? don't waste your time on me, you're already the voice inside my yed
posted by the webmistress at 10:50 PM on June 23, 2015 [8 favorites]

I always took it to be uber-California (see what I did there?) with hints of cor-Maori-Parpens-shine-a-light Dick Van Dyke take on Cockney.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:12 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ah, finally a reason to post this: someone made a 10-hour loop of Tom Delonge's verse from "I Miss You". How long can you last? I went 30 minutes and experienced so many terrifying emotions.
posted by naju at 12:16 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Poor linguists. Work sucks, I know.
posted by resurrexit at 1:16 AM on June 24, 2015 [9 favorites]

Still have no idea how "cot" and "caught" should be be pronounced, such that they sound different.

I have a friend from New Hampshire who insists that "Aaron" and "Erin" are pronounced differently too. In 20 years I've never been able to figure out what the hell she's talking about.

/CA native.
posted by vignettist at 1:57 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Interesting article -it's something I'd thought about before - to me it jumps out when you listen to those bands but a lot of people don't seem to notice it. My conclusion was also that it was partly as a result of American kids aping British singers.

What I just noticed is that it's very similar to the so-called D4 or Dort accent common to young people in certain affluent areas of Dublin here in Ireland - an unholy mishmash of Valley Girl and upper class English accents with the same mangled vowels (sterotypically, like becomes loike). The Californication of the world continues.
posted by kersplunk at 2:12 AM on June 24, 2015

Still have no idea how "cot" and "caught" should be be pronounced, such that they sound different.

Did you ever see that Saturday Night Live sketch, CAWFEE TAWK where we TALK about COFFEE?
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 2:28 AM on June 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

Still have no idea how "cot" and "caught" should be be pronounced, such that they sound different.


Explanation, with sound clips

I have a friend from New Hampshire who insists that "Aaron" and "Erin" are pronounced differently too. In 20 years I've never been able to figure out what the hell she's talking about.

And here for Erin/Aaron
posted by damayanti at 4:40 AM on June 24, 2015

As someone with an English accent, I had no idea it was odd. But singing with an American accent is very normal in Britain too, so there's that.
posted by ambrosen at 4:58 AM on June 24, 2015

Yeah, the pop-punk accent--which I'll admit to aping when necessary--is a really strange beast. It's California by way of the Clash by way of California. I do like that Billie Joe acknowledges how ridiculous it is.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:02 AM on June 24, 2015 [5 favorites]

Na na na na na na voice inside my Ed.
posted by idiopath at 5:19 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I have a friend from New Hampshire who insists that "Aaron" and "Erin" are pronounced differently too. In 20 years I've never been able to figure out what the hell she's talking about.

Oh god, the mary-merry-marry thing (and the related Aaron vs. Erin and Hairy vs Harry) was a legit fight when I (from the South) starting dating my wife who is from Rhode Island (which pronounces all three differently). See also Pin vs. pen, aunt vs. ant.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:24 AM on June 24, 2015

I've always wondered, since I don't speak a dialect with the Mary-merry-marry merge: can people who pronounce them with the same vowel sound hear the different vowels in speakers who don't? Or is it like a foreign language with very different phonemes, where you genuinely can't hear or produce the different sounds?
posted by uncleozzy at 5:46 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

This article was great - if you listen to Delonge's post-Blink band Angels and Airwaves (which.. I may be the only adult around to admit to doing so) he's really ramped up the weird vocal inflections in that band (eg, watching the lyrics in this vs. listening to what he sounds like).
posted by zempf at 6:00 AM on June 24, 2015

uncleozzy: "can people who pronounce them with the same vowel sound hear the different vowels in speakers who don't? Or is it like a foreign language with very different phonemes, where you genuinely can't hear or produce the different sounds?"

Yes and no. I was raised in Texas, where marry-Mary-merry are identical. A few years ago, after hearing that there are parts of the country where they are pronounced differently, I mentioned it to my dad, who was raised in New Jersey. He was like, "Well, yeah, they're totally different". What followed was an extended session where he would say each of the words and I would try to figure out the difference. In the end, I got to like a 95% accuracy, but 1) it took lots of concentration, and 2) I never noticed this in the twenty or so years I lived at home. So I can hear it, but it's so very, very minimal that I would never notice it unless I was really trying. It's not like the Canadian "about", where I don't say it that way but it sticks out like a sore thumb. The marry-Mary-merry difference seems, to my ears, incredibly subtle.

zempf: "if you listen to Delonge's post-Blink band Angels and Airwaves...he's really ramped up the weird vocal inflections in that band"

I would never in a million years have guessed that was a native English speaker. He doesn't sound Californian, or even Pop-Punk Accentian. He sounds...Scandinavian perhaps?
posted by Bugbread at 7:04 AM on June 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

The best thing about Tom's overexaggerated accent, though, is that Mark barely does it at all. Or maybe that's just how it sounds when paired with Tom?
posted by everybody had matching towels at 7:11 AM on June 24, 2015

Thanks, Bugbread. It's interesting that you don't usually hear it, but that the Canadian "ou" sticks out to you. Coming from the other side, it always sticks out to me, I suppose because there's a loss of information (although pen / pin sticks out even more for me).
posted by uncleozzy at 7:21 AM on June 24, 2015

2) I never noticed this in the twenty or so years I lived at home. So I can hear it, but it's so very, very minimal that I would never notice it unless I was really trying.

This is where I am. If tested extensively, I could probably get it right more times than not, but it takes close listening effort that I don't normally expend. As for reproducing it, I think I can make two sounds (mary and marry vs merry), but probably not three and definitely with no consistency. Occasionally I try to say pen and pin as different sounds and wind up sort of saying pin and pan a lot of the time.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:21 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I always thought the accent was a by-product of trying to sing melodies without actually being able to sing very well (while also trying to compete with loud guitars/bass/drums). At least, that was my experience trying to sing NOFX/Propagandhi/Lagwagon songs over my cheap, thrashy distorted guitar. (I always wanted to sound like Milo Aukerman but ended up sounding like John Linnell.)
posted by tehjoel at 7:28 AM on June 24, 2015

I've always wondered, since I don't speak a dialect with the Mary-merry-marry merge: can people who pronounce them with the same vowel sound hear the different vowels in speakers who don't? Or is it like a foreign language with very different phonemes, where you genuinely can't hear or produce the different sounds?

It's complicated. Some folks have both a merger in production and perception; some folks have a merger in production, but not perception.

The weirdest cases are what Bill Labov calls "near mergers": people who have a merger in perception, but not in production. That is, they say cot and caught slightly differently, but can't tell the difference between them. The gory details are in Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 1; chapter 12.
posted by damayanti at 7:49 AM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

That is, they say cot and caught slightly differently, but can't tell the difference between them

Wow, that's neat. Thanks.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:05 AM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was always a fan of The Dead Milkmen accent(s).
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:57 AM on June 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

This is one of those fascinating times when a writer accurately describes how utterly awful a type of music is for pages but then says "it's great." Like, he's clearly explaining why Pop Punk is the worst form of music, but then says he loves it. It's a cute trick.
posted by shmegegge at 9:57 AM on June 24, 2015

I would never in a million years have guessed that was a native English speaker. He doesn't sound Californian, or even Pop-Punk Accentian. He sounds...Scandinavian perhaps?

Yeah, DeLonge's delivery has always reminded me of the frontman of Swedish pop-punk band Millencolin. Fawwwwlin in love with yeeeeeohw
posted by Pizzarina Sbarro at 12:59 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

This part of the article baffled me:

"The California Shift is this kind of combined change in the pronunciation of short vowels,¡± says Kennedy. The easiest way to think about it? Look at the words kit, dress, and trap. In the California Shift, ¡°kit¡± becomes ¡°ket¡±, ¡°dress¡± becomes ¡°drass¡±, and ¡°trap¡± becomes ¡°trop¡±.

I'm confused, because there is definitely not a pin-pen merger in the (northern) California accent I know quite well, nor do the other two examples (dress¡údrass, trap¡útrop) make any sense to my ear. Can someone explain?
posted by migrantology at 12:59 PM on June 24, 2015

The best thing about Tom's overexaggerated accent, though, is that Mark barely does it at all. Or maybe that's just how it sounds when paired with Tom?

Mark's accent is definitely toned way down. Part of me wants to say that's part of his more laid-back, "it's all just about the music, man" persona in contrast to Tom's more confrontational, gotta-be-me thing that eventually led to him breaking up the band a couple times and now being one of those guys who tweets about aliens and chemtrails and shit, but at this point it's pretty clear that I'm just projecting.
posted by Copronymus at 12:59 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Maybe it's because I'm a Rhode Islander, and we don't believe in homophones, but the voice inside my yed thing drives me crazy. TeenRuki is a big Blink-182 fan, but she knows not to play that song in my car, lest I spend the rest of the car ride ranting. I generally find other peoples' accents to be charming, and nothing brings me more joy than a Minnesotan saying the word Idaho* but oh god, you have to make a serious effort to say yed like that. I need a drink now.

*If any of my coworkers are MeFites, they'll recognize me for this statement.
posted by Ruki at 1:55 PM on June 24, 2015

I'm confused, because there is definitely not a pin-pen merger in the (northern) California accent I know quite well, nor do the other two examples (dress¡údrass, trap¡útrop) make any sense to my ear. Can someone explain?

I hesitate to answer authoritatively because I'm not remotely a linguist, but I was also curious about this and did a bit of digging. I found this page with some sound files and this radio report on a related linguistics project to capture various Californian accents. The examples they use, even the samples of normal speech, sound extreme almost to the point of parody to me, but at least that gave me a starting place.
posted by Copronymus at 2:03 PM on June 24, 2015

migrantology: "I'm confused, because there is definitely not a pin-pen merger in the (northern) California accent I know quite well, nor do the other two examples (dress¡údrass, trap¡útrop) make any sense to my ear. Can someone explain?"

That part made no sense to me either until I imagined those words being used in a sentence by the most 80's valley girl possible.
posted by Bugbread at 2:39 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm from the upper midwest, have the merry merger, and can pretty easily hear the difference between all three when people pronounce them differently.

Also I think I'm one of those with a cot/caught near merger. There are definitely circumstances where I'll pronounce those two vowels differently, but a lot of the time I'm not consciously trying to make them different and have a hard time hearing whether I am or not.
posted by traveler_ at 6:32 PM on June 24, 2015

damayanti: "The weirdest cases are what Bill Labov calls "near mergers": people who have a merger in perception, but not in production. "

When I taught English, I had a Japanese student like this (she was actually an English teacher, and a pretty good one, but she wanted to brush up on her higher level English). She could pronounce "l" and "r" flawlessly, but could not hear the difference at all.

I had students who couldn't hear the difference and couldn't produce the difference, and I had students who could hear the difference and could produce the difference, but she was the only person I ever met who could pronounce them both but not hear any difference. To her it was just a matter of moving her tongue in a different way to make a sound which, to her, was identical but which other people said was "correct".
posted by Bugbread at 6:39 PM on June 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

migrantology: "I'm confused, because there is definitely not a pin-pen merger in the (northern) California accent I know quite well, nor do the other two examples (dress¡údrass, trap¡útrop) make any sense to my ear. Can someone explain?"

That part made no sense to me either until I imagined those words being used in a sentence by the most 80's valley girl possible.

If you're stuck for an example on this, Kristen Wiig in the "Californians" sketch has it down COLD. I'm not even just saying that because LOL stereotypical L.A. -- she really did get it right in a sketch that was often lazy about other details.
posted by mirepoix at 10:37 PM on June 24, 2015

Yes and no. I was raised in Texas, where marry-Mary-merry are identical. A few years ago, after hearing that there are parts of the country where they are pronounced differently, I mentioned it to my dad, who was raised in New Jersey. He was like, "Well, yeah, they're totally different". What followed was an extended session where he would say each of the words and I would try to figure out the difference. In the end, I got to like a 95% accuracy, but 1) it took lots of concentration, and 2) I never noticed this in the twenty or so years I lived at home. So I can hear it, but it's so very, very minimal that I would never notice it unless I was really trying. It's not like the Canadian "about", where I don't say it that way but it sticks out like a sore thumb. The marry-Mary-merry difference seems, to my ears, incredibly subtle.

I am a native New Yorker who has lived on the West Coast (L.A. and Oregon) for several years. I say "marry"/"merry"/"Mary" all very differently, and different vowels in "pin"/"pen," although I think my "caught" is more like "cot" than "coo-ought." Car-a-mel, though, with the first syllable like "carry." "Cahrml," what even is that??
posted by mirepoix at 10:45 PM on June 24, 2015

Oh god, the mary-merry-marry thing (and the related Aaron vs. Erin and Hairy vs Harry) was a legit fight when I (from the South) starting dating my wife who is from Rhode Island (which pronounces all three differently). See also Pin vs. pen, aunt vs. ant.

An ex of mine who was from Oklahoma, whereas I'm from New York by way of North Carolina, pronounced "rune" and "ruin" the same. This made for many moments of "wait, which one do you mean?" when, during the early "we're doing cute things because this relationship hasn't yet turned bitter and hateful" period of our courtship when she was reading Lord of the Rings aloud to me.

Never would have thought merging those two words would cause so much difficulty, but there it is...

(I distinguish pin/pen, Mary/marry/merry, and pin/pen, but not father/bother.)
posted by jammer at 6:55 AM on June 25, 2015