Language Barrier
I grew up in Northern New England. Even after a generation of this horseshit, I can't get used to the idea that a foot of snow is news. Of course in summer, the same broadcast media manage to make thunderstorms news. Snow in winter, rain in summer: wow, what a shocker!
It's all in how you phrase things. Not long ago, we had brush fires (if they burnt brush) and forest fires (if they burnt trees). Now we have...breathless pause...wildfires. Never mind that my dictionary says "wildfire" is any fire out of control: it's the term that inspires fear, so go with it.
Some special punishment ought to be reserved for the inventors of the oldest weather hyperbole of all, one that incorporates hysteria and solecism as well as fear-mongering. I speak of "nor'easter."
Friendly and unfriendly students of New England speech agree that no New England dialect (at least in the English language) has ever dropped its "th:" mangled it, yes, but never dropped it. The late Carl de Suze, a Boston radio announcer for many years and a solid student of New England dialects, believed this beastly word began in New York. He argued that it was a survivor of a whole range of failed efforts by Manhattan journalists to render Yankee dialects in print. In recent times broadcast journalists, who believe anything they hear, picked this faux pas up and have apparently made it permanent. They seem to have done so in the innocent belief that mispronouncing dialect made them more folksy.
The appropriate pronunciation, at least along the coast, is "nutheastah." The rest of us just called them snowstorms.
It's all in how you phrase things. Not long ago, we had brush fires (if they burnt brush) and forest fires (if they burnt trees). Now we have...breathless pause...wildfires. Never mind that my dictionary says "wildfire" is any fire out of control: it's the term that inspires fear, so go with it.
Some special punishment ought to be reserved for the inventors of the oldest weather hyperbole of all, one that incorporates hysteria and solecism as well as fear-mongering. I speak of "nor'easter."
Friendly and unfriendly students of New England speech agree that no New England dialect (at least in the English language) has ever dropped its "th:" mangled it, yes, but never dropped it. The late Carl de Suze, a Boston radio announcer for many years and a solid student of New England dialects, believed this beastly word began in New York. He argued that it was a survivor of a whole range of failed efforts by Manhattan journalists to render Yankee dialects in print. In recent times broadcast journalists, who believe anything they hear, picked this faux pas up and have apparently made it permanent. They seem to have done so in the innocent belief that mispronouncing dialect made them more folksy.
The appropriate pronunciation, at least along the coast, is "nutheastah." The rest of us just called them snowstorms.
posted by Uncle | 23:35
2 Comments:
Yes, New Englanders and storms — and why do they drive in the first snowstorm or two of every damned seaon as though they had never seen it before?
Less gas...more distance between cars...how hard is that?
Maybe it's not so regional and maybe it's another lingua franca of the socially insecure. There's that pretty new cliché that the Weather Channel is MTV for the senior set. That's something the simple minded can measure and see and speak of without having to know much at all.
Eh, you want to talk about the weather. Friggin' no! Bring me an idea instead!
Made you talk! Thoughts of the day include who *are* these people who appear to need a new shovel every time it snows? Who made cola and potato chips the default snowstorm rations?
And how long does it take for snowflake to snowflake coverage to pall?
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