How do you pronounce "garage"? (yard, retired)

[American girl]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Good info, Versau. Thanks!

I love accents, and generally I've found most Maine accents very charming. But for some reason whenever the guy talks about his garawrge, it's like nails on a chalkboard for me.

I have a friend who always says breakfrist instead of breakfast. Drives me crazy but I never let on. It would be rude to make note of it, I think. Same with chimley, liberry and prescription when they renew their subscription.

[bangorme]

"R" doesn't exist in the downeastern dialect unless it starts a word or is double (e.g. tomorrow).

[beltrams]

Originally Posted by Verseau

I'm guessing you meant 1 "R."

This is a phenomenon called "intrusive R" which exists throughout eastern New England.

Basically, it has to do with that "ah" vowel in the second syllable of "garage." In the traditional eastern New England accent, that vowel exists in two types of words: 1) [ar] words like far, car, yard, etc. and 2) words like father, palm, spa, garage, aunt, etc.

Traditionally, people in eastern New England didn't pronounce [r] after vowels, like the words in category one. This is still heard today. However, many people make an effort to pronounce their Rs (probably because of the unnecessary social stigma attached to "dropping your Rs").

The problem is that category one contains a lot more words than category two, so most people associate that "ah" sound with [ar] words in their heads. This means that sometimes people will accidentally insert an [r] in the category two words where it doesn't belong. So "spa" might sound like "spar" and "aunt" might sound like "aren't."

This all happens below the level of consciousness. It has nothing to do with intelligence or how articulate someone is; it's just one of those fascinating quirks of human language. I was a graduate student in linguistics and this is the kind of stuff that intrigued me.

This phenomenon doesn't exist for most people under 30 because they have lost the older "ah" sound altogether. Instead, it has merged with the "aw" sound, so that the words "father" and "bother" rhyme (this isn't the case for most older people in Maine).

One thing that I've noticed since moving to Aroostook from southern New England is that kids in The County (south-central Aroostook) talk *much* differently than older County folk. That is, the kids talk almost like Midwestern or even West Coast kids while the older folks still have that powerful Maine-Acadian talk going. I am particularly amazed at this young/old differentiation when visiting places such a the local home improvement store in Houlton that has a very diverse mix of older employees working along side high school and college-aged kids after school and on weekends.

I myself grew up in the suburbs of Boston. I'm now 49 and I don't think I ever talked like Boston kids (think of the admittedly extreme example portrayed by Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting), but I do have a certain New England way of talking that would never be confused with my cousin who is also my age but grew up in the semi-desert, once rural area of eastern Riverside County, California. The amazing thing is that contemporary County young folk that I run into in stores, etc. almost remind me of how my cousin talks.

I wonder if decades of national television, radio, and so on in this country, are at work here, erasing all the minor dialects such as those from Maine, South Boston, Acadian, and so on?

I haven't really spent enough time in northern Aroostook, closer to the true Acadian culture, to notice how the kids speak up there, compared to their parents/grandparents. I don't really understand much about the differences between a Down East accent or an Acadian one either. I just know that the kids around The County that I have run into lately don't sound anything like the adults.

And lastly: NOOOO!!! I am not some body from Away, running around The County criticizing people's speech. It's just something I kind of quietly noticed. I hadn't really ever mentioned it to anybody until I saw your comment about under 30 folk Verseau.

[mensaguy]

Originally Posted by bangorme

"R" doesn't exist in the downeastern dialect unless it starts a word or is double (e.g. tomorrow).

I think the lack of an "R" in the pronunciation of words that have one written explains why one is often added to words that end in an "A."

[tcrackly]

Originally Posted by mainebrokerman

Garage is pronounced gar-rarge

route as in route 1 , is pronounced root

scallops is pronounced scall-lops (all as in all) not scal-lops (al as in al the name)

Glad you can be the last word on pronunciation...but I grew up in Boston and have lived in Maine for 28 years now. I say:

gah-RAHJ
root
SCAL-lups(as in Al)

Maybe I could be a Stepford wife.

[fxtrader]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

Glad you can be the last word on pronunciation...but I grew up in Boston and have lived in Maine for 28 years now. I say:

gah-RAHJ
root
SCAL-lups(as in Al)

Maybe I could be a Stepford wife.

Im with Maine Brokerman

[cebdark]

"Gah-raj" I've lived here all of my life.

My mother had basically no pronounced "Maine" accent, and I found over the years that my father's "Maine accent" was more pronounced only when he worked job bids on the coast for an extended period of time. When he was surrounded by "deeply downeast" (for lack of a better term) lobstermen, he tended to pick up the accent more. When he came back home, he would lose some of that accent.

I think it depends on what most people heard growing up, as well as what they listen to on a daily basis. IMHO, we tend to 'follow the herd" when we hang out with certain people regularly - starting with language.

The current trek to 'globalization' and technology which now allows people to talk over the computer may explain some of the younger people having less distinct accents as they are communicating with many people of different dialects perhaps?

I don't know, but I personally surmise that this is a factor in addition to the amount of TV watched vs. time spent actually conversing with people within a home area.

When I lived out of country in the late 80s, I didn't realize how deep the accent was until I came home. I, too, had lost a lot of my weak Maine accent, but found that I tended to talk more like the people I was surrounded by.

[Verseau]

Actually, the fact that most people on television have "generic" American accents is not so much the cause of the problem as an effect of it.

The most important factors of the "homogenization" of dialects among young people in the United States are social and geographic mobility. Regional accents have gradually been becoming less distinctive over about a 65 year period, coinciding with the rise of mobility (both social and geographic) after World War II.

The surge of national patriotism following the second World War led to a glorification of the American "Heartland," e.g. the Midwestern states from Ohio to Kansas. It is the native dialect of this Midland region that was praised as the "best" and "most correct" form of American English. Hollywood actors and radio reporters abandoned the pseudo-British speech of the wealthy, European-educated East Coast elite (commonly heard in films of the 1920s and 1930s), which was synonymous with class and intellect, in favor of a more "natural," "homegrown," "all-American" speech from the Midwest.

Over time, people who did not speak with this "neutral" or "correct" accent were stigmatized. People with strong southern accents were seen as slow or backwards; people with strong New York accents were seen as crude. Films and TV shows only helped to reinforce these stereotypes. Anyone hoping to climb the social ladder had to avoid sounding provincial or boorish.

Perhaps more importantly, people began moving far away from where they grew up or where their families had lived for generations, goaded by the American dream and the convenience of the automobile and Interstate Highway system. When people with diverse accents settle in a given area, a phenomenon called "leveling" occurs, wherein the dialect becomes more homogenous. Usually the dialect moves in the direction of what is considered "correct" or "the norm" by the wider society.

More and more people were able to afford college educations. Colleges attracted people from all over the country and soon high education levels became strongly correlated with "neutral" or non-regional speech. As a result, people with regional accents were considered even less intelligent.

TV and media are only a very small part of the picture. Numerous studies show that watching television has almost no effect on the way a person speaks (except in introducing new words, i.e. slang, expressions, etc.). Our peers are really the ones who define how we talk, and most people's accents are 99% set in stone by the time they finish adolescence. This is why there is such a gap between the old and the young; people in their 70s are still speaking like teenagers spoke in the 1950s.

But regional dialects will never die out completely. Language is a natural organism that likes to mutate and evolve. Kids in Maine still don't speak like kids in Minnesota, who don't speak like kids in Mississippi.

[RMoore007]

I must be getting old AND lazy because all I can hear myself saying is: grahj. Any two sylable word worth its salt can be reduced to a one sylable word.

[beltrams]

Originally Posted by Verseau

Actually, the fact that most people on television have "generic" American accents is not so much the cause of the problem as an effect of it.

The most important factors of the "homogenization" of dialects among young people in the United States are social and geographic mobility. Regional accents have gradually been becoming less distinctive over about a 65 year period, coinciding with the rise of mobility (both social and geographic) after World War II.

The surge of national patriotism following the second World War led to a glorification of the American "Heartland," e.g. the Midwestern states from Ohio to Kansas. It is the native dialect of this Midland region that was praised as the "best" and "most correct" form of American English. Hollywood actors and radio reporters abandoned the pseudo-British speech of the wealthy, European-educated East Coast elite (commonly heard in films of the 1920s and 1930s), which was synonymous with class and intellect, in favor of a more "natural," "homegrown," "all-American" speech from the Midwest.

Over time, people who did not speak with this "neutral" or "correct" accent were stigmatized. People with strong southern accents were seen as slow or backwards; people with strong New York accents were seen as crude. Films and TV shows only helped to reinforce these stereotypes. Anyone hoping to climb the social ladder had to avoid sounding provincial or boorish.

Perhaps more importantly, people began moving far away from where they grew up or where their families had lived for generations, goaded by the American dream and the convenience of the automobile and Interstate Highway system. When people with diverse accents settle in a given area, a phenomenon called "leveling" occurs, wherein the dialect becomes more homogenous. Usually the dialect moves in the direction of what is considered "correct" or "the norm" by the wider society.

More and more people were able to afford college educations. Colleges attracted people from all over the country and soon high education levels became strongly correlated with "neutral" or non-regional speech. As a result, people with regional accents were considered even less intelligent.

TV and media are only a very small part of the picture. Numerous studies show that watching television has almost no effect on the way a person speaks (except in introducing new words, i.e. slang, expressions, etc.). Our peers are really the ones who define how we talk, and most people's accents are 99% set in stone by the time they finish adolescence. This is why there is such a gap between the old and the young; people in their 70s are still speaking like teenagers spoke in the 1950s.

But regional dialects will never die out completely. Language is a natural organism that likes to mutate and evolve. Kids in Maine still don't speak like kids in Minnesota, who don't speak like kids in Mississippi.

This is *very* interesting.

Thanks!