> A language is a living, evolving thing, and could change rapidly before it > became "fixed" by print. > > Best, R.E.F.
How much has modern media (radio, television, movies) helped "fix" language? When an entire country - or even much of the world - is watching the same television shows and movies, does the pronunciation and dialect from Hollywood help minimize the local variances we'd otherwise have? Specifically -- while I recognize there's still a difference in southern speech and New York speech compared to what I hear every day here in Oregon, are those differences less than they'd otherwise be due to the prevalence of audio media? How does that effect compare to the effect of print media? What happens when a show like Doctor Who becomes popular in the US -- does it affect our speech patterns much? How big a deal is American television/movie to the rest of the English-speaking world -- are we affecting their speech patterns? Not that I expect anyone to have a definitive answer, they're just all questions I find interesting.
