Georgia 1

Listen to Georgia 1, a 43-year-old man from Savannah, Georgia, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 43

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1957

PLACE OF BIRTH: Savannah, Georgia

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: hospitality manager

EDUCATION: N/A

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject traveled extensively for three and a half years as a construction manager.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/09/2000

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH:

See pages 1-3 of this PDF.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/02/2008

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

I was born in Savannah, Georgia, and I was raised in a little small town about twelve miles west of Savannah called Bloomingdale. As an adolescent adult, I moved back into Savannah and got my own apartment, and I’ve been living here most of my life. I have been in the hospitality industry for about fifteen years. I, um, got out of it for about three and a half years and went into construction management, where I traveled pretty extensively, and it was good. Money was real good it just became I high stress job, got away from it. Savannah has always been a city that did not, as long as we knew what one another was doing and who they were doing; didn’t really matter, but as soon as the rest of the world started looking in on us it made a big difference, you know, and there are a lot of, umm, so to speak bluebloods here in this city that, umm, are very private, and they think that the book [Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil] shone, umm, an unflattering light on us because they, they felt like you know it just it showed a bunch of freaks and fairies, so to speak, and I just, I didn’t really look at it like that. I think it showed the colorful side of Savannah because Savannah has always been, umm … I refer to Savannah as the sinner sister city because of, I think I mentioned that to you yesterday. And, umm, there was a time when Savannah was nothing but brothels, and bars was the big trade here and now, of course, it’s tourism, and, umm, you know it’s like at that time. And of course you know Savannah has cleaned up a lot, which is good. But, umm, it was just, it was a very, even though it was a big city, it was a very neighborly city. And the big thing I can remember living here when I was in my early twenties, and the big thing on Sunday afternoons was you started out with a bottle of cheap wine and you garden-party hopped. You just went from garden party to garden party, and it didn’t matter whether it was somebody like me that was having one or somebody like, umm, Alvin Kneely [spelling?] or the, umm, the Levis [spelling?] or someone like that. You walk by their garden gate was open you got invited in, and that era’s gone and I hate to see that. I think the book changed a lot of that. I mean now you can’t have everybody that walks the streets. You can’t invite them into your house and stuff for obvious reasons, but there’s, umm, I think it’s been a good influence on Savannah, but also anytime you progress you lose something, right, so, I dunno. Um, it’s been good but there’s, there’s some losses that I hate, hated to see happen too.

TRANSCRIBED BY: DeAndrea Beatrice Herron

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 18/03/2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

See pages 3-5 of this PDF.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/02/2008

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

At the time of the recording, subject was manager of one of Savannah’s many fine bed-and-breakfast inns. You will notice that his speech is almost entirely rhotic and the r’s are actually quite hard (notice “bars,” for example). The monophthongalization of the long “I” is not global and depends on the type of consonant which follows. Notice “time,” “private,” “miles,” “side,” and “finally” are all reduced, while “like,” “pipes,” “price,” and “life” employ the diphthong as in General American speech. Notice the quality of the long “o,” as in “showed”; the diphthongalization of the vowel in “on,” “dog,” etc. The subject talks about the huge influence that the novel and film “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” had on Savannah. The story told is that of the murder trial of Jim Williams, wealthy Savannah restorationist and antique dealer. Most estimates are that tourism increased nearly 50 percent after the book was published.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 30/09/2000

The archive provides:

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