[lit-ideas] Re: Auto-Eu-Phonia (Was Hetero-Kako-Phonia
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:24:41 -0500
JL:
Is this by the grace of God, Geary?
Dunno.
I wonder what accent God had when he talked to Adam and Eve? Or to Moses?
Or to Mohammed? Is God an omniaccentual being? Or does he sound hopelessly
Yiddish? Or Arabic with all those gutturals? -- yikes! I generally don't
tell people this, but God has spoken to me on occasion, but to no avail. I
couldn't understand a single word He said. It sounded a little bit like
Hindi -- there were several Indian fellows at Christian Brothers College --
they talked like they only had two seconds to get everything said. Jesus!
Who'd have guessed so many syllables could fit into one sentence? Anyway,
every time God tries to talk to me, I tell Him: "English, damnit, English!"
He leaves in a huff. I ain't got time to go learn his language. If it's so
damn important that I know, then He'll just have to learn mine.
Mike Geary
speaker of Shakespeare
in Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 1:37 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Auto-Eu-Phonia (Was Hetero-Kako-Phonia
Ursula Stange writes:
"Jimmy Carter's accent made it really difficult for me to accept his
intelligence. Growing up on the south side of Chicago, the only Southern
accents we heard were on the lips of black people or Appalachians (neither
the common terms then). But one of my dearest friends in grammar school was
Eula from Kentucky. Smart and sensitive and cute. But that accent...
My sister has lived in Southern Indiana for thirty years now and her
grandkids drawl horribly. They're cute and smart, but that accent..."
This had me thinking, and have now formulated what call a pretty good
phonological hypotesis.
We know about the "Everybody speaks with an accept except me".
Then we have what I call "Geary's Moral Adage" -- "I can never be wrong" (He
means that he stystem of beliefs and values especially that one endorses are
beyond refutation).
Combining the two we get:
"Everbody tends to have an UGLY except me and my closest kin"
by which I mean my mother and my father and my siblings.
I have not encountered so far anyone with the gut to say,
"My accent is horrible"
or
"My mother's accent is horrible" or ditto for father, or brother or sister.
Whereas to criticise the accents of others is the easy thing to do, and in
the repeated phrase by Stange, "... but that accent".
I justify my motto in terms of survival conditions. It would be totally
pathetic, even by Olaudah Equiano, to criticise his own accent, or dialect.
Is this by the grace of God, Geary?
See what's new at AOL.com and Make AOL Your Homepage.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
