I speak fluent WVian, but i never know when it’s going to pop out. It can be weird to suddenly realize I’ve switched to full-on deep-hollar Mountaineer. But it’s usually funny, so…
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PH has always been the second person in this scene. The first incarnation has always been an act.
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See that’s the weird thing with me. Because of how my mother raised me, as far as insisting on speaking “proper” English, and because I moved away from Texas before I turned 30, I don’t really have a natural Texas accent. More of a hint of a Texas accent. So I don’t have anything to switch to. My brother, on the other hand, has never left our hometown, and his accent has gotten thicker and thicker as the years go by. I actually have trouble understanding him sometimes. We’re less than two years apart in age, and when we were younger, our voices were almost identical. Our own uncle couldn’t tell us apart on the phone. Now, he speaks more redneck, and I speak more feminine. I suppose I could code switch to a more masculine voice? Is that a thing? I’ve been afraid to try to speak like I used to pre-transition, because I’m afraid my voice will get stuck, lol. That’s not a rational fear, but I’m not taking any chances.
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fellow ex-pat texan here.
your upbringing, linguistically, sounds very much like that my Dear Brother and i experienced with our own mum, herself a texan from Austin. she would correct us on our speech and elocution and may be responsible for DB and i never speaking with heavy accent.
however, i easily slip into drawl, depending on who it is i am speaking with. DB, the academic, hated everything about texas and assiduously learned a manner of speech that would not betray his “southern upbringing”, that he feels would make him less accepted in his career. (dude won’t even eat grits, ffs! afraid might give him his dreaded “south in the mouth”.)
having traveled extensively, and living in different regions of the u.s., both of us lost the texan, but mine comes back easily, especially with influence of drink, or among others with heavy drawl. fish stories at the marina docks make DB cringe to hear.
funny thing is, DB chooses to neutralize his accent with a more “continental” manner after his stint with the British Museum, his pronunciations of words make me smile.
our half sister (20 years younger) born in texas, never left, has that almost incomprehensible accent that he and i both just roll our eyes at.
code switching. DB has incorporated it and refuses to switch back, unless to belittle the speaker. sister doesn’t switch at all. i seem to go with the flow of who i am with.
to the topic of Ms. Hilton,.i feel that her portrayal of the rich, blonde, “bimbo” was just that - an act. her activism in the mistreatment of the youth in these programs is admirable and important. hopefully her voice in this - whichever “voice” she uses, results in improvement and less suffering.
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More on the horrors she’s talking about:
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The way I read it, the first part of the sentence you quoted shows admiration, followed by a “but [… ] her masterful code-switch” (emphasis mine) which implies the code-switch was less than admirable, possibly even the opposite of it.
The “masterful” adjective doesn’t necessarily imply admiration, as it could be implying she’s really good at something the author thinks is nefarious. I say this because code-switching, if you believe Wikipedia, is sometimes seen as a negative thing:
Such shifts, when performed by public figures such as politicians, are sometimes criticized as signaling inauthenticity or insincerity.
So hopefully this explains why I interpreted the post that way. I could be completely wrong, of course, but since the implied nefariousness (or not) wasn’t even the main point of my comment, I think further discussion of that point is moot.
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I just don’t see where you’re getting that from… They ARE sometimes criticized as insincere, but I don’t think the post itself is doing that, just making a point that people do make that criticism.
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