H. C. Orr "mhco" (Littlhampton said:
Watch Your Vowel Mangling, Missie!
I am writing this review in response to several empirical researches that I have carried out whilst visiting Toronto, Canada.
My findings underline a worrying development in the case of children's use of the English language.
Specifically, I am talking about the elongation of vowel sounds in the speech of teenage children who have a proclivity to listening to the music of Avril Lavigne and other such Canadian pop singers. This phenomonon is called, in technical parlance, "vowel mangling", or more commonly as "sub-dipthong abduration".
Of course, this phenomenon has a long history. Although singers such as Neil Young bravely carried the torch for decent spoken (or rather, sung) English, other Canadians have not followed suit. Only a few years ago, there was the case of Alanis Morrissette, who favoured long vowel sounds in her songs (especially her well-known trademark, the "ie-eau" sound). Of course, there was also the Bryan Adams example, which is a whole separate review...
But, I fear, Ms. Lavigne has taken vowel mangling onto a whole new level. Let us take the case of the song known as "Sk8ter Boy". There is the line, as written "the boy she turned down", which actually appears on the record as "the boy she turned do-e-oown".
What are the implications of this rather painful-sounding alteration of the vowel sounds? I fear that it teaches children to think that elongating vowels is big and clever, and that it is in fact okay to say things like "I am going to the shi-oups", when they mean "I am going to the shops".
The end point of such a development could be that the mean length of children's sentences grows by as much as 7% over the next generation. Such a development could be disasterous for Canada, and in fact the whole world, when speed of communication is at the heart of a successful global economy. Possibly world-wide recession, war and nuclear holocaust could result in the simple lengthening of a few vowels.
So, to close, I urge all parents to watch their children's vowels. You don't know where it could all end...