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From: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Canadian accents
Message-ID: <730@im4u.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Jan-86 23:31:37 EST
Article-I.D.: im4u.730
Posted: Sun Jan 19 23:31:37 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Jan-86 07:45:40 EST
References: <8275@ucla-cs.ARPA> <751@othervax.UUCP> <8382@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Reply-To: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Distribution: net
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 29

In article <8382@ucla-cs.ARPA> wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (Rich Wales) writes:
>Re:  an "American" accent.
>
>    I inadvertently neglected to include a statement in my original
>    posting to the effect that I was talking in terms of the accent
>    used by most speakers on the West Coast of the U.S.  My apologies
>    to anyone who was confused or offended by this omission.
>
>    I think it can fairly be said, by the way, that the West Coast
>    accent (or a close approximation thereto) is used by most of the
>    U.S. mass media as a de-facto standard.  This is not intended as
>    a chauvinistic statement, simply as an observation of an apparent
>    trend.  In any case, though, I agree that I clearly should have
>    made this assumption explicit in my article.

That's funny:  every mid-westerner I've heard opine on this subject
has been convinced that the mass media use a midwestern accent as standard.
Not to mention that both Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather are from Texas.
Whatever it is they use on the air doesn't sound like it came from
California.

Which West Coast accent did you mean, by the way?  I can hear distinct
differences in the ways people from San Francisco and L.A. talk.
(It's not so much different phonemes as differing pitch patterns.)
And I've heard people from California make fun of the way people
from Oregon talk.
-- 
John Quarterman, UUCP:  {gatech,harvard,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!jsq
ARPA Internet and CSNET:  jsq@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU, jsq@sally.UTEXAS.EDU