h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Could any of my American friends tell me about the accents/dialects in their region of the country or their impressions about dialects from other parts of the country? I would also be pleased if one of my friends from another English speaking country could tell me his or her impressions of the American accent, compared to your own local/national dialect.

The reason I ask is that I'm working on a project on American Regional Dialects for the edited guide A30481706 (but I wouldn't read them just yet, they're not finished). I was planning it as one entry, but it's turned out to be an absolutely massive subject, and has ballooned to seven entries (and I'm on the verge of making it eight). I'd like to have some impressions, opinions, stories, experiences or even facts to throw into the entry. You'd of course be entitled to a co-author credit, if I use something you say (and if you want such a credit).

PS - Can anyone tell me how I go about submitting a University project these days? I have a feeling that the old Uni page is out of date.

http://www.youthink.com/quiz.asp?action=take&quiz_id=9827

You might find that useful.

I came with a Northeast newscaster type accent. I've heard people add 'r' like "I have an idear" and I've heard it referred to as "southern".

Being from New York, I consider the "fugedaboutit" Italian mafia accent local, along with the dropped "r" (Dodgas instead of Dodgers) often replaced by a 'w' as in Cawfee. Though up in New England I think it's Cahfeh.

Re Uni - you submit an outline linking to the entries to the Uni page. Write it. Find a sub. Then the sub contacts the eds to get subbing rights and submits the outline page to PR. People review the entries. They comment. They throw tomatoes. The sub fixes it up. Then it gets sent to the eds. Happily ever after.

I've taken that quiz already, oddly enough. Earlier today while I was doing some research Told me I was from the midwest, which is absolutely correct.

I've always thought of the added 'r' to idea as a New England thing (Ted Kennedy does it all the time), though my grandmother used to say 'idear' and she was from Kentucky, so you probably have a point. She also said 'warsh' which is apparently something people say in Philadelphia?

For Uni, which Uni page and do I actually have to create an index page when all my entries are linked to each other?

I'll poke around for a subbie, I guess.

This process has changed quite a bit since I last did a Uni project, which was something like 4 years ago.

It looks and sounds interesting, so if you need a Sub I'll be quite happy to volunteer. I'm going on holiday around mid-January, so I wouldn't be able to do anything until February, but if you can wait that long I'd be delighted to do it.

Full instructions are at <./>university-what</.>

Traveller in Time on top
"Use < University > (also < FieldResearcher >, < FieldResearchers &gt
You will find any information you need on that page "

Ah, I had assumed those pages were out of date because... well, all the help pages are out of date

'rich, I'd be most pleased to have you as a subbie. You're one of the subs I'd happily trust with excellent entries, so I imagine you can be trusted with mediocre stuff like mine I don't mind a wait. I'm hoping to have them all finished by tomorrow (I've been sick in bed, researching for about three days and unless I get better I'll finish everything up soon) so a month will give me time to do proofread and link them up - making the subbie's workload a bit easier.

<./>university-what</.> is still correct, sin't it? It's what we've all been working to since the University reopened, and it's still linked to from <./>university</.>

Fairy nuff. I remember when the university closed. I was the last person to submit a project before the italics made the announcement of its closing. I haven't really paid close attention to the process until now

I guess I'll make an index page then...

Mediocre, J? You reckon you can get them up to mediocre?

That's a deal, then. Just shout when you're ready. I'd appreciate the addition of links, but I don't think it's necessary - it's nice to have to do a bit of work, you know

My brain's too fried to think about giving any useful information to you, but I'll have a think when my head is clear after New Year is all over.

I like linking them up. It's one of the fun parts of the editing process. I don't know why, but I enjoy that part of the process. You'll have plenty of work, though, I promise. I'm truly horrible at remembering to put things in British English while writing, and even when I'm editing it, I can't remember many of the differences between the two. Maybe that's why I'm writing seven entries about American English...

Project page is here - A30551672 Waste of an A-number if you ask me, but no big deal.

That's looking good - I've scanned the first couple, and it's pretty impressive stuff. Send me a link again on my PS when you're done, and I'll go through it properly. If you're done as quickly as your project page suggests, I might even be able to make a start before I go away. No promises, though

I'm unsure about how to describe my (southern Californian) dialect, other than that it's pretty standard American. My parents make fun of me for interjections such as "like" and "totally", though, which I suppose go with the territory. But I pronounce all my "r"s but don't add extra ones, have flat vowels ("abaowt" instead of "aboat" and other things I can't demonstrate without the phonetic alphabet) and that sort of thing. I'd be happy to send in a recording, if you like... and hey, that sounds like a job for the AViators....

I briefly thought the same thing, actually. How difficult do you think it would be to get researchers from several regions of the US to send in samples? We'd really only need one researcher for every region.

Anyone know someone from Boston, Philly, Chicago, Pittsburgh etc?

And by the way, EMR, from my research it seems like the biggest difference between the Californian and midwestern accent (mine) is that you folks out west open your mouths wider when you're making vowel sounds

I'd say that different regions are certainly represented on h2g2, and I can think of a few Researchers offhand to represent diverse areas - the challenge would probably be seeing if they're willing/able to commit their voices to mp3.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess. I think it's very doable though, and would be very cool.

Come to think of it, though, I don't know how I'd put my voice into mp3 format... I have a digital camera which can take videos, but I don't know how to strip the audio off that.

You'd need a microphone to record your voice properly - you can get a cheap (read: poor-quality) one for less than $10, and some computers have them built-in. There are also more convoluted methods involving recording on a tape recorder and transferring it to computer, but those produce even worse quality and are silly.

It shows my fragile, wired state of mind at the moment that AViating this didn't even occur to me. What a perfect idea! If it's of enough interest to enough people, I could even pull together a clip to coincide with it making the Front Page. Bear in mind that because our clips are held on YouTube, having video as well as audio is preferable, and there must be a creative way of doing it so that people's faces don't have to be in shot if they don't want them to be.

There's no actual need to record it as an mp3, in fact. I can interchange most formats easily anyway, wav is just as good, and Ogg Vorbis is fairly standard. Midi is also fine, although they tend to be large. I'm sure I can find a way to strip audio from video as well - I think mpeg streamclip will handle it.

The ideas for AViating are more important that the making of the aV, in a way. I can pull almost anything into usable material.