Dialect Borrowing and Confusion

I would say that most of the time, people who speak different accents of English are able to understand each other. I would definitely say that American English speakers should be able to understand English English speakers. But sometimes there's interdialectal confusion, either with regards to comprehension or intention.

This short post was inspired by Jeff Klingman's review of Sri Lankan/English rapper M.I.A.'s song "Bad Girls." He writes:

The lyrics are the worst part by a fair margin. There’s no eye-rolling political agit-prop, but there’s nothing taking up its void either. It’s about being a bad girl, and driving a car. (But which seat will she take??) It acts like “get down” rhymes with “you can hang.” It’s just sort of filling space.

The lyrics in question from the song are:

Get back, get down
Pull me closer if you think you can hang
Hands up, hands tied
Don't go screaming if I blow you with a bang

Klingman seems to think that MIA was attempting to rhyme "down" with "hang," and moreover that this is a forced rhyme. But it's clear that "hang" was meant to rhyme with "bang."

Whence this confusion? MIA uses a curious bit of pronunciation on "down" and pronounces it as "d[æ]wn" like many Americans, instead of using the RP "d[a]wn." But she uses an RP pronunciation on "hang," which is "h[æ]ng."

Perhaps the similar phones used in "down" and "hang" caused Klingman to think that she was attempting to rhyme "down" and "hang," when "down" was just borrowing from American English and the "hang"/"bang" rhyme was always the intended one.

This is obviously a very minor instance of confusion, but it's still one that's stuck out to me since I read this review. Do you have any examples of borrowing pronunciations from other dialects which caused confusion, minor or major?

News regarding the site

Greetings! Content has been going slower than I hoped due to the enormity of some of the topics I have attempted to tackle. I'm working on a follow-up to the Indie Voice article that goes more in-depth into the past of the feature and multiple potential origins. I'm also re-working one of my very old articles on HAPPY-breaking in pop music. It's one thing to write about a particular artist, where there is a beginning and an end. It's another to look through multiple decades' worth of music, where there are no delimitations and little prior research. Research is ultimately a living project and no topic is ever truly "done" - but I want to make sure the pages I'm working on will meet the standards of Ace Linguist up until now.

I am also working on one more Dialect Dissection that will be out very soon on an individual. I have two more that are in the very early stages, one of which might be a sort of mini-dissection due to lack of material from the artist and substantial overlap with the Indie Voice page. Nevertheless, I think it may be worthwhile to cover some of that overlap because it's one thing to look at it from the point of view of "multiple artists with indie voice", which is quite macro, and "one artist with their own version of indie voice," which is the micro level. I try to avoid repeating myself, but maybe in this case the repetition will help.

Dropbox has increased their rates, which is not surprising to me. But it does make me realize that the services I rely on are not static and may continue to rise in price in the future. In particular, I'm working on some more advanced projects that may require paid hosting services. This sort of stuff starts adding up quickly. The Patreon has not been a huge success (shout-out to my one patron - I appreciate your support greatly!) and I understand. Patreon is usually better for content that comes out once a month or weekly. However, I cannot pump out articles monthly and have them be to my standards. I would still like to cover my costs of hosting and such as I try to do more advanced things. I have therefore been exploring having some unintrusive ads on the site. The purpose of the ads would be to cover, at least partially, the hosting costs - I doubt that they will cover the cost completely. I don't view Ace Linguist as a profit making venture, and on the very remote chance that the ads bring a bucketload of cash, I would like to communicate that with you to see how we can use it to improve the website. There are few accessible linguistic educational sites out there and I want to continue making Ace Linguist accessible to you all - one thing I've looked into is hiring expert help, which is currently out of the realm of possibility.

If it doesn't work out, I'll remove them or try something else. I don't want to plaster this with unpleasant ads. I also strongly dislike deceptive ads and am aware of the possibility that ads may be a vector for malware. I'll research these possibilities and be vigilant about them. The ads are not in place yet and I will let you all know once the dirty deed is finalized.

Many thanks to everyone who has supported this site by sharing it with friends or commenting or writing an email or supporting on Patreon. It warms my heart to know that there are all sorts of people out there who want more in-depth linguistic knowledge in their life. I hope to continue meeting that need for years to come!

- Karen

Dr. Eggman - genius, gentleman, feminist?

Dr. Eggman, also known as Dr. Robotnik, is the primary antagonist of the Sonic video game series. He's a mad genius known for engineering all sorts of robotics to take over the world.

But according to the English-language Sonic Heroes manual, he has some hidden depths. He's also a feminist:

Eggman is a romanticist, a feminist, and a self-professed gentleman.

This quote has long confused Sonic fans because Dr. Eggman has never spoken about feminism or had any particular attitudes toward women. (If you want to determine for yourself whether Dr. Eggman is a feminist, I recommend reading this Vice article.) Imagine reading a description of Bowser from the Mario games that mentioned "Bowser is also a fiscal conservative" among random traits and you'll see how jarring this is.

There's been speculation that this is a mistranslation, because there's a Japanese word "feminisuto" that actually means something along the lines of "chivalrous, romantic." Considering the context that Dr. Eggman is both a "romanticist" (another strange translation) and "a self-professed gentleman," it makes more sense for the intention to be "chivalrous."

You can see an example of "feminisuto" to mean chivalrous in the following episode from the anime Revolutionary Girl utena:

In Japanese, "feminisuto" ("feminist"), actually means "chivalrous," as the poorly shot Utena clip demonstrates. Was feminist Eggman the result of a mistranslation? It gets odd. pic.twitter.com/uYEEy1mfFp

— Ace Linguist (@acelinguist) October 28, 2018

Ki-sama wa... (why you)
Feminisuto daraka na ore wa. (because I'm chivalrous)

The Japanese manual of Sonic Heroes does not mention whether or not Dr. Eggman is "feminisuto." This has basically been the end of most research.

However, it's worth pointing out that the translation for the English Sonic Heroes manual may not have come from the Japanese manual, but from another source. The official Japanese site for the anime Sonic X does indeed say that Dr. Eggman is "feminisuto":

ロマンチストかつフェミニスト。 自称紳士のええかっこしい。
Romantic and chivalrous. (?)A self proclaimed gentleman.(?)

It seems that they decided to use Sonic X descriptions for the English Sonic Heroes manual, but whoever was translating it was unaware that "feminisuto" meant "chivalrous." "feminisuto" does also refer to someone who is a feminist, so the translator may also simply have decided that "feminist" would make more sense. It's even possible they thought it was funny.

Whatever the cause, it's a humorous example of how strange translations can end up taking on a life of their own.

Note: this was originally published in abbreviated form on Twitter in October 2018.