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

Well, you know, if that's the *only* flaw the show has, I guess it's forgivable

Thanks for the link, CZ. It worked, and that's fascinating

And I don't know why we call it soda, but I know that you used to go to a soda fountain for one, and it would be served by a soda jerk. I've never heard of a pop fountain or a pop jerk (then again, I'm on that island...).

It occurred to me last night that we also refer to soft-drink as lemonade regardless of what flavour it is. We also call the flavour of clear soft-drink (like Sprite or 7-up) lemonade, even thought it doesn't taste particularly lemony. And, just to make it confusing, we also call traditional lemonade made with real lemons, lemonade.

Now, I don't know if this is an Australian thing, or if it's local to Melbourne. (Or perhaps it's just my family )

I've just got a non-accent, though I do remember that Kam (er, the person everyone else knows as Azathoth--I tend to stick with a name until actually asked to change, regardless of actual name changes) said that it's a very thick one

It's too bad Shea has disappeared--her Lawn Guyland accent was pretty pronounced (she could neutralize it quite a bit, though) I don't remember there being much of an accent in the 'In Box/Out Box' section of the Beeblecast... (Of course, if I'm mis-remembering the narrator of that--wasn't it Leo?--then never mind...)

I use soda, pop, soda pop, and soft drink pretty interchangably *shrug*

Jodan,

Some comments about your fine, scholarly work.

A) The Midwestern 'Non-Accent'

1) There's a lot of increase in this sentence:

"... increasingly increasing the linguistic divide between people of the upper Midland cities bordering the Great Lakes"

2) The part about California's regional dialects could be expanded a tad. California's the most populous and ethnically diverse western state. What you have is:

"Okay, fine
Fer sure, fer sure
She's a valley girl
In a clothing store
-From the Moon Unit and Frank Zappa song 'Valley Girl'
The Western United States is an enormous area, but it is not rich in dialects like the Eastern United States. However, while on the surface the dialect in Los Angeles, California seems identical to the dialect in Dayton, Ohio (2,000 miles away) there are actually some subtle differences. When making the vowel sounds 'i', 'e' and 'a', Californians and Westerners tend to hang their mouth open more than Midwesterners. There is also the youthfully feminine 'Valley Girl Talk', arising out of Californian shopping malls, which insists on inserting the words 'like' and 'totally' into just about every sentence as well as many other annoying mannerisms."

Poking fun at Californians is such a popular pastime for USonians that we Californians have joined in the fun. Perhaps no one has had more success at it than Moon Unit Zappa, who lampooned the regional slang of Encino, California and the surrounding San Fernando Valley in the 1982 hit tune Valley Girl. But that tune is now 25 years old, slang in general evolves quickly, and that region is about 500 miles south of where I live and 700 miles south of where Amy the Paper Lady lives. California isn't one large mall next to a studio next to a sunny beach with year-round balmy weather, even if many people across the nation and around the world think that California equals Hollywood.

At least to my ears we don't sound like mid-westerners. Our consonants, especially Ts, are softer than theirs in words like "mountain". In some California regions, vowels tend to shift toward the schwa and are in general flatter than other parts of the US. We Northern Californians can tell a Southern Californian by how they approach certain words. We can also tell non-Californians by how they approach certain words.

3) There are also some tell-tale constructions, at least in speech, in some of the western states. Whereas we probably all would write, "The car needs to be washed," some western states have the construction in speech, "The car needs washed," while others use "The car needs washing."

B) The Southern Drawl

1) About the W...

"Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me.
-President George W Bush, 27 May, 2004"

While President George W Bush does maintain a residence in Texas, did serve as governor there, and provides us with many humorous malapropisms such as the one you include, his accent is not typical of any Texan I've ever heard. He was born, raised, and educated in New England.

Now Lyndon Johnson was a president with an authentic Texas accent.

2) The deep south. "Southerners will tell you that everything moves just a little bit slower in the south"
Just as an aside, there is a reason for moving really slowly in the deep south. It can be so hot and humid, a person just can't move any other way. Try it some time.

3) "Most of the people in these states cherish their southern heritage, and speak loudly and proudly with their southern accents. Southerners seem to believe that northerners can't understand this connection or anything about their way of life. It's possible that this is the case, but if so, the often opaque accents of southerners is at least partially to blame for the disconnect.

Unlike many other dialects in American English, the southern accent is not so much just a variation on the tongue as it is a separate language - a yokel cousin to American English. The huge volume of phrases, words, expressions and alternate pronunciations is best learned by making a long trip into the American south. For our purposes, we shall be content to say that the southern dialect can be colourful and interesting. Parts of it may be distressing or off-putting to outsiders. A strong southern accent can sound uneducated and can be quite vulgar to people from other parts of the world, but some believe that a soft, subtle southern accent can be quite charming and attractive. American women sure seem to like Matthew McConaughey, who has a strong Texan accent."

I'm not sure about the accent being vulgar. Some of the colorful expressions certainly are. To those of us in California, sometimes it seems a southerner will spend 5 minutes spinning metaphors and analogies when a 5-word answer would accomplish the same, but it's often entertaining.

Actually, I realized after I got offline that that's not *strictly* true--while soda, pop, and soda pop only refer to carbonated drinks (though not sparkling juices or water) soft drink covers everything that's not alcohol, though I don't generally use it for , water, or juice (except maybe sparkling)--you know, the stuff that technically could be gotten yourself, if you had a dairy animal and fruit trees. I don't use soft drink for hot drinks, either.

Hey there Thanks for your comments, this is exactly what I was looking for when I set this thread up. I'll see that the 'increase' issue gets fixed. Thanks for that.

I don't have much about California and the west because it really is very similar to the Midland accent. There are some subtle differences (though I for one pronounce 'mountain' with a soft 't'). It's more of a variation on the standard 'American' or 'Midland' accent than a separate branch. When I visited the Bay Area in CA a few years ago, I didn't have trouble understanding anyone and I don't think anyone had trouble understanding me. In contrast, I do occasionally have trouble understanding some of the other accents I've written about.

I didn't intend to paint all of California with the Valley Girl brush, but there can be no doubt that California is the cradle of that. I'll revise it to say Southern California, though. That's fair enough

In general, I'm comfortable in saying that California is a part of the broad Midland accent (I'm basing this on information from professional linguists, not my own whim of course) but I will make you an offer. If you want to write an entry on California English and its variations from the Midland accent, or perhaps a section for the Midland entry, I'll be happy to include it in my project (and if you choose to write another entry, I'll probably need to find someone else to sub it, Rich being burdened enough! ). Or, of course, you're free to write an entry for PR about California English.

In my mind, going into great length about California would be like going into great length about the difference between the Maine and Boston accent (which I mention only briefly in the NE accent entry). Sure, people from the region can sometimes tell them apart, and they approach some words differently, but they share so much linguistically that it's being overly pedantic to delve into all the differences.



I just used the George W Bush quote because I think it's funny and it mentions West Texas. If I were going to use Mr Bush as an example of the Texas accent, I would have spelt the quote out phonetically.

There are some very strong Southern accents that I find vulgar. Most of the time, I like the southern accent though.

Hey Amy
Out of curiosity, then, what is referred to as a 'soft drink' but not as 'soda'/'pop'/'soda pop'.

I'm curious, too. When perusing the "soft drinks" list at most eateries, I usually see soda/pop, sparkling fruit beverages (like tamarind or jamaica waters at Mexican places), and maybe iced tea or lemonade. I'd be interested to know what else falls into this category elsewhere.

It's interesting how people who speak the same language can use the same words to mean so many things.

Yeah, that's what I'd expect too pc. Though I don't think we have too many sparkling fruit beverages here

Hi Jordon

Glad to be help, no matter how slight. And I'm learning a lot from your entries. For example, on my first read-through, I was reading midland and thinking midwest, not quite the same thing, as I was to learn when I looked it up, which I should have done in the first place.

I appreciate your offer, but I don't think there's enough material for a whole entry. California was under first Spanish then Mexican rule from 1535-1847, and has since been a destination for many spanish-speaking immigrants, so spanish accents are rather prevalent. First with the 1848 discovery of gold, and later following advise to "Go West, Young Man!" thousands stampeded to California, bringing their regional accents with them. During the Dust Bowl, displaced farming families made their way to California, bringing a fresh injection of the Oklahoma twang. It is not unusual to hear numerous asian and slavic accents in the larger metropolitan areas. And about 30 minutes from here is Anderson Valley, home of America's weirdest dialect - Boontling.

But I fully agree, the dominant sound out here is the flat no-accent accent. Or at least, I don't have an accent.

Lots of hispanic and Hmong accents around here, and this is by no stretch of the imagination an urban area I remember being told a year or so ago that, population-density-wise, this area's a frontier! And that was down in Eureka (OK, so HN's probably the only person here who would know why that's funny...)

Part of my non-picky carbonated drink terminology may stem from the fact (just guessing--haven't gotten around to looking at the soda/pop map) that I grew up mainly in Salem, Oregon and the surrounding area, Reno, Nevada and the surrounding area, and have spent my adult life in extreme northern and northern-central California. My step-dad, whom Mom married when I was a month from my 3rd birthday, grew up in Fargo, North Dakota and was born in 1929.

I don't know if my usage of soft drink is common, or just a me-thing or family-thing, but to me, a soft drink is any cold drink with no alcohol, carbonated or not--so soda/pop/soda pop is a soft drink, but a soft drink may not be whatever you want to call carbonated sugar water, just like a square's a rectangle, but a rectangle may or may not be a square. So water, juice, and milk are soft drinks, but I'll usually call them by those names instead of lumping them under the label of soft drink. And if that makes sense, I'm surprised, because right now I'm sitting here wondering, 'Why the heck not?!?'

Interesting how "soda" is tied to the large cities and mostly the coasts. Clearly it's a matter of being part of a higher civilization .

I'm from Brooklyn, Jodan. I've heard some creepy accents in my time, though I admit I've never heard someone call it New Joisey naturally - but still, you've really pulled the rug out from under me with that one.

A side note: in the USA, Boy Scouts wear patches with the languages they speak over their shirt pocket. My brother had one for "Brooklynese".

The modern socioeconomic accent difference is somewhat different, I suspect, probably because of demographic differences. The former Italian-Eastern European-Irish underclass is currently replaced with a Latino-Middle Eastern-Black one, with some form of Ebonics dominant, often diluted by native language accents. The "Brooklyn/Long Island" accent is mostly used by the older (35 years and up) generation, but in some closed communities (Syrian expats comes to mind) is passed down to the younger generation as well.
At any rate, I live near a low SES public school and work by a mid SES one and often pass high SES kids in my grandmother's neighborhood, and am fairly confident that the "Brooklyn" accent isn't common among any of them.

Right now, of the people with the worst accents I can think of, one is a client of the company I work for, and therefore is definitely out of the picture. (She's from Long Island, incidentally.) The other is a child, recently removed from Brooklyn to Connecticut. ("I'm going ova theeyar.") She's the most contrary child I've ever met ("How was school today?" "I don't haevta tell you!") so I'm unlikely to get much from her, but was wondering if there are BBC limitations on recording children's voices for AViator stuff anyway.

I read a lot in newspapers and opinion journals from New Yorkers who believe that the Noo Yawk accent is dying out, but at the same time I read from linguists who contend that regional accents (including Noo Yawk) are strengthening. So it's hard to balance it out, to be honest. With anecdotal evidence versus scholarly evidence, I tend to prefer the latter, but it's hard to tell where the truth *actually* lies. That was one of the most frustrating parts about writing this project, incidentally - how often anecdotal accounts conflict with each other and with more scientific studies.

I appreciate your frustrations, Jordon. Perhaps you can cite in your entry linguists, professional linguist journal articles, and quotes. That way you can say something like, "While some people opine that the Noo Yawk accent is dying out, Dr. Uvula MacUvula concluded otherwise in the January 2008 issue of The Learned Tongue:

"By comparing recordings of over one thousand conversations made during the years 2003-2007 to a similar number of recordings made over fifty years ago, we determined that this regional accent is stronger than ever."



In a conflict between an anecdote and a properly designed and executed study, I recommend choosing the study.Any body of data has outliers.

>>> Lots of hispanic and Hmong accents around here, and this is by no stretch of the imagination an urban area I remember being told a year or so ago that, population-density-wise, this area's a frontier! And that was down in Eureka (OK, so HN's probably the only person here who would know why that's funny...)

Amy, I can't believe I forgot to mention the Hmong. Or the Native Americans who gave us almost as many words as the Spanish. And I scarcely know what to say about harpin' Boont.

Jordon and Amy,

Here's an interested site:

www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/pacificnorthwest/

"Furthermore, the reliable Linguistic Atlas projects, a series of exploratory projects designed to investigate North American dialects, did not collect data from Oregon before the project was prematurely abandoned. Like other dialect areas of the American West, descriptions are lacking, contributing to the myth that there are no distinctive dialects in the United States west of the Mississippi River."

It goes on to explain how we westerners alter our vowels while deluding ourselves that we have no accent.

Here in Memphis TN we never say soda, we say soft drink, or just Coke. In other words, a waitress might say, "What kind of Coke do you want?" and you would say Coke, or Rootbeer, or Sprite. I guess it's the influence of nearby Coca Cola producing Atlanta.

"It goes on to explain how we westerners alter our vowels while deluding ourselves that we have no accent. "

That makes sense, at least to me. A friend of mine moved here several years ago after having grown up in Seattle. On all the visits I had made before he moved I had never really noticed much of an accent up there, but once he moved down here he kept telling me that we talk funny. All of the instances he cited had to do with vowel sounds, specifically different 'o' sounds.

Sorry for the late reply, RL and all that to blame as usual.

I've seen and read that PBS site. They have an absolutely excellent series on American dialects, which I used as a source throughout the project.

Now, to be fair, though, I do have a bit about how westerners pronounce their vowel sounds differently in the Mid-Western Non-Accent entry (opening the mouth more widely causes a slight chain shift in tongue placement, which results in different sounding vowels), but I will expand on that.