Kodi Arfer / Wisterwood

My brother and I are auditioning for the next season of Biggest Loser

Topic List
#001 | Smithy04 |
Here's the audition video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLY4Jz2cfno

Enjoy.
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Smithy/Freepizza/Heydude/Monty/Shadowspy
#002 | AzumarillMan |
Nice accent. Where in the Midwest are you from?
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#003 | Pooty Boy |
Nice video. I'd watch for you guys!
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"A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing." - George Lucas
#004 | Smithy04 |
We're from Chicago.
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Smithy/Freepizza/Heydude/Monty/Shadowspy
#005 | HeyDude |
I don't hear an accent at all!
#006 | AzumarillMan |
Then that probably means you have the same one. :P
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#007 | BUM | | (edited)
Heh, yeah, we midwesterners are famous for not understanding we have an accent. Typically after a while we'll conclude that perhaps our accent is just sounding 'normal.'

Really I suppose there's not a such thing as correct, since everything about language is subjective. What are tell-tale signs of the "midwestern" (kind of a misnomer if you ask me, seeing as Michigan and even Illinois are more of a mid-eastern state) accent?

There's probably a bit of variation, because even Illinois folk will say Michigan people sound different, and (with the exception of the UP) we typically don't understand why.
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#008 | Ocarinakid2 |
Best of luck getting on the show!

Also, after years of getting called out on it, I can now hear my Cleveland accent. Especially when saying the word "accent".
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Ocarinakid
#009 | AzumarillMan |
Really I suppose there's not a such thing as correct, since everything about language is subjective.

Not everything! Variation exists, but it is constrained by universal, inviolable rules intimately tied to the design of language itself.

What are tell-tale signs of the "midwestern" (kind of a misnomer if you ask me, seeing as Michigan and even Illinois are more of a mid-eastern state) accent?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_cities_vowel_shift

Ricky is 2 for 6 on those but also exhibits /o/ rounding and monophthongization, which I'm surprised isn't in the article. I should fix that.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#010 | AzumarillMan |
Basically though if you want to diagnose the accent, listen for short a sounds like in "lap." If they have it, it sound like "lamp" but without the m.

Also, good luck with getting on the show! I'd totally watch you guys.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#011 | BUM |
That's pretty interesting! Some of those I recognize in Michigan, especially rural, perhaps slightly northerly (#3, a little #1. I don't know anyone specifically who produces a diphthong in cat or back, but I know I have heard it), but don't seem present in urban Michigan. Of the six, I don't understand #2 or #4.

Though I definitely say "dawn" as "yawn" and not as "don." I didn't know that was weird, and am probably caught up on the spelling. I say similar words the same, like lawn and awning. Neat.

Also I say lap just like lamp without the m. Dictionary.com offers an IPA of the same for lap and lamp, though, sans the m. Is it in error there?
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#012 | BUM |
Man, I'm on a runaway train here, I apologize for that. I watched that video and totally hope you make it on to the show. I enjoy that show, and I think it'd be incredible for you two to be on there.
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#013 | AzumarillMan |
Also I say lap just like lamp without the m. Dictionary.com offers an IPA of the same for lap and lamp, though, sans the m. Is it in error there?

Dictionary.com (and virtually every pronunciation outside the circles of phonetic research) only give phonemic, not phonetic, transcriptions. Think of phonetics as the actual sounds of a language, and phonemics as a sort of detailed but still ambiguous abstraction. The two a sounds, yes, are the same phoneme, but for most speakers are rendered as two totally different allophones depending on the surrounding context (in this case, nasal consonants).

Here's a recording of me differentiating the two, a distinction made even stronger by my Philadelphia-tinged accent:
http://cl.ly/4xaS

I'm not sure if you really do say those two the same, though if you are from Michigan they are much, much, closer. Care to provide a recording?
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
#014 | LinkPrime1 |
Go get 'em tiger. Best of luck!
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Well, there is a new accent of n00b language. It's called: Vet LUEser goes Foreign!-MegaSpy22
Those must be the pants of the gods!-Digitalpython
#015 | PaperSpock |
Does this have anything to do with how when I lived in Southern Illinois, "ant" and "aunt" were pronounced the same, but in Minnesota, they said it like it rhymed with "taunt"?
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