Inland Northern American English
The Inland North dialect of American English is spoken in a region that includes most of the cities along the Erie Canal and on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes region, reaching approximately from Herkimer, New York to Green Bay, Wisconsin, as well as a corridor extending down across central Illinois from Chicago to St. Louis.
This dialect used to be the Standard Midwestern speech that is traditionally regarded as the basis for General American in the mid-20th century, though it has been since modified by an innovative vowel shift known as the Northern Cities Shift, which has altered its character.
Notable speakers of the Inland North Dialect include US President Ronald Reagan, former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, actors, Dennis Farina, Dennis Franz, Gene Wilder, Jeff Daniels, John Belushi and Chris Farley; US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; actresses Bonnie Hunt and Jami Gertz; filmmaker Michael Moore; financial adviser Suze Orman; talk show host Steve Wilkos; and musicians Iggy Pop and Bob Seger.
The dialect was used for comedic effect in the Saturday Night Live skit Bill Swerski's Superfans, and in the film The Blues Brothers.
Read more about Inland Northern American English: Distribution
Famous quotes containing the words inland, northern, american and/or english:
“Being blunt with your feelings is very American. In this big country, I can be as brash as New York, as hedonistic as Los Angeles, as sensuous as San Francisco, as brainy as Boston, as proper as Philadelphia, as brawny as Chicago, as warm as Palm Springs, as friendly as my adopted home town of Dallas, Fort Worth, and as peaceful as the inland waterway that rubs up against my former home in Virginia Beach.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“[During the Renaissance] the Italians said, “We are one in the Father: we will go back.” The Northern races said, “We are one in Christ, we will go on.””
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“French rhetorical models are too narrow for the English tradition. Most pernicious of French imports is the notion that there is no person behind a text. Is there anything more affected, aggressive, and relentlessly concrete than a Parisan intellectual behind his/her turgid text? The Parisian is a provincial when he pretends to speak for the universe.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)