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[melack]

Also, to get slightly back on topic, I too used to work at a call center. Well, Nintendo of America consumer service. All told, a pretty cool place to work. Anyways, talking to people from all over the US and Canada gave me a tremendous appreciation of all the different accents this country has. Even in the South, the accents vary a lot. The difference between a Louisiana accent and one found in South Carolina is actually pretty great. I also learned to differentiate between Canadian accents for the first time. I can pretty easily spot the difference between, say, a Nova Scotia accent and a Toronto accent. For an American who has been to Canada maybe four times in his life, I'm pretty proud of that.

[Dexter]

Well, there is also the simple fact that we sort of had widespread radio and television earlier and stronger than basically anywhere else and... that's the great accent homogenizer, you know.

More and more, we learn our accents and dialects from the teevee, you understand.

Hell, many Brits for a long stretch of time learned to sing with American accents, despite speaking with heavy British-type accents, because of the popularity of American music over there.

ARMCHAIR LINGUIST ALERT

Actually, despite the existence of mass media, regional accent variations continue to exist.  The first example that springs immediately to mind the northern cities vowel shift, which is a fairly recent development -- the trigger for the shift was first identified within the past 50 years.

I suppose it's possible, though I have no real scientific basis for this, that kids growing up today might have more homogenous accents than kids in the past, given that it seems like Kids These Days watch more TV and watch it earlier in their development than kids in the past did, who generally probably did not become voracious consumers of TV until well after they learned their accent.

[AugustWest]

I used to deliver for Papa John's a few years ago.  Also, it's a local company.  Papa John started in Louisville (OK, actually right across the river in Jeff) and is still based here.  I know nothing about his politics.

[littlefallsmets]

Oh, there are still regional accents, of course.

But they're slllllllllloooooooooowllllly going away.

It's the sort of change that doesn't completely happen in one lifetime, though.

[theinevitable]

my linguistics professor told us today about how a lab at washU is doing a lot of research on spelling and reading acquisition, and they have noticed a new pattern of misspellings-- specifically, a large number of kids spelling "truck" as "chruk" or "chruc" or "chruck." Which... I guess we do kind of pronounce those the same.

he also talks a lot about how people who don't differentiate between the dAWn sound and the dOn sound confuse him.

[jaydub]

my linguistics professor told us today about how a lab at washU is doing a lot of research on spelling and reading acquisition, and they have noticed a new pattern of misspellings-- specifically, a large number of kids spelling "truck" as "chruk" or "chruc" or "chruck." Which... I guess we do kind of pronounce those the same.

he also talks a lot about how people who don't differentiate between the dAWn sound and the dOn sound confuse him.

What kind of moron kid makes a word longer when they misspell it?  There was a kid in primary school who spelled "said" "sed",  "school" "scool", "knee" "nee" etc - I can understand that.  But what makes someone spell "shrimp" "schrimps"? (I've seen that one myself).

[melack]

Does that mean there's people who go around pronouncing "definitely" as "defiNATely?" Because there are so many goddamned stupid kids who continue to spell the word that way it drives me fuck*ng insaaaaaaaaaaaaane, etc.

[wombat]

he also talks a lot about how people who don't differentiate between the dAWn sound and the dOn sound confuse him.

This does not seem like a very good use of class time.

[linnea]

I was talking to my Dad today and he got REALLY PISSED and started yelling/lecturing about how I need to "settle in" and not move somewhere and not go to grad school. Why is he bein' such a dick about it?

[Golfhaus]

I was talking to my Dad today and he got REALLY PISSED and started yelling/lecturing about how I need to "settle in" and not move somewhere and not go to grad school. Why is he bein' such a dick about it?

Jealousy, perhaps?

[Arachno-capitalist]

I was talking to my Dad today and he got REALLY PISSED and started yelling/lecturing about how I need to "settle in" and not move somewhere and not go to grad school. Why is he bein' such a dick about it?

He's obviously tired of updating the Christmas card list. Stop being so selgiraffe for once in your life.

[littlefallsmets]

I'm guessing he's probably just... worried about you, worried that if you never just pick one place to plunk down and start grinding, you'll always be searching and never stick in one place long enough to be happy.

I get similar stuff from my parents, really, they mean well, they mean well.

[linnea]

So was it just random pissed off yelling or did he make any salient points in support of his position?

His argument points:
1. You have already done a lot of fun stuff in your life. (actual quote)
2. You need to stop dreaming so big. (actual quote)
3. You need to settle down and save some money. You need to fully pay off your $21k car and your $35k student loans before you assume any more debt. (actual quote)
4. You should settle down and get married. If you did that, I'm sure that you and your husband would have a combined income of 100,000 and that's more than enough for anybody. (actual quote)

He didn't buy my side of it, which is that my lifetime earning potential will be much larger if I were to go to grad school. I'll be better eqiupped to pay off my $56,000 in debts (plus however much I have to borrow for grad school) with a Master's degree than at my my current job.  I also think that having my PMP designation and getting an MBA in a foreign country would make me really marketable.

However, my dad thinks that people men who are successful in business are Naturally Born That Way (and he has an unspoken, highly-buried and unquestioned misogynistic worldview that says women aren't good at math or business).  Yet I have a degree in architecture and I do cartography as my day to day job. I think I might be able to develop the entrepreneurial spirit if I had some business education and work for myself someday.

I think that it really, really stuck in his craw that I made as much money per year in Alaska as he did.

Jealousy, perhaps?

I think you're right, Mr. Haus. I also think that it's a total douchebag Hunt's move to take out one's own insecurities on one's own daughter.

[lprkn]

Man, the more I hear about other people's families, the more I like my own. We are very nice to each other. Perhaps it is an anomaly.

[jaydub]

Not really.  Mine's pretty good too (even with divorced parents!)  It just sounds sort of boastful, so I don't bring it up much.