Greetings,

A quick issue to point out the results of an informative and amusing dialect survey on the web, and alert readers in the Los Angeles area to my workshop appearance next Wednesday at Take One Film and Theatre bookshop.

The Dialect Survey website (http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~golder/dialect/)shows the results of this extensive survey on the use of sounds and words across America.  Click on 'Maps and Results' to find out where in this country more people pronounce "aunt" as "ant" or "ahnt" (question #1),  where people call fireflies "peenie wallies" (question #65) or to learn a colorful expression for driving a car around in circles (question #77).  Quite entertaining, if you go in for this sort of thing!

This Wednesday night, June 25th, 2003 at 7:30 pm, in association with Take One Film and Theatre Bookshop (http://www.take1filmbooks.com/) I'm offering a workshop on how to learn dialects, and will teach all participants a Standard English dialect, also known as Received Pronunciation or Standard British.  If you're in the area, come on by:  please visit Take One's website for the address and full details.

I recently coached Theatre 150's production of Athol Fugard's Sizwe Bansi is Dead, and South Coast Repertory's The Drawer Boy, set in Rural Canada, both of which opened to critical acclaim. I'm in the final weeks of teaching a course for employees at Jafra, Inc. in using a neutral American accent, and will soon return to Ernst & Young to work with several members of their staff.  Highlights of my private coaching include teaching an actor to sound like serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (spooky) and helping a supermodel learn to sound more comfortable when she speaks (nice work when I can get it).

Be well--

Best,

Joel
The Dialect Coach