Right here in the USA, there are myriad dialects. A list found at babbel.com [1] is long. Just for fun, here it is:
Maine Accent
New England English
Pacific Northwest English
California English
Midwestern American English
Southern American English
Hawaii English And Pidgin
New Orleans And Cajun English
East Coast City Dialects (Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New York City)
High Tider (North Carolina Coast)
General American (America’s “Neutral” Accent)
African American Vernacular English
Radio/TV Voice
Sports Announcer Voice
Native American English
No doubt such diversity is present in other English-speaking countries and in the homes of every other language.
My confusion
What vexes me is that when visiting thickly accented regions, I am well understood when I speak my midwestern English but I often don’t understand what is said back to me. Why is that? Have the local natives learned through experience to understand the midwestern closer-to-standard pronunciation because visitors like me frequent the shops and engage the guides? If I were to spend more time actually living among the natives, would I acquire a similar facility with the local dialect and even return home with a distinct inherited accent of my own? Perhaps.
There are expert linguists who can surely answer such questions. And the goal here is not to sort those out, but as is typical for these posts, we want to analogize to other ways the language is used and misused in order intentionally to befuddle and mislead where pronunciation is not the issue. Although use of local slang and colloquialisms and an accent affectation often adds to confusion, those are also not our topic here. However, we do often hear such enunciation used either to be all too cute or to emphasize an I am not from here attitude.
Two asides
Choosing one’s own pronoun. I’m not against it, I just don’t get it. In English, only the third-person singular pronouns carry gender (he, she, him, her, his, hers). If I am present when I am referred to, I would find it demeaning and frankly insulting to be referred to in the third person. I have a name! If I am not present, why do I care?
The extreme version of what I’m getting at would be labeled word salad, a string of non-sequiturs that sum to nothing. But practitioners of misspeak are usually more subtle than that. Euphemisms are common, often used to avoid offense. An untruth becomes a lie only when safely insulated from the inevitable blowback or the lies are too frequent and destructive to be minimized.
Sideways and what abouts
Two classic and often effective ploys to avoid answering a direct question without being disingenuous or lying outright are the answer a different question gambit and the what about dodge. Are you for or against the ABC policy proposal? I wholeheartedly support the XYZ policy option. An interviewer not wanting to alienate her guest might let the non-answer pass.
What do you say about the reports that water quality in your town is unhealthy and ranks lowest among US cities? There are regions in China where the water is quite bad.
An alert listener would notice that an interviewee used those ploys to avoid answering questions she did not like. But alertness is required.
Some interviewers, the best ones, persist to no avail. It can reach an almost humorous stage, a verbal dance until time runs out. It may be that babbel.com should add political speech to its list.
A more serious diagnosis
The what about dissembling outside of the realm of political inquisition corresponds to a diagnosis of psychological projection. A tell-tale sign is when you talk to someone about their behavior or thoughts, and they immediately re-direct the conversation to you or another person. They quickly assign blame to you for their unresolved issues, unfairly accusing you in an attempt to displace their fears and emotions onto you. (Remind you of anybody we know?) I don’t for a moment contend that the verbally slippery politician needs therapy, but I do now propose that we define “political projection” as an ailment of the system that infects hoped-for clear, concise, and direct communication with the electorate. Here, if I utter what did you say?!, it’s not the pronunciation, it’s the astonishment at hearing ridiculous pronouncements.
A third usually unintentional technique
Jargon, technospeak, or staying in the weeds where expertise lies when trying to explain a problem or process leaves the listener uninformed if not befuddled. Such experts are usually asked to dumb it down. Some are able and some are not. Here, if I utter what did you say!?, it’s not the accent but the string of abbreviations and the insider vernacular of a private club that have left me clueless.
Thankfully, there are more than enough journalists who by background have been cross-trained and translate the technical terminology into English digestible by the rest of us. Some complex concepts must of needs be glossed over during translation. This may generate misunderstanding and open cracks into which faux and charlatan experts grab the chance to misinform. The early months of the COVID-19 pandemic epitomize that phenomenon.
We began with how regional dialects affect conversational understanding and quickly shifted to analogous impediments in the political sphere. Not as large a leap as one at first might have thought. Sure, speakers’ intents are quite different. But the product, the end result, the presumed objective of the listener learning something useful, actionable, and close to the reality of whatever the topic may be is defeated for the many reasons and communication obstacles described above.
[1] The United States Of Accents: A Guide To The American Ways Of Speaking, Babbel.com
Disclaimer #1: Some snippets, fragments of sentences written above, originated on wiki-type pages of the gargantuan worldwide Internet and are used here without attribution. We have the sincere belief that all are governed by free CC0 Creative Commons license criteria.
Nota Bene: Others may ruminate differently. But be warned: In my case, seeing or hearing something quite trivial -- a saying, a store clerk’s mannerisms, or bad grammar on a food product’s label – triggers a stream-of-consciousness extrapolation toward grander notions and generalizations. That is what often happens in these posts.
Disclaimer #2: Any and all opinions expressed here are my own at the time of writing with no expectation that they will hold beyond my next review of this article. Opinions are like a river, winding hither and yon, encountering obstacles and rapids, and suffering turbulent mixing of silts from its depths and detritus from its banks. But just as a river has its clear headwaters and a fertile delta, so do opinions, notwithstanding any intervening missteps and uncertainties.
Reminder: You can visit the Cycloid Fathom Technical Publishing website at cycloid-fathom.com and the gallery at cycloid-fathom.com/gallery.
Forthcoming posts (unless life intervenes)
I no longer ask…why?
….pointless queries leading nowhere
Sched 2/5/2024
Poesy past and present
……I am an iambic pentameter guy
Sched 2/12/2024
This area is beautiful
……To your eyes or mine?
Sched 2/19/2024
Tangents and more
…Be a circle or be square
Sched 2/26/2024
FINE!
……Just do it!
Sched 3/4/2024
Grace under pressure
……Ice and silicon, strange bedfellows
Sched 3/11/2024
Our Bollards and Lines
…mooring more than ships
Sched 3/18/2024
