CHAT: American dialects (was: Chinese names)

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

"James F. Carter" wrote:

> When I attended grad school at the State University of New York at Stony
> Brook, there was a guy in the dorm who sounded perfectly normal, not a
> trace of New Yorkish accent.

It happens; I know people born and bred in Manhattan who pronounce their
"r"s.

> I think pervasive exposure of people, particularly children, to
> (American) English "stage speech" heard on TV and radio is totally
> homogenizing USA regional dialects, and I imagine something similar is
> happening in every coherent broadcast market.  Nobody speaks proper New
> Yorkish any more.

Naah.  My daughter, born in the Bronx and brought up in Manhattan, alternates
between New York dialect and AAVE, with few traces of my outside-of-NYC
accent or her mother's modified North Carolina. 

It's just that you live in California, which is the *basis* of American
broadcast English.

-- 

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