Tuesday, March 4, 2008

So preposterously mellifluous....


Since we had such a rollicking good time in the comment section in our mini-tribute to WFB, we’re going back for more. A compendium of Buckley rememberances from NRO, here.

And what was up with that accent and those speech mannerisms? Slate.com presents some sound reasoning, here. The British/American Southern accent nexus intrigued us, somewhat. Forgot where we heard this but, supposedly, the standard southern accent is essentially the common British countryside accent only slowed down.

This isn’t to say that if you took a Beatles’ 45 and played it on a 33 rpm record player, they would sound like Lynyrd Skynyrd but it fits the migration patterns of agrarian British Islanders settling in similar arable lands in the Mid-Atlantic and the South.

And why didn’t Robert Plant ever sound like a Brit when singing? A couple of theories advanced, here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A teacher at some point in my academic career explained that the white southern accent is just the influence of the slaves they owned.

Sounded about right to me. Hadn't ever thought about a direct English influence on the southern accent.

Y'all Mongo

Dean said...

Mongo, Slaves did have an impact on the dialect but not to the degree, I believe, your prof/teacher thinks.

Like any blending of cultures you're always going to get some rub-off. (To wit, Randy Moss of the Patriots sounds like a Southern rural white when I hear him in interviews. Moss is a native of West Virginia).

B-Daddy said...

From a wikipedia article on this subject:"

"Southern dialects substantially originated from immigrants from the British Isles who moved to the South in the 17th and 18th centuries. The South was predominantly settled by immigrants from the West Country in the southwest of England, the dialects of which have similarities to the Southern US dialects. Settlement also included large numbers of Protestants from Ulster and Scotland."

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