Accent (was Re: Iran Conflict, A Future Conflict?)

[Guest guest]

Ala-vesta bee beeTank you come again.environmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote: I can do Arnold Schwartzenegger, Worf from Star Trek TNG, Eddie , and the convenience store clerk from The Simpsons. Tom Administrator I'm from this planet, the rest of you are not.Please go back to Mars or Venushttp://www.simplecomplexities.org/community/

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[Guest guest]

Ala-vesta bee beeTank you come again.environmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote: I can do Arnold Schwartzenegger, Worf from Star Trek TNG, Eddie , and the convenience store clerk from The Simpsons. Tom Administrator I'm from this planet, the rest of you are not.Please go back to Mars or Venushttp://www.simplecomplexities.org/community/

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[Guest guest]

" (but I'd need a microphone because I talk softly.) "

You'd have to shout with the microphone I have for the computer -

doesn't seem to pick up right well :-(

> >

> > Ever since I first began to talk, I've sounded as follows:

> >

> > - to my parents/family/friends and to most other Americans, I

sound

> > British (Americans who have lived in the UK sometimes say that I

> sound

> > like a " blend " of various accents from all over the UK)

> >

> > - to some Americans, I sound like " Brooklyn mixed with British "

(as

> > one put it) - I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and so did my parents, so

> > none of us knows where the " British " part would have come from

> >

> > - to most people from other English-speaking nations (e.g., the

> UK), I

> > sound definitely American *but* they often say I don't pronounce

> > sounds or words quite like any American they have ever heard in

> TV/on

> > the radio/over the phone/in person

> >

> > - a few people (one or two in the UK, one in the USA) who had

> studied

> > medieval English (or who had heard medieval English, e.g.,

Chaucer,

> > read aloud on the air by history-of-English-pronunciation experts)

> > claim that I sound [direct quote] " *exactly* like some time-

traveler

> > from a few centuries ago who has learned to speak modern-day

English

> > but who still has a really thick accent from a previous form of

the

> > language. WHERE did you grow up, Kate? Or should I ask: WHEN? "

> >

> > I can't say my speech has held me back professionally (though it

did

> > leave me laughed at throughout my youth). My work requires me to

> often

> > speak in public, which I plainly could not do if my hearers did

not

> > undersand me well. (Written evaluations at workplaces in my job -

> > audiences and sometimes employers fill these out - usually ask

for

> an

> > evaluation of the speaker's clarity and understandability. On this

> > point, I've never gotten less than 5 [ " best " ] out of a possible

5.)

> >

> > Wrong planet ... or wrong century?

> >

> > ;-)

> >

> >

> >

> > Yours for better letters,

> > Kate Gladstone

> > Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

> > handwritingrepair@

> > http://learn.to/handwrite,

> http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

> > 325 South Manning Boulevard

> > Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

> > telephone 518/482-6763

> > AND REMEMBER ...

> > you can order books through my site!

> > (Amazon.com link -

> > I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Re:

> ... I saw a

> program on how this woman had a stroke and woke up with a British

> accent. The weird thing, though, was how she used British words for

> things. That's the part I can't make sense of.

If I remember correctly (I saw some news-articles on this and other

cases of " foreign accent syndrome " as they call it), one of the

scientists or doctors who worked with this woman has pointed out that

sometimes people recovering from a stroke unconsciously " pick up " the

accent/vocabulary/favorite expressions of the MDs and nurses who have

cared for them while their brains started putting themselves together

again - rather in the way that people " pick up " the surrounding

language as children while their brains develop.

For instance, a person from New York who motorcycles to North

Carolina and has a cycle-crash can wake up speaking with the Southern

accent of the doctors/nurses who took care of this patient and who of

course talked to him and to each other during the time s/he lay

unconscious while his/her unconscious mind absorbed " how people talk

around here. " Has anyone checked out if the woman who woke up " talking

British " could have had one or more doctors/nurses from the UK

It can take, reportedly, several days or several weeks for the

person's original accent to start re-asserting itself - so, possibly,

in some cases it could take even longer: years, perhaps ... or perhaps

the original accent sometimes *never* comes back.

The above may explain why this woman sounds like a person from

somewhere else (vocabulary, accent, and all) - but I don't think

anyone has explained why so many of *us* sound like people from

somewhere else.

In at least one Asperger's Syndrome case (reported in a recent

NEWSWEEK article on autism), the individual *does* show vocabulary as

well as behavior that appear to come from somewhere else than where

the person actually grew up ...

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6994474/site/newsweek/page/3/

" [Autism researcher Ami] Klin [of the Yale Child Study Center] recalls

a child [with Asperger's] who bowed and spoke in Shakespearean

English, 'almost as if I had plucked him from 14th-century Verona.' "

(I'd love to meet this kid - do you think I should write to Dr.

Klin and ask for an introduction? The article contained a lot of other

fascinating stuff - but unfortunately also quite a bit of

smear-wording about autism as an " intellectual thief. " Uh, how many

" intellectually robbed " people do *you* know who can converse in

Shakespearean English? And, in any case, folks in 14th-century Verona

spoke medieval Italian, not Shakesperean English or any other

English.)

By the way, I have friends who regard my own accent as " proof

positive " that reincarnation happens - but I'd like a more objectively

provable explanation, if one exists. Do you think we can get anyone

interested in finding out why so many people with Asperger's don't

sound like the people they grew up with? How does a person who lives

in one place manage to acquire in early childhood the accent of people

living several thousand miles - and perhaps a few centuries - distant,

anyway? Can we regard " accent from somewhere else " as a diagnostic

feature for autism/Asperger's?

Yours for better letters,

Kate Gladstone

Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

handwritingrepair@...

http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

325 South Manning Boulevard

Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

telephone 518/482-6763

AND REMEMBER ...

you can order books through my site!

(Amazon.com link -

I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)

[Guest guest]

Re:

> I'd like to hear all you talk, especially you, Kate!

Give me a call, sometime! You can reach my husband and me in Albany,

New York at 518/482-6763.

Yours for better letters,

Kate Gladstone

Handwriting Repair and the World Handwriting Contest

handwritingrepair@...

http://learn.to/handwrite, http://www.global2000.net/handwritingrepair

325 South Manning Boulevard

Albany, New York 12208-1731 USA

telephone 518/482-6763

AND REMEMBER ...

you can order books through my site!

(Amazon.com link -

I get a 5% - 15% commission on each book sold)