There are no visual “trailers” this week, but I do warn you to be prepared for weirdness with next week’s new Arlo & Janis strips, available here and, of course, in newspapers everywhere. Well, not everywhere. If that were true, I’d be driving a much nicer vehicle.
218 responses to “Dog of Love”
huff and puff, out of breath, desperately seeking that hour I ‘misplaced’ last night
Smigz….Angels are always on duty 24/7….Amen.
OK, Debbe, I’ll post that song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBdSqk78nHw
A while ago, I wrote that the 2 Decorah nests had 3 eggs each. Someone wondered about that. Since I just thought of it again, I just now went back to the ustream.tv site. Indeed, therein are data for each nest, including dates and approximate times of delivery of 3 eggs for each pair.
Hope they all hatch successfully.
Well yes, those boxes were indeed surprising, if not shocking. Planning a great convalescence from knee surgery.
May not be able to wear at hospital? Like those damn hospital gowns are discreet?
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(Jackie: My first efforts at posting were rejected, evidently because they were a tad too long. I will post my response in stages.)
Jackie:
I apologize for this long post. You touched something within me about which I have strong emotions and thoughts.
I could not agree with you more. The ubiquity of television and radio either tragically reducing or eliminating the US’s accents and dialects grieves me deeply.
However, when I was in the classroom, I spoke solely in the standard dialect with no accent (TV news anchors’ speech, as you said) unless I was reading a part aloud for the kids. In thirty years of teaching, none of my high school or university students could guess my original dialect and accent. I always had to tell them and then give a sample.
I was actually born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and my parents moved to Columbus in 1955 when my dad wanted to find more lucrative employment after the war. He eventually accepted a position with IBM.
Thankfully, neither my mom nor my dad ever lost their original speech patterns, although some bigots and closed-minded, “educated,” and “enlightened” persons looked down their noses at us.
The most egregious was my fifth-grade teacher. She wrote “greasy” on the board and asked us its pronunciation. Being a teacher pleaser, I shot up my hand, she called on me, and I said what I had learned at home: gree-ze.
She stated, “No, Ricky. Up here, we say ‘gree-ce.’ ‘Gree-ze’ is used by people who don’t know how to speak properly, usually from the South.”
As you might assume, I was humiliated, and, frankly, I still bear a loathing for her to this day. One of my failings is that I cannot forgive and forget a deliberate insult.
In the long run, though, she performed a great service for me because, at that very moment, I decided to rid myself of any trace of any accent whatsoever, and I began studying and mimicking the network news anchors of 1963. As the years progressed, my standard speech opened many doors for me.
In the classroom, I told my students that they should never lose their native accent and dialect. Instead, they should prize it because it is part of their heritage and who they are. Even now at my age, when I return home to Bowling Green, I slip back into the Western Kentucky accent so easily that it’s as if my parents and I had never left.
However, I stressed to all of my students that, in certain areas of life, they should not use their native speech except at home and with their close friends. I told them that society is unfair and that some judge others harshly if they hear African-American speech, Caucasian speech, Appalachian speech, Hispanic speech, Asian speech, Southern speech, and on and on.
I told them that my job was to teach them to “speak green.” Green as in standard speech. Green as in money.
My final points that I gave to them were that standard speech and grammar are the Keys to the Kingdom and that, if they have goals of rising high in business or certain areas of science and of making a fair amount of amount of money, the Keys will help to open the door so that they can then prove their value.
So, here’s both to Green Speak and Native Speak. They both have their place, and I hope that Native Speak never dies.
(End of post)
Oh, TR….how could you???? Too funny….now it will be an ear worm for the rest of…whatever spotifies me 🙂
Rick: Excellent description and a valuable lesson for your students! We’ve noticed that going “home” may not be necessary to bring out native accents. Ask people about where they’re from and the accent will get stronger the longer they talk.
Debbe, yes, I have a playlist. 1.956 songs. According to Spotify’s breakdown, 156 hours playing time. I didn’t make individual playlists, I just keep adding new stuff to the one I’ve got.
Speaking of accents reminds me of my high school French teacher, who claimed that experienced customs agents were often such experts in linguistics that they could tell from a person’s accent if they were honest about where they were born or grew up.
Rick that is of course true and I agree. My friend says the longer I am around him the more Southern I sound.
I remember vividly in high school in South an exasperated English teacher snapping at one of our local plantation heirs, a very rich young man, “Jim Wilkinson, you talk just like a #$@&#$”
He replied, “Well, why shouldn’t I? That’s all I will be talking to my entire life.”
That was 1960 and Jim is dead and times have changed. In 1982 I met a charming and educated black man who spoke with the most perfect English, heavily influenced by a British accent. So I asked how?
He was born in a slave quarter two room shack on the plantation two miles down road from ours. We had never met nor would we have.
But he went into military, got an education, a good one, ended up an Oxford scholar. Headed a federal agency division. And had learned to speak excellent English.
Jim never did. Times can change. Please forgive me, I seem to have touched more than one nerve.
But I am going to try to regain my southern accent and my southern roots because I want to for the very reason you gave Rick. I am proud of who I am and who I come from.
And because I care very much about that southern friend who asked me to do so.
Ruth Anne:
Thanks for the compliment, and I agree with your points.
In regard to the custom agents, George Bernard Shaw touched upon that idea in “Pygmalion.” Higgins commented that he could identify the street on which a person lived by speech alone.
Jackie:
Good for you! Don’t ever lose that blessed Southern accent.
I must now admit to some confusion. You asked me to forgive you. For what? I don’t know of a nerve that you touched.
If I gave that impression, I am sorry. That was not my intention.
I was afraid I might have hurt your feelings. I just hate doing that.
I do hate that language divides us. I find with my British or UK friends we have more than an accent that divides our speech.
‘I used to teach the Bard’s works, and I love all things British. My ancestry is English, and a village in North Yorkshire has my surname.’ ‘Oh my. Tell me you have an English accent too and I may swoon.’ [Etc.] Thought I’d just comment on those, and will, for now. Rich discussion above.
Used to teach expository writing for biologists, and am bit of an anglophile. Ancestry = French, English, Irish, Portuguese, probably Welsh, and an extinct village in SE England was the source of my surname, circa 1100 CE. Grew up in NYC, acquired a moderate NY accent, which greatly disturbed Mom.
In Ithaca, George Healey, my Cornell U. Freshman Eng. teacher, was surprised that I was from NYC. Mom would have been so pleased; don’t remember if I thought to tell her. Healey’s problem was there were so many thicker NY accents at Cornell, and I’d picked up much of the ‘received tongue’ at home. Mom was from Bay St. Louis, MS and Dad from Webster Groves, MO, and both spoke what presumably they’d been taught in school. They met in NYC or nearby in around 1920. Have mentioned at least some of this before.
After retiring, Mom moved to Bemidji in ’62[?] to try to spoil our [then] only child. Most people here could not spot my region of origin. Somehow, in the late ’60s, I was listening to Mom and others converse and realized, ‘Mom has a NY accent.’ It was not thick, but 40 yr. exposure had done it. Of course, I never told her.
Peace,
One of those odd connections emb but I was chosen to participate in a Cornell leadership symposium for those in super market, produce and floral industry. You had to be nominated by someone (s) in your industry.
I was proud of that, even though I know I was there to comply with diversity and meet need for females. Got to associate with some real powers in industry. Good manners and articulation do sometimes open doors.
Jackie:
Honestly, I see nothing that could have possibly hurt my feelings, but I definitely appreciate your concern. You are one of the very few I know these days who takes such things into account.
Also, I don’t think that you could ever hurt anyone even if you had to.
emb:
Speaking personally, I hope that you can still bring back your NYC speech as you desire. NYC has many accents and dialects, each of which I love.
Thank you Rick. I laughed at what a friend said about me this week. My van is banned from car wash because trailer hitch doesn’t come off. I went in and apologized for breaking their car wash and explained I wouldn’t be able to use it but would keep buying gas and sodas.
He said, “That is SO you.” I was afraid they’d think I had gotten mad at being banned.