Re: [ARSCLIST] Edward R. Murrow "Hear It Now", etc.

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I hear STRONG Canadian accents from, of all people, a couple of NPR
correspondents. One lady, Jacqui Northam (sp??), who covers government and
security stuff, has one of the strongest Canadian accents I've heard since I
was a kid. My cousin's wife is from the Great White North and her father had
as strong an accent as I've ever heard. Anyway, the lady on NPR say "oot,"
"aboot" and everything else you'd expect EXCEPT "eh?" Ironically, there was
a report I heard last night while driving home about Canada doing some
reparations thing for their Indians and the Canadian commentator they
interviewed spoke with much less of an accent than NPR's own correspondent.

Also, do you guys still have the "Hockey Tonight" broadcasts? When I lived
up near the Canadian border, that broadcast was in all the cable systems -- 
forgot which network or station it was from. Those guys were 100% Canadian
all the way, strong accents and all sorts of uncommon (to USA ears)
expressions and word choices.

On the other hand, I have several CBC drama productions from the 1950's and
there is not one sign that they're any different from USA drama shows of the
same era. All generic English and scripts are written with American sentence
construction and diction, not British.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 25, 2005 1:10 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Edward R. Murrow "Hear It Now", etc.


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Lou Judson" <inaudio@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Not sure about the speaking/reading speed, but the homogenization of
> > the American spoken language really started with the first national
> > RADIO broadcast, and affected the speech of Americans long before
> > television. As a former and now part time radio producer, I consider it
> > "TV chauvinism" to think that TV did it all. It's like saying the DVDs
> > changed the amount we go out to movies hen most of the change was in
> > the VHS era.
> >
> > Just a vote for the history of reality... I was born before television,
> > and got a new perspective from my owrk with Buckminster Fuller, who was
> > born before radio... It affects what you think is natural and what is
> > new and artificial! Like youngsters who never touched analog recording
> > media, a different way of thinking.
> >
> Well, the thing is...for the first couple of decades of radio, most people
> listened to their local stations...and they broadcast mostly local shows
> until evening "prime time" when network programming took over. As well,
> radio announcers had a certain voice style that was unlikely to be copied
> for everyday speech (which can be heard on recordings of things like
> syndicated programming on disc). Finally, network radio wasn't aimed at
> children, who were assumed to be in bed by then...it was aimed at adults,
> who had for the most part formed their speech patterns.
>
> Since most TV programming is network these days, even daytime shows...and
> since networks encourage this sort of bland, no-particular-accent speech
> (actually, upper midwest if anything)...and since kids spend a lot more
> time in front of the family TV that kids of my generation spent next to
> the family radio...this sort of vernacular/generic speech is becomning
> the North American standard. I can even hear the difference comparing
> the Ontario I first encountered ('73 or so) with the Ontario of today.
> We still say "eh?" a lot, but I haven't heard "oot" or "aboot" in
> some years!
>
> Steven C. Barr