Tawnic, Tonic, Both, Bolth, Cain't, Can't, Cant

Are words spoken in a different accent different words than than if they were said in the speaker's natural accent? I grew up in New Hampshire, went to school in North Carolina and live in DC and during my life I have studied four different languages. Between all the moves and the non-English sounds I learned, my accent became a hodgepodge. The only word that really brings out the New England in my voice is "Tonic," which I say naturally as if I just brushed my teeth in the Boston Hahba. Most folks who interact with me probably would not even notice it because that is how I speak all the time and because it is fairly subtle. Even if they did notice, the hearer would likely not understand anything different because that way of saying "o" is not surprising to hear from someone without a single strong regional accent in a major East Coast city.

Less subtly, I say something that sounds like "bolth" when I am saying "both." I have no idea where this mangling came from; only a handful of people I have met say it similarly and there does not seem to be a common, linguistic tie among us. Even though it sounds strange even to people who have known me for quite a while, it does not alter or obscure my meaning at all. "I would like bolth the fish AND the chicken" causes no confusion in a restaurant. Not only does it not cause confusion but it is understood to be the same word because it functions the same way. At most, it may sound like I have a speech impediment or have been drinking.

On the other hand, I pronounce "can't" in the most straightforward American way imaginable. You would never even think to note the way I said it if this were a spoken conversation because it is said the way an educated, white, American male with no discernible regional accent would say it. If, however, I took one of the more extreme pronunciations that I heard during my time in the North Carolina, "cain't," and used that in place of "can't" during a normal conversation, it would be a meaningful decision to use that pronunciation. It would effect what I was understood to be meaning because that decision is effectively a word choice. Were I to say "cannot," my speech would sound more formal and would also impact the understanding of the listener but to a lesser extent than would feigning an accent that was not in any way my own.

The greater question is whether this is a phenomenon more like yelling or more like word choice. If it is more like yelling, that is, an outside-of-language cue that impacts oral communication, then the question is much less interesting. The understanding of what you say is changed when you yell, as opposed to purring it, to the listener. Though your method of delivery changes what a listener understands, that vehicle (yelling, signing, morse code) is not a part of language. (Yes, I know that is a gigantic claim I am making but this is a blog. Go write a philosophy thesis if you care so much.) If, however, it is like a word choice, then it is much more interesting because that leads to the idea that "can't" and "cain't" are two different words whose meaning is dependent on the accent of the person saying them. Relatedly, the back-woodsinnest, Yadkinville, NC-living, no-school-going survivalist would convey a different meaning if he were to say "can't" in the more common American dialect when he said "I can't get the meat done rayeght" than were he to use his more natural "cain't."

Finally, there is a word "cant' that sounds exactly like "can't" when I say it. Having never heard someone from Yadkinville say "cant," I am very interested in whether or not the two words come out the same from their mouths as well. Cant and can't are clearly different words, in spite of their identical pronunciations because the listener understands them differently and they are different parts of speech. Choosing a pronunciation other than our natural one to say a particular word in a sentence also leads to a difference in understanding on the part of the listener and so those changed words can be considered to be different words than if they were pronounced as the speaker would without affectation.

A quick, non-demonstrative but related story will serve to wrap this up. There was a visiting professor at my current school, we will call her Scadifi for sake of anonymity, who taught my section's property class. She was a young teacher who was quite smart but had several personality quirks that rendered her an ineffective teacher here. Half of the class was most bothered by her need to demonstrate her credentials, as though she was not herself convinced that she belonged in front of 125 students. The more problematic one in my estimation was that once or twice per run-on sentence [glass houses and stones, sure], she would produce a word in a vaguely British accent. Each time, it was jarring because her natural voice was the educated, Atlantic Coast mixture that most college-educated East Coasters are used to. The problem was that these accented words did not seem to serve a purpose, in fact, she claimed to be unaware that she was doing it. There was no rhyme or reason to the changed accent at all, no common sounds, parts of speech or position in the sentence. They did not impact the meaning of what she said because she did it so consistently and at the same time, without any order or logic. However, they did add to the atmosphere that she was trying too hard to seem impressive.

Eyes on the ball.

If you are not already doing so, it is time for you to start reading Glenn Greenwald. He writes trenchant and timely pieces about issues that I am always just about to step up and write about. Unfortunately, he seems to miss one important objection per post that someone not of his viewpoint would raise but it is really worthwhile to read his arguments as a starting-off point for discussion. The particular piece that got me writing this is his take on the FISA imbroglio up in the Congress right now.

I do not think that I have much to add beyond what Greenwald is putting out there (there are at least 3 pieces on the subject up) but it is important to America that industries not be granted immunity to suits against them for actions they took following orders from the president to break the law. Our society does not function that way and there are few opportunities to stand up and make that clear. This is one of them so please lobby your Congress-people not to let our country slide a bit further towards authoritarianism and a surveillance-state. The proper solution to this is to allow the telecommunications companies who provided private customer data to the government is to allow those companies to make the case that it was necessary or legal. The answer is not to grant them retroactive immunity to law suits.

Pakistan III

Some folks have been making the easy logical mistake of thinking that because there is a) instability in Pakistan and b) a bunch of Taliban and al Qaeda taking refuge in the north of that country that the influx of the latter have some causality towards the former. This is so barely accurate that I hesitate to even acknowledge it due to the greater damage done by the misconception. For the ongoing revolt in Swat, the influx is certainly not helping and it causes a distraction and disincentive to military action in the area.

The broader, more seriously problematic instability is a function of the misrule of Musharraf, the peculiarities of Pakistani politics and the realities of trying to govern a country with vast wealth stratification, cultural divides and reverberating historical troubles. It does not, however, have to do with some gun toting beardies from Afghanistan piling over the border. For my take on the likelihood of "Islamist" takeover in Pakistan, see the Pakistan II post.

If it were not for the misery and injustice involved in jailing of activists, journalists, judges and lawyers and the pathetic excuse that the martial law was in reaction to Islamist threats, I would still be behind Musharraf 100%. His influence had been positive and apart from his myopic views of the problems of Pakistan, he was governing in a way that lines up well with what Pakistan needs. It seems unlikely that electoral politics or the chaos of a coup would bring as suitable a leader but the results of martial law are completely unacceptable. This puts me in the awkward position of at once demanding an end to martial law, release of the captives and reinstatement of the judiciary as well as not really advocating a change in the power structure until a more suitable method for grooming political leaders is in place.

Smoke

Staying up way past when I need to sleep to be less sick in the morning and ready to try to get fit at the gym, I tuned in to a show about Hip Hop Theater. It was very interesting but sort of a mess as a whole, as these things tend to be, because the various parties involved did not have a consistent idea of what the problem was or what the dialogue around the problem should be. Some people were mad at Capitalism, some people were mad at those co-opting hip-hop's inherent political critique and others were mad that white people controlled the means of distribution. Now, the real revolutionary says that those are all the same parcel of The Real Problem but that does not help much with solution or dialogue.

What really hit home, though, is that I would be defensive about the role and blame assigned to white people by the panelists. I am not a programming director for Clear Channel, I think that they do a lot of harm to the world. I am also not a force for gentrification in my "transitional" neighborhood, though I am an interloper. In fact, I am generally sympathetic to the remarks that the panelists were making, if I think about them as intellectual ideas, so why the defensiveness? Part is obviously insecurity and my natural combativeness. Primarily, though, it is easy for me to forget about racial problems as a white person and really easy to not see them as greater than individual-to-individual affairs.

Everytime that I remember this simple truth, I run a thought experiment. Usually it is not deliberately, but I am dumb to the degree that I accidentally rediscover this simple truth about once every two weeks, starting from scratch each time. Slavery was only four generations ago. Jim Crow was one, two or none, depending on how old you are. Apartheid South Africa was almost certainly in your lifetime if you are reading this. That means that stories of being enslaved are just as present in the lives of people today as the stories I hear of family dairy farms, portraits on the stairs and antiques in the house. Memories of Jim Crow, lynchings and state force against demonstrators for an end to segregation are more recent than my grandmother's tales of washing clothes by hand and dusting to get a nickel and a dime for both movies and a candy bar on Saturday afternoon. Just as recent as my dad's stories about tormenting his frat brothers' oppugnants or my uncle getting even with the boy who made fun of his crutches by beating his tormentor with them. While you have been around to watch television, President Reagan vetoed a bill imposing sanctions on South Africa for perpetuating the Apartheid system. That same president pushed to reinstate the tax exempt status of private schools that discriminated based on race.

Our social contract requires a great deal of trust for our society to function effectively. We all sacrifice some liberty, some privilege in order that all may enjoy greater security, happiness and, in the end, freedom. Even if you think that racism is done and gone from our society, white people have been abusing that social contract to the detriment of whatever groups were not considered white up until, at the very least, the late 1980's. It is irresponsible and unduly idealistic to imagine that when it becomes shameful to say that black people are dumber than white people, and the state no longer condones open discrimination, the air is cleared and we all get a fresh start. That trust needs to be earned and the social bonds of our Grand Experiment need to be reforged in a just way if we expect the system to work properly.

Ben Folds Five are singing about a relationship here but the message resonates: "Those who say the past is not dead, well, stop and smell the smoke. You keep saying the past is not dead, well stop and smell the smoke." Even when racial prejudice disappears, the stink will not wash out without deliberate effort.


EDIT: I left out the most important part, the bit tying the beginning to the latter half. In instances like this in which one is listening to someone else share feelings they cannot fully comprehend, it is important to be conscious in listening constructively and openly rather than defensively or in a critiquing manner. Sharing your own view point and justifying defensiveness is rarely productive, particularly initially.

Thanksgiving

It is nice to know that at the end of the day, there is a lot more to this world than what man creates.
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/11/20/1110273-hailstorm-sets-off-bomblets-in-lebanon

The story describes hailstorms in Lebanon that are essentially mine-sweeping the unexploded cluster bombs that Israel dropped there that would otherwise lie dormant and potentially injure people when they were stepped on. Cluster bombs, like mines, are indiscriminate killers, frequently staying in the ground for years and injuring non-combatants long after the cessation of hostilities. This is borderline illegal under current international law and their use in any case other than absolute necessity should be objectionable to any civilized society.

It reminds me of a story that Kurt Vonnegut tells in Slaughterhouse Five about man, war and nature. Another world is possible, Happy Thanksgiving:

"Billy Pilgrim padded downstairs on his blue and ivory feet. He went into the kitchen, where the moonlight called his attention to a half bottle of champagne on the kitchen table, all that was left from the reception in the tent. Somebody had stoppered it again. "Drink me," it seemed to say.

So Billy uncorked it with his thumbs. It didn't make a pop. The champagne was dead. So it goes.

Billy looked at the clock on the gas stove. He had an hour to kill before the saucer came. He went into the living room, swinging the bottle like a dinner bell, turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this :

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed."

Quoted from: http://leonardo.spidernet.net/Artus/2386/slaughter5.htm