Talk:American English/Archive 2

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Contents 1 Broken characters 2 Hiram Falutin 3 Phonology 4 Phonology 5 Mergers, mergers, and more mergers 6 American English an oxymoron? 7 Spelling 8 Relationship to other dialects 9 Youse for You in northern midwest 10 Are these traits for southern Illinois speech very well known? 11 use of "skosh" 12 Central and South Florida 13 St. Louis 14 Southern Indiana 15 American English vs United States English 16 external link 17 English words that arose in the U.S. 18 Where are the possums?

Broken characters

On IE6 under WinXP, a large portion of the special characters don't display properly. (They show up as empty boxes.) IE, "/æ/ to /ɑ/" (the second doesn't show). Any thoughts?

You need a Unicode-supporting font, such as Code2000. --ɛvɪs 02:05, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

Hiram Falutin

I cannot find any references to a Hiram Falutin on the web, apart from a few that seem to have been copied from this Wikipedia article. In addition, the only definition for high-falutin on dictionary.com somes from "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language", and indicates that the origin of the word is unknown.

Therefore I believe that the derivation given for high-falutin is a joke, and should be removed. Can anyone demonstrate otherwise?

Sounds like a joke to me, too. The American Heritage Dictionary calls it origin unknown, but speculates high-fluting. --FOo 07:02, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it's nonsense. Get rid of it. RickK 07:07, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

And I though that was how it came about. Apparently Hiram Falutin was mentioned in a New York Times column I read some time ago, and I seemed to believe the story. Feel free to remove the reference. Peter O. (Talk) 07:12, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Phonology

In the Phonology section, this sentence bothers me: Its rhotic pronunciation was derived from Hiberno-English and Scottish English, as large numbers of Irish and Scottish settlers resided.

The pronoun should be clarified as it's not entirely clear whether it refers to the rhotic change, or to one of the varieties of English which did or did not participate. Additionally, it makes little sense... the Irish and Scottish settlers resided where? I'm guessing that the original intent of the sentence was: "The rhotic trill's pronunciation was derived from Hiberno-English and Scottish English, as large numbers of Irish and Scottish settlers resided in England."

If that's not the intent of the sentence, then I don't really know what it is. If that is the intent, I'm not sure why it's even included in the article, as it has little to do with the pronunciation in North America, and more to do with the pronunciation in the UK.

Any thoughts? I'm in favor of dropping the sentence altogether.

Phonology

It does not make sense to say that a dialect of a language is "conservative in its phonology" (American English#Phonology). Every dialect changes in a different way, but it changes anyway.

• It is true that some varieties change more rapidly than others, though. For example, speakers of Modern Icelandic can understand the sagas written a millennium ago, while no Modern English speaker could understand an Old English text without training. It makes sense that if one language can change more rapidly than another that the same would be true for dialects, that divergent dialects do not change at exactly the same rate and one variety resembles the proto-dialect more. — Ливай | ☺ 07:28, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That's only true because written Icelandic has barely changed in a thousand years. Phonologically, Icelandic has undergone massive changes since the time of the sagas. --Angr 08:08, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mergers, mergers, and more mergers

All these mergers in the Phonology section are getting out of hand. For one thing, there's no differentiation between mergers that are found in both British and American English and those that are unique to American English:

Both British (mostly England, not Scotland) and American:

• pour-poor (highly stigmatized in the U.S. but thoroughly normal in England)
• whine-wine (increasingly popular in the U.S. and virtually complete in England)
• horse-hoarse (virtually complete in both countries)
• yod dropping (highly stigmatized in England but thoroughly normal in the U.S.)
• higher-hire (both are [haɪə] in RP)
• flower-flour (both are [flaʊə] in RP and have probably always been homophones since they're etymologically identical)
• employer-coir (both have [-ɔɪə] in RP; incidentally is it really necessary to have three articles for the above mergers? Couldn't they have been covered in a single article?)
• Ditto dial-tile, royal-roil, towel-owl (again, couldn't these have been a single article?)
• mail centering, feel centering, gold centering, tool centering (ditto)
• metal-mettle (are there any accents spoken today where these haven't merged?)
• opossum-prism (ditto)
• wooden-wouldn't (have these ever been distinct in the history of English?)
• meter-metre (ditto)

American only:

• father-bother
• cot-caught
• Mary-marry-merry
• Sirius-serious
• furry-hurry
• pan tensing
• squirrel-girl
• glottaling of T before syllabic N (found in England only in accents that glottal T more generally)
• winter weakening
• wing tensing
• bang raising
• intervocalic t/d merger (some amount of intervocalic T voicing is also found in London, Northern Ireland, and Australia, though it isn't clear whether there's an actual merger so that latter and ladder are homophones, as they are in North America)

--Angr 07:58, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"opossum-prism" I've never heard of this one. For me, opossum is /oʊpɑsm̩/ and prism is /pɹɪzm̩/. "wooden-wouldn't" I've never heard of this one, either. For me wooden is /wʊdn̩/ and wouldn't is /wʊdn̩ʔ/. "meter-metre" Have these ever been pronounced differently? (I pronounce them both as /miɾɚ/, by the way.) "glottaling of T before syllabic N" Seems normal to me. I pronounce Latin as /læʔn̩/. --/ɛvɪs/ 03:35, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

American English an oxymoron?

North Americans are always going to win this argument as it's a North American website.

This isn't an argument between North Americans and Brits. It's an argument between you and the rest of the world.

Thats an odd perspective. I know dozens of speakers of Spanish. They call it Spanish, my Spanish Class calls it Spanish. However, it is Mexican Spanish. Almost no one, except George Bush Jr., calls it Mexican. - Cemendur

I can see two real complaints with calling "American" the English of the United States. The United States has several competing standards - pop cultural standards of conforming to Californian English, academic standards of conforming to Standard Western American English (as spoken on the campus of Berkeley), and academic standards of conforming to Standard Eastern American English (as spoken at Yale). We also have regional dialects. The other is the general use of the word American by United States citizens. Our neighbors no the North and South generally take offense to the notion that they are not "American". - Cemendur

Nice comment - helps build bridges and friends here

It wasn't intended as a personal attack. It's just you seem to be the only person making an issue of this.

The point is, English was the language spoke by the peoples of England. Further languages based on this have evolved. This is the key, they are no longer English. You can't have 'American English' (Somthing of or belonging to England, belonging to America), aside from the fact they fought the British Empire for independance, they invented a new language. THIS IS NOT A DIALECT. It is a new language, originally derived from English. English itself is derived of other languages, but we don't refer to it as "English Greek", or such. It is therefore incorrect to refer to this as 'American English' language.

Is the same true of Scottish English, Welsh English, Irish English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English, and Indian English? Are those "new languages" according to your way of thinking too? Incidentally, English is not derived from Greek.

Ok, so using Greek was a very poor example. English Roman Saxon? Still - you didn't disprove my point! As to your further point Scottish English is also unacceptable, Scots may speak with regional differences, a very small amount write with these differences. The difference here is that American's have changed the grammar, spelling and meaning of words, thereby creating a new language - not a dialect of an existing one. I am willing to conceed Scottish English may be a dialect of English, but American is not, its a new Language

The differences in grammar, semantics, and even pronunciation between British and American English are infinitesimally small compared to their similarities. Spelling has nothing to do with language anyway (if anything's an oxymoron it's "written language"). The point is, since there's no hard-and-fast definition of "language" as opposed to "dialect", the decision whether various related speech forms are to be considered separate languages or dialects of the same language ultimately has to be made on nonlinguistic grounds (common culture, history, etc.). Generally, if speakers of various related speech forms consider themselves to be speaking dialects of the same language, then that's the terminology people use. And I have no doubt that the vast majority of English speakers throughout the world agree that Engilsh English, Scottish English, Welsh English, Irish English, Canadian English, American, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English, and Indian English are all dialects of one English language, and not separate languages. Scots, on the other hand, is generally considered a separate language. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 29 June 2005 16:53 (UTC)

I can assure you of the fact I am not the only person to hold my point of view. I think anyone writing 'English English' in a supposed serious adult discussion has already lost their point. 80.177.116.191 2 July 2005 16:23 (UTC)

The new language is American.

Unsigned comments above were added at 16:55, 20 Jun 2005, by 80.177.116.191. Comments in italics added at 19:03, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) by Angr/_{tɔk tə mi}.

I know I'm just feeding the trolls, but someone who obviously has no relevant training in linguistics is clearly not qualified to make the determination of what is and isn't a separate language. Anon, why you try picking up a introductory linguistics text and seeing what the scholars who actually know what they're talking about have to say about whether there is such a thing as American English. You'll find a resounding chorus that disagrees with you. Please go find somewhere else to troll with your ridiculous ignorance. Nohat 2 July 2005 17:39 (UTC)

Spelling

Any opinions on whether the British/Canadian spelling will become common in the United States several years from now?? Please feel free to give several external links talking about this. Georgia guy 18:42, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This isn't even true. Both spellings grey and gray are equally old, both first attested in the 14th century; even in Old English there was variation between grǣġ and grēġ. --Angr 18:49, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Relationship to other dialects

The relationships to Canadian English, Liberian English Philippine English and International English should be explored. Also, African American Vernacular English deserves considerably more discussion. I will try to work on this later.

Youse for You in northern midwest

The use of "youse" rather than "you", if it has ever been a hallmark of northern midwestern speech, is long since gone. It is regarded by speakers in at least Wisconsin and Minnesota, as a hallmark of New Jersey (esp.) speech. The use of "You all", sometimes (although not commonly enough to qualify as a "hallmark pronuncition") as a plural form (ONLY, unlike the common use for singular and plural in "the south") is actually fairly common, but "youse" is used only sarcastically. Tomer ^TALK 07:14, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Tiny nitpick - "You all" is NEVER used for a singular person in the South as far as I can tell. People would look at you strangely if you said something of that nature. I think that's just an invention of the media. Danthemankhan 22:04, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

My point, specifically, was that "you all" is used (quite often, in fact...almost as often as "you guys" (regardless of gender)) as a second-person plural pronoun in the upper midwest, and that "youse" never is, except to make fun of people from Nyoo Joyzee (another sarcastic pronunciation, since New Jersey is pronounced "nu 'ʤɹ̩ zi"). When I made my statement about "the south", it was meant to refer, not to "you all", but rather to "y'all", or ez zei sei ne saut, "yaowl", which I have heard often used to refer to people in the 2nd person, regardless of number. Tomer ^TALK 23:58, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Having grown up in Texas, I can say no one there ever uses y'all in the singular, except possibly recent arrivals from the North who want to blend in but haven't figured out that y'all is exclusively plural. I can't speak for the rest of the South, however. (There is, however, the confusing phenomenon of someone saying "How y'all doin'?" to a single person, meaning "How are you and your family doing?", but possibly construed by a nonlocal as an instance of singular y'all.) --Angr/_comhrá 05:01, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My experience in this area is, admitedly, limited to upland south carolina, where what bit of my family as there is in "the south" resides. In Greenville, South Carolina, at the very least, there is constant confusion of number with "y'all". None of this, however, has anything whatsoever to do with my deletion of the claim that upper midwesterners use "youse" as a plural for the 2nd person. Tomer ^TALK 12:09, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Are these traits for southern Illinois speech very well known?

None of the page described anything like the speech around here:

• The mentioned roof/root/book merger does not usually occur (they are /ɹuːf/, /ɹuːt/, and /bʊk/, respectively).
• The use of out to mean "off" when referring to a light is common, as in "Turn the light out," otherwise the standard off is used, as in "The plate fell off the table" or "Turn the computer off."
• The pin/pen merger occurs.
• Some people sound somewhat like people in the southern part of the United States (although almost everyone has rhotic speech), though most people have accents more like that of "standard" American English.
• [æ]-tensing occurs.
• [z] sounds in contractions often become [d]; for example, doesn't sounds like "dudn't."
• Something often sounds like "sunt'm" /sʌnʔm̩/ instead of the standard /sʌmθiŋ/.

I can't think of any odd features right now, but I'll add some if I can think of any others. --/ɛvɪs/ 18:51, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Most of these sound like characteristics of Southern American English, which I have often heard extends into southern Illinois and southern Indiana. Most of the south is rhotic nowadays (see the map at Rhotic and non-rhotic accents) and the pin-pen merger has spread well beyond the south anyway (see the map at Phonemic differentiation.) --Angr/_comhrá 19:20, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I see. I forgot to mention that the distinction between [w] and [ʍ] is also quite common, too. Oddly, though, I don't use out to mean "off," merge the [z] and [d] sounds in contractions (I forgot to mention that hasn't is an exception to the [z]/[d] merger, which is good since hadn't is already a word), or pronounce something the way most people do (I use the latter pronunciation listed above), and I never use the [ʍ] sound for the wh digraph. Does anyone know if any of these traits are disappearing, at least in the southern Midwest? Are there any books I could check out that discuss regional dialects of English? --/ɛvɪs/ 04:49, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

There's a map for the wh/w merger at Phonemic differentiation too. Keeping them distinct is definitely disappearing. The best book for regional accents of English I know of is Accents of English (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982) by John C. Wells, but unfortunately it doesn't cover American English in much detail. --Angr/_comhrá 08:29, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

use of "skosh"

I've heard this term used more than once (in Wisconsin and Minnesota), although I don't know if it's from japanese. I've also heard it pronounced "skótsh" (not to be confused with "skútsh", for "slide (your bum)", as in "scootch over"). Tomer ^TALK 22:08, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

I'm extremely suspicious of a phrasal degree adjective like this being borrowed into English from Japanese (or borrowed into any language for that matter). Those types of words tend to be a closed class, changing very little over the generations. What you're hearing perhaps has a different meaning or etymology. Also, I don't think the Japanese population in the USA would be sufficient to instigate generic borrowings. If you could give some authentic examples though, it could be really interesting... Jeeves 23:25, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not the original author, in fact, I didn't know that was in the article until it was deleted. I was simply commenting in response to the deletion "note" left by the person who deleted it from the article. I won't pretend to speak Japanese, so I'm unsure what "sukoshi" means, precisely, in Japanese, but I can tell you that it's used here to mean "a smidgin" or "a li'l bit". As for what you mean by "authentic examples", I'm unsure...it sounds like you're possibly calling me a liar for saying "I've heard this term more than once". I have made no claims regarding the etymology nor widespread use of this term. As for the likelihood that a term could have gained acceptance and widespread usage in light of a small immigrant Japanese population, that's possibly the most bogus argument I've ever heard. The Filipino population in the US is not that big, but everyone knows what the "boondocks" are. The Malay population is not impressively large, but everyone knows what an orangutan is. I could continue with such words as "amok", "pariah", "curry", "batik", "atoll" (ooh, the Maldive immigrant community is just HUGE!), etc. What makes this argument even less impressive is that the Japanese form a significant, if not majority, of the population of Hawaii, the native language of which has, for all the insignificance of its mainland immigrant population, given AmE the words "hula", "luau", "Pele" (not the soccer player), "poi", and "aloha", among others. Tomer ^TALK 02:21, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

On a related note, I think perhaps "sushi" should be included in the article, especially in light of its almost-exclusive usage in the speech of most AmE speakers to mean what is called in Japanese "sashimi". Tomer ^TALK 02:22, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you got the impression that I was "calling you a liar", but I wasn't at all. I was just thirsty for more information as I'm a linguistics student, I've never heard of this phenomenon before, and I would be interested in analyzing it. I'm sorry you find my "argument" to be "less than impressive", but you should consider statistical realities: heavy lateral borrowing, to such an extent that a language gains words in a closed class, has generally occurred when an immigrant population was quite large, or when a country was invaded (British Aisles by Normans, China by Mongols, etc). I'm not saying that this is the only way a language could pick up a new closed-class word, but that it's unlikely. French is a major donor to the English language, yet no one uses tr`s to mean "very" or beaucoup to mean "much", except to show deliberate affectation. Not to be nitpicking or anything, but orangutan and boondocks are not really the same kind of borrowing as sukoshi would be. Obviously ape and a little bit belong to very different lexical classes. I feel like I'm lecturing here, but most borrowings from Japanese into English are nouns, and interestingly, all the words you mention are also nouns, many of which are related to local phenomena (hula, atoll, etc). We see the same thing with sushi , tsunami, karate, honcho (emphasizing role of hierarchy in Japanese business). My point is that I'm highly skeptical that any dialect of English has actually absorbed sukoshi as a completely assimilated equivalent for a little bit. Do children use it? Are English syntactic rules applied to it? Do we see this borrowing spreading out from a geographic area where it occurred? Can we find it in recent literature, even newspapers and magazines? Until I saw proof tha all those were true, I would consider it to be a local affectation at most. But please do prove me wrong if you can, as such a borrowing from Japanese (in the true sense of being assimilated into English) would be fascinating. I might also check with a former professor of mine who specializes in Japanese sociolinguistics. Jeeves 05:11, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

First off, I'm gonna go out on a fragile limb here and assume you meant "British Isles", not "British Aisles". (And yes, thank you, I realize "gonna" isn't standard English spelling but I'm not gonna use any more punctuationinthissentence eitheratleastIknow thediff erencebetweenislesanda isles) Anyways, once again, your argument fails to evince from me any sense that you know whereof you speak. Both "très" and "beaucoup" are used as adjectives in everyday American idiolects, albethey pronounced like the English word "tray" for très, and "búku" (as opposed to bokú) for beaucoup. At no point have I ever seen their usage cause any confusion as to their meaning. That said, you'll note I never claimed that the word "skosh" was borrowed from Japanese. I merely mentioned that I have heard it numerous times, and apparently with the same meaning as "sukoshi" has in Japanese. How significant might it be from a paradigm perspective? I don't know, and I don't particularly care. I was simply reporting in response to the comment, as I've already said, made by the person who deleted the mention of skosh from the article. NOW. As I mentioned previously, this is just my experience. Keep in mind that I live in a community with a college graduate rate significantly higher than the national norm. Consider that the four "foreign languages" offered by the local public schools, for grades 6-12, are German, Spanish, French and JAPANESE (although credit is also given for independent courses (taken outside normal school hours) for Portuguese, Italian, Norwegian, Russian and (White) Hmong (Hmoov Daws)...lately there's even been a push to include lātviešu valoda in this list). As for "proving you wrong", that's not why I'm here. You are wrong, I know that, and that's sufficient to make me content. Take your flamewar elsewhere. I'm not interested in playing. Tomer ^TALK 07:22, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

Flamewar? I'm sorry you feel that way. I think our disagreement here hinges on what should be considered a loanword, and having actually studied linguistics, I seem to be thinking of stricter criteria. English closed classes have incorporated borrowed words before (the example that comes to my mind most readily is via from French/Romance, which became a preposition), so it's certainly not impossible. It's just unlikely. I would be interested to see a formal study done on the area or dialect you claim has incorporated sukoshi. You're not the only one who thinks so, as someone else added it in the first place. As for the other things you mention, again there's the question of loanwords versus local or subcultural affectations. If sukoshi is really a loanword, it should be broadly used, picked up by children and foreigners of non-Japanese extraction learning English in America, and exhibit the same behavior as any other adjectival in American English. Sorry for insisting on what you probably consider formalities, but at the same time I wish non-linguists would be a little more reserved about making such claims. I wouldn't make claims about quantum physics, having little background in the subject. Sorry about the "aisles" mistake, it was late. I reiterate that if there is real evidence of sukoshi being borrowed into English, I'd be interested to see the evidence, outside of an entry in someone's dictionary or other non-linguistic anecdotes. Jeeves 00:34, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Once again, I made no claim that sukoshi had been borrowed from Japanese, nor anyelsewhence, I merely said that I have heard "skosh" used as an adjective meaning "a little bit". The verb I mentioned, "skootch", on the other hand, is likely a colloquial form derived from "scoot". Curious about whether or not I might have picked up "skosh" from my brother, who studied Japanese for 7 years in HS and university, or perhaps from a former president of the local synagogue, who has spent several years in Japan, or perhaps from my grandfather, z"l, who was in Japan during WW2, I went and asked a few people who didn't have such influences today. (OMG, yes, I did "original research".) I was not incredibly surprised to find that the 6 people I asked all knew what a "skosh" was, and that 2 of them didn't actually know what "skootch" meant. So anyways. I guess it's time for you to pack your bags and come to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and do your study. Tomer ^TALK 01:13, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

The OED lists skosh, commenting "U.S. slang (orig. Forces')", and gives the etymology "[ad. Jap. sukoshi a little, somewhat.]" I have no reason to doubt the OED. AJD 02:23, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Wonderful. So then, can we agree to reinsert it into the article? Tomer ^TALK 10:34, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

By all means. AJD 16:15, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to try to reply in a way such as this, but I'm extremely daunted by the various tags in place, so I hope that I don't cause more headdaches than necessary in this. In the entire article referring to the influences on Japanese on American English, most of the words in place strike me as mostly Hawaiian English Creole rather than a variety of American English. Sashimi as raw fish, for example, is commonplace in Hawaii, but is popularly called sushi everywhere else. Skosh, similarly, is popularly known in that language. In general, it seems that there are two categories in this section and it'd cause less confusion if they were treated as such. Da kine, especially would probably require a whole article to explain as it has no meaning whatsoever to "the best," but rather, acts as a placeholder for any other word, similarly to how a pronoun replaces a given noun. In da kine's case, though, it commonly replaces adjectives, nouns, and verbs. Its unique feature in the language also holds a prominent place in the local culture. Kamitra 19 Jul 2005

Concerning the difference between sushi and sashimi, in the speech of most Americans, sushi is cut raw fish, and sashimi is a word they've never heard of, which is why I went back and changed the definition of "sushi" to reflect that. It may be a good idea to tag the ones that are yoused primarily only in Hawai`i with "primarily in Hawaii" or something. On the other hand, "skosh" I don't believe entered American English through Hawaii or even the pre-WWII Japanese population (predominantly) in the western US; instead it seems likely that it was brought back to the US by members of the military serving in Japan, not during the war, but after. Tomer ^TALK 00:03, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Coming into this a bit late, but all of the Japenese words, except the questionable Skosk and Da Kine, are familiar to UK English speakers, they come directly from the Japanese, not as ignorantly stated via US media. Put another way what do you think we call Sushi in London. "Ye Strippes of Fishe Oriental" Stamford spiney 14:40, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Just an added note. My Mom comes from Scotland and her and her whole family use the word "Skosh" to mean "A little bit". My dad grew up in Washington DC and his family also uses the word Skosh in the same way. In my experience it is a word used around the country more often than not by the "Baby Boom" generation and unknown by the generations following them.

Central and South Florida

I've lived in Florida(both central AND south florida) and this whole section seems wrong. i'm going to think about this section over the next couple days, and then perhaps make a few changes or even rewrite the entire section. Anyone who has lived or spent substantial time in florida, please give input. (and i don't mean those who spent 2 weeks as a tourist- if you spent your whole time at the disney resort or in touristy areas of miami, you might as well say you haven't been to Florida. My critique of the section as a life long Floridian:

• First of all, I'm not sure including a section on "Central and South Florida" is valid when discussing Regional American dialects. Unlike the rest of the dialects mentioned in "Regional Differences", Florida English is a lot more dynamic. Sure, people move in and move out of other areas of the country, but not as much as occurs in Florida. Is there a single unique Central and/or South Florida dialect someone can point to and say, "that's it !" ??? I doubt it.
• The intro to the section states "The speech of Central and South Florida (everything South of and including Orlando) is noticeable for not being a typical southern accent." Go to a bar in Ft. Meade, St. Cloud, or Clewiston or even "The Chuck Wagon" in south Miami-Dade County and tell everyone, "Gosh everyone here sounds like a Yankee, " and see their reaction. And even north of the line drawn by the author(s) of this section, there are areas where the accent is predominantly "northern"- Daytona Beach for one. Perhaps it is a matter of urban/rural- transplants to Florida tend to move to cities/suburbs as opposed to rural areas. And perhaps many other southern cities, notably Atlanta are becoming less "Southern" in their speech.
• the article continues: " because a large proportion of the inhabitants of the area are either natives of the Northeast (and therefore speakers of accents like New York-New Jersey English)" while this is true to some extent in South Florida and in pockets of Central Florida, there are also a large number of people from new england and the midwest in Florida. As more generations have been born in Florida with roots elsewhere, it seems there's become what one could call a "generic" northern accent in much of southern florida. Perhaps Florida is ahead of the trend where wider media tends to blur dialects.
• "There are even stories of going through a drive-through at a fast food restaurant... " I like urban legends. Seriously, I went through 30 states on a roadtrip last October, and was greeted in Spanish in drive thrus in at least 10 of them. Typically, they don't greet you in Spanish in Miami in drives thru anymore, because fast-food restaurant managers get sick of the customer complaints sent to their national headquarters. Believe me, I know hundreds of Anglos in Miami who love the free food coupons they get sent when they complain about being addressed in Espanol. The part about Spanglish is a valid point, although this isn't unique in South Florida.
• My own personal life (from a linguistic perspective): I was born in Riverside, New Jersey, my father was from Clifton, New Jersey, my mother from Cadillac, Michigan. We moved to Miami-Dade County before I was a month old. Growing up in the 70's in Miami, I don't recall a huge number of native Spanish speakers in school until the late 70's (and I went to an Elementary School on 8th Street). We left Miami in the early 80's as part of the "Last American out of Miami, please take the flag" movement. We moved to Bartow, Polk County, Florida in Central Florida. My classmates there tended to make fun of my "Yankee" accent through much of my middle/high school years(listening to tapes of my voice then, i did seem to have somewhat of a "New York" accent , albeit not a distinct one. When I moved back to South Florida after high school, my old friends laughed at my "southern accent". Today, the average person would say I was from the midwest ( a college professor, an "expert" on American dialect once insisted I must be from Ohio, probably in the Ohio River valley. ) So there's the tale of one Floridian and his dialect. Am I a typical Southern/Central Floridian ? Is there a typical Central/Southern Floridian? Jcam 05:27, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I can't speak to the question of central and south Florida specifically, because I've never been there and I've never read anything about the local accent there. But more generally I can say:

• It is extremely likely that there is a local accent of the region, but that not everyone who lives there uses it. That seems to be the case everywhere else in the country.
• The best people to interview to discover the local accent are those who still live in the town where they were born, and whose parents also grew up in the same town. Children's accents are influenced both by their parents and by other children, and adults who live in the same town where they grew up are unlikely to have changed the accent they had as a child.
• Remember that Wikipedia is not the place for original research. Don't post anything about the local accent based on your own observations; rather, go to the library and find out what's been published about the local accent, and summarize that here, citing your sources.
• If something already written here strikes you as unlikely, and no source is cited for it, attach the {{unsourcedsect}} tag to it to alert people to the problem, and if no one adds a source for it within a week or so, feel free to remove it.
• I see the tag is already there. So go ahead and remove anything unsourced that you have a problem with, but bring it here for possible discussion with people who think it's right. (added 08:15, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC))
• "I actually have to disagree. I was born and raised in the town of Windermere, which is a few miles west of Orlando. I have been obversving the accents where I live and go to school (I go to school in Orlando), and the accents here are predominately Southern, with the exceptions of those of Hispanic heritage who speak with a Spanish accent. 'Y'all' is said quite a lot instead of the more Northern version, 'You guys.' Central Floridian and North Floridian dialects sound the same to me - they are Southern-influenced. Although, the dialects in Miami-Dade County, are sounding Northern-influenced, mainly because of immigrants. Rural areas of South Florida are extremely Southern, especially around the Everglades and on the south-west side of Florida. All in all, the only Northern-sounding accents in Florida, are those currently residing in the Miami area." - Jennifer, from Florida.

--Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 06:50, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

St. Louis

One quick thing thats been bugging me: the St. Louis sub-section refers to "measure" as /ˈmeɪʒ.ɚ/ and "wash" as /wɔɹʃ/ . These two forms are very distinct to the southern Indiana dialect mentioned earlier in the Midwest section. If these forms are present in St. Louis it is most likely from Hoosier influence.

Also, is the mispronounciation of mostaccioli really necessary?

Southern Indiana

I would go ahead and write a southern Indiana sub-section myself, but i do not know IPA and phonology well enough. I would be happy to describe some aspects of the dialect (for example, "fish" is pronounced "feesh") if someone would be willing to disect the phonology. I feel at least some aspects should be mentioned in the article, as it is a very unique and distinct way of speaking.

Okay, but remember that Wikipedia has a policy against original research. If you want to write a section on the accent of southern Indiana, it has to be based on published sources that you cite, not on your own observations. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 5 July 2005 09:48 (UTC)

American English vs United States English

We've been through this before—see the talk page archive—and American English is the title that should be used because 1. it's the most common name and 2. because "U.S. English" has an alternate meaning that may be more salient. But mostly (1), because use common names is Wikipedia policy for naming articles. "United States English" is such a rare term as to be laughable. Nohat 7 July 2005 20:11 (UTC)

User:Heegoop has now moved American English to United States English twice ([1], [2]) within eighteen hours, without asking for consensus. Can this be considered vandalism? --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 7 July 2005 20:38 (UTC)

It's certainly antisocial and uncooperative. Hopefully he won't cause more problems. I'll keep an eye on his contribution history. Nohat 7 July 2005 21:17 (UTC)

Many Canadians are notorious for disliking the fact that they live in the Americas, but "American" is used almost universally to exclusively refer to what they apparently would like to see called "unitedstatesians". That's not going to help with the situation, but may provide some insight into what may be driving it... Tomer ^TALK July 7, 2005 21:24 (UTC)

The problem is that the adjective American has two meanings: (1) of or relating to the United States of America; (2) of or relating to the continents of North and South America. The first meaning is far more useful because it is much more often that one speaks about something that is related to the United States than something related to the two continents. Because it's more useful, it's also much more common, and because it's more common, it's the meaning that people assume is meant by American. So, even though there are some people who would like to assert that American only means sense (2), those people are tilting at windmills. The overwhelming mass of usage is for sense (1). Nohat 7 July 2005 21:48 (UTC)

I think even most Canadians use American in sense (1). In my experience, it's usually Latin Americans who argue for the exclusiveness of sense (2), because that's what americano means in Spanish. You could almost call English American and Spanish americano false friends. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 8 July 2005 05:45 (UTC)

Granted. Regardless, however, there are still plenty of Quijotes out there... :-p Tomer ^TALK July 8, 2005 00:37 (UTC)

One reason the article should remain at "American English" is that all the varieties of English spoken in North America are quite closely related; with shared conserved forms distinct from Old World English, and shared innovations not found elsewhere. Canadian English is recognisably a part of the North American dialect continuum, and is obviously not a form of colonial British speech cultivated as a different norm across a national border. The two articles should point this out, and I think they do. Smerdis of Tlön 8 July 2005 03:58 (UTC)

external link

"Dialect Survey of the United States, by Bert Vaux et al." which is listed in "external links" is no longer hosted at the Harvard University website linked to, as Bert Vaux is now teaching at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. I'm not sure how to fix the link so that it goes to the new page.

Fixed. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 8 July 2005 17:49 (UTC)

English words that arose in the U.S.

This article states that the most famous word under this heading is "OK", but looking at the article for OK, it is far from clear that this is true. Can someone amend the article if I am right ? ( I could do it myself, but there may be a howl of displeasure if I do without consultation ).

Where are the possums?

Should opossum be included in the list of borrowed words? Should the list of borrowed words possibly be moved to its own article? This is getting rather long... Tomer ^TALK 18:51, August 14, 2005 (UTC)