distinctive,
>let alone non-native, about her speech. Yet, to those foreigners, she
>sounded like a foreigner!

Isn't Minnesota (stereo)typically supposed to be in the region of the
best, least-accented American English, the Mid-West?  Or am I
ignorant or confused?

Joel

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