84-472: Dominguez Slough ( American English pronunciation: slew or slu ) was an endorheic lake and wetland in present-day Gardena , Los Angeles County, California , United States. Known for much of the late 19th century and early 20th century as Nigger Slough , it was renamed Lagunas de los Dominguez in 1938 in reference to the rancho-era Dominguez family . The slough was a "winding body of fresh water that wandered though Gardena and Carson on its way to
168-707: A cot–caught merger , which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot–caught distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked , as depicted in humorous spellings, like in tawk and cawfee ( talk and coffee ), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal : [oə] . A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes , using different
252-520: A pronunciations for example in gap [æ] versus gas [eə] , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents. Most Americans preserve all historical /r/ sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent . The only traditional r -dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England , New York City , and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across
336-497: A 30-minute long playlist of their songs and use that information to curate both their current playlist and the following one. The findings suggest that male song sparrows deliberately shuffle and repeat their songs possibly to keep a female's attention. Common predators of the song sparrow include cats , hawks , and owls ; however snakes , dogs , and the American kestrel are treated ambiguously, suggesting that they are less of
420-631: A complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling , while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another. Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England ,
504-447: A consonant, such as in pearl , car and fort . Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce ⟨r⟩ except before a vowel, such as some accents of Eastern New England , New York City , and African-Americans , and a specific few (often older ones) spoken by Southerners , are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived as sounding especially ethnic, regional, or antiquated. Rhoticity
588-481: A dark brown spot in the middle of the breast. They have a brown cap and a long brown rounded tail. Their face is gray with a brown streak through each eye. They are highly variable in size across numerous subspecies (for subspecies details, see below). The body length ranges from 11 to 18 cm (4.3 to 7.1 in) and wingspan can range from 18 to 25.4 cm (7.1 to 10.0 in). Body mass ranges from 11.9 to 53 g (0.42 to 1.87 oz). The average of all races
672-550: A few recorded in Great Britain and Norway . These birds forage on the ground, in shrubs or in very shallow water. They eat mainly insects and seeds. Birds in salt marshes may also eat small crustaceans . They nest either in a sheltered location on the ground or in trees or shrubs. Song sparrows with areas of shrub cover in their territory, away from the intertidal coastline, have greater over-winter survival, as well as higher reproductive success. The song sparrow has been
756-591: A merger with the THOUGHT ( caught ) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of /f/ , /θ/ , and particularly /s/ (as in Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long, wrong ), and variably by region or speaker in gone , on , and certain other words. Unlike American accents,
840-636: A nice day , for sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey , boost, bulldoze and jazz , originated as American slang. American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs . Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation , major, and many others. Compounds coined in
924-480: A process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to
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#17327870858581008-473: A refuge for men hunted by officers". The name change was proposed in 1938 as part of a plan to turn the area into a bird sanctuary. By 1940, the Laguna Dominguez watershed was said to be bounded by Normandie Avenue , Avalon Boulevard , 182nd street, and Carson Street . The construction of the long-planned drain took place between 1949 and 1967 and cost $ 26.4 million. After the slough was drained,
1092-680: A series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the " Inland North ". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents ) a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE /u/ vowel (to [u] ) and the MOUTH /aʊ/ vowel (to [ɑʊ~äʊ] ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker
1176-525: A survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich, soda (but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink , you or you guys for the plural of you (but y'all in
1260-546: A territory close to or replacing the birds that they have learned from. This allows the song sparrows to address their neighbors with songs shared with those neighbors. It has been demonstrated that song sparrows are able to distinguish neighbors from strangers on the basis of song, and also that females are able to distinguish (and prefer) their mate's songs from those of other neighboring birds, and they prefer songs of neighboring birds to those of strangers. A 2022 study by Duke University also found that male song sparrows memorize
1344-415: A threat . The song sparrow recognizes enemies by both instinctual and learned patterns (including cultural learning ), and adjusts its future behavior based on both its own experiences in encounters, and from watching other birds interact with the enemies. Comparisons of experiments on hand-raised birds to observation of birds in the wild suggest that the fear of owls and hawks is instinctual, but fear of cats
1428-453: A variation of American English in these islands. In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people. The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, but English is commonly used at the federal level and in states without an official language. 32 of the 50 states, in some cases as part of what has been called
1512-410: Is 32 g (1.1 oz) but the widespread nominate subspecies ( M. m. melodia ) weighs only about 22 g (0.78 oz) on average. The maximum lifespan in the wild is 11.3 years. The eggs of the song sparrow are brown with greenish-white spots. Females lay three to five eggs per clutch, with an average incubation time of 13–15 days before hatching. In the field, they are most easily confused with
1596-654: Is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South. American accents that have not undergone the cot–caught merger (the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT ) have instead retained a LOT – CLOTH split : a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the CLOTH lexical set ) separated away from the LOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into
1680-609: Is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin , and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English , beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands ; Thomasites first established
1764-538: Is common in most American accents despite being now rare in England because, during the 17th-century British colonization, nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way. The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during
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#17327870858581848-540: Is determined by not only pitch and rhythm but also the timbre of the trills. Although one bird will know many songs—as many as 20 different tunes with as many as 1000 improvised variations on the basic theme, —unlike thrushes , the song sparrow usually repeats the same song many times before switching to a different song. Song sparrows typically learn their songs from a handful of other birds that have neighboring territories. They are most likely to learn songs that are shared between these neighbors. Ultimately, they will choose
1932-497: Is learned. Song sparrows' nests are parasitized by the brown-headed cowbird . The cowbirds' eggs closely resemble song sparrows' eggs, although the cowbirds' eggs are slightly larger. Song sparrows recognize cowbirds as a threat and attack the cowbirds when they are near the nest. There is some evidence that this behavior is learned rather than instinctual. A more recent study found that the behavior of attacking female cowbirds near nests may actually attract cowbird parasitism because
2016-809: Is much larger than north slough. Los Angeles boulevard divides both lakes. South slough is about four miles long, extending from the Los Angeles boulevard to Wilmington and the north slough lies two miles south-southeast of Gardena. There are several small marshes adjoining Nigger Slough proper." They observed least bitterns , white-faced ibis , russet-backed thrush, black-headed grosbeak , Pacific yellowthroat , song sparrows , marbled godwit , mockingbirds , burrowing owls , turkey vultures , snakes, snapping turtles, coots , black-necked stilts , killdeer , yellow-headed blackbirds , ruddy ducks , cinnamon teal , pied-billed grebes , redwing blackbirds , plover , and purple gallinules . A 1916 account stated that
2100-420: Is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the /aɪ/ vowel losing its gliding quality : [aː] , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a " Southern drawl " that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels . The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE , GOAT , MOUTH , and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as
2184-546: Is one of the most polytypic bird species in North America , rivaling other variable species on a global scale, such as the horned lark , the yellow wagtail , the golden whistler , and the island thrush . There have been a total of 52 subspecies named altogether, of which 25 are still recognized following a systematic morphological review. A high quality reference genome has recently been created for this species, which will allow for comprehensive genomic analyses of
2268-634: Is part of Anderson Wash, considered a tributary of Dominguez Slough. Another section of Anderson Wash still existed in 2009 as a somewhat undisturbed "sliver of coastal sage scrub and riparian vegetation along the south side of the 105 Fwy. , just west of Normandie Ave. It includes a railroad right-of-way and is located on a steep slope with established houses above, so is arguably relatively secure." 33°52′27″N 118°17′33″W / 33.8743°N 118.2925°W / 33.8743; -118.2925 American English American English , sometimes called United States English or U.S. English ,
2352-429: Is the common language at home, in public, and in government. Song sparrow Melospiza cinerea The song sparrow ( Melospiza melodia ) is a medium-sized New World sparrow . Among the native sparrows in North America , it is easily one of the most abundant, variable and adaptable species. Adult song sparrows have brown upperparts with dark streaks on the back and are white underneath with dark streaking and
2436-640: Is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States ; the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce; and an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states . Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around
2520-469: Is the variable fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/ , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard . Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston , Pittsburgh , Upper Midwestern , and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel ( /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ , respectively):
2604-482: The English-only movement , have adopted legislation granting official or co-official status to English. Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.) Puerto Rico is the largest example of a United States territory in which another language – Spanish –
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2688-526: The Lincoln's sparrow and the Savannah sparrow . The former can be recognized by its shorter, grayer tail and the differently-patterned head, the brown cheeks forming a clear-cut angular patch. The Savannah sparrow has a forked tail and yellowish flecks on the face when seen up close. Though a habitat generalist, the song sparrow favors brushland and marshes, including salt marshes across most of Canada and
2772-493: The Los Angeles Times , the slough then covered about 1,500 acres (610 ha) and may have been spring-fed as, "In winter the water would be renewed and in summer it would be reduced by evaporation, although a constant inflow of what is estimated to be 60 miner's inches , coming up through the bottom, has kept the quantity of water up to a certain point." In 1903 a county survey stated that the soil at Dominguez Slough
2856-622: The Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent ), and the South . As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area , Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the LOT /ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward [a] and tensing of the TRAP /æ/ vowel wholesale to [eə] . These sound changes have triggered
2940-551: The Native American languages . Examples of such names are opossum , raccoon , squash , moose (from Algonquian ), wigwam , and moccasin . American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse , from French ; cookie , from Dutch ; kindergarten from German , and rodeo from Spanish . Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and
3024-722: The francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred programme for program , manoeuvre for maneuver , cheque for check , etc.). AmE almost always uses -ize in words like realize . BrE prefers -ise , but also uses -ize on occasion (see: Oxford spelling ). There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences , called " comma splices " in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors
3108-648: The 18.2 mi (29.3 km) infrastructure became known as Laguna Dominguez Channel or simply Dominguez Channel , a chute to the sea bordered by "oil refineries, industrial sites, and tract housing." Dominguez Slough survives in fragmentary form in the Gardena Willows Wetlands Preserve , Madrona Marsh , "'Devil's Dip' at Chester Washington Golf Course...a wetland inside a mobile home park [Carson Harbor Village]...Victoria Regional Park/Golf Course in Carson [was] also part of it." Devil's Dip
3192-764: The 18th century; apartment , shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium , townhouse , mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof ( driveway , breezeway, backyard ) . Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology ) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads ( dirt roads , freeways ) to infrastructure ( parking lot , overpass , rest area ), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally. Already existing English words—such as store , shop , lumber —underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in
3276-546: The 20th century. The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas . The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing
3360-627: The British form is a back-formation , such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar ). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems. While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions. The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in
3444-413: The East Coast (perhaps in imitation of 19th-century London speech), even the East Coast has gradually begun to restore rhoticity, due to it becoming nationally prestigious in the 20th century. The pronunciation of ⟨r⟩ is a postalveolar approximant [ ɹ̠ ] or retroflex approximant [ ɻ ] , but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant r sound
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3528-571: The Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity , the father–bother merger , Mary–marry–merry merger , pre-nasal "short a " tensing , and other particular vowel sounds . General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in
3612-573: The South), sneakers for athletic shoes (but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast), and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods. American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language , known as Webster's Dictionary ,
3696-528: The U.S. Several verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize , etc.; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster and enthuse). Among syntactic constructions that arose are outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae , skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in
3780-570: The U.S. are for instance foothill , landslide (in all senses), backdrop , teenager , brainstorm , bandwagon , hitchhike , smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English). Some are euphemistic ( human resources , affirmative action , correctional facility ). Many compound nouns have
3864-676: The U.S. are, for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky . A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots . Terms such as fall ("autumn"), faucet ("tap"), diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in
3948-530: The U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ( merger , downsize , bottom line ), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball . The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ( elevator [except in
4032-427: The U.S.), candy ("sweets"), skillet , eyeglasses , and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year." Gotten ( past participle of get ) is often considered to be largely an Americanism. Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from
4116-597: The U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler ), baggage , hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example, monkey wrench and wastebasket , originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives mad meaning "angry", smart meaning "intelligent", and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English. Linguist Bert Vaux created
4200-538: The United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 21st-century British English has since lost. Full rhoticity (or "R-fulness") is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme /r/ (corresponding to the letter ⟨r⟩ ) in all environments, including in syllable-final position or before
4284-411: The United States. They also thrive in human dominated areas such as in suburbs, agricultural fields, and along roadsides. Permanent residents of the southern half of their range, northern populations of the song sparrow migrate to the southern United States or Mexico during winter and intermingle with the native, non-migratory population. The song sparrow is a very rare vagrant to western Europe , with
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#17327870858584368-605: The West and Midwest, and New York Latino English , spoken in the New York metropolitan area . Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and " Yinglish " are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews , Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana , and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii , though primarily English-speaking,
4452-555: The accents spoken in the " Midland ": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum. Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds: In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since
4536-505: The aeronautical sense ], gasoline ) as did certain automotive terms ( truck , trunk ). New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish ( chutzpah , schmooze, bupkis, glitch ) and German ( hamburger , wiener ). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7 ), while others have not ( have
4620-426: The bare surface area makes a perfect place to radiate excess heat or absorb solar energy to maintain homeostasis. Knowing this, comparisons of bill length between individual song sparrows collected in different habitats were made with regard to the primary habitat type or microclimate that they were collected in. Larger beaked subspecies were strongly correlated with hotter microclimates - a correlation that follows from
4704-576: The broad-billed and web-footed tribes. In the old days the ground was open to all, but in later years the plebeian sportsman has had to content himself with a chance shot at the stray duck who wandered off the gilt-edged grounds which are now leased by the Los Angeles Gun Club , who enforce the game law and convict poachers with all the severity practised by the autocratic earls, lords and dukes of "Merrie" England, who guard their hunting grounds with rule of czars. According to an 1895 report in
4788-589: The conditions of Allen's Rule . The sparrow species derives its name from its colorful repertoire of songs. Enthusiasts report that one of the songs heard often in suburban locations closely resembles the opening four notes of Ludwig van Beethoven 's Symphony No. 5 . The male uses a fairly complex song to declare ownership of its territory and attract females. Singing itself consists of a combination of repeated notes, quickly passing isolated notes, and trills. The songs are very crisp, clear, and precise, making them easily distinguishable by human ears. A particular song
4872-406: The country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains its r pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's r -dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from
4956-598: The differences between the several morphologically diverged subspecies. Small, brownish, long-winged forms with strong black streaks. Large, dark, diffuse dark streaks. A study of mtDNA allozyme variation of most forms in this group concluded that they are of comparatively recent origin and that island populations are apparently derived independently from each other. Small, well-marked and short-winged brownish forms. All resident, except occasional birds from upland populations. Small, pale, streaks rufous; all resident. Black-spotted, white throats; all resident. Seen as
5040-614: The diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased. Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages. Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in
5124-742: The double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here'). Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation. AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where
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#17327870858585208-511: The female cowbirds use such behavior to identify female song sparrows that are more likely to successfully raise a cowbird chick. One study found that while cowbird parasitism did result in more nest failure, overall there were negligible effects on song sparrow populations when cowbirds were introduced to an island. The study pointed to a number of explanatory factors including song sparrows raising multiple broods, and song sparrows' abilities to raise cowbird chicks with their own. The song sparrow
5292-517: The following two centuries) when this ethnic group eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North, and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic. While non-rhoticity spread on
5376-944: The hospital , BrE to hospital ; contrast, however, AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor , BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor ). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other, and American English is not a standardized set of dialects. Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour , fiber for fibre , defense for defence , analyze for analyse , license for licence , catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling . Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to
5460-674: The influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish ) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers. Any phonologically unmarked North American accent falls under an umbrella known as General American. This section mostly refers to such General American features. Studies on historical usage of English in both
5544-502: The lake was "shown as Agua Negra on early maps and believed to have earned that title because of early negro squatters nearby and the fact that a negro kept an inn on the old Los Angeles to Wilmington and San Pedro road which crossed the slough." Research into the historical ecology of the watershed has found that between the 1890s and the 1920s, "large Dominguez Slough converted in a mere 30 years to being mostly open water to mostly wetland or sump or wet meadow." The wildlife value of
5628-699: The last considerable area of breeding-ground for fresh-water birds in southern California . The reduction of formerly extensive deep-water areas to wide stretches of oozy mud, partly covered by a thin sheet of water, appears to have coincided with an unusual visitation of red phalarope to this locality." A man who lived near the slough when he was a kid in the 1920s described to the New York Times in 1964 how "the boys got through it on foot or on rafts made of boards or in pole boats. It abounded in foxes , swamp rats, skunks, owls, herons, egrets and thousands of red‐wing blackbirds. Ken Stager , now chief curator of
5712-438: The late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce . New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas,
5796-613: The mass of their reproductive organs. Male specimens of M. melodia gain significant testicular mass in response both to changes in the daily photoperiod and as a result of endogenous chemical signals. Females also undergo significant ovarian growth in response to both photo-period and endogenous signals. Hormone levels in both males and females fluctuate throughout the breeding season, having very high levels in March and late April and then declining until May. These studies suggest that there are multiple factors at work that influence when and how
5880-427: The mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame. However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in
5964-617: The most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents. Although no longer region-specific, African-American Vernacular English , which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans , has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture . Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English , spoken in
6048-466: The mud flats of San Pedro ." Gardena is reportedly so named because "of the Laguna Dominguez slough and channel which in summer cuts a green swath across the barren brown landscape—an oasis in the drab, parched landscape between Los Angeles and the harbor area ." Dominguez Slough was used as a hunting and fishing ground by the indigenous Tongva-Kizh people ; at one point skeletons and relics were found nearby. According to one mid-20th-century account,
6132-516: The ornithological division in the Los Angeles County Museum , did his first bird‐watching in that swamp . To add to its fascination, Mr. Litton recalls that sheriffs were forever tracking down criminals who were reputed to be in hiding there." The slough was indeed considered more or less impassable to law enforcement in the 1920s as it remained a "dense entanglement of tules , high grass, and willow brush ...for years has been
6216-402: The past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: learned / learnt , burned / burnt , snuck/sneaked , dove/dived ) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE in school, BrE at school ); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to
6300-434: The song sparrow breeds other than just increasing day length. Due to the myriad subspecies of the song sparrow and the extremely varied climate of southern California , where many of these subspecies make their homes, physiological studies were undertaken to determine how climatic conditions and local environment influenced the bill size of M. melodia subspecies. The bill of a bird is highly important for thermoregulation as
6384-569: The subject of several studies detailing the physiological reactions of bird species to conditions such as daylight length and differing climatic conditions. Most birds gain mass in their reproductive organs in response to some signal, either internal or external as the breeding season approaches. The exact source of this signal varies from species to species – for some, it is an endogenous process separate from environmental cues, while other species require extensive external signals of changing daylight length and temperature before beginning to increase
6468-570: The traditional standard accent of (southern) England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved a trap–bath split . Moreover, American accents preserve /h/ at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping , particularly in informal contexts. However, General American is also innovative in a number of its own ways: The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from
6552-417: The verb-and-preposition combination: stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout , holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover , and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ( win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others). Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in
6636-433: The waterline of Nigger Slough was roughly 14 ft (4.3 m) above sea level . The report also described three 19th-century dikes that had been constructed by the rancheros to exclude Los Angeles River floodwaters from the slough. The ecology of the slough apparently began changing around this time, as a bird journal reported in 1918: "The passing of famed Nigger Slough as a result of drainage work begun in 1916, removes
6720-451: The wetland was recognized by a newspaper editorial writer of 1894, who stated: From the earliest settlement of this county Nigger slough has been famous as the best duck hunting ground in the southern country. Sportsmen from all over the southern counties have spent many happy days and nights along the margin of the slough in pursuit of canvasbacks , mallard , cinnamon , teal , widgeon , spike tails , spoon bills , and other varieties of
6804-775: The word corn , used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S. Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812 , with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style ). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms ( lot , waterfront) and types of homes like log cabin , adobe in
6888-609: The world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American ; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent . The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in
6972-463: Was "somewhat unique in its formation, the material having been carried into the lake by the streams, chiefly by Los Angeles River , and there deposited. It may therefore be considered a lacustrine deposit ." Ornithologists who visited in 1914 described the slough as about 7.5 miles (12.1 km) long and generally about .5 miles (0.80 km) wide with a total of about 1,800 acres (730 ha) of land under cover of water, writing "South Nigger Slough
7056-469: Was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings. Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick / he ran quickly ; different use of some auxiliary verbs ; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns ; different preferences for
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