SLSL "TSR" You've - got - to - accentuate the positive...

[John Bailey]

>From: "Scott Badger" <Scott at lupinepet.com>
>Date: Tue, 3 Dec 2002 12:00:06 -0500
>
>John B:
>>A Canadian reading 'oat' wouldn't
>>pronounce it the way I'd pronounce 'oat'.
>
>Wouldn't the Canadian "out" sound more like "owt"? "oot" sounds >Scottish 
>to me, which I think you allude to.
>
>Scott

And Johnish to me, ho ho ho.

My point, er, exactly. My accent (even my mental voice) is probably very 
different to yours. How can Pynchon hope to 'correctly' render an accent on 
the page when we, as readers, will 'hear' it differently depending on our 
own ears (which aren't necessarily Bad, just Misunderstood). My only answer 
to that is a suspicion that he writes for a certain kind of Ear, which 
implies a certain social standing, national background, whatever, maybe not 
so relevant to the preterite or the others who appear to be supported by the 
novels themselves. It's just a thought.

I realise this is moving a long way away from The Small Rain, where I have 
absolutely no arguments with the simple fact that he confused Southern 
accents (even people I know here who have never visited the US know a lot of 
these differences). Sorry for drifting.

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