What kind of accent is posh among young people in the US?
>>I'm not surprised--though both theoretically descended from Gen Am, Great Lakes and California English literally shifted their phonology in opposite directions.<<
And the thing that is even more remarkable about such is that such really only comprises about 60 years of dialect divergence - considering that the dialects spoken in California today are primarily those brought there through internal immigration from the Midwest after WW2 rather than those spoken there prior to WW2. (Mind you, though, that such reflects dialects around that time from the entire Midwest, and not specifically many of the more extreme dialects found around parts of areas like Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.)
Interesting post, Travis.
The subject of dialect divergence is interesting; dialect divergence in a single area is interesting to me, too.
In your own area, I've noticed quite a huge difference between the speech of old-time Wisconsinites and modern-day Wisconsin speech. I saw an old clip of Frank Lloyd Wright, who died in 1959 but learned his English in the Wisconsin of the 1860s. His speech was notably different--it sounded like a rhotic RP, with none of the vowel-raising (and vowel changes) that characterizes NCVS.
In a similar vein, online recordings of William Jennings Bryan sound notably different from modern-day GA...
I was Up North (specifically in the area around Gresham, about an hour northwest of Green Bay) over the weekend, visiting some relatives of my girlfriend's, and I have to say that the dialect that they spoke was very different from that which I am used to in Milwaukee. Even the people in Green Bay itself spoke a dialect rather noticably different from that in Milwaukee, albeit in a quite conservative way.
The dialect spoken in Green Bay was interesting in just how conservative it really was. The only really non-conservative features that they seemed to have were noticably stronger Canadian Raising of historical /aʊ̯/ than found in Milwaukee and final devoicing of *just* /z/. Aside from that, though, their speech was awfully General American-like, especially when compared to that found amongst younger people in Milwaukee. They seemed to lack general final devoicing, had quite consistent voicing of lenis obstruents other than final /z/ in general (contrasting with the generally weak and very inconsistent voicing of obstruents in the Milwaukee dialect), had a more GA-like prosody with relatively weak allophonic vowel length (as opposed to the very sharp division of all syllables into short, long, and overlong syllables found in Milwaukee), had a less backed [o] than found in Milwaukee, lacked centralization of historical /ɛ/ and /ɪ/, and preserved [ɫ] for historical /l/. On top of all those specific differences, they quite noticably had very little lenition and elision, as opposed to the dialect here in Milwaukee, where younger people in particular tend to just drop unstressed [t], [d], and [n] very frequently; it sounded as if they pronounced *everything* relatively carefully to my ears which are used to a lot of consonants just not being directly realized.
The people in the Gresham area, though, spoke a wholly different dialect from those in Green Bay or those in Milwaukee which really stuck out to my ears. For starters, they seemed to only have stress-conditioned vowel length and had nothing at all like the vowel length system found in Milwaukee at all, which gave their speech a very different cadence to it than that in Milwaukee (or even GA, with its typical weak allophonic vowel length). Secondarily, they seemed to merge historical /æ/ and /ɛ/ as [ɛ] while otherwise having no indications of having any NCVS at all (including using a clear back [ɑ] where my own dialect would have a front-central [a]). They also had strong voicing of obstruents in all positions, strong interdental hardening in all positions (as opposed to just word-initially and in the word "with") and a rather closed, very rounded, and slightly centralized [o] rather reminiscient of Norwegian/Swedish "å" (rather than the more open, less rounded, and very backed German-like [o] found in the Milwaukee area). Like the people in Green Bay, they preserved [ɫ] for historical /l/ and had very little lenition or elision. Mind you that the people we talked up with there were primarily older (most likely in their mid-60s), but one of them was probably in mid-40s, and she had the same characteristics to her speech (and in particular had a very, very rounded and closed [o], even moreso than the older people)..
One thing that should be noted here is that the area around Gresham where they lived is actually *very* remote in practice, and is effectively isolated from the outside world in a way that Green Bay or even many more northerly locations like the area around Minocqua are not. Another note is that the area being on or near an Indian reservation likely has different substrata present than the Milwaukee (primarily German) or Green Bay (primarily German and North Germanic) areas.
>>unstressed [t], [d], and [n]<<
That should be "unstressed [t], [d], [n], [ɾ̥], [ɾ], and [ɾ̃]" above.
<the word "awesome", in particular, sends shivers down my spine; users ought to be taken to the back of the barn and horsewhipped>
I couldn't agree more whole heartedly. The over use and erosion of the word awesome really irks me.
Here are three things that are awesome:
The Sun.
The Great Wall of China.
Killer Whales.
Here are three things that aren't awesome:
Any time had at a party.
A new haircut.
A touch down.
A touch down.>>
What if it's Duke Nukem who makes the touch down?
Generally speaking, nobody is interested in a "posh" accent these days in the US, so there isn't one. There is an intelligent accent, but not an exaggerated, self-conscious "professor" accent which, again, nobody is interested in, but a generally bright, college educated accent, which is just Standard (North American) English.
There used to be posh accents in the US. In the 1960s, there was the "Locust Valley Lockjaw" accent affected by Thurston Howell III in the old TV sitcom "Gilligan's Island" to show that he was "posh." (William F. Buckley had that accent.)
In the 1940s, it was a non-rhotic northeastern accent that can be heard in old movies by actors and actresses playing posh roles.
These days, those accents or some form of hardcore "I went to Eton" British RP are sometimes used for amusement in the media to connote "stuffy," but there is no real posh accent.
The accent of an idiot so they can feel home
"The accent of an idiot so they can feel home"
Please take your obviously "talented" bashing skills somewhere else. This is the wrong forum.
For the record, it's actually so an idiot can feel AT home, not to FEEL home. I can't remember the last time I felt my home...
it's normal to skip that at in the US: I'm home for chiefly British I'm at home.
<<it's normal to skip that at in the US: I'm home for chiefly British I'm at home. >>
In the US it's common to hear "I'm home", but not "I feel home". At least in these parts, you need to say "I feel at home", instead.
You hardly ever, if at all, hear a British person use the word "awesome". I can't recall any occasion when it's been used by any of my friends, family members or work colleagues. It's just a word that seems to have become monopolised by the Americans. They seem to use it automatically even when referring to quite mundane things or events but I do wish I had a quid for every time I've heard an American tourist yell out "Aaaaahhhsome!" when gazing up at our glorious Castle up there on its rock above our city! It would pay for my forthcoming trip to Vienna, Budapest and Prague! :-)
Awesome is such an awesome word, and it's more awesome than an average cool.