Missouri 25

Listen to Missouri 25, a 23-year-old woman from St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 23

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/01/1998

PLACE OF BIRTH: St. Louis, Missouri

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Black/African American

OCCUPATION: graduate student

EDUCATION: bachelor’s of science degree in health science and a master’s degree in college student personnel administration

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject has always lived in Missouri except for a year in Conway, Arkansas. (She was born and raised in St. Louis and also spent four years in Kirksville, in the northern part of the state.)

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The subject says she is not sure where her accent came from.

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

RECORDED BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 01/04/2021

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So, I would say I was in kindergarten. Actually, I was in kindergarten. And on the playground, kindergarteners were not allowed to go on the monkey bars or the monkey rings on the jungle-gym set. So, one day, um, there were some, some, some of my, uh, fellow kindergartener friends, and they was — they tied a rope up on the monkey bars and like was swinging off of it like Tarzan. And so I went up there and was like, “Y’all know y’all not supposed to be on here. We not supposed to be up here.” So then I, um, untied the rope. But as I untied the rope, the teacher only saw me by the monkey bars and was like “Sadeja, you know kindergarteners are not allowed on the monkey rings or the monkey bars.” And I was like, “I was just tellin’ them that.” And then she was like, “Well, I don’t see them nobody else playin’.” And I was like, uh, she was like, “You need to get down or get away from there.”

So me, tryin’ to be a little smarty pants [subject laughs], I, I was like “OK, all right.” So I just swung on the rope. I, I tried to be a smart pants, like swing off the rope that was on the monkey bars. But I forgot that I untied the rope before that happened. So, I swung, and I jumped off, and the rope fell, so I fell too. And I hit my head on the platform on my way, on my way down. So, I was like so embarrassed, and I promise you, like the whole playground stopped after that. Like, it just felt like everybody froze, and teacher was like, she was like, “Now, that’s what you get. You need to go stand on the wall ‘cause you on time-out.” Or whatever.

So, I’m on my way to the wall; I was just like feeling like everybody on the playground was like watching me. Like I could just feel the stares. And you know I’m embarrassed, and so like tears started well up in my eyes. And so this, I’ll never forget this, this little boy: He was like, “Her head bleedin’,” and then I like touched the back of my head ‘cause I didn’t even know, and then I saw the blood.

And then my teacher: She ran up, put up her hand and bring me inside. And you know it wasn’t a really bad bleed. So like what they did was, they — we stopped the bleeding; like we had the used paper towels and stuff to stop the bleeding. And then they gave me frozen hot dogs to like put on there because they didn’t have no ice packs. I went to a like a pri- a Black all-private school. So you know there’s some times you know lack of. But, so, they called my granny and my mother, and during this time I was, I was living with my grandmother, so, um, my, when I saw my mother with my grandmother and I was sittin’ in the front waiting for them to come get me, and I just knew my granny was comin’, so I was just like “Aw, it’s just my granny,” you know.

But my mother was there, and I just started bawling because I was like, “Oh my God, I let my momma down. She took off time to listen to the rules.” And I just started cryin’ all over again. [Subject laughs.] And then my momma came in. She was like “Sadeja, what did we learn?” I was like “that we supposed to follow the rules.” And she was like she was like, “OK, so we not gonna get on the monkey bars no more, right?” I was like, “no ma’am.” And then, um, so after that, she was like “let me see.”

They didn’t take me to the hospital because they said it wasn’t like that bad. So they just took me home, and like my mom slept with me and watched me overnight. But that’s the story of how I busted my head in kindergarten.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/04/2021

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

The subject lengthens many short vowels.

STRUT [ʌ} is almost uniformly lengthened (but, monkey, um, blood, come, much).

GOOSE [u] is often lengthened (you, huge, tune).

KIT [ɪ] is sometimes lengthened (been).

TRAP [æ] vowel occasionally is formed as DRESS [e] and is lengthened (pants, packs, granny, and).

DRESS [e] can lengthen when it is stressed (well).

Monophthongization of diphthong [aɪ] PRICE occurs and [a] is lengthened (eyes, implied, finally, side, tire, five, time, tied, untied, like, I).

Beginning THAT [ð] consonant can become DOG [d] (then, there, that’s).

Ending RUN [r] consonant can sometimes be dropped at the end or near the end of a word (mirror, remembered, teacher).

Consonant cluster [st] occasionally employs consonant [ʃ] SHAPE (distract).

LOT [ɒ] can be formed with a raised tongue and lengthened, releasing as [aʊ] (on, only, so, off, dogs).

Ending plosive consonants [t] and [d] can either be dropped or formed as glottal stops [ʔ] (head, jacket, get, first, ate, vet, that).

R-colored vowels NURSE [ɝ] and LETTER [ɚ] drop the vowel and lengthen [r] sound (here, embarrassed, every way).

Ending consonant [g] may not be formed when part of an -ing suffix (playing, bleeding, trying, sitting, coming).

Ending [g] can link between two words when following word begins with a vowel (swing off).

KIT [ɪ] vowel can be formed with a raised tongue, produced FLEECE [i] (which).

COMMENTARY BY: Ben Corbett

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/04/2021

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.

• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.

• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.

• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.