Bmore's accent (Baltimore: live, population, map)

[Uptkid]

Can anyone tell me why Black Baltimoreans have to talk like that?
The "yew" and "tew" pronunciations are absurd.

[dogpark]

Originally Posted by Uptkid

Can anyone tell me why Black Baltimoreans have to talk like that?
The "yew" and "tew" pronunciations are absurd.

Its not just black Baltimoreans; I've heard the long o/ew sound from native whites as well.

[KodeBlue]

Our accent is the worst, however, not all black people from Baltimore talk like that.

[K-Luv]

So, let me ask something here: if you have this accent, do think in the accent? Or, when you read, do you read in the accent? The thinking part would make sense, but I can't grasp the notion of "saying" the accent inside of your head when reading words that are obviously not spelled how the accent would dictate. I mean, when you see this: Baltimore, do you "hear" Baltimore inside of your head? Or do you hear Bawlmer and the like?

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

How can a person be offended by an accent? Sure, everyone will change just to satisfy you.

[barante]

Hey kiddo, maybe they heard yours and tried to make you feel welcome.

[GunsMass]

Originally Posted by K-Luv

So, let me ask something here: if you have this accent, do think in the accent? Or, when you read, do you read in the accent? The thinking part would make sense, but I can't grasp the notion of "saying" the accent inside of your head when reading words that are obviously not spelled how the accent would dictate. I mean, when you see this: Baltimore, do you "hear" Baltimore inside of your head? Or do you hear Bawlmer and the like?

When you read "colonel" do you say it in your head as col-o-nel, but then speak it as "kernel"? A word is ultimately just a symbol. If you learn to pronounce a sequence of letters a certain way, then you have no reason to analyze it phonetically. If your mother points to Baltimore on a map and says, this is where Baw-da-more is, then that's that.

What if a British person asked you whether you read this post in the Queen's English or in the American way you choose to speak it?

[barante]

I'm not sure what any of this will do to pronunciation but the longtime goal of George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain and Chicago's Col. McCormick is about to come true. Texting and tweeting are simplifying the way we spell.

[GunsMass]

Language is constantly changing and that change always caters to the lowest common denominator. As long as we have symbols which express thoughts I think it's all pretty much the same. It might help to consider Asian languages which never traditionally used strings of phonetic symbols for their words to understand that there is no real link between ideas and arbitrarily lengthy sequences of characters.

Besides that, if you're worried about the "kids of today" you should realize that the largest part of the population has always been functionally illiterate. It's not like the ones texting the hare-brained details of their social lives today would have been publishing novels fifty years ago.

[Merc63]

Originally Posted by barante

Texting and tweeting are simplifying the way we spell.

So did Noah Webster, dropping a lot of the letters from the British spellings. And those were simplified from the Olde English way of spelling. Let's not act like this is anything new.