Uh Oh! Metrication?

[--Pete]

Hi,

Interestingly, in a recent film I was shown in a class on Shakespeare, it was suggested that the dialects of the Southern U.S. come closest to approximating the sounds of Elizabethan English!
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There is no such thing as a Southern accent. What there is is a bunch of different accents (and a few creoles) used in different parts of the South. The version that somewhat resembles Elizabethan English is the 'down home' accent of the back hollows of Appalachia, especially some of the regions in West Virginia down through the Carolinas. The langage used there is not considered a Southern dialect by most people in the United States when they hear it, but then again, until Chuck Yeager arrived on the scene, not many people had heard it. According to Tom Wolf (The Right Stuff) that relaxed and unruffled accent has become the official 'language' of pilots everywhere. And possibly of some aviators as well ;)

--Pete