diacríno

I’ve got a Midland accent

I’ve just found this little quiz on the type of American accent one has and now I’m feeling amused to be told that I speak General American (the most neutral American accent):

What Happens to Spammers: Capital One Sinking

It is surely not a pleasant situation for those who are losing their jobs, but personally I liked this one: Capital One seriously hit by the subprime scandal, with almost 2000 jobs cut.

Why am I happy? Because while in California, they used to spam me very aggressively: letter after letter asking me to subscribe for their credit cards. Almost day by day, our secretary came to my desk with new mail from Capital One. I never subscribed (interest rates were up to 18%) and they kept on spamming; hence, letters were constantly going to trash. Nowadays, their jobs follow the same direction.

JM Messier, the Universal Studios ex CEO, is not a Polytechnique graduate anymore

If you remember the Internet bubble, there is a chance you heard the story of Vivendi Universal and its CEO. VU appeared in 2000 when the French company Vivendi, led by Jean-Marie Messier, acquired Universal Studios. After a 2-year flamboyant expansion, in which the ambitious Messier spent on acquisitions over 60 billion $ (that is as much as Romania’s GDP) of the VU’s stock holders, the VU titles dropped at $11, their maximum having been at over $150!

Why am I telling this story now? For I’ve just seen a documentary about Messier on the French-German TV channel Arte; in this production, our legendary CEO was presented not as a Polytechnique alumnus, but simply as an ENA graduate. The French public opinion knows he was first a Polytechnicien and this fact is the most well-known. But now isn’t it more simple to forget that and to present him as an ENA graduate, as the majority of the French politicians?

That does protect the image of still the most prestigious French grande école. On the other hand, the fact that even a European television censured this info just shows me how powerful this school is.

Why don’t you understand American?

A friend of mine told me the Americans he’d met didn’t speak an understandable American English. He claims that it’s not the same clear American language he knows from Friends or Hollywood movies. This complain seems to be shared with many other non native English speakers. Is that substantially true? What can the cause be?

First of all, I would like to say many accents are present in the American movies. The old ones have often Eastern American accents; Friends must have NY twists… Southern accents, even if present, never fool foreigners and are always perceived as accents. Otherwise, I wonder if non native speakers do know what the General American accent is. By that I mean: in what measure do foreigners distinguish the General American from other American accents?

The easy hypothesis is foreigners, especially Europeans (used to the RP - the standard British pronunciation), perceive Eastern American accents (some of NY, the archaic Bostonian, generally those form New England) as understandable, clear American. [I could explain differences between the GA and the RP, but I don't have an exhaustive knowledge on diffs between the GA and other American accents.] But it cannot be only that…

A more responsible factor must be the weight that formal language has is movies and in daily life respectively. On one hand, movies have everything, hence formal and informal mix together. On the other hand, daily life communication is obviously informal. The American tourists speak, of course, a loosened American. If you understand which are the watermarks of informal American, you shouldn’t have further comprehension problems.

I will point to some main characteristics:

• linking words is quite frequent
  • tapped t [t̪ - a specific American sound, produced by tapping the alveolar ridge*] is omnipresent in linking. Examples:
    • it is >> iddiz = ɪt̪ ‘ɪz;
    • what a relief >> waTeriLEAF = ‘wət̪ə rɪ’li:f ;
    • how does it happen = ‘haʊ t̪ə zɪt ‘hæpn;
    • get a life >> gedda life =’gɛt̪ə ‘laif.
  • some consonants change if involved in linking:
    • did you >> didge you;
    • let you >> letch you;
    • bless you >> blesh you;
    • get a life >> gedda life.
  • other consonants disappear in linking:
    • kind of true >> kinda true;
    • can’t say = ‘kænt̪ ’seɪ - due to tapping, t almost disappears; therefore, foreigners never understand the negation, so they get exactly the opposite. Symetrically, Americans might understand can’t when a foreigner says can;
    • I sent it >> I sennit.
• other occurences of tapped t:
  • as already mentioned, it appears after some consonants and it’s very weak: can’t say = ‘kænt̪ ’seɪ ; international = int̪ɚ’næʃnəl ; twenty = ‘twɛnt̪i: ; software = ’sɑ:ft̪ wɚ ;
  • sometimes tapped t occurs in final (not linking) position: side and sight might have the same final consonant. In this case, vowel length matters and intonation becomes very important in disambiguation.
• contracted forms are frequent. That means pronouns and auxiliary verbs are shortened, h is very often dropped: Where has he lived in Asia ['wɛ rə zi: 'lɪv dɪ ,neɪ ʒə]?

* The tapped t is that American sound which makes you ['meɪk ʃju:] think at Adam instead of autumn ['ɑ:t̪əm]; it creates confusion between atom [’æt̪̪əm] and Adam ['æt̪̪əm]; it doesn’t let you know when somebody is having a heart attack ['hɑr t̪̪ə tæk] (hard attack is so close - just a longer ɑ); it presents comedies in famous newspapers…

M***x Australia closed Monday June 11th, for Queen’s birthday

This is the subject of the first e-mail I’ve received this morning. Its body was a simple “Happy Birthday!”

Hereafter, a Brit’s stupefied answer:
“As a Brit (and an anti-monarchist) I feel honour bound to point out that we in Britain don’t have a day’s holiday for the Queen’s birthday I’d’ have thought that having gained independance from our shabby little island you’d’ have scrapped such archaic notions. The U.S. aren’t so old fashioned to have such a day. The French have “Guillotine day” or something similar, much more fun although a little messy. If you need foreign excuses for days off why don’t you steal that instead?”