The Disappearing Accent

A while back I was listening to the Shmata Queen's strong southern accent and noticed that every time she began to sing it would disappear. Now mind you every time she started to sing I wanted to disappear, but I digress. Good thing that I have fast feet and fast hands or I might be severely bruised.

Anyhoo, it remind me of something that I noticed as a kid, the disappearing accent. More specifically I remember being at a house at which The Mike Douglas show was on. In between Soupy Sales comments Mike had some guy on. I can't remember who, but I remember he sang a song and then followed it up by engaging in a conversation with Mike.

Nothing all that unusual about that other than I noticed that he had a British accent that was there when he spoke but disappeared when he would sing. I found the whole thing fascinating. I remember being very interested in listening to various artists speak and sing. I just couldn't figure out how they sounded normal while singing but not while speaking.

Come to think of it, I don't think that I have ever learned why this happens, just that it does. I shall have to add that to my list of things to learn.

And for those who are interested here are some posts that just might be related, or not.

Where Are You From?
Do You Have An Accent?
How Do I Respond to This?
Women and the Look of Death
The Phone Sex Surprise

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Shamata Queen has no accent and sings really beautifully.

Tzipporah said...

Who's the Shmata Queen?

Jack Steiner said...

You don't know her, or you would have spelled her name correctly. Not to mention your ears wouldn't possibly allow you to say.......... ;)

Jack Steiner said...

Tzipporah,

A famous blogger.

Kol Ra'ash Gadol said...

I can actually tell you why - singing requires you to put your mouth in certain positions that force you to change the sound of many of your vowels and consonants. This is much more pronounced in trained singers, where the training includes pronunciation and mouth position. Weird but true.

Not Quite Abandoned

I didn't think it had been as many months away from here as it has clearly been. I was certain I had updated this place in December and ...