USA twitter accents in text

Sat Jan 15 22:02:30 UTC 2011

The below from the AP published in New Zealand of all places.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10699275&ref=emailfriend

The language Americans use on Twitter can indicate where in the country they're living, researchers have found.
Carnegie Mellon University examined 380,000 messages from Twitter during one week in March 2010 and found that the social networking site is full of its own kinds of geographical dialects.
Take the word cool. Southern Californians tend to write the shorthand "coo," while their neighbours up north use the phonetic shorthand "koo".
The 4.5 million words the researchers examined were full of similar examples.
Some were obvious - like "y'all" in the South or "yinz" in Pittsburgh - and some more mysterious. The word "suttin" was found over and over in New York City, a shorthand for "something".
Jacob Eisenstein, a post-doctoral fellow of computer science in Carnegie Mellon's Machine Learning Department, and his colleagues were able to analyse the geotags attached to Twitter messages sent from mobile phones for the study. In all, they looked at 4.5 million words.
"Some of what we found really just confirms previous intuitions, but some things were much more specific for social media," said Eisenstein, noting particularly the phrase "very tired".

Northern Californians tend to substitute "hella" for very, whereas New Yorkers opt for "deadass" tired; those in Los Angeles would be more likely to follow the word tired with the abbreviation "af" - short for "as [expletive]".
Some of the differences across Twitter can be explained by the need to write concisely to fit the site's 140-character limit. But not all of them.
While using "u" in place of the two-character longer "you" is pretty common, a lot of New Yorkers do the opposite and lengthen the word to "youu". Or even emphasise "I" by writing two of them - as in "II".
Scott Kiesling, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh, said social media provides researchers lots of easily obtainable data in which they can explore and examine how people are speaking.
He said the next step was to examine whether these phrases spread like "pancake batter hitting a pan or hop from city to city" - if they spread at all.
"That's sort of the big question," Kiesling said.
He said there was a burgeoning interest among linguists to study online speech more closely, and noted a conference this year at Georgetown University that will be examining language and new media.
Eisenstein said some of the online "accents" mirror those in the spoken language, but not all.
For example, many people in the Great Lakes region tend to have similar accents when speaking, but that wasn't necessarily found to be true in the study, he said.
"One thing I think that it shows is that people really have a need to communicate their identity - their cultural identity and their geographic identity in social media," he said.
- AP

Tom Zurinskas, from Conn 20 yrs, then Tenn 3, NJ 33, now FL 8.
Free English-based phonetic converter, URL and text , at truespel.com

> Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2011 10:38:19 -0500
> From: Berson at ATT.NET
> Subject: Re: from "blood libel" to "pogrom"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> 
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Re: from "blood libel" to "pogrom"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Thank you, Dave. Those were the statements I vaguely remembered.
> 
> And Angle having lost the vote, has she moved on to her backup remedt?
> 
> Joel
> 
> At 1/15/2011 07:23 AM, Dave Wilton wrote:
> >These are the two most explicit calls for violence that I've been able to
> >find. Note that Angle does not actually call for violence, only providing
> >analysis that it would be likely if the Tea Party candidates did not win.
> >
> >Sharron Angle, Republican candidate for US Senator from Nevada, said in an
> >interview (date of interview unknown, reported on 16 June 2010) said, "And
> >you know, I'm hoping that we're not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I
> >hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems."
> >
> >And the Reno Gazette Journal reported on 30 May 2010 that Angle said, "We're
> >called as Americans to be vigilant to protect our liberty," she said in a
> >recent interview. "At some point in each of our lives, we're called to
> >service to defend and protect our Constitution. [...?] What is a little bit
> >disconcerting and concerning is the inability for sporting goods stores to
> >keep ammunition in stock," she said. "That tells me the nation is arming.
> >What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their
> >government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more
> >Second Amendment kinds of ways? [...?] That's why I look at this as almost
> >an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next
> >step?" (There may be elisions in what she said. The way the quote is
> >presented in the article, it's not clear whether this is a continuous,
> >complete statement.)
> >http://www.rgj.com/article/20100530/NEWS19/5300350/1232/Sharron-Angle-s-cons
> >ervative-credentials-wins-support-of-activist-armyIn
> >
> >And Joyce Kaufman, right-wing radio-show host and staffer for a Republican
> >candidate said at a rally on 3 July 2010, " I am convinced the most
> >important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendment
> >rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don't work,
> >bullets will." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB7g3y597fs (quote is right at
> >the 6:00 min mark)
> >
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> >Joel S. Berson
> >Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2011 12:11 AM
> >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >Subject: Re: from "blood libel" to "pogrom"
> >
> >And what do we say about the Republican candidate in last fall's
> >elections who said (and I'm paraphrasing), if you don't like the
> >other side, look to the Second Amendment? (Read about in an on-line
> >article or blog by a New York Times reporter earlier this
> >week.) Cross-hairs may be metaphoric, but I suspect the NRA doesn't
> >say that about guns.
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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