Category Archives: Arts & culture

More on Eastern New England accents

In an earlier post, I spoke about how I’ve been teaching children in Sunday school how to speak with an Eastern New England accent. That has gotten me thinking about Eastern New England accents — for there is more than one accent indigenous to the region.

Wikipedia has a fairly good article on Boston English, and they do recognize that different socio-economic classes in the region have different accents (alas, their article on the upper class “Boston Brahmin” accent is barely a stub). In addition to explaining non-rhoticity, the Wikipedists point out some pronunciation peculiarities that I didn’t know I had, such as the caught-cot merger. But they don’t include one key phonological characteristic that I have noticed over they years: the presence of the glottal stop as a consonant. Thus, for example, people from certain parts of the Boston area pronounce “metal” with a glottal stop in place of a “t.” Similarly, many of us pronounce “yup” with a glottal stop in place of the “p.”

There used to be fairly strong class and regional differences within Eastern New England. When I was working as a salesman twenty years ago, I could almost tell what town someone came from by their accent — if, that is, they were working class. Middle class accents differed from working class accents, and had less regional differentiation within the broader Eastern New England region, but there were still broad distinctions in the Boston area between North Shore, urban, and South Shore accents. I did not come into contact with many upper class accents, but they were clearly distinct from working class and middle class accents.

While the distinctive Eastern New England accent has been changing in recent years, and fading with the onslaught of people migrating in from out of state, it still exists. There are still some regional differences within Eastern New England — I certainly noticed a distinct difference in accent when I moved to New Bedford five years ago. Providence and Boston still have their distinctive accents, as does the coast of Maine.

I would love to hear from my readers about your experiences with the Eastern New England accent (whether you’re a native speaker or an outsider). What regional differences have you noticed within the Eastern New England accent? How about some good regional vocabulary I can teach the kids (e.g., Marybeth has already suggested “bubblah”)?

Freelancer’s Union

I just joined the Freelancer’s Union. This is a non-traditional union — it’s not focused on a single industry, instead of dues it charges fees for services. Yet as a union, it gets directly involved with the political process to fight for rights of workers. So, for example, about 30% of the U.S. workforce can currently be classified as freelance workers, yet our health insurance system is designed so that employers provide health insurance only to workers who are permanent employees. Freelancers (all the way from day laborers to high-priced consultants) may find themselves either unable to get health insurance, or forced to pay far more per individual than big employers do.

I joined the Freelancer’s Union because in many ways clergypeople function as freelancers. Yes, I’m a full-time permanent employee right now, and yes I’m lucky enough to work for a congregation that provides me with adequate health care — but lots of Unitarian Universalist ministers (and clergy of all faith traditions) are not so lucky. In my case, I do belong to a professional association, the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association (UUMA), but frankly the UUMA useless when it comes to helping me with things like health insurance, and advocating for me in the political arena. Indeed, the only reason I belong to the UUMA is that I am required to do so to stay in fellowship with the Unitarian Universalist Association — other than that, the UUMA is a useless drag on my professional expenses.

So I’m putting the word out to other clergypeople I know — think about joining the Freelancer’s Union. It’s a national membership organization for independent workers, and we think independent workers should ahve the same rights as traditional workers. We’re a big political constituency, and we can organize around issues, and make politicians listen. It’s all about working together to make all of our lives more secure. Check it out, and see what you think.

The folk process

We’ve been singing a great song in my Labor Heritage Chorus, called “May the Work that I Have Done.” The lyrics that we use go something like this:

May the work that I have done speak for me,
May the work that I have done speak for me,
If I fall short of my goal, someone else will take a hold,
May the work that I have done speak for me.

It’s easy to make up more verses: May the marches I’ve been on speak for me; May the songs that I have sung; etc.

But where did this song come from? Mudcat.org, the indispensable folk music Web site, has a short thread on this song, tracing it back to a 1969 recording by the gospel duo The Consolers; the songwriting credit goes to Sullivan Pugh, one half of that duo. New lyrics (basically what I’ve included above) are attributed to San Franciscan John Fromer.

Now I’d love to be able to share this song with Sunday school volunteers here at church. But the easiest way to share such a song in a Unitarian Universalist church is with sheet music. Unfortunately, the tune we’ve been singing in the Labor Heritage Chorus is somewhat similar to the Consoler’s recorded version, but it has been run through the folk process long enough that it now sounds significantly different — the only sheet music I’ve been able to find uses the Consoler’s version of the tune and words. This probably means I’ll have to transcribe yet another song. Nobody ever told me in seminary that I’d feel the need to transcribe songs as part of being a minister.

Improved communication tools…

Google is trumpeting another revolution: Google Wave, a new online communication tool. This video makes Google Wave look pretty good — the best of email, Facebook, online collaboration, SMS, etc., all rolled into one user-friendly package. But Wave is still in development, and we’ll have to wait and see if it turns out to be the real thing, or just another clunky dead-end.

Even if Google Wave turns out to be crap, I will say we are overdue for some kind of improved communication tool. Here in the Palo Alto church, we do a fair amount of online collaboration and communication, and we’d be hard-pressed to function without it. Non-profit organizations have to make increasingly efficient use of staff time and volunteer time (and I think the Great Recession has accelerated this process), but the tools we currently have available to us feel clunky. Email is essential, but we all know how awkward email can be. Google Docs and other online collaboration tools work well, but they are very limited. Texting works for me, but the only people who text are people my age or younger, and texting does not easily lend itself to conversations involving multiple people. Blogging is another great tool, for those of us who read and/or write blogs. Most of all, I do think it would be nice to have something that integrated all these disparate communication tools, and the real genius of Google Wave might be the idea of having all these different communication tools integrated into one place.

Update 4 August 2010: Google has announced it will no longer continue to support Wave. This comes not long after Facebook passed half a billion users.

Are you a tenner or a twelver?

The big question in certain California circles right now is whether you are a tenner or a twelver; that is, do you think we should try to pass a ballot measure reversing Prop 8 (and restoring the right to same-sex marriage) in 2010, or in 2012?

The Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry (UULM) recently released a “pastoral letter” outlining their position as twelvers. While certainly UULM’s position will annoy some people who are tenners, if you read the actual letter you’ll find it to be carefully considered. UULM points out that one factor they took into consideration is the changed economic climate, which “has ripped holes in the fabric of essential human services.” I would state this more bluntly: in the middle of the Great Recession, with the unemployment rate rising, would you rather donate money to overriding Prop 8 (knowing that millions and millions of dollars from opponents of same-sex marriage will pour into Caligornia), or would you rather donate your money to food banks and poverty relief programs? UULM offers additional pragmatic reasons why we should wait until 2012, and it’s worth reading their letter.

You will not be surprised to learn that I myself am a reluctant twelver. I call myself a reluctant twelver, because I would prefer to see religious marriage separated from marriage as a civil contract. In the mean time, I hope we can postpone the fight to overturn Prop 8 until 2012. If someone puts it on the ballot for 2010, I guess I’ll have to roll up my sleeves and fight tooth and nail to overturn Prop 8 next year — but I hope it doesn’t come to that.

“Race mixing is communism”

My friend E pointed me towards a photograph that has been widely shared on the Web — a black and white photograph dating from 1959, showing a group of people outside the state capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas, protesting integration of the public schools. The protesters are holding signs that read “Race Mixing is Communism,” and “Stop the Race Mixing / March of the Anti-Christ.” Coincidentally, I’ve recently been looking through the Atlas of 20th Century History by Richard Overy (New York: Harper Collins, 2006), in which I happened to read the following sentence: “Many of those who hated communists hated Blacks as well” (p. 108). This reminded me that Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for presidency emphasized not only the fight against communism (the “Evil Empire” as his campaign called it), but also “state’s rights,” which in those days was a kind of political code word for opposing federal desegregation efforts.

While accepting the historical reality that anti-communism and segregationism were linked in the minds of at least some Americans, I remain unable to explain how the two are linked. Of course, liberal Web pundits offer plenty of explanation of how anti-communism and segregationism are linked, but such explanations are merely ad hominem attacks larded with such terms as “Retardlicans.” Notwithstanding such idiocy, somewhere there must be a considered and serious historical explanation of this link.

Monsters

The young adult group here at our church happened to be meeting next door to my office this evening. I stopped in to say hi. They were playing the game Monsters Menace America. I was so fascinated watching them play that I stayed for nearly an hour.

Watching a monster war game for an hour. Yeesh. I am such a geek. I glory in my geekness.

Bookstore

It’s about a twenty or thirty minutes walk from our house to downtown Burlingame. Instead of going into the city tonight, I decided to walk over to Burlingame. I walked past the stores with expensive women’s clothing, past the Apple store, past Pottery Barn and Banana Republic, finding with unerring instinct the local independent bookstore.

I wandered down to the current events section, which was right next to the children’s section. Near me, a man was standing next to a boy who was about 8 years old.

“Dad, look at this book,” said the boy.

The man mumbled a reply. He was looking at something else.

“But Dad,” said the boy with more urgency in his voice, “look at this book.”

“What?” said the man.

“This book,” said the boy, showing it to his father. “It has Legos with the book.” His voice sounded slightly awestruck: a book with Legos!

“Cool,” said the father, with some enthusiasm, which he spoiled by immediately turning to call to his wife across the store, “Did you see the children’s section? They have a good children’s section here.”

I wandered over to the mystery books. There were two other children behind me looking at books. A man, presumably their father, walked over, and said, “OK, it’s time for the —— family to go now.” There was just the slightest hint of uncertainty in his voice.

The children ignored him.

“C’mon, guys, let’s please put the books back now,” said the tentative father.

The children ignored him.

“Don’t you guys want to get ice cream?” he said.

“Ice cream?” they cried.

“Yeah!” he said, putting their books back on the shelf for them.

I suddenly noticed that there was one other solo adult in the bookstore; everyone else appeared to be part of a family of adults and children. I went over to the science fiction books, which again was near the big children’s section. Yet another parent was standing in the children’s section talking to a child.

“Put the book back,” said the parent.

“WAAH!” screamed the child.

“OK, we’ll buy the book,” said the parent to stop the child from crying. This reminded me of when I visited a toy shop in a well-to-do white suburb for ten years, where someone I know was the manager. Behind the cash register, the staff had posted a sign that read, “Unattended children will be sold into slavery.”

Unusually for me, I didn’t buy anything at this bookstore.

UU children’s choir 2010

I just got the announcement for the 2010 Unitarian Universalist Children’s Choir. This is basically a five-day children’s choir camp which culminates in a performance at General Assembly. I have talked with parents of children who have participated in past UU Children’s choirs, and they say it’s a fabulous experience. Children whose birthdays fall between 28 June 1997 and 22 June 2000 are encouraged to apply. The last UU Children’s choir was in 2006, and the next one won’t be for another 3 years, so this is literally a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Applications, including a recorded audition, are due October 20. More information at www.uucc2010.com.