Misplaced Pages

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86-478: As of the early 21st century , these general characteristics of the Midland regional accent are firmly established: fronting of the / oʊ / , / aʊ / , and / ʌ / vowels occurs towards the center or even the front of the mouth; the cot–caught merger is neither fully completed nor fully absent; and short- a tensing evidently occurs strongest before nasal consonants . The currently-documented core of

172-452: A nasal system similar to those found elsewhere in the Midland and the West. St. Louis , Missouri, is historically one among several (North) Midland cities, but it has developed some unique features of its own distinguishing it from the rest of the Midland. The area around St. Louis has been in dialectal transition throughout most of the 1900s until the present moment. The eldest generation of

258-726: A national emergency . Despite President Obama's concern, a Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll found in October 2009 that an overwhelming majority of New Jerseyans (74%) were not very worried or not at all worried about contracting the H1N1 flu virus. A study conducted in coordination with the University of Michigan Health Service is scheduled for publication in the December 2009 American Journal of Roentgenology warning that H1N1 flu can cause pulmonary embolism , surmised as

344-635: A short- a split that is similar to New York City's, though still unique. Certain vocabulary is also specific to the Mid-Atlantic dialect, and particularly to its Philadelphia sub-dialect . The emerging and expanding dialect of western and much of central Pennsylvania is, for many purposes, an extension of the South Midland; it is spoken also in Youngstown, Ohio , 10 miles west of the state line, as well as Clarksburg, West Virginia . Like

430-452: A tsunami that killed around one quarter-million people and displaced well over a million others. The most prominent terrorist attacks committed against the civilian population during the decade include: The most prominent armed conflicts of the decade include: The most prominent coup d'état of the decade include: During the 2000s, the expectations and unspoken rules for acceptable conduct among American politicians affiliated with

516-676: A United States-led coalition invaded Iraq , and the Iraq War led to the end of Saddam Hussein 's rule as Iraqi President and the Ba'ath Party in Iraq. Al-Qaeda and affiliated Islamist militant groups performed terrorist acts throughout the decade. The Second Congo War , the deadliest conflict since World War II, ended in July 2003. Further wars that ended included the Algerian Civil War ,

602-648: A contrastive THOUGHT vowel instead: [no̞ːʔt] , which falls together with [ ɒ ] in Pittsburgh). Earlier reports give [ ɜ ] as the norm for STRUT in Pittsburgh. The remaining checked vowels /ɪ/ , /ʊ/ , /ɛ/ and /æ/ are all within the General American norm. The GOAT vowel often has an unrounded central or fronted starting point in Pittsburgh: [əʊ] . Outside of

688-419: A description of the dialect, whose author Bruce Lee Johnson notes that the auxiliary verb might is typically pronounced with nasalization, as [mɜ̃ɪ̃ʔt] . Elsewhere in the article, this allophone is transcribed ⟨ ʌɪ ⟩, following its usual transcription on Misplaced Pages. The MOUTH vowel typically begins front in the mouth [æʊ] . A less common variant has a central starting point, [äʊ] , matching

774-589: A global recession, beginning in the United States and affecting most of the industrialized world. The combined wealth of the "10 million dollar millionaires" grew to nearly $ 41 trillion in 2008. The period takes its name from Gordon Brown , the then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (who later became Prime Minister ), who decided to sell approximately half of the UK's gold reserves in a series of auctions. At

860-620: A leading cause of death in this current pandemic. The study authors suggest physician evaluation via contrast enhanced CT scans for the presence of pulmonary emboli when caring for patients diagnosed with respiratory complications from a "severe" case of the H1N1 flu. As of May 30, 2010, as stated by the World Health Organization, more than 214 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including over 18,138 deaths. The most significant evolution of

946-467: A proper Southern accent, several cities in Texas can be better described as having a Midland U.S. accent, as they lack the "true" Southern accent's full /aɪ/ deletion and the oft-accompanying Southern Vowel Shift. Texan cities classifiable as such specifically include Abilene, Austin, San Antonio and Corpus Christi. Austin , in particular, has been reported in some speakers to show the South Midland (but not

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1032-512: A rounded /ɒ/ (phonetically [ ɒ ~ ɔ ] ). As in most other American dialects, the father–bother merger also occurs. Therefore, cot and caught are both pronounced /kɒt/ ; Don and dawn are both /dɒn/ . While the merger of the low back vowels is also widespread elsewhere in the United States, the rounded realizations of the merged vowel around [ɒ] is less common, except in Canada , California and Northeastern New England . /ɒ/ has

1118-416: A stylistic variant, which is open central unrounded [ ä ] , as in the sarcastic pronunciation of I apologize as [aɪ əˈpʰäɫɨdʒaɪz] . It may also occur before /r/ , as in start [stäɹʔt] or car [kʰäɹ] , but a more common pronunciation is back and rounded: [stɒɹʔt] etc. The vowel in hoarse is the same as the one in horse , phonetically [ ɔ ] : [hɔɹs] but phonemically /oʊ/ due to

1204-405: A subregion between western and eastern Pennsylvania, but some scholars in the 20th century onwards have identified it within the western Pennsylvania dialect region. Since Kurath's study, one of western Pennsylvania's defining features, the cot–caught merger , has expanded into central Pennsylvania, moving eastward until being blocked at Harrisburg . Perhaps the only feature whose distribution

1290-543: A transitional dialect region between the South and Inland North; however, the "South Midland" is a sub-region that phonologically speaking fits more with the South and even employs some Southern vocabulary , for example, favoring y'all as the plural of you , whereas the rest of the (North) Midland favors you guys . Another possible Appalachian and South Midland variant is you'uns (from you ones ), though it remains most associated with Western Pennsylvania English . Today,

1376-499: Is a dialect of American English native primarily to the western half of Pennsylvania , centered on the city of Pittsburgh , but potentially appearing in some speakers as far north as Erie County , as far west as Youngstown, Ohio , and as far south as Clarksburg, West Virginia . Commonly associated with the working class of Pittsburgh, users of the dialect are colloquially known as "Yinzers". Scots-Irish , Pennsylvania Dutch , Polish , Ukrainian and Croatian immigrants to

1462-575: Is also common in African-American English . The word mirror can be pronounced as the single-syllable mere . Western Pennsylvania English speakers may use falling intonation at the end of questions, for example, in "Are you painting your garage?" [↗ˈɒɹ jə ˈpʰeɪɾ̃ɪŋ jɚ ɡə↘ˈɹɒdʒ] (with pitch rising in intonation up to just before the last syllable and then falling precipitously). Such speakers typically use falling pitch for yes–no questions for which they already are quite sure of

1548-762: Is confined to the environment of a following nasal, matching the GenAm allophony. An epenthetic (intruding) /r/ sound may occur after vowels in a few words, such as water pronounced as [ˈwɔɹɾɚ] , and wash as [wɔɹʃ] . A number of vowel mergers occur uniquely in Western Pennsylvania English before the consonant /l/ . The pair of vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ may merge before the /l/ consonant, cause both steel and still to be pronounced as something like [stɪɫ] . Similarly, /u/ , /oʊ/ , and /ʊ/ may merge before /l/ , so that pool , pull , and pole may merge to something like [pʰʊɫ] . On

1634-558: Is consistently found only in western Pennsylvania. The /i/~/ɪ/ merger towards [ɪ] may also appear before /ɡ/ : eagle then sounds to outsiders like iggle . L -vocalization is also common in the Western Pennsylvania dialect; an /l/ then sounds like a /w/ or a cross between a vowel and a "dark" /l/ at the end of a syllable. For example, well is pronounced as [wɛw] ; milk as [mɪwk] or [mɛwk] ; role as [ɹʊw] ; and cold as [ˈkʰʊwd] . The phenomenon

1720-501: Is evidence that these Northern sound changes are reversing for the younger generations of speakers in the St. Louis area, who are re-embracing purely Midland-like accent features, though only at a regional level and therefore not including the aforementioned traditional features of the eldest generation. According to a UPenn study, the St. Louis Corridor's one-generation period of embracing the NCS

1806-715: Is not especially relevant to organisms which don't cause disease in humans). The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom in 2001 caused a crisis in British agriculture and tourism. This epizootic saw 2,000 cases of the disease in farms across most of the British countryside. Over 6 million sheep and cattle were killed. Between November 2002 and July 2003, an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) occurred in Hong Kong, with 8,273 cases and 775 deaths worldwide (9.6% fatality) according to

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1892-583: Is one of the few features, if not the only one, restricted almost exclusively to western Pennsylvania in North America, but it can sometimes be found in other accents of the English-speaking world, such as Cockney and South African English . The sound may be the result of contact from Slavic languages during the early 20th century. Monophthongization also occurs for the sound /aɪ/ , as in eye , before liquid consonants, so that tile

1978-404: Is perhaps best known for the monophthongization of MOUTH ( /aʊ/ to [aː] ), such as the stereotypical Pittsburgh pronunciation of downtown as dahntahn . Despite having a Northern accent in the first half of the 20th century, Erie, Pennsylvania , is the only major Northern city to change its affiliation to Midland by now using the Western Pennsylvania accent. Today, the Midland is considered

2064-572: Is pronounced [tʰɑːɫ] ; pile is pronounced [pʰɑːɫ] ; and iron is pronounced [ɑːɹn] . That phenomenon allows tire to merge with the sound of tar : [tʰɑːɹ] . The NURSE vowel (phonemically an /ər/ sequence) is phonetically close-mid [ ɘ˞ ] . Johnson notes a tendency to diphthongize /æ/ to [ɛə] not only before nasals (as in GenAm) but also before all voiced consonants (as in bad [bɛəd] ) and voiceless fricatives (as in grass [ɡɹɛəs] ). This has since been reversed and now [ɛə]

2150-437: Is restricted almost exclusively to the immediate vicinity of Pittsburgh is /aʊ/ monophthongization in which words such as house , down , found , and sauerkraut are sometimes pronounced with an "ah" sound, instead of the more standard pronunciation of "ow", rendering eye spellings such as hahs , dahn , fahnd , and sahrkraht . Speakers of Pittsburgh English are sometimes called "Yinzers" in reference to their use of

2236-407: Is similar to and originates from that of New York City , with the raising environments including nasals (m, n, ŋ), voiceless fricatives (f, unvoiced th, sh, s), and voiced stops (b, d, g). Weaker forms of this pattern are shown by speakers from nearby Dayton and Springfield . Boberg and Strassel (2000) reported that Cincinnati's traditional short- a system was giving way among younger speakers to

2322-417: The /il/~/ɪl/ merger, Labov, Ash and Boberg (2006) note "the stereotype of merger of /ɪl ~ il/ is based only on a close approximation of some forms, and does not represent the underlying norms of the dialect." The /i/~/ɪ/ merger is found in western Pennsylvania, as well as parts of the southern United States, including Alabama, Texas and the west (McElhinny 1999). On the other hand, the /u/~/ʊ/ merger

2408-958: The Angolan Civil War , the Sierra Leone Civil War , the Second Liberian Civil War , the Nepalese Civil War , and the Sri Lankan Civil War . Wars that began included the conflict in the Niger Delta , the Houthi insurgency , and the Mexican drug war . Climate change and global warming became common concerns in the 2000s. Prediction tools made significant progress during the decade, UN -sponsored organizations such as

2494-650: The Ba'ath Party in Iraq. Al-Qaeda and affiliated Islamist militant groups performed terrorist acts throughout the decade. These acts included the 2004 Madrid train bombings , 7/7 London bombings in 2005, and the 2008 Mumbai attacks related to al-Qaeda. The European Union expanded its sanctions amid Iran 's failure to comply with its transparency obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and United Nations resolutions . The war on terror generated extreme controversy around

2580-691: The IPCC gained influence, and studies such as the Stern Review influenced public support for paying the political and economic costs of countering climate change. The global temperature kept climbing during the decade. In December 2009, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that the 2000s may have been the warmest decade since records began in 1850, with four of the five warmest years since 1850 having occurred in this decade. The WMO's findings were later echoed by

2666-647: The Inland North dialect, best recognized today as the Chicago accent. This 20th-century St. Louis accent's separating quality from the rest of the Midland is its strong resistance to the cot–caught merger and the most advanced development of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCS). In the 20th century, Greater St. Louis therefore became a mix of Midland accents and Inland Northern (Chicago-like) accents. Even more complicated, however, there

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2752-538: The Inland Southern and Inland Northern accent regions. In Labov et al.'s newer study, the "Midland" essentially coincides with Kurath's "North Midland", while the "South Midland" is now considered as largely a portion, or the northern fringe, of the larger 20th-century Southern accent region. Indeed, while the lexical and grammatical isoglosses encompass the Appalachian Mountains regardless of

2838-697: The NASA and the NOAA . Major natural disasters included Cyclone Nargis in 2008 and earthquakes in Pakistan and China in 2005 and 2008, respectively. The deadliest natural disaster and most powerful earthquake of the 21st century occurred in 2004 when a 9.1–9.3 M w earthquake and its subsequent tsunami struck multiple nations in the Indian Ocean, killing 230,000 people. Usage of computer-generated imagery became more widespread in films produced during

2924-715: The Republican or Democratic Parties changed due to the decline of political bosses in the previous 4 decades and the momentous events in America that happened during the decade. Generally, American presidential candidates abided by and respected the established procedures of both major parties' presidential nomination process. During this decade, the peaceful transfer of power through elections first occurred in Mexico, Indonesia, Taiwan , Colombia, and several other countries. (See below.) The prominent political events of

3010-583: The World Health Organization (WHO). Within weeks, SARS spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus : the Office for National Statistics reported 1,629 MRSA -related deaths in England and Wales during 2005, indicating a MRSA-related mortality rate half the rate of that in the United States for 2005, even though

3096-720: The World Trade Organization did not succeed in finding agreements to stretch the extent of free trade . The Doha Round of negotiations, launched in 2001 by the WTO to promote development, failed to be completed because of growing tensions between regional areas. Nor did the Cancún Conference in 2003 find a consensus on services trade and agricultural subsidies . The comparative rise of China, India, and other developing countries also contributed to their growing clout in international forums . In 2009, it

3182-554: The mainland of the People's Republic of China (PRC) because of numerous alleged consumer safety issues. Events in the confidence crisis included recalls on consumer goods such as pet food , toys , toothpaste , lipstick , and a ban on certain types of seafood . Also included are reports on the poor crash safety of Chinese automobiles, slated to enter the American and European markets in 2008. This created adverse consequences for

3268-485: The 2000s in the economic landscape was the long-time predicted breakthrough of economic giant China , whose GDP grew from 1.21 trillion to 5.1 trillion (in 2022 USD). To a lesser extent, India also benefited from an economic boom (growing from 438.39 billion to 1.34 trillion) which saw the two most populous countries becoming an increasingly dominant economic force. The rapid catching-up of emerging economies with developed countries sparked some protectionist tensions during

3354-476: The 2000s, especially with the success of 2001's Shrek and 2003's Finding Nemo , the latter becoming the best-selling DVD of all time. Anime films gained more exposure outside Japan with the release of Spirited Away . 2009's Avatar became the highest-grossing film . Documentary and mockumentary films, such as March of the Penguins , Super Size Me , Borat and Surf's Up , were popular in

3440-560: The 2000s. 2004's Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore was the highest grossing documentary of all time. Online films became popular, and conversion to digital cinema started. Video game consoles released in this decade included the PlayStation 2 , Xbox , GameCube , Wii , PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 ; while portable video game consoles included the Game Boy Advance , Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable . Wii Sports

3526-535: The Appalachian regions of Kentucky, Tennessee, and all of West Virginia. A decade later, Kurath split this into two discrete subdivisions: the "North Midland" beginning north of the Ohio River valley area and extending westward into central Indiana, central Illinois, central Ohio, Iowa, and northern Missouri , as well as parts of Nebraska and northern Kansas ; and the "South Midland", which extends south of

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3612-559: The Midland dialect region are being reduced or revised since several previous subregions of Midland speech have since developed their own distinct dialects. Pennsylvania , the original home state of the Midland dialect, is one such area and has now formed such unique dialects as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh English . The dialect region "Midland" was first labeled in the 1890s, but only first defined (tentatively) by Hans Kurath in 1949 as centered on central Pennsylvania and expanding westward and southward to include most of Pennsylvania , and

3698-454: The Midland dialect region spans from central Ohio at its eastern extreme to central Nebraska and Oklahoma City at its western extreme. Certain areas outside the core also clearly demonstrate a Midland accent, including Charleston, South Carolina ; the Texan cities of Abilene , Austin , and Corpus Christi ; and central and some areas of southern Florida . Early 20th-century dialectology

3784-463: The Midland non-existent according to their 1987 publication and preferring to identify Kurath's North Midland as merely an extension of the North and his South Midland as an extension of the South, based on some 800 lexical items. Conversely, William Labov and his team based their 1990s research largely on phonological (sound) characteristics and re-identified the Midland area as a buffer zone between

3870-533: The Midland proper, the Western Pennsylvania accent features fronting of /oʊ/ and /aʊ/ , as well as positive anymore . Its chief distinguishing features, however, also make it a separate dialect from the Midland one. These features include a completed LOT – THOUGHT merger to a rounded vowel, which also causes a chain shift that drags the STRUT vowel into the previous position of LOT . The Western Pennsylvania accent, lightheartedly known as "Pittsburghese",

3956-536: The Ohio River and expands westward to include Kentucky, southern Indiana , southern Illinois , southern Ohio , southern Missouri, Arkansas , southern Kansas, and Oklahoma , west of the Mississippi River . Kurath and then later Craig Carver and the related Dictionary of American Regional English based their 1960s research only on lexical (vocabulary) characteristics, with Carver et al. determining

4042-406: The Ohio River, the phonological boundary fairly closely follows along the Ohio River itself. More recent research has focused on grammatical characteristics and in particular a variable, possible combination of such characteristics. The original Midland dialect region, thus, has split off into having more of a Southern accent in southern Appalachia, while, the second half of the 20th century has seen

4128-551: The Southern) variant of /aɪ/ deletion mentioned above. 2000s (decade) The 2000s (pronounced "two-thousands"; shortened to the ' 00s and known as the aughts or noughties ) was a decade that began on January 1, 2000, and ended on December 31, 2009. The early part of the decade saw the long-predicted breakthrough of economic giants in Asia, like India and China , which had double-digit growth during nearly

4214-673: The United States and the United Kingdom have been or are potentially affected. While global trade rose in the decade (partially driven by China's entry into the WTO in 2001), there was little progress in the multilateral trading system. International trade continued to expand during the decade as emerging economies and developing countries, in particular China and South-Asian countries, benefited low wages costs and most often undervalued currencies. However, global negotiations to reduce tariffs did not make much progress, as member countries of

4300-436: The area all provided certain loanwords to the dialect (see "Vocabulary" below). Many of the sounds and words found in the dialect are popularly thought to be unique to Pittsburgh, but that is a misconception since the dialect resides throughout the greater part of western Pennsylvania and the surrounding areas. Central Pennsylvania, currently an intersection of several dialect regions, was identified in 1949 by Hans Kurath as

4386-479: The area may exhibit a rapidly-declining merger of the phonemes /ɔr/ (as in for ) and /ɑr/ (as in far ) to the sound [ɒɹ] , while leaving distinct /oʊr/ (as in four ), thus being one of the few American accents to still resist the horse-hoarse merger (while also displaying the card-cord merger ). This merger has led to jokes referring to " I farty-far ", although a more accurate eye spelling would be "I farty-four". Also, some St. Louis speakers, again usually

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4472-589: The city itself, [oʊ] is more common. GOOSE is sometimes also fronted, to [ɨu] (more usual value: [ʊu] ). As in other American dialects, FLEECE and FACE are narrow diphthongs [ɪi, ee̝] . CHOICE is also within GenAm norm: [ɔ̟ɪ] . The PRICE vowel alone undergoes Canadian raising to [ɜɪ] before voiceless consonants, as in ice [ɜɪs] . In 1971, the Journal of the International Phonetic Association published

4558-488: The city of Charleston, South Carolina , clearly has all the defining features of a mainstream Midland accent. The vowels /oʊ/ and /u/ are extremely fronted, and yet not so not before /l/ . Also, the older, more traditional Charleston accent was extremely "non-Southern" in sound (as well as being highly unique), spoken throughout the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry , but it mostly faded out of existence in

4644-504: The city's "great example", "an era that history will record as the beginning of a new Golden Age". Reactions of governments in all developed and developing countries against the economic slowdown were largely inspired by keynesian economics . The end of the decade was characterized by a Keynesian resurgence , while the influence and media popularity of left-wing economists Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize recipients in 2001 and 2008, respectively) did not stop growing during

4730-466: The confidence in the safety and quality of mainland Chinese manufactured goods in the global economy. The decade was marked by two financial and economic crises. In 2001, the Dot-com bubble burst, causing turmoil in financial markets and a decline in economic activity in the developed economies, in particular in the United States. However, the impact of the crisis on the activity was limited thanks to

4816-577: The cot-caught merger: /hoʊrs/ . /ʌ/ is backer and more open than [ ɜ ] found in Midland American English , being closer to [ ɑ ] . This makes STRUT an unrounded counterpart of LOT , with pairs such as nut [nɑʔt] vs. not [nɒʔt] or cut [kʰɑʔt] vs. cot [kʰɒʔt] contrasting mainly by roundedness . This is also found in contemporary Standard Southern British English, where nut [nʌʔt] also differs from not [nɔʔt] by rounding (though nought has

4902-658: The crisis of sovereign debt became particularly acute, first in Iceland , though as events of the early 2010s would show, it was not an isolated European example. Economic activity was severely affected around the world in 2008 and 2009, with disastrous consequences for carmakers . In 2007, the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown , delivered his final Mansion House speech as Chancellor before he moved into Number 10. Addressing financiers: "A new world order has been created", Everyone needed to follow

4988-446: The decade and began to replace " snail mail " as the primary way of sending letters and other messages to people in distant locations. Google , YouTube , Ask.com and Misplaced Pages emerged to become among the top 10 most popular websites. Amazon overtook eBay as the most-visited e-commerce site in 2008. AOL significantly declined in popularity throughout the decade, falling from being the most popular website to no longer being within

5074-556: The decade can be referred to as '01, '02, etc., pronounced oh-one, oh-two, etc. (2017) (1973–2016) (2015) (2008) (2007) (projected) The war on terror and War in Afghanistan began after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The International Criminal Court was formed in 2002. In 2003 a United States-led coalition invaded Iraq , and the Iraq War led to the end of Saddam Hussein 's rule as Iraqi President and

5160-428: The decade include: Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include: The 2000s experienced some of the worst and most destructive natural disasters in history. Antibiotic resistance is a serious and growing phenomenon in contemporary medicine and has emerged as one of the eminent public health concerns of the 21st century, particularly as it pertains to pathogenic organisms (the term

5246-708: The decade. Several international summits were organized to find solutions against the economic crisis and to impose greater control on the financial markets. The G20 became in 2008 and 2009 a major organization, as leaders of the member countries held two major summits in Washington in November 2008 and in London in April 2009 to regulate the banking and financial sectors, and also succeeding in coordinating their economic action and in avoiding protectionist reactions. From

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5332-476: The emergence of a unique Western Pennsylvania accent in northern Appalachia (centered on Pittsburgh) as well as a unique Philadelphia accent . The dialect region of the Mid-Atlantic States —centered on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; and Wilmington, Delaware—aligns to the Midland phonological definition except that it strongly resists the cot–caught merger and traditionally has

5418-481: The figures from the British source were explained to be high because of "improved levels of reporting, possibly brought about by the continued high public profile of the disease" during the time of the 2005 United Kingdom General Election . MRSA is thought to have caused 1,652 deaths in 2006 in UK up from 51 in 1993. The 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) flu pandemic was also considered a natural disaster. On October 25, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama officially declared H1N1

5504-433: The first half of the 20th century. Older English speakers of Cincinnati, Ohio , have a phonological pattern quite distinct from the surrounding area (Boberg and Strassel 2000), while younger speakers now align to the general Midland accent. The older Cincinnati short- a system is unique in the Midland. While there is no evidence for a phonemic split , the phonetic conditioning of short- a in conservative Cincinnati speech

5590-481: The growth of the world economy lead to a significant growth of offshore outsourcing during the decade as many multinational corporations significantly increased subcontracting of manufacturing (and increasingly, services ) across national boundaries in developing countries and particularly in China and India, due to many benefits and mainly because the two countries which are the two most populous countries in

5676-470: The intervention of the central banks, notably the U.S. Federal Reserve System. Indeed, Alan Greenspan , leader of the Federal Reserve until 2006, cut the interest rates several times to avoid a severe recession, allowing an economic revival in the U.S. As the Federal Reserve maintained low interest rates to favor economic growth, a housing bubble began to appear in the United States. In 2007,

5762-415: The latter third of the decade were dominated by a worldwide economic downturn, which started with the crisis in housing and credit in the United States in late 2007 and led to the bankruptcy of major banks and other financial institutions. The outbreak of this global financial crisis sparked a global recession , beginning in the United States and affecting most of the industrialized world. The decade saw

5848-635: The mid-1980s to September 2003, the inflation-adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under $ 25/barrel. During 2003, the price rose above $ 30, reached $ 60 by August 11, 2005, and peaked at $ 147.30 in July 2008. Commentators attributed these price increases to many factors, including reports from the United States Department of Energy and others showing a decline in petroleum reserves, worries over peak oil , Middle East tension, and oil price speculation. Western Pennsylvania English Western Pennsylvania English , known more narrowly as Pittsburgh English or popularly as Pittsburghese ,

5934-597: The oldest ones, have /eɪ/ instead of more typical /ɛ/ before /ʒ/ —thus measure is pronounced [ˈmeɪʒɚ] —and wash (as well as Washington ) gains an /r/ , becoming [wɒɹʃ] ("warsh"). Since the mid-1900s (namely, in speakers born from the 1920s to 1940s), however, a newer accent arose in a dialect "corridor" essentially following historic U.S. Route 66 in Illinois (now Interstate 55 in Illinois ) from Chicago southwest to St. Louis. Speakers of this modern "St. Louis Corridor"—including St. Louis, Fairbury, and Springfield, Illinois —have gradually developed more features of

6020-434: The period and was partly responsible for an increase in energy and food prices at the end of the decade. The economic developments in the latter third of the decade were dominated by a worldwide economic downturn, which started with the crisis in housing and credit in the United States in late 2007, and led to the bankruptcy of major banks and other financial institutions. The outbreak of this global financial crisis sparked

6106-417: The rise in interest rates and the collapse of the housing market caused a wave of loan payment failures in the U.S. The subsequent mortgage crisis caused a global financial crisis , because the subprime mortgages had been securitized and sold to international banks and investment funds. Despite the extensive intervention of central banks, including partial and total nationalization of major European banks,

6192-580: The rise of the Internet , which grew from covering 6.7% to 25.7% of the world population. This contributed to globalization during the decade, which allowed faster communication among people around the world; social networking sites arose as a new way for people to stay in touch from distant locations, as long as they had internet access . Myspace was the most popular social networking website until June 2009, when Facebook overtook it in number of American users. Email continued to be popular throughout

6278-453: The second-person plural pronoun " yinz ." The word "yinzer" is sometimes heard as pejorative, indicating a lack of sophistication, but the term is now used in a variety of ways. Older men are more likely to use the accent than women "possibly because of a stronger interest in displaying local identity...." A defining feature of Western Pennsylvania English is the cot–caught merger , in which /ɑ/ (as in ah ) and /ɔ/ (as in aw ) merge to

6364-439: The starting point of PRICE ( [äɪ] ). It is monophthongized to [aː] in some environments (sounding instead like ah ), namely: before nasal consonants ( downtown [daːnˈtʰaːn] and found [faːnd] ), liquid consonants ( fowl , hour ) and obstruents ( house [haːs] , out , cloudy ). The monophthongization does not occur, however, in word-final positions ( how , now ), and the diphthong then remains [æʊ] . That

6450-513: The time, the UK's gold reserves were worth about US$ 6.5 billion, accounting for about half of the UK's US$ 13 billion foreign currency net reserves. Between 1999 and 2009, according to the World Bank statistics for GDP: The removal of trade and investment barriers , the growth of domestic markets , artificially low currencies , the proliferation of education , the rapid development of high tech and information systems industries and

6536-425: The top 10. Excite and Lycos fell outside the top 10, and MSN fell from the second to sixth most popular site, though it quadrupled its monthly visits. Yahoo! maintained relatively stable popularity, remaining the most popular website for most of the decade. The war on terror and War in Afghanistan began after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The International Criminal Court was formed in 2002. In 2003,

6622-402: The whole decade. It is also benefited from an economic boom, which saw the two most populous countries becoming an increasingly dominant economic force. The rapid catching-up of emerging economies with developed countries sparked some protectionist tensions during the period and was partly responsible for an increase in energy and food prices at the end of the decade. The economic developments in

6708-558: The words aught and nought respectively, both meaning zero . The noughties became a common name for the decade in the United Kingdom and in New Zealand and Australia. Although use of the word aught to refer to zero is not widespread in the United States, the use of aughts to identify the decade became common there. Other spoken-word possibilities included "two-thousands", "twenty hundreds", "ohs", "oh ohs", "double ohs", "zeros", and "double zeros". The years of

6794-466: The world population grew from 6.1 to 6.9 billion people. Approximately 1.35 billion people were born, and 550 million people died. Orthographically, the decade can be written as the "2000s" or the " '00s". In the English-speaking world, a name for the decade wasn't immediately accepted as it had been for other decades such as the 1980s and 1990s ('80s, '90s). The aughts ( American English ) or noughties ( British English ) arise from

6880-524: The world provide huge pools from which to find talent and as because both countries are low cost sourcing countries. As a result of this growth, many of these developing countries accumulated capital and started investing abroad. Other countries, including the United Arab Emirates , Australia, Brazil and Russia, benefited from increased demand for their mineral and energy resources that global growth generated. The hollowing out of manufacturing

6966-490: The world, with questions regarding the justification for certain U.S. actions leading to a loss of support for the American government, both in and outside the United States. The additional armed conflict occurred in the Middle East , including between Israel and Hezbollah , then with Israel and Hamas . The most significant loss of life due to natural disasters came from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake , which caused

7052-645: Was determined that the G20 , originally a forum of finance ministers and central bank governors, would replace the G8 as the main economic council. 2007 Chinese export recalls – in 2007, a series of product recalls and import bans were imposed by the product safety institutions of the United States , Canada , the European Union , Australia and New Zealand against products manufactured in and exported from

7138-538: Was felt in Japan and parts of the United States and Europe which had not been able to develop successful innovative industries. Opponents point out that the practice of offshore outsourcing by countries with higher wages leads to the reduction of their own domestic employment and domestic investment. As a result, many customer service jobs as well as jobs in the information technology sectors ( data processing , computer programming , and technical support ) in countries such as

7224-448: Was followed by the next generation's "retreat of NCS features from Route 66 and a slight increase of NCS off of Route 66", in turn followed by the most recent generations' decreasing evidence of the NCS until it disappears altogether among the youngest speakers. Thus, due to harboring two different dialects in the same geographic space, the "Corridor appears simultaneously as a single dialect area and two separate dialect areas". Rather than

7310-490: Was the decade's best-selling console video game, while New Super Mario Bros. was the decade's best-selling portable video game. J. K. Rowling was the best-selling author in the decade overall thanks to the Harry Potter book series, although she did not pen the best-selling individual book, being second to The Da Vinci Code . Eminem was named the music artist of the decade by Billboard . During this decade,

7396-514: Was the first to identify the "Midland" as a region lexically distinct from the North and the South and later even focused on an internal division: North Midland versus South Midland. However, 21st-century studies now reveal increasing unification of the South Midland with a larger mid-20th-century Southern accent region , while much of the North Midland retains a more " General American " accent. Early 20th-century boundaries established for

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