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Hilarious "study" on 'Stralian

Rejected submission by Runaway1956 at 2015-10-30 12:24:21
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Is the Australian accent due to booze, mate?

  (CNN)Does "slip a shrimp on the barbie" have a connection to the "bottle-o"?

Fair dinkum, says an Australian researcher.

Dean Frenkel, a lecturer in public speaking at Melbourne's Victoria University, claims that the well-known Australian accent -- the native voice of Hugh Jackman, Cate Blanchett and Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan -- gets its distinctive twang from alcohol.

"Our forefathers regularly got drunk together and through their frequent interactions unknowingly added an alcoholic slur to our national speech patterns," wrote Frenkel in The (Melbourne) Age. "For the past two centuries, from generation to generation, drunken Aussie-speak continues to be taught by sober parents to their children."

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/29/living/australia-accent-alcohol-theory-feat/index.html?eref=edition [cnn.com]

Forgive me laughing at this "study". Let me try to find something less laughable . . .

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-fourth-r-missing-from-australian-education-20151025-gkhv8k.html#content [theage.com.au]

Even after reading Frenkel's own words, I'm left thinking that he's just some grammar nazi with a misplaced sense of superiority. Gotta love the commentary.

Now I've just got to try finding something remotely scientific regarding 'Stralian speak . . .

This is a more rational view of the development of Australian style English -
http://www.thepolyglotdream.com/development-australian-english/ [thepolyglotdream.com]

"If you were to have asked world leaders from only a few hundred years ago which language they thought would become the most spoken language in the world at the dawn of the new millennium, during such an unprecedented time for the human race as the one we live in, it is unlikely that anyone would have predicted that the bastard language originating from England – a small, wet and rocky island on the Atlantic Ocean, would be that language."

Are any of our members from Down Under? What's your view of Mr. Frenkel? (I note that his name doesn't sound very English, LMAO)


Original Submission