What accent/dialect does WOODWARD have, saying "rah-porting" (reporting)?!1

[UTUSN]

[dhol82]

1. Modified Illinois.

He has lived in a lot of places.
Might have started out as a pure Illinois but has been modified over the years.
Whatever.

[elleng]

2. Born in Geneva, Illinois.

He was a resident of Wheaton, Illinois. He enrolled in Yale College with a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship and studied history and English literature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Woodward

[UTUSN]

3. Wiki says Illinois

*********QUOTE**********

Early life and career
Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of Jane (née Upshur) and Alfred Eno Woodward II, chief judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit Court. He was a resident of Wheaton, Illinois. He enrolled in Yale College with a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship and studied history and English literature. While at Yale, Woodward joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and was a member of the prestigious secret society Book and Snake.[3][4] He received his B.A. degree in 1965 and began a five-year tour of duty in the United States Navy.[citation needed] During his service in the Navy, Woodward served aboard the USS Wright, and was one of two officers assigned to move or handle nuclear launch codes the Wright carried in its capacity as a NECPA.[5] At one time, he was close to Admiral Robert O. Welander, being communications officer on the USS Fox under Welander's command.[6]

After being discharged as a lieutenant in August 1970, Woodward was admitted to Harvard Law School but elected not to attend. Instead, he applied for a job as a reporter for The Washington Post while taking graduate courses in Shakespeare and international relations at George Washington University. Harry M. Rosenfeld, the Post's metropolitan editor, gave him a two-week trial but did not hire him because of his lack of journalistic experience. After a year at the Montgomery Sentinel, a weekly newspaper in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Woodward was hired as a Post reporter in 1971. ....

*********UNQUOTE*******

[Igel]

4. Try this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English#Lowering_and_backing_of_/ɪ/

The final change is lowering and backing of /ɪ/, the "short i" vowel in KIT, to a more central position in the mouth, perhaps [ɘ].

But it's a loose dialect with the features being on a continuum; I don't know that the specific backing is normal to NE Illinois (he grew up and was raised in the NE portion of Illinois) or not. Not into American dialectology. Moreover, it's likely he lost a lot of the features over time--I'm from Baltimore and have suppressed a lot of the dialectal features I grew up with, on a word-by-word basis after having lived in other dialect areas.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Sounds like he might be from Chicago or that area?

That flat "a" vowel is an indicator.

[kwassa]

6. I say rah-porting. Is this not normal?

Sometimes ruh-porting. Never ree-porting.

I'm from O-hi-uh.

[UTUSN]

7. My *different* sound, didn't say "normal".

[LBM20]

8. Classic midwestern accent. He's from Illinois.

[lunasun]

9. Wait I'm from Chicago, you telling me that's not how everyone would say it??

[OAITW r.2.0]

10. OK, Downeast in Maine (cuz theyare from heah).

We'd say Re-portin', ayuh. (OK, maybe not Ayuh....depends). But we'd also say, "Who the fuck voted for this fuckin' ahshole enyways[[[[?"

[kwassa]

13. You can't get theah from heah.

[OAITW r.2.0]

16. Not true today...:-)

I remember a time a cruisin' yawl came into SW Harbor for gas and refreshments. Flagged out of a Southern state with bars. We had sailed up from Southern Maine for an overnighter and was on the same pier.

Anyways, the dude that was captain (obviously a Marine grad deckie) parked it nicely on the dock and well secured the boat. He came down and met a commercial lobsterman who was in back of our 26' Bristol, offloading his catch'

Captain Yawl guy said. "What's the best course to CHristmas Cove?" Lobsterguy says: "Wh'd I tell you that? You'd visit." After a pause, Lobsterguy says "But I'll tell you what. For a $50 donation I'd tell where to go and you just might keep your boat afloat when you get theah."

[kwassa]

22. My favorite Bert and I joke ...

Bert, I heard you killed your dog. Were he mad?

Well, he wasn't too pleased about it.

[Hekate]

11. Ree-porting here, from SoCal. I like to pinpoint regionals, too. Never could figure out Obama...

...no matter how hard I tried. He was born and raised in my home state of Hawai'i, went to a private school that from its foundation drummed "proper" English into its students -- and I can detect not a trace of a Hawai'ian lilt. I'm sure like everything else in his life he has made conscious choices about his accent. Fascinating.

[UTUSN]

12. Hear-ya

[Codeine]

14. The only bit of accent Obama had

that ever irritated me was him saying “ta” instead of “to”. For whatever reason that one grates on me.

[Danmel]

27. Oh God yes

That drove me bonkers.

[trackfan]

24. One thing Obama and GW Bush have in common

is an unvoiced "s" at the end of words where it's usually voiced. The word "words" sounding more like "werdssss" than "werdz", for example.

[apcalc]

26. Reee porting here too.... Pittsburgh.

[Ilsa]

15. His speech is slower than most people's.

He certainly chooses his words well (duh), but he speaks deliberately like Sen. Susan Collins.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. I've read that Collins has a form of spasmodic dysphonia, a disorder of the vocal muscles,

which explains her speech patterns. I don't think Woodward has anything like that.

[pnwmom]

19. But I've also noticed his voice shakes like Collins's, so I've wondered about that.

[Ilsa]

21. I didn't know about her dysphonia.

That explains a lot about her vocal rhythm.

[mantis49]

18. I don't know about regional, but he can't say nuclear.

Heard part of his interview with Terri Gross on Fresh Air.

He says nu-cu-ler.

That really is a bug-a-boo of mine.

[OhioBlue]

20. I think it is common in midwest.

"Raport" is the more common pronunciation in my area for "Report"

But, I think both are used without much notice. i.e. "I have a report due for work/school" - one could pronounce as "ree-port" or "rah-port" without anyone thinking one is different from the other.

[lagomorph777]

23. My Midwestern parents pronounced "root" to rhyme with "foot" not "boot"

Same with "roof."

[Judi Lynn]

25. I noticed Woodward's accent and was puzzled by it. I find the accent a little creepy,

Last edited Wed Sep 12, 2018, 03:32 PM - Edit history (1)

it was completely unfamiliar. It seemed as if he had made it up, as in an unpleasant affectation.

Interesting to see from other posts that he's not alone with it, that there are other people who speak that way, too.

Hmmmm.

Thanks for the enlightenment.