Tech Dogg's Dox Tox
Apr
23
Posted in Life at 1:43:36 PM on 23 April 2007 | Comments: 2
I've always been fascinated by regional differences in American English dialectal pronunciations. For example, because I grew up in Massachusetts and have managed to retain a few dialectal pronunciations unique to that region, I pronounce these three words differently:
Somewhere around the border of New York state and western New England, native speakers begin to blur their pronunciation of these three words, singly pronouncing them as I pronounce the word Mary.I can almost now determine a native speaker's place of origin just by the way he or she pronounces these three little words. Well, almost any native speaker north of Virginia anyway.
A linguistic trend I've also been hearing much more of lately is the replacing of adverbs with adjectives, as in:
- Run it by me, slow and easy.
- He was hurt real bad.
- Hold tight if you're standing on the train.
- The sun is shining bright today!
Posted by Paul Davies on April 23, 2007 at 02:04 PM PDT #
Yeah, I can't even pronounce my husband's first name correctly (Larry)...
My son learned how to properly use adverbs by reading, listening to and watching Thomas the Tank Engine stories. There's still hope.
Posted by Sue Weber on July 13, 2007 at 03:40 PM PDT #