Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox runs The World's language desk. He reports and edits stories about the globalization of English, the bilingual brain, translation technology and more. He also hosts The World's podcast on language, The World in Words.

Twanging with Lynne Murphy aka Lynneguist

August 14, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment
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A conversation with University of Sussex linguist Lynne Murphy. An American in Britain, Murphy maintains the Separated by a Common Language blog, where she goes by the moniker Lynneguist.

Murphy’s accent is soft, but that doesn’t stop Brits from mocking it and labeling it twangy. If she has a twang, then the guitarist in the painting is Dolly Parton.

Among the many observations noted in her blog, Murphy has seen British English lose some of its status among Americans. We talk about that, along with the changing accent patterns in Britain surrounding social class, and pronunciation of the word water.

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