Hearing people speak the "California Lilt" in the 1980s in LA


How we use the language changes over the years, and it's only when we look back that we realize that there's been a shift. And since Hollywood influences the English-speaking world, and Hollywood is in Los Angeles, California, it's to be expected that the "California Lilt" that started in the 1980s has now become something that just sounds natural to most people.

I just learned the term "California Lilt" and that description is absolutely perfect. I know people who grew up in LA in the '70s and '80s and their lilt is very pronounced. No, of course I won't point it out to them, it's rude to comment on how people talk. Speaking for myself, I have a Twin Cities accent, being from Minneapolis. This is the "man on the six o'clock news", not to be confused with a rural Minnesota accent, which you will often hear comedians mock.

Anyway, since the "California Lilt" has now become how most people, especially young people in the United States, talk, unless they live where there are stronger accents, like on the east coast or the south, you have to go back in time to hear the spoken word without it. And luckily, you can do that by watching old movies. And by old movies, I don't mean old black-and-white ones, just older than the '80s.

For those of you who are old enough to remember how "Valley girls" spoke in the 1980s, with expressions like "ewww.... gag me with a spoon!", or the surfer dudes who said, "Whoa, gnarly, dude!" you can hear it. Of course if you're not old enough to remember the eighties, it would just seem like people always talked like that. They didn't. It was actually kinda funny when it was new, and then it just seem to fold into how people normally talked.

Back when I was a kid, in the '60s and early '70s, I detected a strong influence of Southern United States pronunciation. Even Neil Diamond, a kid from Brooklyn, sang with a tiny bit of a twang. He said "freeeend" instead of "friend". And the Beatles, who were from Liverpool, England, sang with as much of a Southern USA accent as they could. It would often surprise me to hear these people speak during interviews.

The California Lilt can be annoying to hear, but only if you can hear it. It's been part of how several generations of Americans learned to speak, and they don't hear it all. If you can't hear it, congratulations, you're young. If it gets on your last good nerve, calm down, old-timer, it's just how the language evolves over time.
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more