Done. Yes, it is reasonable to report it. We’ll generally fix it if it makes a significant difference to the post and we see it within a reasonable time. We may not bother fixing minor spelling errors or typos that don’t change the meaning of a post.
Since you can’t report your own post, the best thing to do if you want something fixed is to report another post above or below it and indicate clearly the post in question.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I didn’t want to start a new thread for just one reply so could anyone tell me what the accent is of Snake in the Simpsons?
Cheers.
Ummm…if it’s south of the Mason-Dixon line, it’s “the south” and that line puts Pennsylvania and Delaware in the North and Maryland and (West) Virginia in the south, if my memory serves me correctly.
Thus necessitating what for most of the country is a set of archaisms - “Bring me an ink pen.” “Do you have a straight pin?” “Will you stop peeing on every tree we pass?”
I’d say Southern Californian. The Simpsons wiki calls it a “Valley Boy” accent, which is roughly the same thing. Like an exaggerated surfer dude.
Cillassi writes:
> Ummm…if it’s south of the Mason-Dixon line, it’s “the south” and that line puts
> Pennsylvania and Delaware in the North and Maryland and (West) Virginia in
> the south, if my memory serves me correctly.
Read the threads cited earlier about the question of whether Maryland is in the South. As I said, this isn’t really relevant to this thread and shouldn’t be discussed in this thread. The Mason-Dixon Line has no relevance to current cultural distinctions in the U.S.
Sure! Another Vocal Samples Thread coming up. :).
Incidentally, what accent does Dave Ramsey have?
According to the chart with the dotted lines, there are at least four. I was aware of three dialects. I naturally speak two of them. I grew up in West Tennessee and continue a friendship from that period although I live now in Middle Tennessee. My husband is able to tell when I am on the phone with the friend from West Tennessee because my dialect shifts slightly.
And we would be silly to ignore the neighborhood dialects within just one city.
If the broadcast schools had been located in the South instead of the Midwest, you would be saying that the South is supposed to have a very neutral accent. (The broadcast schools came first, then the acceptance of the Midwestern accent as “broadcast standard.”
Change you accent and you change people’s perception of you. You’d never know that Stephen Colbert is from Charleston, South Carolina, now, wouldcha, huh? Too bad that in such enlightened times people still have to do that.
It can’t very well be a diphthong if there’s only one vowel.
Dictionaries won’t tell you the parameters because in recent years they have redefined, so to speak, their own task from how things should be to how they are – a much less elitist point of view.
Really? :dubious: I think there are quite a few words that are written with only one vowel but are spoken with two vowel sounds.
I’m not sure what you mean by this; a single vowel phoneme most certainly could be realized as a diphthong (the vowel of my example in the post you quoted (the one in “fly”, “ride”, “hive”) is a diphthong in my accent, as are the ones in “say”, “so”, “soy”, and “south”, though they are all single atomic phonemes, and some of them are realized as monophthongs in other accents).
I was talking to a southern visitor about the planetarium show at the museum where I worked, and at one point she asked, “Do you see it in the planetarium?”
I was a little puzzled by the question, but explained, “You just look up at the dome screen, and we project the night sky onto it.”
She said, "Yes, but do you see it?
I still didn’t get it, until she asked, “Do you see it, or stand?” She was asking, “Do you sit,” but spread out the short I into a diphthong.
I grew up south of the Mason-Dixon line, but had never heard “sit” made into two words.
(Sheeee-it, yes, but not seeee-it.)
On a similar -unrelated note- whilst traveling in Tennessee, we stopped in a convenience store to get some grub.
I ordered a simple cold cut sandwich and the woman working the counter asked: “Do you want the deli?”
I gave a sort of nonplused look and said, “Yes. I want, uhhh… deli meat on my sandwich.”
She returned with an equally quizzical look and said, “No,the deli. The deli special,” and pointed to a handwritten sign that read “DAILY special! Sandwich + chips + coke for $2.99”
I just took several online “accent quizzes” (for what they’re worth) and came up with “Midlands” (the supposed “newscaster” neutral) and “Western.” I have spent 19 years in Utah, 18 years in Southern California, two years in Eastern Ohio-Appalachia/Pittsburgh, and one year in Central New Jersey.
I’m not very susceptible to accent shift, so it will be interesting to see if I’m still Midlands/Western after more time in NJ. I just realized that I’ve lived in a few places thought to have distinctive accents, but haven’t picked them up.
Just to add to the dogpile: *everyone * has an accent. My co-workers, who are mostly New Jerseyians and Philadelphians, have an accent; they think I have an accent 
Cheers mate.
Sorry mods that was me not tpwombat
Grew up south of Ann Arbor, we used ‘bogue’ as a diminutive of ‘bogus’ (bad), as a remnant of hippie speech.
eg. “That is so bogue, dude.”