On Fri, 01 Sep 2006 18:36:25 -0700, Grumpy_Penguin wrote: > There used to be a guy on the carnival circuit [about 40 years ago] who could > after hearing you speak a few sentences, could tell you where you grew up > sometimes right down to the county and sometimes right down to the part of > the county [this was in the Southern US] It's not just the South. I was married for a while to a native of Columbus, Ohio -- who actually used to maintain, among professional linguists, that she had no "accent," as we call both dialects and foreign pronunciations. Then one day at a party a total stranger, new to town, asked her after five minutes, "Are you from Columbus, Ohio?" I kept my face straight at the time, but it wasn't easy. Years later, giving a tour of the Library of Congress to a small group, I told them they were from Newark, Ohio -- but that was dead easy. The pronounced the town "Nurk" -- and were quite aware of it. But they were surprised that I knew it. -- Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert What do they know of country, who only country know?
