BONUS: Hoagies, Grammar Police, and Momphoria

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:00

Hello, and welcome to this bonus episode of a history podcast recorded straight after our recently published episode, why Do Americans Speak Differently? I'm joined now by the guest from that episode, Professor Valerie Fridland, to discuss this a little bit more. Valerie, welcome back.

Valerie Fridland: 00:00:16

Thank you. Glad to be here still.

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:19

Yeah.

I never quite know how to reintroduce you because we always record this immediately after the main episode, but it kind of feels like I have to do a. Oh, welcome back. When we've just been sat on this call the whole time. But I guess just quickly, a couple of things that I didn't have time to ask in the main episode.

Just personally, what's your favorite American accent and why?

Valerie Fridland: 00:00:42

Well, I grew up in the South. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee.

Even though I don't really have a very strongly noticeable Southern accent, there are things in my speech I say that still let people know that I am from the South. And for me, when I hear a Southern accent, even though I don't have a strong one, it is the accent of home.

It is all the warmth and, you know, baking and sort of sunny, hot summer days of my youth. And that's why it just feels really warm to me when I hear that. So I love a Southern accent.

I also feel bad because having come from the South, I know, and having had grad students that I brought with me to my new job out West, I know that the Southern accent is not often looked upon favorably in the U.S. while it's considered charming, it's often considered dumb and uneducated and lazy and redneck, and all of those things are really unfortunate and erroneous associations with an accent that just had a different developmental history. So I also want to give a shout out to the south whenever I can in terms of its lovely Southern accent.

And for me, a Coke is always a Coke, whether it's a sprite or a Dr. Pepper or an orange soda. So, you know, I'm gonna cling to that Southern accent as long as I can.

Liam Heffernan: 00:02:07

Yeah, it was when I was in Atlanta that I first heard the term hoagie to relate to what's basically just a baguette, as we call it here.

But I think the Southern accent's so interesting, though, isn't it, because you have these two vastly different stereotypes of this kind of really hospitable, you know, friendly atmosphere versus this kind of, you know, common hillbilly stereotype. It's one or the other, isn't it?

Valerie Fridland: 00:02:37

You know, that's often the way it works when we look at attitudes towards accents.

Really posh accents are like New England speech at the turn of the century, like, you know, standard Southern British speech or received pronunciation historically that that are considered prestigious are often considered cold and unfriendly and snobby and snooty. So they're the opposite of warm and kind.

And so we often find that more regional accents, working class accents, strongly ethnic accents, are the language of community. And for that reason, they make us feel warm and authentic and salt of the earth and connected.

So we often find that we judge accents as radical, wrong or as uneducated at the same time that we actually really like them in a different way.

And we often judge, you know, the more sort of language of education, the accents of high class speech to be more correct or more professional, but less likable. So it's kind of this weird tension that always exists between these two different poles of how we feel about speakers.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:50

Yeah, and speaking of judging, I mean, you are a. Your whole life is studying, you know, linguistics and language, right?

So are you that person who is always, you know, correcting grammar and language when you hear it? You know, are you, are you just, are you that annoying one in the group that always has to correct someone?

Valerie Fridland: 00:04:13

Well, I'm the person people think will do that for sure. I hear that all the time.

When people find out what they do, they instantly clam up and they tell me, they'll often tell me, oh, I'm afraid I'll mess up in front of you. And I want to laugh because if you actually know what linguists do, like linguists like me, we're the opposite of that.

You should say whatever the heck you want in front of me because I am the person that is descriptive in nature.

I'm more interested in what people actually do and what it helps them do in life and why it's beneficial and not negative when someone uses a form that others might consider nonstandard. So I'm the last one to be judging you.

I'm actually the one that will justify why you're saying it the way you're saying it, and tell you the history behind it. So I am not annoying in that way. I'm probably annoying in the way that you might not want to know the history behind why you're saying it.

And I will tell you anyway.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:07

I mean, you must still have like a pet peeve, right? Because for me, it's apostrophes, people who cannot use apostrophes properly when they're writing. Something really grates on me.

You must have, like Just something that.

Valerie Fridland: 00:05:21

Gets, you know, we're all human. It's true.

I, you know, the difference with me is that I do have reactions to things that bother me in other people's speech, but I recognize that they're my problem rather than the problem with the speaker. I understand why I'm having a reaction from a sort of social, historical perspective.

And so that helps me, you know, respond outwardly a little kinder. But I will admit I have a couple pet peeves. I will even admit them publicly to you. One is I love LY on adverbs.

I'm gonna miss them when they go away, and they're going away. So in America, if you see a car driving down the road at a slow rate of speed, someone might say, oh, look at that car driving slow.

And I just want to turn around and say, slowly. It's driving slowly. I like my ly. But it is actually something that is fading significantly. And in more and more, you see slow.

So now that was something of spoken language. And now you actually see, you know, Nike doing ads with it. And, you know, it's creeping into written form.

And when that happens, it probably is a new form that's going to stick around. So, you know, my LY habit is probably the one that irks me the most. But I'm willing to let it go because I know that's just the way of change.

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:41

Yeah, I think that's a valid one. I much prefer slowly to slow. It just sounds. It sounds nicer.

Valerie Fridland: 00:06:46

It sounds less formed. Right. When someone says slow, I. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for it.

Liam Heffernan: 00:06:51

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in. So in the main episode, we discussed or you discussed about how you teach.

And every year your students present their sort of their word, their word of the year, and argue for. For why. But if you could invent a new word or a new slang term or something, what would it be and why?

Valerie Fridland: 00:07:16

Oh, that. You know, that's a hard one. Because slang is one of those things that's super organic.

You know, teenagers don't just, you know, spontaneously come up with new words consciously.

It kind of creeps into their speech, usually from influences like African American, English or even drag culture or something like that that gets picked up and spread or, you know, something is needed to describe an emotion that teenagers have and, you know, adult understand well, so they come up with a new word for that. So it's an organic process. And I think we lose the slang gene as we get older. However, I have.

My youngest is just graduated from high school, so she's going on to university and my oldest is currently in university.

And I'm sure you have the same idea in Britain, but this idea that you're supposed to be really sad and lonely and not know what to do with yourself when your children leave for college, I feel like I'm the opposite of that. There's an empty nester is the word we use and I don't know what your word for it is.

When your kids leave and you're supposedly trying to fill your nest with something new, I feel like I should have another word that's either like empty, nicer or momporia, which is a slang word for the excitement you feel when you finally have your life back.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:38

I love mumforia. I don't do it justice with my mum pronunciation of mum rather than M O M, but I love that one. Um, yeah, well, let's.

If you say that enough, that's going to start sticking.

Valerie Fridland: 00:08:51

I'm going to start. That's my new word. I'm going to try to get it adopted.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:54

Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I'll, I'll. I'll put it out on like a viral TikTok or something. Just.

Valerie Fridland: 00:09:01

I don't do tiktoks. I'm going to rely on you to get it out there.

Liam Heffernan: 00:09:04

Yeah, we'll get it going. We'll get it going. Right, well, that's going to have to wrap this up.

I've been keeping you here for so long talking about all of this because it's been, been, it's been an absolute delight. So, Valerie, thank you for joining me for both this and for the main episode as well.

Anyone listening to the podcast, if you haven't already do check out the full episode. It's only a couple down on this feed and links to everything that we've discussed are in the show notes as well.

And do also remember to rate review, follow the podcast and if you really like what you hear, you can support the show as well. Thank you so much for listening and goodbye.