Why do Palin and Bachmann have the same regional accent?

Posted by Greg Laden on August 11, 2009
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Well, there are different theories on this, and one is that there is a regional accent that runs from the great Lakes across central and western Canada and the norther Tier of the US. That’s my theory, and I think it is correct. Furthermore, I think this accent is the product of Native American and Euro-Immigrant interaction int he 19th century through the depression.

But that theory, as with many of my theories, gets the White Folks mad because it attributes a feature they hold dear to subaltren little brown people and they tend to find that annoying.

Now we have a new theory that is not in conflict with mine but is more detailed.:

“…The reason Bachmann and Palin share a regional accent: A government-relief program in the 1930s populated Palin’s home region in Alaska’s Mat-Su Valley with Minnesotans…”

I like this theory because it is annoying, like my theory, but for different reasons. Teabag-dunking-luving Bachmann and Palin share a trait that comes from their similar backgrounds as the products of government assistance programs. Or at least linked through such a program.

So, what I’d like to know now, to balance the Palin-Bachmann level of government support they can attribute their very existence to, is what portion of Bachmann’s income has been from the government over her lifetime. Now she works for the government. Before being in Congress she …. oh, she worked for the government. But before that job? Oh, she worked for the government. But what about when she was a stay at home mom back in the day? Well, actually, fostering several dozen children as she did, she was essentially working for the welfare department, wasn’t she?

Read more about the Talking The Same Way hypothesis here.

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Comments

  1. #1 The Science Pundit
    August 11, 2009

    Or it might be Intermittent Gunderson Syndrome. :-)

  2. #2 catgirl
    August 11, 2009

    Was Bachmann really a foster parent? Usually I admire and praise people who do that, but in this case, I just feel bad for those kids.

  3. #3 Greg Laden
    August 11, 2009

    Foster parent for 23 children.

  4. #4 Kim
    August 11, 2009

    All I know is that I have a similar accent (first learned to speak in Idaho, grew up in Wisconsin), and it cost me a job interview during the election cycle. Grr!

  5. #5 mk
    August 11, 2009

    23? Good god! Isn’t there a limit?

  6. #6 John McKay
    August 11, 2009

    The Matanuska Colony is one of the great founding legends of Alaska. The 203 families were made up almost equal sized contingents from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota with one family from Oklahoma thrown in for no apparent reason. Most of the colonists gave up and moved back to the lower forty eight in the first few years. By 1965, only twenty of the families were still farming in the valley. I’ve heard that there is a little pocket of people in the Mat-Su Borough with a Great Lakes accent, but in the twenty years I lived in Anchorage, I never met one. It’s possible that Palin was part of that pocket, but Heath (her maiden name) is not on the list of colonist families.

  7. #7 Ktesibios
    August 11, 2009

    What one wants here is someone with a properly trained ear, who can tell if Bachmann and Palin relly have thesame accent, as opposed to similar ones, and identify where it comes from.

    Where’s Henry Higgins when you need him?

  8. #8 the real flamboyant cuttlefish
    August 11, 2009

    Foster care is a racket. A state sanctioned quasi-criminal enterprise that primarily benefits women. Due to a near-complete lack of oversight, and definitional biases that put children into the “care” of women who by all definitions are ‘abnormal,’and deviant, foster kids largely grow up nearly as fucked up as if they had stayed with their original parents.

  9. #9 Comrade PhysioProf
    August 11, 2009

    Dude, Palin’s from fucking Idaho. Although she moved to Alaska pre-speech, her parents are Idahoans.

  10. #10 Greg Laden
    August 11, 2009

    And your point is, CPP?

  11. #11 Jeb, FCD
    August 11, 2009

    but Heath (her maiden name)

    Her unmarried name, you mean? ;-) I highly doubt she was a maiden.

    Dude, Palin’s from fucking Idaho. Although she moved to Alaska pre-speech, her parents are Idahoans.

    CPP go fuck your fucking self. All you are is a trolling douche who rarely (if ever) adds anything to any conversation. Much like I’m doing now.