Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 February 1

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February 1

Area with fast paced speech

I've recently read an article from the early 90s that claims that a small region in the US had a large amount of call centers (before they were moved abroad) because people there are speaking with a very fast pace, saving long distance charges. Does anyone know where this might have been or more generally, where in the US a fast paced speech is common? --188.23.104.104 (talk) 21:07, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Multiple sources suggest that speech patterns are generally getting faster and faster (example). Here's a site that ranks the states on speed of speech (apparently Oregon comes out on top, with Mississippi on the bottom). Matt Deres (talk) 03:19, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I wonder how much solid linguistic evidence there is for the idea that average rate of speech (measured across a number of speakers and a number of social contexts) differs systematically between different speech communities?

Some of this comes from the natural perception that speech you don't understand (a foreign language) or have difficulty understanding (a divergent dialect) sounds faster. Also, for speakers of stress-timed languages (such as English), speech in a syllable-timed language (such as Spanish) sounds faster, since there's a partial perceptual illusion that every syllable is stressed... AnonMoos (talk) 07:01, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

When I lived in Kansas City (70's-80s), multiple call centers were built. An entire mall was torn down and turned into a huge Sprint call center near the end of the 80s. Living there, I didn't notice the fast-paced speech. After leaving there, I have realized that they speak very very fast. I have no way to know if the reason so many call centers were built in the area because of fast speech. It could have been because land was cheap and workers didn't demand high salary. Quick check: Indeed lists over 2,000 full-time call center jobs in Kansas City right now. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 15:01, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Kansas is rated 4th fastest-talking out of 50 according to analytics firm Marchex - see Which Is the Fastest-Talking State in the Union?. Alansplodge (talk) 16:09, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I wonder how they handle measurements - by mean or median? I know that the closer you get to Oklahoma, the slower speech gets. The closer you get to Kansas City, the faster it gets. In Missouri, the closer you get to the south (Ozarks), the slower speech gets. The closer you get to Iowa, the faster it gets. Kansas City straddles the border where both Kansas and Missouri are fast talking. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:40, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

• That study is dubious. I worked at a call center in NY and people from Lackawana spoke about as fast as Louisianans, while NYC speaks for itself. You can't divide dialects by state lines. North Jerseyans sound like New Yorkers, South Jerseyans like South Philadelphians, and 'Pineys' like Appalachians. μηδείς (talk) 00:40, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I can't work this out. What is a 'Piney'? 2A00:23C0:FCF6:4801:891A:3DF8:5917:11EE (talk) 06:37, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

See Piney (Pine Barrens resident). Alansplodge (talk) 11:08, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I used the 'scare quotes' because the term is often derogatory, like hillbilly (except there are no real hills to speak of in the pines). μηδείς (talk) 03:55, 7 February 2018 (UTC)