Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: Re: race and linguistics - the olympic  tag
Message-ID: <DvL19u.Co@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
References: <4tnfdc$as1@raptor.centroin.com.br>  
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 1996 22:03:29 GMT
Lines: 39


In a previous article, sehlimpu@centroin.com.br (ricardo joseh lima) says:

>Recently a bomb exploded in Atlanta. The stupid who did it, called up 
>the police some minutes before the explosion. F.B.I. is now saying that
>the author is an american and a white man. They got to these conclusions
>only listening to his voice.
>
>OK, to find out if he is american or not (just notice the spell).
>
>But white ????
>
>Does anyone know something about the scientific basis of this conclusion ?
>
>
>R.Lima

Thanks, Jacques Guy and Philip Hunt, for your comments on this matter, 
which I too had thought of posting a blurb about when I heard it on TV--
but R. Lima beat me to it.  One slight expansion on the original report, 
though:  at least as it was reported here in Seattle (where we speak 
English without an accent!), the police description of the voice was that 
it was the voice "of a white male *without any discernible accent*".  
Absurdity compounds absurdity.

Incidentally, the guy the media and FBI have been paying court to 
recently as a "possible suspect" has, from my accent-free Seattle vantage 
point, a *marked accent* (and one I associate with SE US whites of 
limited education, fundamentalist theology and habitual consumption of 
illicit spirits) -- but whaddaya wanna bet he sounds perfectly normal to 
himself and his mother?

Leland

--
Liland Brajant ROS'        "Armeo sen kulturo estas malsagxa armeo, kaj
P O Box 30091              malsagxa armeo ne povas venki la malamikon."
Seattle, WA 98103 Usono    --"La Unuecfronto en Kultura Laboro" (30 okt
Tel. (206) 633-2434        1944), _Elektitaj Verkoj de Maux Zedong_ v 3
