63% of breast cancer cases are diagnosed at a localized stage (there is no sign that the cancer has spread outside of the breast), for which the 5-year survival rate is 99%.
A police drama was streaming on HBO that starred Kate Winslet as a detective in a small Pennsylvania town, and when I, a murder/mystery and crime show junkie, learned of it, I had to watch. Winslet played the role of Mare Sheehan, and her intonation was of the Pennsylvania where I grew up. I was so engrossed in the sound of the speech patterns of my birthplace that I forgot that Winslet appeared the movies “Titanic,” an “The Reader.” When the series ended, Winslet was interviewed, and I was astonished to hear an English accent flow from her face. The flat vowels of Western Pa. were replaced with the crisper ones of … Britain.
When I lived in St. Louis, Missouri, I found that the celebration of Mardi Gras was on a scale to rival New Orleans. Shuttle buses were made available to take revelers from one party place to another, and on one of those shuttles, I heard a group of men talking. I left my seat to speak to them “Where in Pennsylvania,” I asked, “are you from?” They were astonished, and after they told me, asked how I knew they were from Pa. I said to them, “I heard it in your speech.” I can identify Pa. speech in one paragraph or less. At a bar I frequented in St. Louis – it had pool tables and Rolling Rock beer, so I spent a lot of time there – the owners and staff knew that I was from Pittsburgh and whenever some new attendee would claim to be from my hometown, the staff would bring them to me, saying that my state was being repped by others. I would immediately place a bet with them, saying that I knew that they were not from Pittsburgh. I would speak to them and listen to their replies and conclude, “Nope.” Language will out.
After their mother and I divorced, my two youngest children lived with me for brief periods in St. Louis; my daughter was enrolled in kindergarten and my son in pre-school. My daughter was a more social creature than my son, more eager to conform to the prevailing social order. In St. Louis, there is an African American speech pattern where the words “here,” and “where” were pronounced “herr” and “therr.” St. Louis rapper Nelly sang “Hot In Herre.” The Beatles song would be pronounced “Herr, Therr, Everywherr.” When I noticed my daughter’s change in language, I asked her why she was speaking in that way. She responded that she was pronouncing her word in the way that her friends did. I told her that there was nothing wrong with her friends speaking as she did. (The lesson did not take; kids just want to fit in.)
I have written before of an incident between me and a man from Woods Hole, Massachusetts. When he mocked my pronunciation of a word, I told him that I was “the Master of the Language,” and said that “any error that I might make will become a part of popular lexicon.” I was promptly dubbed the “MOL” by those who heard the exchange, and I’m sure that I still pronounce the word, (which I cannot remember) exactly as I did in 1982. A segment of the TV show “CBS Sunday Morning” featured dialect coaches, and one of the people taught to mimic another dialect was Kate Winslet.
Thanks, coach.
cjon3acd@att.net