Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 July 16

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July 16

Name of this linguistic phenomenon

What is it called when you add a little echoic statement at the end of a sentence? Examples: You're a naughty boy, you are. He's a clever one, he is. I associate it with British and Australian English, but I don't know the name for it. Lantzy : Lantzy 19:11, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Double copula ? 2A00:23C8:4588:B01:8C56:7EBD:45DE:E64E (talk) 19:40, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Here it's called a "tag statement": [1]. We have an article on tag questions, we do. --Amble (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Mick Jagger's accent

Sympathy for the Devil was on the car radio yesterday. It went something like:

Please allow me to introduce mah-self
I'm a man of wealth and tay-ust
I've been around for a long, long yee-ah
Stole many a man's soul and fay-uth

i.e. Jagger sings with a US southern accent. Was that some kind of affectation? Did he talk like that too, in those days? Are other Rolling Stones songs also like that? I've heard a bunch, but that era of music was really before my time, so I had never noticed this issue before. Is the phenomenon of stretching out the long a, like in "fay-uth" an example of drawl? Can Jagger's pronunciation be identified as a specific regional accent (e.g. South Carolina rather than Georgia)? It does seem that way a bit to me, but I'm not that well attuned to those accents.

I also remember in the Harry Potter books (or at least in some fanfics) that Severus Snape is described as drawling a lot. Does that make sense for a British English speaker? I don't remember what Snape sounded like in the HP movies.

Thanks. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:2B99 (talk) 23:45, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

A Southern gentleman might be a good model for the Devil in the song - superficially charming, but ready to whip, rape, or lynch you as the whim takes him. As to the Snape part of your question, some upper-class English accents possess a marked drawl, think Bertie Wooster's chums at the Drones Club. I'm only glancingly familiar with the Potterverse, so can't confirm that this was the author's intent. DuncanHill (talk) 00:05, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Well, he's a performer, and he could certainly affect a southernish accent, much like John Fogerty, who grew up in California, adopts a strong New Orleans accent in performance. Jagger and Richards were blues fans, so it wouldn't be a surprise for Jagger to avoid a British accent in a blues riff. Acroterion (talk) 00:06, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks both. I guess I'm wondering then: was Jagger's accent specific to this particular song, or was it present in the rest of the Stones oeuvre, or even through British rock-n-roll of that era in general? I remember reading somewhere that early Beatles songs, influenced by Elvis, used a US southern accent. I can hear a number of Beatles songs in my mind (maybe not early ones) but I don't notice that accent in them.

I see there are a number of Bertie Wooster vids on youtube. I can't listen to them now but will do so later. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:2B99 (talk) 00:20, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll have to think about that one - when I want to imagine a Liverpudlian accent, I think of John Lennon's speaking voice. Acroterion (talk) 01:04, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

When Jagger sings old school blues, he affects a black southern US accent, and he has performed with actual black bluesmen for nearly 60 years. Sympathy for the Devil is a unique and idiosyncratic song and there are some exaggerated aspects of Jagger's vocal performance that adds to the creepiness of performance. I am old enough to have listened to the song over and over again when it was released in 1968, trying to understand the lyrics in depth and pondering the connotations, and I saw Jagger sing it live in Detroit in November, 1969, shortly before the debacle at Altamont. Even though I just called it creepy, it is an outstanding musical accomplishment. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:18, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

As for Jagger talking that way, no, unless he is acting. When speaking frankly as Mick Jagger, he has always has an English accent but a truly unique voice. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:21, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Jagger is a native of Dartford on the Thames Estuary, so Estuary English is his mother tongue.

You may also be interested in American accent makes singing easier, says Australian study. Alansplodge (talk) 09:39, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

British singers singing with an American accent is a recognised phenomena. See here for a discussion. Iapetus (talk) 08:01, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

I recall when Sheena Easton won a Grammy in the early 1980s, and heard the very Scottish lilt in her voice as she accepted the award. Up to then, I had only known her from her songs, which had nary a hint of a non-American accent. The Beatles also suppressed their Liverpudlian accent when singing, most of the time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:24, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

One wonders if oor wee Sheena has ever sung Sympathy for the Devil. This bloggy source suggests Jagger uses "a soft spoken and proper English accent"?? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:41, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Dunno. But in contrast to Sheena, The Proclaimers let at least some of their Scottish accent come through. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• Jagger sings in several different accents, sometimes pretty close to his native Estuary English, i.e. "Get Off of My Cloud" or "She's a Rainbow", to non-rhotic American accents (as noted above, "Sympathy for the Devil", or perhaps "Tumbling Dice"), to highly rhotic American accents, i.e. "Far Away Eyes", "Dead Flowers", to AAVE, i.e. "I Just Want to See His Face" or "Shake Your Hips". In general, I find that Mick's accent tends to track with the cultural milieu of the style of song he's performing at the time, which is to say AAVE for blues, General American for rock, hard-rhotic drawl for country, etc. etc. His accent control in songs tends to get more pronounced during his career; in his early 20s he often sounds more distinctly English than his stuff later in the 1970s. If you, for example, compare "Wild Horses" to "Far Away Eyes", you find that his ability to pull off a country drawl improves throughout the 1970s. However, the basic thing, is that people tend to adopt the accent associated with the style of singing they are doing at the time. Shania Twain is Canadian and Keith Urban is Australian, but they both sing in a distinctly Southern U.S. Accent. On the other side of things, you find that many American punk rock bands adopt a distinctly British accent, i.e. Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day, see Here. That's because, many of the early British punk bands sang in working-class London accents (the Sex Pistols, The Clash, etc.) and many later American punk bands adopted the style in the same way that British singers adopted American accents when singing blues-based rock. --Jayron32 11:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

• I've always thought "Far Away Eyes" borders on parody. But how could I ever tell? But it's certainly not "pop punk voice"! Welsh Death Metal anyone? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:57, 19 July 2021 (UTC)