"American" accent

[Moneo]

Ok guys, here's the list I promised from Mario Pei's book "The Story of Language". By the way, Dr. Pei is a renowned linguist.

He says "The following list of words, pronouned by an American speaker and listened to by an expert, usually suffices to place the speaker within 20 miles of his home locality:"
merry
marry
Mary

wash
water
Washington

on
off
dog
oft
lot
log
sorry

about the house

greasy

father
park
part

first
bird

can (verb)
can (noun)

ash
ask

Dr. Pei goes on to say: Each of the above groups of words places the speaker east or west, or north or south, of a certain line, until he is restricted to a given small area. "Greazy" would place him south of Philadelphia, while "greassy" would place him north of Trenton --- Dr. Pei's chapter on Dialects goes on in great detail.

Although we're not all experts, just for fun, try the above list on some native American friends who are not from your home area.
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[Moneo]

Hey guys, my great contribution in my last post about accents from the book "The Story of Language" has not raised any response. It's dying on the vine. Take another look. It's for you --- I already have the book.
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[Anonymous]

its cool and all, but im not gonna travel the country and ask people to say words for me ;p

and even if they did, i wouldnt know where they were from. id just be like 'ok, you say this like this, still dont know where ur from' :P


XD it IS interesting tho, don't get me wrong

[Sterling Christensen]

I read them all out loud and tried to think of different ways I've heard them pronounced - haven't tried them on anyone else yet.

[urger]

There was an interesting show on PBS recently on this topic "Do you speak American". It's more on language in America, then on Accent, but it's still pertanent (sp) to this topic

[Moneo]

its cool and all, but im not gonna travel the country and ask people to say words for me ;p

and even if they did, i wouldnt know where they were from. id just be like 'ok, you say this like this, still dont know where ur from'


XD it IS interesting tho, don't get me wrong

Your right, interesting but not of much immediate use. You probably won't get the book, but hang on to the list for future fun and reference. Someday you might travel around the US or go to live somewhere else. The list will pinpoint words that are different for you.

PS: What does XD mean?
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[Anonymous]

PS: What does XD mean?
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...XD



haha, nah but its an emoticon. like this guy :D or this one xP

[Z!re]

It's a guy closing his eyes really hard while smiling.. or such..

>_<

^_^

-_-'

[Moneo]

Is there a list somewhere of these emoticons? Then if someone replies to me with "4Q", for example, I can look up the meaning or an associated "face", and not think that the guy is cursing at me.
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[Anonymous]

sure go to chatrooms, or talk on IM :P lol

or play an MMORPG