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i am wocked to my vewy foundations
Jul. 3rd, 2019 12:35 pmso, jacaster can't pronounce his 'r's right, right? WRONG
i've been musing on this for a LONG time because... yeah to start with i assumed it was a speech impediment. same as how he pronounces his hard 'th's as 'f's and his soft 'th's as 'v's. except i was aware that those variations CAN be dialectal, AND i eventually noticed that sometimes (when he's making a Special Effort) he does pronounce 'th's the standard way.
then i think i saw a bit of sweet home ketteringa (still haven't watched it through properly) and noticed his mum pronounces 'r's the same way. and i was like, HUH, that's weird... can you inherit a speech impediment?? can you LEARN an impedimented version of a speech sound as your native version even if you don't have the same inherent speech impediment?? the mystery deepens
then after that i heard him on a podcast describing himself as having a 'lazy accent' - referencing the 'th' thing, but also 'soft rs'. (heh heh i bet it is) (heh heh it probably isn't actually it's probably quite bony) and i was like, huh, that's ALSO weird, that he counts it as part of his accent... but maybe he's just using the term loosely to describe 'the way he speaks' rather than specifically 'the regional way he learned to speak'?
THEN i went to clhm1999 (more on that later :D) and he did a mock-posh voice at several points, which i fucking LOVED, and the things he said in the voice were quite memorable so they're still echoing round my head quite regularly weeks later, and one of them had an 'r' sound, and... i'm pretty sure... he said it the standard way... when he was doing the mock-posh or mock-'standard' voice?? so... he CAN... when he chooses???
then it FINALLY occurred to me to look this up and OH MY GOD WHAT IT CAN BE A DIALECTAL FORM
mind legit blown, man. even though i probably could have guessed this outcome if i'd just looked it up at the point of the first paragraph :P
(fun fact! all of the non-standard forms he uses are produced with the top teeth against the bottom lip. the standard versions are produced using the tongue, and one reason why they also frequently appear as genuine impediments is that they require quite fine control over the positioning of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. so, while as a descriptivist linguist i do not condone describing some accents/variations as 'better' or 'worse' than others or suggesting that the standard form is the 'correct' form and others are 'incorrect' (they are all natively-learned ways of speaking! they are all internally consistent and therefore correct!), there IS a logic behind him describing his accent as 'lazy' - because you don't have to bother engaging your tongue at all to produce the non-standard forms. CUE THE JOKES)
i've been musing on this for a LONG time because... yeah to start with i assumed it was a speech impediment. same as how he pronounces his hard 'th's as 'f's and his soft 'th's as 'v's. except i was aware that those variations CAN be dialectal, AND i eventually noticed that sometimes (when he's making a Special Effort) he does pronounce 'th's the standard way.
then i think i saw a bit of sweet home ketteringa (still haven't watched it through properly) and noticed his mum pronounces 'r's the same way. and i was like, HUH, that's weird... can you inherit a speech impediment?? can you LEARN an impedimented version of a speech sound as your native version even if you don't have the same inherent speech impediment?? the mystery deepens
then after that i heard him on a podcast describing himself as having a 'lazy accent' - referencing the 'th' thing, but also 'soft rs'. (heh heh i bet it is) (heh heh it probably isn't actually it's probably quite bony) and i was like, huh, that's ALSO weird, that he counts it as part of his accent... but maybe he's just using the term loosely to describe 'the way he speaks' rather than specifically 'the regional way he learned to speak'?
THEN i went to clhm1999 (more on that later :D) and he did a mock-posh voice at several points, which i fucking LOVED, and the things he said in the voice were quite memorable so they're still echoing round my head quite regularly weeks later, and one of them had an 'r' sound, and... i'm pretty sure... he said it the standard way... when he was doing the mock-posh or mock-'standard' voice?? so... he CAN... when he chooses???
then it FINALLY occurred to me to look this up and OH MY GOD WHAT IT CAN BE A DIALECTAL FORM
mind legit blown, man. even though i probably could have guessed this outcome if i'd just looked it up at the point of the first paragraph :P
(fun fact! all of the non-standard forms he uses are produced with the top teeth against the bottom lip. the standard versions are produced using the tongue, and one reason why they also frequently appear as genuine impediments is that they require quite fine control over the positioning of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. so, while as a descriptivist linguist i do not condone describing some accents/variations as 'better' or 'worse' than others or suggesting that the standard form is the 'correct' form and others are 'incorrect' (they are all natively-learned ways of speaking! they are all internally consistent and therefore correct!), there IS a logic behind him describing his accent as 'lazy' - because you don't have to bother engaging your tongue at all to produce the non-standard forms. CUE THE JOKES)
