April 10, 2016 @ 9:33 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Language and advertising, Language and politics
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ICYMI, the median presidential candidate TV ad:
April 10, 2016 @ 9:33 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Language and advertising, Language and politics
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jhh said,
April 10, 2016 @ 10:34 am
The southern accent is generic, huh? Hmmm…
[(myl) I noticed that… The ad was "Written by Kendra Eash, and made entirely with stock footage from Dissolve". Kendra Eash seems to be from the U.S. northeast, and Dissolve "was founded by image-industry veterans including founders of iStockphoto and Veer, and executives from Getty Images, Corbis, and Fotolia. Dissolve's headquarters are in Calgary, Canada, with staff in Los Angeles, New York City, and Vancouver." So there might well be some regional prejudice creeping in…]
David Marjanović said,
April 10, 2016 @ 11:02 am
Didn't Bill Clinton think so on occasion?
Victor Mair said,
April 10, 2016 @ 11:41 am
As soon as Mark posted this, I was going to comment on the tinge of a southern accent at times, but got distracted by other things.
How does George W's southern accent fit into this. Is it affected?
mollymooly said,
April 11, 2016 @ 3:36 pm
Candidate took a stand on the podium vs lectern debate.
Jerry Friedman said,
April 11, 2016 @ 4:33 pm
I got a feeling of somewhere not too far from Baltimore, but that could show how little I know about accents.
Chris C. said,
April 11, 2016 @ 5:08 pm
No doubt the sample has been skewed by GWB, JEB!, and of course, Bill Clinton stumping for his wife.
andyb said,
April 16, 2016 @ 4:01 pm
There was definitely a Jebbishness about the accent, but I don't think that was intentional. I think they were going for "generic movie President".
In movies and TV, the President is almost always Southern, but not _too_ Southern, and not from anywhere specifically identifiable in the South. It has to be generic-South—if he actually sounds Texas, he's not generic President, he's GWB-analog (or, in days past, LBJ). Plus, in the course of the movie, he's almost certainly going to have argue with a general from either Texas or Georgia and some northern person who doesn't want to use the army, and he has to sound as distinct as possible from both of them.