WTF was up with Nate Silver?  He was cogent as always, but he looked like he couldn’t see - and I know he’s blind as a bat (or was 2 years ago) when I saw him at a lecture at Iowa State following the 2008 elections.

Amanda, you have a Western American English accent, now, compared to Eastern American English that the others speak, you speak faster than the others, which is a Texas trait, but I don’t hear a drawl as such in your speech.

If anything, you sound like you’re speaking with a Californian accent, the American equivalent of RP unless you’re a woman who does news on broadcast TV.

I’d just this week finished reading Corey Robin’s book, so I was eager to see him on the tv. I agree that it was fun to see the conservatives try to bat back his thesis, and imo not so successfully.

On a shallow note, Amanda, your hair was very shiny, and that was a nice color lipgloss. And no, I didn’t hear a Texas twang.

I can hear your Texas accent, Amanda, but part of that is because I’ve been reading and listening to you long enough that I’ve been trained to hear it. I think also that some of it is that people may not realize that there can be are multiple regional accents in a place as big as Texas. Some from from, say, Beaumont is not going to sound quite the same as a certain blogger from Alpine.

I dunno, idio. It was pretty early for New Year’s Day; maybe that’s it.

..er, make that, “someone from, say, Beaumont…”

Those two guys don’t seem remotely representative of the conservative movement.

Which is not to say that I like them…

I sure wished you had talked more.  Your trouble is you are too concise.  Or ?

Re: twang.  What twang??  I hear bigger twang from the hippies & townsfolk here in Maharishiland.

That was an awesome segment with Corey Robin.  I’m buying that book.

I sure wished you had talked more.

Agreed.  It seemed like the way to that was to interrupt one another, like any other opinion format.  Hayes may control his guests better or they may be more polite, but that seems key still.

Nobody in that roundtable knew that Al Smith was a Democrat? (Sigh)

I thought the western TX/eastern NM accent was pretty faint, just enough so someone unfamiliar with it would wonder, hum, what’s different about her accent.  I thought the timber of your voice was more interesting, or mature maybe, for the 45 min or so I caught this a.m.

I could definitely see several times when you opened your mouth to say something and then either someone else interrupted or the person just kept talking with no space for you to talk.

It also seemed like these guys had a very specific line to spout and just waited for a chance to start talking. 

If you want to pursue this kind of appearance, maybe you want to look into a school for pundits.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/fashion/26pundit.html?pagewanted=all

I agree, Amanda, you need to bring it next time. Or, just talk about it on the next episode of “Opinionated”!

I do have a big question, though. Even Hayes assumes it’s sufficient to talk about the Republican field as if progressives are just doing opposition research for President Obama. But, what if you will never vote for a Republican - even that “radical” Ron Paul, and you really don’t want to vote for President Obama? Or, you want a reason to vote for Obama? I really do think my choices are severely limited this cycle. I’m not happy with just re-electing the President. What would you suggest I do?

You know, I actually detest these “respectable” conservatives more than the Reichwingers that from the base of the conservative movement, because at least the foot soldiers are at least a bit honest about their racism/sexism/homophobia even if they hate being criticized for it. But all of the right winger “thinkers” (contradiction in terms) like to say “oh, I don’t hate women/LGBTs/minorities, I just think that giving them rights and what not is just too hard and it will upset all those delicate flowers that are straight, white men, so we shouldn’t do it. In fact, they should be happy we give them any priveleges at all!”

I don’t see where I said I had a “twang”. I said I had a “Texas accent”. There are about 15 of them. Some don’t have twangs, such as many in far West Texas and in Austin, the two places I’ve spent my entire life.

Hume’s, I would suggest that while it’s not as fun to vote for a lesser of two evils, it’s still the moral thing to do. The immoral thing to do is let the greatest evil win because you’re not excited enough.

Amanda, you don’t have a drawl or anything sounding like a Texas accent in your speech patterns, I don’t know why it bothers you that you sound like a reasonable person born and raised west of the Mississippi.

I guess my only functioning ear was deceiving me a few years ago when I visited friends and relatives in Austin and heard many Texas accents spoken by the people in the stores and shops I interacted with when I was there.

@Amanda Marcotte: From an economics perspective, Obama is probably worse, since he co-opts resistance that could otherwise be used to try to protect us from neoliberalism.

Texas is west of the Mississippi. It’s not that I’m bothered by how I sound. I am bothered by people, especially men, claiming to know better than I do what people where I’m from sound like. It’s mansplaining, and not cool.

At a certain point, this is tautological: I am from Texas, and if we can’t define the Texas accent as “what people from Texas sound like”, I’m unclear on what it is. I prioritize how actual Texans sound over stereotypes of Texans when defining the accent. Again, there’s like 20 different Texas accents, three distinct ones in the El Paso area alone. (The flat West Texas one, the drawlier one, and the Spanglish-inflected one.) It’s unsurprising that my folks drawl harder than I do, because I lived in Austin for a long time, but so? I think the urge to tell me that I don’t sound like I’m from Texas is well-intended, but it’s based in the assumption that being from Texas is a shameful thing that I should be glad to shed. I disagree, and think it’s awesome to be from Texas. C’mon. It’s not Oklahoma we’re talking about.

@Punditus: The problem is that you’re looking at it from a top-down perspective, where politicians are acting in a corrupt fashion in order to keep economic elites happy, instead of a bottom-up perspective, where politicians are acting in a democratic fashion in order to keep significant voting blocks happy. Now, I actually disagree with how this is done. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the cause of most of the bad things we see doesn’t come from corruption, it comes from political concerns.

The Democratic AND the mainstream political journalistic establishment are focused, almost like a laser beam, on keeping “swing voters” happy. Watch the commentary/opinion broadcasts and you’ll see how much is focused on them.  So what do these people want? They want security, at the costs of others (Hi NDAA!) they want to feel like their “hard work” is rewarded, (Good bye all sorts of economic stimulus/help for the poor/universal health care), and the result of their hard work to not go to waste (Hello bailing out Wall Street).

They also want their little social bubbles to never be challenged (I.E. the Plan B decision, slow-balling DADT, etc.)

This is the reality of the mainstream political establishment. And if you don’t realize this, you can’t change this, which is why the progressive movement is often very ineffective.

Now where I disagree with this is I do think it’s at the point where a more Republican-like stance of motivating the base to come out and vote may work. HOWEVER. For a variety of reasons, this is also going to have to be done alongside comprehensive electoral reform. It’s simply easier for better-off people to vote than it is poorer people for a huge number of reasons. And because of that, and while that still stands, quite frankly, the “swing voter” model is probably the best model, politically.

And by electoral reform, a simple change as in changing election day to election week may very well be enough.

I disagree, and think it’s awesome to be from Texas.

I never have said otherwise, Amanda, doing so would mean I’d have to write off my fathers’ side of the family.

But, lets’ face it, you don’t sound like a stereotypical Texan, and I could drop you off anywhere between
Sacramento and Bakersfield and you’d find native Californians who have much more of a drawl and twang than you do, along with those like me who speak an accent virtually identical to yours, despite my growing up in the San Joaquin Valley instead of West Texas.

@Karmakin: I disagree.  Republican politics is a tug-of-war between elites and the rank-and-file.  Democratic politics is currently a blasted moonscape of a battlefield between our elites and our rank-and-file, and our elites currently hold the levers of power.  They are using them to brutalize the rank-and-file, because they are in thrall to the financial oligarchy.

Remember, by this point in the S&L crisis, George HW Bush, no friend to the common man, had found 1,000 corrupt bankers to prosecute.  Obama’s DOJ has found ten, all from the same one small company.  Barack Obama is 1/100th the proletarian HW was on the economy. 

The Culture War is a live thing, but the Class War is nearly over.  And we’re still debating whether or not to get serious about fighting it.

BTW, this is a bit old, but it isn’t mansplaining, it’s the results of<a href-=“In the southern Central Valley (Kern, Tulare, and Kings Counties), where a large number of people from Oklahoma emigrated during the Dust Bowl, many white Californians speak with an Oklahoma-like accent that is quite distinct from the English spoken in coastal Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay region.”> studies</a> by people who do this for a living:

Carver uses the metaphor of layers to describe the changing regional dialects of Texas. Consequently, he illustrates the extent to which dialects of Texas English exhibit Southern dialect features that extend into East Texas and Midland dialect features that stretch to the central Eastern seaboard, on the one hand, as well as the dialects of English that stretch into the Southwest, on the other. These layers reflect the provenance and migration patterns of the various groups of English speakers who settled the state and those who continued moving westward. In addition, Carver delimits two dialect regions within the state itself: a South Texas layer that runs by-and-large along the Texas-Mexico border and reaches up to San Antonio, and a Central Texas region that includes the areas where large numbers of speakers of German and other European languages settled.

And you are speaking one of those dialects, Amanda, whether you know it or not.

Perhaps you could find a professor of linguistics who could listen to your speech and tell you what dialect you are speaking after all, it would be an interesting subject for a blog post, IMHO.

The class war will not be won in Washington. It’ll be won when a majority of the public agrees that even people doing “menial” jobs deserve good wages.

Needless to say this is hardly the case right now.

My mother speaks with just a hint of an eastern Texas accent, some of which was annoying, but the annoying things from the inland northwest are much more noticeable in her speech now (though that damn “praise the Lord” she started spouting almost reflexively a couple of decades ago is strangely midwestern at times).  I have sloppy or annoying markers from several different areas, due to moving so much in my formative years most likely.
Most people speak with an accent combining the accents of each place they’ve lived.  Unless I work at it, I pick up pieces of local dielect on longish stints for work.  The SE LA accent I came home with after 8 weeks inBaton Rouge in 2000 kind of freaked out my teenaged kids.
Austin is full of Texans from many different parts of Tesas (as well as people from elsewhere), so any sensible person should expect to hear a wide range of the Texas accents (of which there are at least 3 major groups - though as my dialectology class was also two decades ago, acedemics may have split or combined them differently by now).

@Karmakin, I didn’t say we weren’t winning.  I said we weren’t fighting.  Easily a majority of Democratic voters believe that people should earn living wages for menial jobs.  You will never hear an economic policy based on the vital importance of increasing wages for working persons, except as a club for defeating the environmentalist wing of the Party.

The enormous gap between our discussion of the economy and the lived experience of being in it is not required to exist.  It’s a choice.

I just want to make it clear that I didn’t suggest going to pundit school because I think you did a bad job.  You did much better than I would have.  But there are conventions on talk shows and if you know them and know how to use them, you will come across as more of a “player” and are probably more likely to be asked back. 

And I think what you have to say is so fucking important and so different from what the usual talking heads have to say, I very much want you to succeed.

I spent most of my career in a technical position.  Now I am a manager.  The skills I use now are different and considerably more “performative.”  And I think they’re similar to what you were using and will continue to use on the show.

I have to know what issues my boss wants me to handle and be ready to report to her when she asks, in a concise and informative fashion.  I have to do the same for her boss and his boss with the correct amount of detail and spin. 

I also have to repeat myself all the time to my team members, not because they are stupid but because not everyone “gets” everything every time.  So I have to have a very specific “script” for each policy or project, repeat or refer to at least some portion of it whenever the project or policy is being discussed, and be able to recite it on cue and explain it in detail at any time without changing the message or getting annoyed at having to repeat it many times.

I recently had to lay someone off, and I can’t even tell you how many times I rehearsed the discussion I had to have with this person.  I rehearsed with my boss, the HR manager, and my spouse, not to mention in the car or while walking or doing something at home.  I think I even tried it with the neighbor’s cat.  Order matters.  Word choice matters.  You know all this from writing but you can’t go back and edit what you said.  You have to say it with conviction, without error, first time every time.

The best way for me to think of it was that it was like I was playing piano, because that’s something I had a fair amount of successful experience with learning and then performing.  Even when you’re improvising you still have a baseline you’re working from.  You still hit the main points.

Very little of this was expected of me as a programmer or systems analyst—I only had to make sense to my immediate supervisor and my thoughts were my own.

I wanted to amplify on my “talk too little”.  I don’t watch cable talk shows even the Hayes because the bandwidth is so much less than a transcript.  You can look at a 30 second diatribe in transcript and see it’s vacuous bullshit in about 5 seconds.  I spent the two hours watching this show because I am very interested in Corey Robin’s theory and because I wanted to see The Marcotte in action.  I had forgotten how much fast talking, over talking, interrupting and low information content bullshit goes on.  I remember once Charlie Rose had Claire Danes, who is a very intelligent actor, on his show and kept on interrupting her.  I don’t think I watched him after that.  Or maybe it was his support of the invasion in the run up to the Iraq war.  Fool me twice etc.

As a white old male, it’s presumptuous of me to suggest it, but I think the cable news culture doesn’t like women, especially intelligent informed women, to talk. 

As for Prof. Robin, I think the “elite conservatives” were just trying to shout him down.  Not posting your rights is just freedom my ass.

I did like your comment about conservatives wanting order.  I would have loved it if they had given you the chance to talk about the positives and negatives of various forms of order but then I suspect as an informed woman, from their point of view, you probably have the wrong (or uppity) approach to the question.

I admire your patience.

If you want to search GMU’s Speech Accent Archive you won’t find Austin or Alpine represented, though you’ll find Houston and Dallas there. Do people even think of Austin or Alpine accents as stereotypical Texan? Texas is huge.

I know in Florida that folks from the Panhandle sound different than from Miami, and I’m not a native Floridian.

Craig Carver’s work on the subject is, indeed, far too old to be cited as definitive, given migration in the southwestern US over the past 25 years. And, didja hear that, Amanda Marcotte? Some dude who does this “for a living” trumps your lived experiences. ‘Cept you’re not talking about or remotely interested in the historically Okie influence over the Valley accent, you’re talking about folk discussing your “accent” as if they’re experts and you’re an amateur.

Here’s the link missing from my last comment:

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pcd01

Craig Carver’s work on the subject is, indeed, far too old to be cited as definitive, given migration in the southwestern US over the past 25 years.

Except that I doubt that Alpine, being a small town and all that, was probably not subject to much of the migration influence you’re writing about, and helen h. w.‘s classification of Amanda’s accent is much the same as mine.

‘Cept you’re not talking about or remotely interested in the historically Okie influence over the Valley accent,

As I stated before, you can find people in the San Joaquin Valley who sound like a stereotypical Texan/Okie, and you can find people like me whose speech probably differs from Amandas not that much.

you’re talking about folk discussing your “accent” as if they’re experts and you’re an amateur.

Which is why I suggested that she have her accent examined by an expert, so that she can get a good idea of what flavor of American English she is speaking.

Where in these comments has Amanda indicated that she’s interested in having the “flavor” of her English analyzed?

I once had a linguist (published an’ all) assure me, on the strength of listening to a thirty-second answering machine greeting, that my mother couldn’t possibly have been born and raised in Guyana as she had told me because he knew about such things and her lived experience contradicted his preconceived understanding of the colony (he didn’t realize it wasn’t a colony, anymore, poor boy), so you’ll forgive me if your comments (especially the “advice” given to Marcotte about consulting a linguist to “help” her discover her true “dialect”*) risible, ignorant, and condescending in the extreme.

*For the record, dialect and accent are usually distinct phenomena. You mean accent in this instance. Perhaps you can consult a dictionary to help you with that in the future.

I love the movie Raising Arizona but having lived in the state for 14 years the Southern twang of all the characters in the film makes me cringe a little.  I don’t know why movie makers think native Arizonans sound like Alabamans but they don’t.

Where in these comments has Amanda indicated that she’s interested in having the “flavor” of her English analyzed?

I made the suggestion earlier, please give a little more attention to what’s on this thread in the future.

I once had a linguist (published an’ all) assure me, on the strength of listening to a thirty-second answering machine greeting, that my mother couldn’t possibly have been born and raised in Guyana as she had told me because he knew about such things and her lived experience contradicted his preconceived understanding of the colony (he didn’t realize it wasn’t a colony, anymore, poor boy),

Have you ever heard of the term, anecdata?

so you’ll forgive me if your comments (especially the “advice” given to Marcotte about consulting a linguist to “help” her discover her true “dialect”*) risible, ignorant, and condescending in the extreme.

Actually, technically speaking, a speech coach would probably be better at figuring out what accent Amanda speaks with, because it’s their job to help their clients eliminate accents that stray too much from the American standard.

*For the record, dialect and accent are usually distinct phenomena. You mean accent in this instance. Perhaps you can consult a dictionary to help you with that in the future.

Actually, again, if you look at what I wrote, I used the term flavor, which your linguist will tell you isn’t a term of art in semantics/linguistics, FWIW.

Perhaps you could find a professor of linguistics who could listen to your speech and tell you what dialect you are speaking after all, it would be an interesting subject for a blog post, IMHO.

Emphasis mine. Apparently you have trouble remembering what you yourself wrote, much less what other people have or have not said.

Perhaps you could find a professor of linguistics who could listen to your speech and tell you what dialect you are speaking after all, it would be an interesting subject for a blog post, IMHO.

Emphasis mine.

Apparently you have trouble remembering what you yourself wrote, not to mention what other people have or have not said. I suggest memory pills? Actually, I suggest nothing because I’m not in the habit of proffering obviously unwanted and unsolicited advice over the interweb. This is among many characteristics in which we differ.

Tyro @ #12: Yeah the Al Smith fail kinda appalled me, too.

Saurs, I talked about her accent, like many others here. linked to an older summary about dialects in TX, thus introducing the possibility of talking about dialect and not accent, and you choose to have a virtual meltdown.

I suggest memory pills? Actually, I suggest nothing because I’m not in the habit of proffering obviously unwanted and unsolicited advice over the interweb. This is among many characteristics in which we differ.

“He knew all the tricks! Dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and… satire. He was vicious!!”

Yah know what, I consider Amanda a friend who is open to constructive criticism, but I’m amused by folks like you who think I’m a mere commentator mansplaining for the upteenth time who is trying to guilt or shame Amanda into doing something that would be a waste of her time.

Since she is a blogger who is doing public speaking, it might be to her benefit to have some sort of accent/dialect analysis of her vocal style, it wouldn’t have to involve someone with a PhD, but someone who has some experience in this area.

I happen to think that there’s nothing that needs improvement from this appearance, I’ve made minor criticisms of her presentations in the past, and you can go ahead and check my comments around here and at the old blog before you start indulging in finger-pointing around here, buddy.

Now, I would suspect that Amanda speaks a high-prestige dialect, given her educational background and upbringing, but let’s just quit this discussion because your precious fee-fees are hurt on behalf of Amanda.

I did like your comment about conservatives wanting order.  I would have loved it if they had given you the chance to talk about the positives and negatives of various forms of order but then I suspect as an informed woman, from their point of view, you probably have the wrong (or uppity) approach to the question.

Yeah, I was surprised to hear that, and was very curious to hear what sorts of order you had in mind.

oldfeminist:  That article explains something I’ve noticed on these pundit programs (which I was fearful about on Up):  Conservatives cram so many lies as soundbites into so few seconds, it would take the rest of the program to refute them all.  Bill Maher’s guests are the worst at this.

@#18: It’s not just a matter of “moral feeling”. I accept your argument about weighing evils - that’s how I usually decide who to vote for. I appreciate a sincere argument and thanks. Beyond this utilitarian calculation, is there an issue you deem so important as to outweigh every marginal improvement in any other issue area? Did we reach that point with the NDAA?

Dude, you can pull the old-friend long-time commenter card here if you want. It’s sort of irrelevant, given that Amanda’s remarked, twice now, that she’s not interested in any folk examining either her accent or her conclusions about it (which seem informed, unlike yours, and don’t rely heavily on a single webpage that has obviously not been that closely read). That you think you’re talking to another dude who is launching some kind of valiant intervention on the part of a bewildered and overwhelmed lady says more about you than me; I’m heartily sick of dudes on the interweb ignoring what women say, explicitly, that they want to talk about, instead consistently redirecting the conversation to what they, the dudes want. (I’m also plenty tired of dudes assuming that their interlocutor, by default, is another dude.)

Hasty generalizations culled from a poorly paraphrased summary of an outdated book almost all of us have read or heard about are, as I implied, unhelpful non-sequiturs. Your preoccupation with dialect is curious, because Amanda is not using non-standard American English idioms or construction. Accent and dialect are not the same thing. Perhaps some remedial work on this distinction is in order, given how highly you value your own expertise on the subject.

Since she is a blogger who is doing public speaking, it might be to her benefit to have some sort of accent/dialect analysis of her vocal style,

Why? Why do you think this? Again, what about her remarks here or elsewhere suggest that she’s interested in doing this? Why do you think she doesn’t understand her own accent, her own background? Unless you think your hypothetical professor/linguist/vocal coach is going to contradict her own lived experiences (like, surprise! my mere anecdote), what would be the benefit of consulting such a person?

Amanda, can you comment on Taylor Branch’s bombshell?

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/01/01/taylor-marsh-throws-in-the-towel-on-obama/

Excuse me, Taylor Marsh.

Dude, you can pull the old-friend long-time commenter card here if you want. It’s sort of irrelevant, given that Amanda’s remarked, twice now, that she’s not interested in any folk examining either her accent or her conclusions about it (which seem informed, unlike yours, and don’t rely heavily on a single webpage that has obviously not been that closely read).

Uh, no, she wrote this:

I think the urge to tell me that I don’t sound like I’m from Texas is well-intended, but it’s based in the assumption that being from Texas is a shameful thing that I should be glad to shed. I disagree, and think it’s awesome to be from Texas. C’mon. It’s not Oklahoma we’re talking about.

And I didn’t rely on a single webpage, and my conclusions about it aren’t informed, because why?

That you think you’re talking to another dude who is launching some kind of valiant intervention on the part of a bewildered and overwhelmed lady says more about you than me; I’m heartily sick of dudes on the interweb ignoring what women say, explicitly, that they want to talk about, instead consistently redirecting the conversation to what they, the dudes want. (I’m also plenty tired of dudes assuming that their interlocutor, by default, is another dude.)

And, where, exactly, have I made the assumption that you’re another dude?

I also cite my fellow commentator helen w. h.‘s conclusions, she’s not a dude, so your crusade to save Amanda from Mansplaining has already come across a problem, in your conclusions from what has been written here.

Hasty generalizations culled from a poorly paraphrased summary of an outdated book almost all of us have read or heard about are, as I implied, unhelpful non-sequiturs.

Since you’ve yet to link to anything more recent, that’s risible, along with the notion that this isn’t a subject for discussion,  so you get to double-wammy me with being out of date without any back-up for your assertions because, according to you, dissecting Amandas’ accent/dialect isn’t a good thing to do in the first place.

You win teh Internets today, chum.

Why? Why do you think this? Again, what about her remarks here or elsewhere suggest that she’s interested in doing this?

It would be logical for anyone who does public speaking to want to maximize their abilities and talents in that area, IMHO,  and in past entries she has asked about feedback when she’s posted videos of her speaking before an audience, live or electronic.  I’m sorry you haven’t been around long enough to remember those posts.

Your preoccupation with dialect is curious, because Amanda is not using non-standard American English idioms or construction.

I never implied anywhere, here or otherwise, that is the case, and if I had accidentally implied that, I would’ve implicated myself as well with my revelation that to my ear(I’m deaf in one ear—-surely another sign that I’m unfit to discuss Amandas’ native dialect) she sounds like a lot of Californians around here where I live, like moi.

Why do you think she doesn’t understand her own accent, her own background?

I never stated or implied that, I’m sure she’s familiar with the kind of people who talk like her in Austin and Alpine, that doesn’t mean her understanding can’t be improved upon.

Unless you think your hypothetical professor/linguist/vocal coach is going to contradict her own lived experiences (like, surprise! my mere anecdote), what would be the benefit of consulting such a person?

Oh, now you’re really constructing a strawman, that because of your anecdata(one witnessed event isn’t a conclusive data point, you are aware of that fact, aren’t you?).

And no, many people aren’t aware of what dialectical variety of English they are speaking, outside of the fact that they speak it themselves from growing up where they did, and what other classes/ethic/groups/etc spoke like them as well.

I even stated that I can’t tell if Amanda WOULD benefit from subjecting herself to such an analysis, but it’s a matter of curiosity

But thanks again for demonstrating the power of a false grievance and assuming the mantle of the White Knight/Knightess for Amanda.

For the love of lard, please stop making this about my tone or implying that I am unduly upset or hysterical ‘cos some dickhead on the interweb persists in being wrong and mansplain-y. Calmer’an you are, and all that jazz. Your history here is irrelevant, your previous commentary is known to me, and your assumption that I’m new to this here webpage is unfounded.

Calling me “buddy” and referencing my wounded “fee-fees” sounds like you thought I was a dude, dude.

And I didn’t rely on a single webpage, and my conclusions about it aren’t informed, because why?

Well, because you continue to use dialect and accent as if they are interchangeable and without distinction. On the one hand, you tell Amanda that she is unaware of the fact that she is speaking a dialect (how helpful and not-at-all condescending of you!), and on the other you reference the high prestige of her accent. I attribute this rigid, unthinking allegiance to terms with which you are obviously mostly unfamiliar to the one webpage you’ve cited, and, again, which you obviously haven’t closely read or comprehended.

To break it down for you nice and simple: in prescriptive terms, accent loosely refers to pronunciation; folk what employ pronunciation that differs dramatically from their culture and region’s standard in a predictable manner are said to possess an “accent.” Dialect differs in that it refers to manner of speaking (use of idiom and “slang,” construction like the conjugation of certain irregular but commonly used verbs, et al) and pronunciation. As such, Amanda is not speaking a non-standard American English dialect. She has an accent that mostly conforms to the region in which she was born and reared, modified slightly by her experiences elsewhere in the country, like most Americans. Times have changed considerably since Carver was doing his thang; accents in the US are more malleable, “sound” less distinct from one another, and have considerably adapted to and evolved out of recent migrations (so-called white flights, the broadening and sprawling of southwestern suburbs, black migration “back” to parts of the south, and so forth).

That you think she sounds like a Californian makes a good deal of sense, but it’s an entirely subjective impression. My latter childhood and adulthood has been spent in the interior of California, and hence most Americans I meet “sound” like “me,” unless their “accent” is spectacularly different from my own. Nevertheless, these (yours and mine) are subjective and colored by our experiences and what we find familiar. You have consistently treated your opinion about Amanda’s accent as if it’s objective truth, even after she’s stated unequivocally that she is “bothered by people, especially men, claiming to know better than I do what people where I’m from sound like.” Geddit now?

For the love of lard, please stop making this about my tone or implying that I am unduly upset or hysterical ‘cos some dickhead on the interweb persists in being wrong and mansplain-y. Calmer’an you are, and all that jazz. Your history here is irrelevant, your previous commentary is known to me, and your assumption that I’m new to this here webpage is unfounded.

Then you are aware that in the past, Amanda has posted videos and asked for feedback on her performance by the Pandagonians around here.

Good, something we can finally agree on.

FWIW, if I’m interested in someone who comments here,, I know how to use the system to determine when they’ve registered here as a commentator, but I’d have to care about what you think of me before I’d go to that extreme.

I attribute this rigid, unthinking allegiance to terms with which you are obviously mostly unfamiliar to the one webpage you’ve cited, and, again, which you obviously haven’t closely read or comprehended.

Then linking to something more up-to-date shouldn’t be an impossible task for one as informed in this subject, but for some strange reason you’ve not done so yet.

To break it down for you nice and simple: in prescriptive terms, accent loosely refers to pronunciation; folk what employ pronunciation that differs dramatically from their culture and region’s standard in a predictable manner are said to possess an “accent.”

I like your ‘what employ’, how long has it been since you left West Virginia, Clarice?

I call men and women buddy, I’m sorry that my disregard of prescriptive use managed to fool a Sherlock Holmes such as yourself.

Well, because you continue to use dialect and accent as if they are interchangeable and without distinction. On the one hand, you tell Amanda that she is unaware of the fact that she is speaking a dialect (how helpful and not-at-all condescending of you!), and on the other you reference the high prestige of her accent. I attribute this rigid, unthinking allegiance to terms with which you are obviously mostly unfamiliar to the one webpage you’ve cited, and, again, which you obviously haven’t closely read or comprehended.

Yes, because stating my suspicion is a referencing act in and of itself.

As such, Amanda is not speaking a non-standard American English dialect.

Because if that was the case, my suspicions about it being high-prestige wouldn’t make any sense in the first place.

Times have changed considerably since Carver was doing his thang; accents in the US are more malleable, “sound” less distinct from one another, and have considerably adapted to and evolved out of recent migrations (so-called white flights, the broadening and sprawling of southwestern suburbs, black migration “back” to parts of the south, and so forth).

See above about your lack of links to works that reflect this revised understanding.

That you think she sounds like a Californian makes a good deal of sense, but it’s an entirely subjective impression.

Yes, because that’s what I said.0

you can find people like me whose speech probably differs from Amandas not that much.

That’s not the same as saying:

My latter childhood and adulthood has been spent in the interior of California, and hence most Americans I meet “sound” like “me,” unless their “accent” is spectacularly different from my own.

You have consistently treated your opinion about Amanda’s accent as if it’s objective truth

That it resembles mine, that I suspect it’s a high-prestige dialect, those are not objective truths,  but thanks for your input today.

bothered by people, especially men, claiming to know better than I do what people where I’m from sound like.

Please demonstrate where I’ve stated that proposition, for 100 quadroos, if you please.

The onus of proving one’s case, providing relevant and professional citations, and presenting one’s argument in a reasonable, informed, comprehensible, non-defensive manner (minus the weird classist and anti-feminist snubs, all the while listening to what mere womenfolk are saying, specifically, to you) is the fella what presented himself as an authority on the subject, the fella in need of an audience to listen to him pontificate helpfully a while (‘cos he musta read a book or summat one time loosely related to the field at hand). Can you do that, dude? Can you? Or are you just ‘splainin’ some more?

The onus of proving one’s case, providing relevant and professional citations, and presenting one’s argument in a reasonable, informed, comprehensible, non-defensive manner (minus the weird classist and anti-feminist snubs, all the while listening to what mere womenfolk are saying, specifically, to you) is the fella what presented himself as an authority on the subject, the fella in need of an audience to listen to him pontificate helpfully a while (‘cos he musta read a book or summat one time loosely related to the field at hand). Can you do that, dude? Can you?

I made a few observations and speculations which apparently irritated the hell out of you, and your attempt to paint me with a broad brush has met with a spectacular fail on your part after I demonstrated the holes in your arguments, and you still want to do a victory dance.

I will award you 50 quatloos for not acknowledging any of the mistakes I documented in my earlier posts, such dedication cannot be its’ own reward.

Whatever floats your boat, and thanks for demonstrating the wisdom of the following aphorism:

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He(She) usually proves it, and I should add that he(she) also usually proves that he(she) is one himself.

So, you’re claiming a pitiful victory in a battle of wits I do not acknowledge participating in*, and then commence with a flounce that I bet you don’t stick?

You still don’t get it, dude. (And you can proclaim to the high heavens that Amanda is speaking a “dialect,” but that don’t make it so. The kinds of Spanish spoken in north America, central America, south America, and Europe—them’s dialects.)

*‘Cos apparently this is a oneupsmanship pissing contest for you, whereas I have an actual point to make about the way some men consistently and against their own best interests undermine women when women are speaking about their own experiences. Cf #19, where a holiday you took to Texas one time outweighs Marcotte’s actual childhood growing up in Texas; non-sequiturs about California in #27 in addition to telling Amanda that whether she knows something is true or not, you insist that your layperson guesstimate, pulled out of a hat at random ‘cos it feels right and conforms to your expectations, is correct and that a hypothetical professional will totally back you ‘cos you read about a book—the relevance of which is now obsolete, yes, just as Mencken’s clever tome on the subject now functions almost exclusively as an entertaining read or a loosely historical record—one time; and so forth.

So, you’re claiming a pitiful victory in a battle of wits I do not acknowledge participating in*, and then commence with a flounce that I bet you don’t stick?

Actually, Pitful Victory in a Battle of Wits is playing in San Francisco next week, I can get you some tickets if you like.

You still don’t get it, dude. (And you can proclaim to the high heavens that Amanda is speaking a “dialect,” but that don’t make it so. The kinds of Spanish spoken in north America, central America, south America, and Europe—them’s dialects.)

Really, Google lists 104,000 results for regional American dialects, one result of which you can read for yourself:

North American English regional phonology is the study of variations in the pronunciation of spoken English by the inhabitants of various parts of North America. North American English can be divided into several regional dialects based on phonological, phonetic, lexical, and some syntactic features. North American English includes American English, which has several highly developed and distinct regional varieties, along with the closely related Canadian English, which is more homogeneous. American English (especially Western dialects) and Canadian English have more in common with each other than with the many varieties of English outside North America.

Cf #19, where a holiday you took to Texas one time outweighs Marcotte’s actual childhood growing up in Texas;

I guess my only functioning ear was deceiving me a few years ago when I visited friends and relatives in Austin and heard many Texas accents spoken by the people in the stores and shops I interacted with when I was there.

I was reporting my experience that there are indeed, many kinds of accents in Austin, who told you that it invalidated Amanda’s upbringing and life in Austin?

It’s funny how you bring a comment all the way from the top to discuss it now, can’t stand losing, can you buddy?

you insist that your layperson guesstimate,

Which was supported by helen w. h’s observations, you forgot that part, didn’t you?

But I understand, unless I can absolutely prove something about Amanda, I’m not allowed to make observations or conjectures because why?

pulled out of a hat at random ‘cos it feels right and conforms to your expectations, is correct and that a hypothetical professional will totally back you ‘cos you read about a book

Can you tell me what comment on this thread I stated that?  What I did say was:

Which is why I suggested that she have her accent examined by an expert, so that she can get a good idea of what flavor of American English she is speaking.

just as Mencken’s clever tome on the subject now functions almost exclusively as an entertaining read or a loosely historical record

Then Mencken quote was a reference to you, buddy, and I’m not surprised it went over your head.

Dude, please to be explaining how exactly your wiki article buttresses your “argument.” Dialects exist. We’ve covered that. Not a fact that is in dispute. Amanda is speaking the same dialect that you and I speak. She’s talking about her accent. It says so right there in her post. Emboldened by actually being correct in your first comment—addressing accent—you went on to talk the kind of shit yer average typically zealous, overly confident eighth-grader would find a tad presumptuous. That you want to talk about “flavors” and dialects is great an’ all, but making unambiguous, declarative statements, such as:

Amanda, you don’t have a drawl or anything sounding like a Texas accent in your speech patterns

(accent doesn’t govern “speech patterns”)

And you are speaking one of those dialects, Amanda, whether you know it or not.

(herpy-de-durp, a grown-ass fucking lady might not realize that she’s speaking a dialect, ‘cos that’s not something we all do)

technically speaking, a speech coach would probably be better at figuring out what accent Amanda speaks with, because it’s their job to help their clients eliminate accents that stray too much from the American standard.

(her accent doesn’t stray from some prescriptive “standard,” as you pointed out in #2, and Amanda has indicated through implication that she’s not interested in changing the way she sounds, so, again, you’re being a condescending dick)

reveals that you’re speaking from a position of comparative ignorance. Which would be jolly, if you admitted it. Instead you mansplained. Repeatedly.

It’s admirable that you’re addressing that ignorance by now scouring the interwebs and using wikipedia to source references that might, in some esoteric fashion, accidentally prove you right. It really is. But you’re not correct here, at all, and you look like a douche trying to school Amanda in a subject about which you literally seem to know nothing, apart from the fact that you have a history (as do many of us) of listening to people speak aloud.

(her accent doesn’t stray from some prescriptive “standard,” as you pointed out in #2, and Amanda has indicated through implication that she’s not interested in changing the way she sounds, so, again, you’re being a condescending dick)

Is that what you got from my mention, that I was being a condescending dick because a speech coach might be enlisted to tell her what flavor of American English she speaks, and that meant I want her to go to one to get rid of her non-existent accent?

HEADDESK.

It’s admirable that you’re addressing that ignorance by now scouring the interwebs and using wikipedia to source references that might, in some esoteric fashion, accidentally prove you right. It really is.

But you’re so much better at slandering what I’ve written here without any help from teh Internets   Rhadamanthus, I’m deeply sorry that I’ve yet again caused you such heartbreak and agony today.

But you’re not correct here, at all,

Thanks for sharing

and you look like a douche trying to school Amanda in a subject

Just like someone who doesn’t know me tries to paint me as a douche because I won’t shut up

about which you literally seem to know nothing, apart from the fact that you have a history (as do many of us) of listening to people speak aloud.

I’ll leave it up to the peanut gallery to determine who is right or wrong here, but feel free to take up Amanda’s bandwidth with another denunciation, Saurs, it enhances your credibility so much more when you do so.

O, no! Not my credibility! Next you’ll be casting aspersions on my beloved virtue. Is there a fainting couch nearby I could make use of?

Again, falsely attributing hysterical anger on the part of your female interlocutor is a sign that you’re a mansplaining asshole who can’t back his shit up. Appeals to a non-existent audience for help and restorative fluids also looks kinda pathetic.

falsely attributing hysterical anger on the part of your female interlocutor

Hysterical is your word for what I’ve written on this thread.

Appeals to a non-existent audience for help and restorative fluids also looks kinda pathetic.

Now you feel a lot better, and I can get on with my life.

So it was just a coincidence that as the discussion verged from generalizations to specifics, you got increasingly preoccupied with my tone?

Fixating on whether or not somebody is angry (booga-booga-boo, the horrifying bogey known as the Angry Woman, who by definition is so irrational we don’t have to match her arguments with substantive responses!), even though I said I’m not and it wouldn’t matter if I was, is a silencing tactic used by dudes when they’re affronted that their hastily cobbled-together theses have been questioned or contradicted.

Now you feel a lot better

Yes, indeed-y. Anyone who addresses you is automatically oversensitive, hostile, emotional, or venting, rather than addressing your many grievous errors. Forgive me for not sprinkling my comments with friendly emoticons, you fucking baby.

So it was just a coincidence that as the discussion verged from generalizations to specifics, you got increasingly preoccupied with my tone?

Just as it was a coincidence that as your tone became increasingly angry, you didn’t respond to any facts with facts of your own, criticizing my claims without even a single link to anything demonstrating the truth of your own claims.

See how that works?

I don’t object to your anger. It doesn’t win your arguments for you in place of fact, but you should know that if you can tell shit from Shinola.

Anyone who addresses you is automatically oversensitive, hostile, emotional, or venting, rather than addressing your many grievous errors.

Your hostility is obvious to anyone with more than two neurons in their frontal cortex, and the rest is a masterful summary of how you have behaved on this thread, but you’ve been but your insults are childish, jejune, lacking in any facts to back your case.  That would be true of you were a man or woman, trans or cis.

Forgive me for not sprinkling my comments with friendly emoticons, you fucking baby.

And forgive me for not clearly indicating my male chauvinism that obviously drives my resentment of women in general and you in particular, a snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!

Your obsession with my tone or whether or not I’m angry (booga-booga)—an obsession clearly preventing you from having absorbed anything of substance I’ve written, including corrections to your mistakes*—has been noted.

I think I preferred it when you were dropping worldly wise quotations that were supposed to go over my head, fretting over Amanda’s bandwidth (‘cos posting one or two comments per day totes puts a strain on the ol’ servers), and claiming that you had a life to get back to (heaven knows it takes me ages to pen a comment, too).

*I don’t need to trawl wiki articles or link back to them to recall and succinctly summarize lessons from linguistics 101. You were the one desperate to prove Amanda wrong, and you failed admirably at correcting somebody on the interweb. Hey ho.

an obsession clearly preventing you from having absorbed anything of substance I’ve written, including corrections to your mistakes*—has been noted.

Your obsession that you’ve been appointed or otherwise given charge of correcting my ‘mistakes’ here, has been duly noted for the record.

I think I preferred it when you were dropping worldly wise quotations that were supposed to go over my head, fretting over Amanda’s bandwidth (‘cos posting one or two comments per day totes puts a strain on the ol’ servers),

Yep, because you’re justified in protecting the world from mean ol’ men by commenting here and using her resources in your quest to stick it to me.

and claiming that you had a life to get back to (heaven knows it takes me ages to pen a comment, too).

Not really, just about 24 hours or so, but I can see how to a mind of little complexity, that would seem to be ages and ages, wouldn’t it.

What does seem to be over your head is that I won’t “accept your authority”, Cartman.