February 25, 2025
Few voices in film are as distinctive and cherished as Werner Herzog’s. That applies to voice in both literal and figurative senses, but my focus here is on the singular instrument with which he narrates many of his documentaries.
In case you’re not familiar with Herzog’s speaking style, or would like to listen to it right now, here’s a short clip of him talking about chickens:
He returns to the subject of hypnosis in his 2022 memoir, Every Man for Himself and God Against All,* before segueing into the characteristics and effects of his voice:
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16 Comments | 
books, film, language, speech, writers | Tagged: accents, autobiography, Bavarian, books, dialect, documentaries, film, filmmaking, German, language, memoir, mimicry, phonetics, slurs, speech, translation, Werner Herzog, writers | 
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Posted by Stan Carey
June 1, 2024
A selection of topical language-related links for your reading (or listening) pleasure. I have cameos in a couple of them:
I am not a typo.
Linguistic capture errors.
How robins got their name.
The endangered-language crisis.
The ritual of rearranging your books.
The strange short history of literary fiction.
The Makers of the Oxford English Dictionary.
New climate- and environment-related terms in BSL.
The auditory aesthetics of constructed languages.
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Leave a Comment » | language, linguistics, link love | Tagged: accents, etymology, gender, language, linguistics, links, words | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
August 18, 2022
How slang catches on, survives, and fades:
The schwa is never stressed? Ridiculous, says Geoff Lindsey:
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2 Comments | dialect, grammar, language, linguistics, phonetics, pragmatics, slang | Tagged: AAVE, accents, African American Vernacular English, bilingual, conversation, dialect, dialect coaching, Ebonics, film, filmmaking, language, language learning, linguistics, multilingual, multilingualism, phonetics, phonology, pragmatics, schwa, slang, video | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
June 9, 2021
Lately I watched The Wire for the first time since it screened in 2002–08. It holds up really well, thanks to its wealth of characters, superb writing, and enduring political relevance. Afterwards, I read Jonathan Abrams’s acclaimed All the Pieces Matter (No Exit Press, 2018), an oral history composed of carefully interwoven interviews with the show’s cast, crew, and creators.
The Wire is set in Baltimore and is suffused with Baltimore culture, including its language. Two principal characters, Stringer Bell and Jimmy McNulty, are played by British actors, Idris Elba and Dominic West, who had to adjust their accents to be authentic in their roles. This led to some difficulty, as Abrams’s book reveals.
Co-creator Ed Burns said that West spent a lot of time going over the accent with David Simon: ‘“Now, say it like po-lice.” “Police.” “No, po-lice.”’ Others helped out as well. Peter Gerety, a veteran of stage and screen who played Judge Daniel Phelan, said West asked him for guidance:
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8 Comments | books, film, language, speech, stories | Tagged: accents, acting, actors, Andre Royo, Baltimore, books, crime fiction, David Simon, dialect, Dominic West, Ed Burns, HBO, Idris Elba, Jonathan Abrams, language, Peter Gerety, pop culture, speech, television, The Wire, TV | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
February 5, 2021
A few years ago I shared six videos about language, so posting seven this time may set a perilous precedent. (I’ve also blogged a bunch of others, before and since, if you want still more audiovisual diversion.)
Below, there are two short, three medium, and two long videos, in that order. See what grabs your fancy.
A wild one to begin: Why Werner Herzog refuses to speak French:
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7 Comments | dialect, emoji, language, language history, lexicography, linguistics, speech | Tagged: AAVE, accents, American accents, Anansa Benbow, Andrew Jack, Black English, British accents, definite article, definitely, dialect, emoji, Erik Singer, gesture, Gretchen McCulloch, language, language history, Lauren Gawne, lexicography, linguistics, Michael Rundell, Simon Roper, speech, video, Werner Herzog | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
August 28, 2020
A fresh batch of linguistic items for your listening, viewing, and reading (lots of reading) pleasure. There are a few new language podcasts on the scene, but I’ll save those for a separate post.
On gibberish.
An auditory illusion.
The etymology of Triscuit.
On capitalizing Black and White.
Free ebook: Making Sense of “Bad English”.
A brief history of strange English street names.
The social value of linguistic creativity in a pandemic.
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2 Comments | language, linguistics, link love, words | Tagged: accents, dialect, language, language change, language history, linguistics, links, words, writing | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
December 18, 2019
The Scots Syntax Atlas (SCOSYA) is a fantastic, newly launched website that will appeal to anyone interested in language and dialect, especially regional varieties and their idiosyncratic grammar. Its home page says:
Would you say I like they trainers? What about She’s no caring? Have you ever heard anyone say I div like a good story? And might you say You’re after locking us out? All of these utterances come from dialects of Scots spoken across Scotland, but where exactly can you hear them?
To answer this question, we travelled the length and breadth of Scotland, visiting 145 communities, from Shetland in the north to Stranraer in the south. We were particularly interested in the different ways that sentences are built up in these different areas. This part of a language is called its syntax, and it’s one of the most creative aspects of how people use language.
The resulting interactive Atlas has four main sections: How do people speak in…?, Stories behind the examples, Who says what where?, and Community voices. The two questions are self-explanatory. Community voices is a collection of extracts (audio and transcripts) from the conversations recorded – a trove of accent and dialect diversity.
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5 Comments | dialect, grammar, language, linguistics, science, speech, syntax, usage | Tagged: accent diversity, accents, atlas, dialect, grammar, language, language tools, linguistic research, linguistics, maps, research, science, Scotland, Scots, Scots language, Scots Syntax Atlas, Scottish English, speech, syntax, usage | Permalink
Posted by Stan Carey
Sentence first 