Go away, morning

[cosmolinguist]

'Obviously you are mistaken!' I told him. (I can't remember why; it isn't important.)

'Hey, you sounded a bit like Kryten¹ there,' Andrew said.

'I do not! That's silly.'

'No, really. You're speaking with more of a British accent, so you sound like him with his British accent trying to sound Canadian.'

'I wasn't trying to sound like anything!'

Even if I do speak Britishly, I still get made fun of. I knew it.

---

¹ I suppose I could explain, for the unaware, that Kryten is a character in a great British TV show called Red Dwarf. He's a robot who, for some reason, has a Canadian accent. A bad one. That's all you need to know here.

Comments

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

When I was in Arkansas, people always asked me if I was Canadian, merely because I pronounced "pen" correctly. Now I pronounce it wrong, so I don't have that problem.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

How exactly does one pronounce 'pen' in Arkansas (which itself can't really decide how to pronounce its own name)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Like most places, there are dialectic choices:
some speak a dialect which makes it "pin", while others speak a dialect which makes it more like "pee-yun".

A famous 19th C. knife fight broke out in the Arkansas legislature over whether to spell it Arkansas or Arkansaw, but the pronunciation, taken from a native American word, has already been the same.

I had a geology professor in college at the University of Arkansas who believed that his rural accent would hold him back. He therefore took diction lessons. His lectures sounded vaguely Scottish, while not being quite truly Scots. We all wondered where he was from, but it turned out he was just self conscious about his dialect.

[cosmolinguist]

So what made them deicde it'd be a good idea to spell it 'Arkansas' at all?

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

A famous 19th C. knife fight broke out in the Arkansas legislature over whether to spell it Arkansas or Arkansaw, but the pronunciation, taken from a native American word, has already been the same.

Except in the case of the Arkansas river. ;)

And by dialect, do you mean accent? Dialects are generally much larger changes than just pronunciation of some letters (eg Cajun is a dialect, New York vs Chicago are accents)

[cosmolinguist]

Pedantic little bastard. :-)

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

I'm more of a pedantic charming asshole, but yes. ;)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

The accent v. dialect debate is not one in which there is uniformity. The Ozark "accent" is probably also a "dialect" because it has different words from the Delta "accent'.

My quick review of some linguistic articles indicates that referring to the Arkansas accents as four to six anglo "dialects" is commonly done, although I am also aware of the argument for the position you assert.

The Arkansas River is pronounced in Arkansas and Oklahoma in the same way as the state. I suppose there must be someone further north who pronounces it differently.

In Arkansas, Nevada County is pronounced "NeVAda County", so that these type of things do creep in regionally.

My favorite as a kid was Terre Noir creek,which was pronounced "Turnor" or "Bois D'Arc Creek" which became "Bowdark"

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

The Arkansas River is pronounced in Arkansas and Oklahoma in the same way as the state. I suppose there must be someone further north who pronounces it differently.

Odd, I've been told by others that it was pronounced 'Ar-kan-zass'

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

It's a long river, so I can't answer about its furthest reaches,but all the places I know call it "Arkansaw".

[chuck-lw.livejournal.com]

I've read that Kansas was named after the Kansas (Kansa) Indians, and Arkansas was named after the Arkansa Indians, but I also found a reference that they were actually called the Arkaria, which some have speculated to mean that they were the carriers of the Ark of the Covenant.

http://www.roytaylorministries.com/am00101.htm

So you can understand why there might be a knife fight over such a thing.:-)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

:).

It's a diversion from the fascinating point you make, but one of the saddest things I ever read was the 1820 speech given by the Quapaw Indian chief when they were forced to move to OK.

The Quapaws had been allies and appeasers of the anglo expansion, but they were nonetheless forced to pull up stakes and move away form their home. The speech is patient, and insistent, and very sad, about how the folks in Washington DC could force this unjust result.

[cosmolinguist]

One of the first few times I talked to Andrew on the phone, he said I sounded kind of Canadian.

Of course, he also thought I was making fun of his accent because I actually pronounce my T's, at least some of the time. He thought I was too articulate for an American. :-) That made me feel good.

[5-rings.livejournal.com]

The episode with the female Kryten gave me nightmares. I don't want to have nightmares again :-(

[cosmolinguist]

I promise I am not really a female Kryten. Though we do look the same, admittedly, I have the better personality.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Kryten was an android, not a robot.

That was supposed to be a Canadian accent?

[cosmolinguist]

Shut up.

And yeah, that's what I said. Apparently that is what British people think Canadian accents sound like.

Not that you're one to talk; my accent is more Canadian than yours. :-)

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

And yeah, that's what I said. Apparently that is what British people think Canadian accents sound like.

Yes, but they also think that United Statesians wear yellow shoes.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

They *called* him an android, but he didn't exactly look realistic, did he?
And yes, it was meant to be a Canadian accent - at least after series 3...

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

It vaguely disturbs me that I knew who Kryten was before you explained it.

The interactions between you and Andrew amuse the hell out of me, btw. Have you only been there about a week, or am I delusional (well, more delusional than I routinely am).

H

[cosmolinguist]

It'll be two weeks on Tuesday.

I'm glad you're amused. :-) You're cool.

[tragicallyjulia.livejournal.com]

Man, it's been a long time since I've seen Red Dwarf. Some Canadian friends of my dad gave him a video tape of a bunch of episodes... Good shit. :-)

[cosmolinguist]

I used to watch it on PBS--it was on random Friday nights. It's one of the few British things Andrew's shown me that I knew quite well before...but don't tell him that; he thinks he's 'educating' me.