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Gyro, you've outdone yourself here.

I don't believe that a word's meaning or connotation is necessarily predictive of linguistic change—but if you don't like shock/shack, then stock/stack illustrates the same process KS describes. (And if it's spreading into the Niagara region of Ontario, that's because of where it's coming from.)

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cities_Vowel_Shift
From http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/Northeast/ncshift/ncshift2.html
For more general information, see http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/Northeast/ncshift/ncshift.html

Steven

Gyro, I spent four months fielding calls that went between a region of the U.S. and Quebec, where I was the telephone interpreter. It is not my imagination that the American party would refer to shock absorbers, but pronounce it as "shack" absorber. This is not a theoretical idea - this is in the field experience. The pronunciation veered so much to the short a that I misunderstood the first time (the word "absorber" generally wasn't used) and I thought they were indeed talking about the building. I also researched with my peers about the phenomenon. It's like with music - we can read lots of things about things, but those who are in the field will know things that are not reflected in the books (music, in this case), and their experiences tend to be the real McCoy.

Thanks, Steven, for pulling out the links. Fascinating.

Googling "northern cities vowel shift" returned over 3,000 hits, including this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UoJ1-ZGb1w

Bill Labov on YouTube! Who knew?

A very interesting aspect of the shift is that (as Labor mentions early in this clip) the English of the American Midwest has long been the standard for "newscaster" English (i.e., our version of "Received Pronunciation" and a neutral common denominator)—and now it's changing on us!

I almost forgot to mention that not all connotations of shack are negative. What about love shack?



Steven

Just a totally irrelevant anecdote here (well it is about vowels, I suppose):

NZ vowels are ubiquitous here in Australia. We make fun of them in a friendly cross-Tasman sort of way all the time. Some years ago we were living near a naval air base and there were quite a few New Zealanders working there, one of whom told us his area of work was "spears". Well, everyone said the armed forces were underfunded, but we had an instant vision of this guy leaning out the window of the fighter plane chucking spears.

Of course he was saying "spares", as in "spare parts" ...

Ten years of living in France has gone a long way in helping me lose much/some? of the NZ accent I had. Shortly after arriving here I remember causing confusion talking about the shear market.

Keystring, the word "shack" in English is
unique in pronunciation, because of the
generally negative connotations associated with
it. No one in the US would pronounce
another word exactly like it. In some
regions of the US, maybe the NY city area,
some people might pronounce "shock" so that
it roughly resembles "shack," maybe something
like "she-yak," but there's a big difference
to American ears, and no one would confuse
it with "shack." Your French-tuned ears
don't pick up the difference, but it's there.
The difference is in the time duration
and/or intonation of the vowel. A New Yorker
will pronounce the word "shack" in a certain way
that is unique, and will pronounce no other
word exactly like it.

This might be similar to "pou-langk" and
"pou-longk." An English-speaker's
ears don't pick up the difference between
the vowel sounds in these pronunciations,
but a native French speaker would pick it
up right away.

Gyro, I don't have "French-tuned ears". My native language is Canadian English. French is my third language. Secondly, this is absurd. You have devised a theory with no experience behind it. I spent four months hearing people from call centers with varying regional dialects, hearing their overall pronunciation of words: all of them said "shock" in whatever way they said it, but they pronounced other words similarly. If you wish to duplicate my experience I suggest that you phone people at random across America and ask them to read a sample sentence to you, so that you can hear the speech patterns and come to your own conclusions.

You are inventing linguistic theory as you go, and you are presenting them to an experienced linguist who works in particular, when teaching, in native-language pronunciation and fluidity. Nor am I an academician: I am experienced in the field and have applied my knowledge in practical venues. This is silly.

"Disinformation, wrapped in assertions, inside dogma." (Thanks, Piano*Dad.)

"The problem isn't what we don't know; it's what we're sure of that just ain't so." (Thanks to whomever had this in a sig line somewhere.)

Gyro's problem, demonstrated time and time again, isn't just ignorance—it's his infallible certitude that what's wrong is actually correct.

He's so out of his league here that the palaver is even more tiresome, absurd and embarrassing than usual.

Steven

Steven, if I haven't said so, the clip you put up yesterday was fascinating. Did you see the actress in one of the accompanying side clips (do these have a name?) who introduces herself in various English accents around the world?

KS, I did see that! It's great how YouTube can compile a list of "related videos" that might be of interest based on what one is looking at.

BTW, thanks to the folks "down under" for those tidbits about local pronunciation. I knew nothing about that, or even that Wikipedia would have detailed articles on Australian English and New Zealand English (which, of course, it does!).

Steven

"Shack" has negative connotations? Not here it doesn't, at least not to the extent you seem to be suggesting. In my part of the world you can pay a million$+ for a beach shack and be pretty proud of it! If you want to be negative about someone's dwelling you call it a hovel, a dump, a hole or a dive. And that's when you're being polite .

It's not even accurate to say shack is unique in pronunciation, never mind its supposed 100% pejorative meaning.

"Radio Shack" is a long-established retail store chain selling electronics that is ubiquitous nationwide in the U.S.

The phrase "music shack" returned over 47,000 hits on Google.

And don't forget love shack, the grooviest kind of all!

Steven

I don't have first hand experience with the vowel shift phenomenon. I imagine if I heard a speaker from the region in question pronounce "shock" it would sound close to the way I say "shack" and I might misinterpret it. However that speaker might pronounce "shack" in a way subtly different from his pronunciation of "shock," so that other people in that region would not get confused. Gyro, is this consistent with what you are asserting?

If you read about vowel shift in one of the links already provided (or any of the thousands returned by Google for "northern cities vowel shift"), you will learn how the vowel of shack is evolving, too, as part of a pattern involving a larger set of vowels.

Linguistic phenomena are the subject of rigorous and well-documented research and can be described with precision. Unfortunately, speculation by those without academic background or first-hand experience just serves to confuse and implicitly suggests that it's all a matter of opinion.

But it's not all a matter of opinion; even though everyone may have one, it won't necessarily be any more valuable than if you asked a layperson questions about any other field of physical or social sciences. And soliciting the opinion of the least informed yet most intransigent contrarian amounts to nothing more than feeding a troll.

Steven

Currawong - I liked your story about the spears.

While we are on the topic of vowel shifts - there is a region of Massachusetts southwest of Worcester which has a unique dialect and particularly obscure usages with 'r' sounds. A good friend of mine - who was away from home for the first time at college- and sitting around the dinner table with some new friends - noticed a woman at the table who had lost some silverware. He asked her "Oh, would you like a fork?" in such a unique manner that everybody's eyes lit up. He had no idea what was going on.