NY accent is dying out?

[Paul Johnston]

When journalists say such-and-such a dialect is dying out, usually it seems to me that what they're saying is that some (often unspecified) features are receding, but the features that are retained are ignored.  Sure, there are recessive features (the famous [@i] for bird, third, church for one--and does anyone know who, if anyone, uses it among the generation born about 1980 or so?).  Rhoticity is becoming more common.  But last time I was in NYC (2009), you still heard people, even young ones, asking for a cup of [kU at fi~ko at fi).


[po at l] Johnston
On Jan 22, 2012, at 6:06 AM, Michael Newman wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Michael Newman <michael.newman at QC.CUNY.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: NY accent is dying out?
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>
> But "aw" is the "standard" pseudophonetic for the raised NYCE (and still very much with us thank you very much) variant [à É˙]  that is stereotyped in the word "coffee"
>
>
>
> Michael Newman
> Associate Professor of Linguistics
> Queens College/CUNY
> michael.newman at qc.cuny.edu
>
>
>
> On Jan 21, 2012, at 11:07 PM, 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:      NY accent is dying out?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> NY accent is dying out?
>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9027125/Fuhgeddabou=
>> tit-New-York-accent-may-be-dying-out.html=20
>>
>> This article uses "cawfee" for "coffee" as an example.  I would think that =
>> "cawfee" ~kaufee is the standard pronunciation.  (Note that "awe-droppers" =
>> would be attacking this word as well as any word word having "awe" (backwar=
>> ds c - IPA) in it and replacing it with "ah".  That includes the word "awe"=
>> itself=2C as per m-w.com.
>>
>> Tom Zurinskas=2C Conn 20 yrs=2C Tenn 3=2C NJ 33=2C now Fl 9.
>> See how English spelling links to sounds at http://justpaste.it/ayk
>>
>>
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