Kennedy pronunciation [WAS: Sarah Palin's]

Steve Hayes <hayesmstw@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:56:31 -0700 (PDT), spinoza1111 <spinoza1111@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

[snip]

For straight and true AMERICAN pronunciation, listen to Franklin
Delano Roosevelt say "the aunly thing we hahve to feeeaar is feeeaar
itself." Listen to John Kennedy say "ahsk not whaat your [r diminished
but still rhotic] country cahn do for your: ahsk whaat you cahn do for
your country". And listen to Martin Luther King: "I have a dream".

How silly to say any of these accents were "straight and true AMERICAN,"
as if everyone else's weren't.

What's the "h" doing there in "ahsk"?

I've heard recordings of that quote from Kennedy, and he certainly didn't
pronounce it like "ahsk". That's what Brits do. We Woozers pronounce it more
like "awsk" (or "orsk", though non-rhotically).

JFK's Inaugural speech supports you; when he speaks of "Ask not what
your country" etc, the "ask" is pretty much the usual US /&/ sound. See
time 4:07 of this Youtube:

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=VB6hLg3PRbY

What has nearly disappeared in US speech is what Kennedy did with final
R. In this speech, danjuh, powah, failyuh, endeavuh, fiyuh, heeyuh. I
was very struck by this at the time (I was six years old and we were all
taken to the school auditorium for his speech; I just listened for the
next "funny" pronunciation.)

I remember hearing "ahnser" in recordings of young John Kerry (similar
region) in his antiwar days. His 1971 testimony is on Youtube. I hear
"ah" in the word "asking" in "We're asking Americans to think about
that, " but it's not as strong in the next two sentences, "How do you
ask a man..." Perhaps he was losing his accent. Perhaps it related to
the R in "We're." Perhaps it was the emphasis (Kennedy's "ask not" was
also strongly emphasized). See 0:34 in:

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=M7_Si6JYUI8&feature=related

--
Best -- Donna Richoux
An American living in the Netherlands


.

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