In a Manner of Speaking

Rod Gilfry

For November 2026, the podcast enters the world of opera for the first time, as Paul interviews celebrated American baritone Rod Gilfry. The two discuss many topics related to opera and musical performance in general, including vocal technique and singing and speaking in dialect. They also address a dark episode from the past (castrato singing) and the present (the closure of the Kennedy Center).

Rod Gilfry is a two-time Grammy nominee, singer, and actor who performs in operas, musicals, recitals, and cabaret throughout the world. He appears on more than 30 recordings. An important part of his 75-role repertoire are the 13 leading roles he has created in new operas. Recent performance highlights include a role debut as Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca at the Houston Grand Opera, Claudius in Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Bavarian State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, and Owen Hart in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at the San Francisco Opera and Metropolitan Opera.

For Rod’s full bio, visit https://www.rodgilfry.com/.

Below you will find the full clips referenced in this month’s podcast:

Also go here for the clip from Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and here for The Merry Widow clip.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing. Comma Gets a Cure is copyright Douglas N. Honorof, Jill McCullough, and Barbara Somerville.)

The post Episode 95 (The World of Opera) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Arik Kershenbaum

The October 2026 episode of Paul Meier’s In a Manner of Speaking is just the second installment of the podcast to focus on non-human speech. In January 2025, Paul and his guest, zoologist and author Arik Kershenbaum discussed how animals communicate. Now Kershenbaum returns to the podcast to discuss potential conversations with extraterrestrials.

Using the origins of voice and speech on Earth as a guide, Paul and Arik speculate on what human speech and alien speech might have in common and how they might differ. Author of The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves(published by Penguin Books), Dr. Kirshenbaum is also a member of METI.org, a think tank on the topic of messaging extraterrestrial intelligence.

In addition to serving as the Herchel Smith Research Fellow in zoology at the University of Cambridge from 2014 to 2017, Kershenbaum was the postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis in Knoxville, Tennessee, from 2012 to 2014. He received a PhD in evolutionary biology and ecology from the University of Haifa, Israel, and is currently a college lecturer, tutor, and director of studies at Girton College, University of Cambridge.

To listen to his previous podcast episode, from January 2025, go here.

For more information about the IDEA video submissions Paul references in this podcast, go here.

Film has speculated for years on what alien language might sound like. For insight into Emily Blunt’s character’s alien speech in Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, check out this YouTube clip.

See the videos below for more on what the movies have to say about this topic:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 94 (Talking to E.T.s) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

The September 2026 episode of Paul’s In a Manner of Speaking podcast explores colloquial and vernacular speech. English, being a stress-timed language, is known for its casual, informal way of speaking. Listen to Paul explore and explain why this type of speaking is more “proper” than you might think.

This discussion will be particularly helpful for those seeking to successfully turn the written into the spoken word and for those whose first language is not English.

Below you will find the text (with phonetic transcription) of Paul’s demonstrations:

“Let’s take a sentence like, How would you like it if I cooked you some eggs? Colloquially, the three words, How would you are reduced to the lexeme [haʊd͜ʒə]. If you haven’t come across the term lexeme, it’s a useful one. A single meaningful unit comprising perhaps just one, but, as in this case, several words. We simply don’t need to hear each word of a lexeme to understand it. We get it from the rhythm and the intonation. The two words, cooked you become the lexeme, [kʰʊk̚t͜ʃə] The k-t-j consonant cluster reduces to an unreleased k and the t and j coalesces to [t͜ʃ].”

And here is the phonetic transcription of the overheard conversation:
The first person said [ˈd͜ʒiʔ̚ ˈjɛʔ̚]?
The second person replied [ˈnaː ‖ lɛsːɡwiʔ̚]

The full “Dead Parrot” sketch referenced in this episode:

Lastly, go here for the text and phonetic transcription of the Edmund speech from Shakespeare’s King Lear that Paul performs in Original Pronunciation (OP) in this episode.

To contact Paul and follow Paul Meier Dialect Services on social media, go here.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 93 (English: Colloquial and Vernacular) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

For the August 2026 episode of In a Manner of Speaking, Paul explores text to speech — but NOT just the AI type. Instead, this episode is devoted to the ancient art of turning the written into the spoken word.

How do actors, public speakers, bards and other speakers do it while mastering the art of spontaneity? Paul dives into all these topics while giving great advice to performers who want to sound natural, as if they were speaking these words for the first time.

Several past podcast episodes address similar topics, and these will serve as a great accompaniment to this episode:

March 2018 (Episode 2): Audiobook Narration, with Tavia Gilbert and Julia Whelan
May 2018 (Episode 4): The Art of the Newscaster and Broadcast Journalist, with Cameron Meier
November 2020 (Episode 34): “It’s All Greek to Me,” with Rush Rehm. This is particularly relevant in light of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
August 2021 (Episode 43): Heightened Language and Black Playwrights, with Jacqueline Springfield
September 2021 (Episode 44): Let’s Talk, with David Crystal
October 2021 (Episode 45): Read Me a Story, with Elizabeth Wiley
October 2022 (Episode 57): How We Learn to Talk, with Jenny Saffran
March 2023 (Episode 62): Fast-Talkin’ Dudes
October 2023 (Episode 69): Orality and Literacy, with Brian Ott
December 2023 (Episode 71): The History of Silent Reading, with Paul Saenger

Here is the extended clip from Communion that Paul references in this episode. The film, from 1989, is copyright New Line Cinema / Allied Vision, and the excerpt heard in the podcast is used under fair use.

And below is the extended clip from Much Ado About Nothing that Paul references in this episode. The film, from 1993, is copyright BBC Film / Renaissance Films / Samuel Goldwyn Company, and the excerpt heard in the podcast is used under fair use.

To contact Paul and follow Paul Meier Dialect Services on social media, go here.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 92 (Text to Speech) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

The podcast is back! After a 12-month hiatus, Paul returns to In a Manner of Speaking for episode 91 (July 2026). In this episode, he discusses yod, the linguistic term for the “y” sound one hears in words such as “you” and “yes.”

Paul addresses all aspects of yod (represented in IPA as [j]), including yod dropping and the differences in yod pronunciation between American and British English. (Americans typically pronounce “nude” and “tune” without yod, for example, while Britons use yod.)

Go here to view the UK dialect map to which Paul refers.

For more information on Eric Amstrong, visit his website. Amy Stoller’s site can be found here, and David Crystal’s here. And to learn about Phil Thompson, go here.

And check out these videos related to this month’s topic:

And here’s one more video addressing the topic of yod.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 91 (The Case of the Mysterious Yod) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Join Paul Meier and his past guests for this retrospective of the first eight years of the podcast. Paul will be taking a hiatus from the podcast and plans to return in 2026, so, for this last episode of 2025, let us reminisce.

Think of this month’s episode as a sort of CliffsNotes of the podcast. We hope they inspire you to seek out past episodes in full. You can find them all indexed here, or on your favorite podcast channel or index. But keep in mind that you get all the free extras and related information only at PaulMeier.com.

Thanks to all past guests, without whom this podcast would not be possible. While this retrospective does not include all 89 previous episodes, we have done our best to include snippets of all episodes that feature guests.

The best part about this episode is we have created a video version! Watch it here:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 90 (A Retrospective: 2018-2025) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Sarah Nichols

For the June 2025 episode, Paul and his guest, voice/dialect coach and IDEA Senior Editor Sarah Nichols, discuss the relationship, or lack thereof, between voice coaches and sound designers in the theatre, with particular emphasis on the use of microphones.

Paul and Sarah, along with podcast co-producer Cameron Meier, dive into the history of amplification on stage (and screen) and discuss why, historically, there has not been more cooperation between the disciplines of sound design and voice coaching.

This podcast was inspired by Sarah’s 2022 article, “Bridging the Gap between Voice Coaches and Sound Designers in the Theatre” from VASTA’s academic journal, the Voice and Speech Review, for which she received the Rocco Dal Vera Graduate Research Award. For more information on that article, go here.

Sarah is a second-generation Cuban American voice, accent, and communication coach with a BFA in musical theatre from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and an MFA in voice studies from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed on tour with TheatreworksUSA and at sea for Royal Caribbean International, and has taught for institutions in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, and Egypt. Based in Savannah, Georgia, Sarah works with actors and executives in vocal production, accent modification, and public-speaking skills. She is the resident voice and dialect coach for the Acting Company at the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Annapolis, Maryland. Visit http://www.sarahnicholsvoice.com and IDEA for more information.

We also recommend listening to podcast episode #34, with Rush Rehm, from November 2020, which features a discussion of Greek drama.

Check out the videos below for related content:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 89 (Voice Coaching, Sound Design, and Amplification in the Theatre) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Michael McAuliffe

The May 2025 episode is the first to tackle the red-hot topic of artificial intelligence, or AI. Paul’s guests are speech-to-text specialist Michael McAuliffe and dialect coach Tanera Marshall. Paul, Michael, and Tanera, along with podcast co-producer Cameron Meier, discuss AI in the context of human speech in general but especially acting and singing.

Michael, a linguist, brings AI knowledge to the conversation, while Tanera, by virtue of her being the dialect coach for The Brutalist, lends a unique perspective. It was The Brutalist that generated controversy by using AI to tweak the Hungarian-language dialogue of its actors. For more perspective on the film, see Cameron’s review and the videos toward the bottom of this page.

Among the issues discussed are the definitions of AI, the technological achievements and current limitations of computer “intelligence” to alter the human voice, the future of dialect coaching and acting itself, the legal and financial issues involved with using actors’ voices to train AI models, the moral and practical differences between AI and older cinematic technological illusions (editing, looping, rear projection, green screen, CGI, motion capture, de-aging, etc.), and the use of AI in music. To demonstrate the latter, the episode includes a portion of a song that was recently created in AI. To hear that entire song, visit Suno. (Thanks to Filmapalooza, Duane Trammell, and Jahil Nelson for use of the song.)

Michael McAuliffe is an adjunct professor in the Linguistics Department at McGill University, focused on creating and improving computational models to enable phonetic analysis of speech. He is the maintainer for the Montreal Forced Aligner, a tool that segments audio files into speech sounds based on a text transcript. His other research interests lie in how listeners adapt to novel speakers and accents, and phonetic analysis of dialects of English as part of the SPeech Across Dialects of English (SPADE) project. Also seethe Montreal Forced Aligner.

Tanera Marshall

In addition to her previously mentioned achievements, Tanera Marshall is a senior editor of the International Dialects of English Archive, or IDEA. She is a voice and accent specialist in theatre, TV, and film, and an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Theatre and Music. Her current and upcoming productions include The Brutalist, Train Dreams, Oh.What.Fun., Ann Lee, The Morning Show (season four), The Bear, and Chicago Fire. Recent credits include Hunger Games (2024), Asteroid City, Widows, Queen & Slim, Dungeons & Dragons, Fargo (season four), Station Eleven, Army of the Dead, Public Enemies, The Immigrant, and the Divergent series. Stage credits include Broadway tours of Hamilton, Billy Elliot, and Dirty Dancing, as well as productions at Steppenwolf, Court, and Timeline theatres in Chicago. For more information on Tanera, go here. And don’t forget to visit her page on IDEA.

For a demonstration of the real-time accent modification mentioned in this episode, visit Krisp. Also check out Natural Reader, a company that uses AI to turn text into speech for films and audiobooks. Notta and ElevenLabs provide similar services.

Related content:

For more perspective on Adrien Brody’s performance in The Brutalist, check out this interview on TikTok.

To learn about Ancestra, a 2025 short film combining Veo technology with live-action filmmaking, go here.

Finally, see what our old friends Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher have to say about AI:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 88 (AI and the Human Voice) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

For April 2025, Paul is going solo, discussing one of his favorite topics: rhoticity, or how the letter R is pronounced in words. He addresses many aspects of how the letter is used in several accents and dialects but focuses mostly on how R is sounded before and after a vowel. And he compares rhotic with non-rhotic speech.

For more information on the accents and dialects discussed in this podcast, visit this page. And to access Paul’s and Eric Armstrong’s rhoticity research, R and Its Articulation, go here. And don’t forget to visit the free IPA charts.

Other podcast episodes addressing rhoticity include episode 1 (Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation), episode 12 (The Australian Dialect of English), episode 22 (Received Pronunciation), episode 61 (Irish: A Language in Danger), episode 70 (How American English Got Its Start), and episode 78 (Transatlantic and Old Movie Dialects).

And check out these related videos, the first from fellow dialect coach and IDEA editor Jim Johnson:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 87 (Rhoticity: Watch Your R’s) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

James Still

The March 2025 episode of In a Manner of Speaking is the first to feature a playwright. Paul Meier discusses how playwrights hear their characters voices with Pulitzer Price-nominated James Still.

Paul and James also discuss the art of playwriting in general and read from James’ plays A New World and The Heavens Are Hung in Black.

James Still’s plays have been produced throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa, China, and Japan. His new plays include Everybody’s Favorite Mothers (workshopped with Launch Pad); The Cratchits (in America); Haunt Me (commissioned by American Blues); and a new commissioned play with Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Massachusetts. James also directs, and next up is The Glass Menagerie at the Indiana Repertory Theatre.

He is an elected member of both the National Theatre Conference in New York and the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center. He received the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award from the William Inge Festival, the Todd McNerney New Play Prize from Spoleto, and the Indiana Authors Award for Drama for his trilogy The Jack Plays. His plays have been developed at New Harmony Project, O’Neill Conference, Sundance, Seven Devils, Colorado New Play Summit, Launch Pad, Fresh Ink, and many others. He is a four-time Pulitzer nominee for his work in the theater and a five-time nominee for his work in television. He is an artistic affiliate at American Blues in Chicago and lives in Los Angeles.

Like Paul, James has roots in Kansas, having graduated from the University of Kansas. For more information about James, see Wikipedia. And for more interviews with James, see the embedded videos below:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 86 (How Playwrights Hear Their Characters’ Voices) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Spencer Lott

Paul’s February 2025 podcast episode is his first to tackle the speech of inanimate objects, specifically puppets. But as you will see from this month’s guest, accomplished Sesame Street puppeteer Spencer Lott, they can be just as animated as any human.

Spencer and Paul discuss puppetry and specifically the art of voicing the characters. They also dive briefly into the psychology of the craft, plus that of the related artform of ventriloquism.

Spencer Lott started performing with Sesame Street in 2014. Some highlights include playing the letter K, a rockstar rock, and a head of cabbage named Kyle. In 2019, he originated the role of Samuel, Julia’s neurotypical older brother, and he is thrilled to be a part of Sesame Street’s autism initiative.

Spencer’s other credits include John Krasinski’s IF, Saturday Night Live, Helpsters (Apple+), Disney’s The Muppets (50th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade), America’s Got Talent, SpongeBob As Told By… , Hello Tomorrow! (Apple+), Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary Celebration, Once Upon A Sesame Street Christmas, The Puppy Bowl, Fraggle Rock (The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade) and the 2019 Kennedy Center Honors.

Spencer helmed the team that recreated the iconic puppets from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (starring Tom Hanks) and was the lead puppeteer. Additional film credits include Hoodie (Palm Springs Shorts Fest), The Relationtrip (SXSW) and Clifford the Big Red Dog. Spencer co-wrote and directed the short puppet film Melvin the Birder, which was included in Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Dreams film series and received the 2014 PDN Photo Annual Award.

He has received multiple grants from the Jim Henson Foundation for his original theatrical work, which has been presented at Dixon Place, HERE Arts, LaMama, Little Island, and Lincoln Center. He has performed at the Metropolitan Opera (John Adam’s El Nino) and on tour with the Avett Brothers. He spent a decade working as an actor, director, and creative producer for Trusty Sidekick Theater Company and is now a co-founder at Simple Mischief Studio, working on projects for HBOMAX, Paramount, Nickelodeon, Goodspeed Musicals and the band Phish.

For more information on Spencer, visit https://www.misterlott.com/ and https://www.simplemischiefstudio.com/.

This month’s episode is the first to feature an extended video segment. Watch here:

The podcast includes snippets of several YouTube videos, referenced under the copyright doctrine of fair use. To watch the entire videos, see below:

And for a more malevolent character, from the related world of ventriloquism, here is a clip from Dead of Night (1945), which birthed the movie subgenre of ventriloquist-dummy horror:

Everybody Loves Raymond is copyright CBS, Sesame Street is copyright Sesame Workshop, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is copyright TriStar Pictures/Tencent Picture, and Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas is copyright Jim Henson Company/Henson Associates.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 85 (The World of Puppets) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Arik Kershenbaum

Welcome to the first podcast episode of 2025. To start off the new year, In a Manner of Speaking is doing something it’s never done. In all previous 83 episodes, Paul has focused on human speech. But this month, Paul and his guest, distinguished Cambridge zoologist Arik Kershenbaum, discuss the speech of animals.

Kersenbaum is the author of the bestselling The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy. His latest book, Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication, explores the communication of seven animals: wolves, dolphins, parrots, hyraxes, gibbons, chimpanzees, and humans.

In addition to serving as the Herchel Smith Research Fellow in zoology at the University of Cambridge from 2014 to 2017, Arik was the postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis in Knoxville, Tennessee, from 2012 to 2014. Dr. Kershenbaum received a PhD in evolutionary biology and ecology from the University of Haifa, Israel. He is currently a college lecturer, tutor, and director of studies at Girton College, University of Cambridge.

Below you will find video clips of Arik and other content related to this month’s topic. To visit his YouTube channel, go here.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 84 (“Why Animals Talk”) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Jeremy Fisher

Renowned singing and voice teachers, coaches, and authors Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher return to the podcast for the December 2024 episode to discuss Jeremy’s new book, Just How Boring Are You?, which examines how one can be a better podcast guest.

Paul, Jeremy, and Gillyanne talk about pitch, tone, pace, passion, the musicality of speech, and many other aspects of podcast interviewing. The discussion, while often specific to the world of podcasts, has implications for public speaking and interviewing in general.

Gillyanne Kayes

Gillyanne and Jeremy, of “Vocal Process,” specialize in vocal technique and performance across many genres. A husband-and-wife team, they combine a deep understanding of the voice that comes from science knowledge, performance practice, and decades of experience. Gillyanne is a voice researcher, pedagogue, and coach, working with numerous artists in theatre, cabaret, and in the recording studio, while Jeremy is a national-prizewinning pianist, performance coach, and vocal educator. For their full bios, visit VocalProcess.co.uk. And to get Jeremy’s new book, go here.

Gillyanne and Jeremy’s recent work includes the Online Learning Lounge, which offers more than 700 videos and vocal training resources for voice professionals. They are the authors of 12 books (five of them Amazon #1 bestsellers, including This Is A Voice (Wellcome Trust), Why Do I Need A Vocal Coach? (Canu Publishing) and Singing and the Actor (Routledge). Their One Minute Voice Warmup app (Android #1 and Apple #3) was featured in the UK’s leading computer magazine. Their podcast, This Is a Voice, is in the top 1 percent of podcasts worldwide, and they have an updated singing teacher accreditation program for 2025.

Jeremy and Gillyanne previously appeared on episode 18 from July 2019 and episode 48 from January 2022.

To listen to (and watch) their This Is a Voice podcast, visit YouTube and Apple podcasts.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 83 (“Just How Boring Are You?” Be a Better Podcast Guest) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Karen Burgos

Linguist Karen Burgos returns to the podcast for the November 2024 episode to discuss American and British dialects in popular song. She and Paul are joined by podcast co-producer and frequent guest Cameron Meier.

They play clips from songs ranging from the first decade of the 20th century to today, analyzing the singers’ dialects. In many instances, singers’ dialects don’t match their speaking voices, while, at other times, the singers use dialect to either make a cultural statement or embrace their own regional dialects.

Examples cited include older recordings of American singers, such as Billy Murray and Cole Porter, who used a Transatlantic dialect (learn more about that dialect on the July 2024 podcast); American singers who embraced their strong regional dialects (Robert Wilkins, Fats Domino, the Carter Family, Hank Williams); British singers who often employed an American sound (the Beatles, the Roling Stones, and many other groups from the 1970s); British singers who rebelled against the American sound and embraced their English roots (Herman’s Hermits, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, the Sex Pistols); British and American singers who embraced a soul, or American Southern, or African-American sound (CCR, Adele, Christina Aguilera); and a new wave of British singers who switch up their dialects (the Ting Tings, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa).

Cameron Meier

Karen previously appeared on podcast episode 70, from November 2023, to discuss the sound of Colonial American English. She is a freelance linguist, independent researcher, and founder of Ace Linguist, a truly valuable blog. Karen’s articles on “Indie Girl Voice,” “Colonial American English,” and “The PIN-PEN merger” have educated many netizens on the English sound changes of yesterday, today, and maybe even tomorrow. Her focus on historical linguistics, language in popular media, and sociolinguistics makes for insightful commentary on all matter of variation in the English language.

To read her complete Dialect Dissection: Founding Fathers blog, click here.

For more information about Cameron, who also serves as executive editor of the International Dialects of English Archive (IDEA), visit https://www.meiermovies.com.

Snippets of several songs are used in this episode, either by permission or under the copyright doctrine of fair use, strictly for dialect-analysis purposes. For the full songs, see the YouTube clips below. (And we’ve thrown in a couple of extra treats.)

Watch Florrie Forde on YouTube, from 1934.

For the Megan Boni Man in Finance TikTok clip, click here.

And here’s another great vodcast on this topic:

And check out this fascinating graphic from Peter Trudgill, suggested to us by Mark Dallas:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 82 (American and British Dialects in Popular Song) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Jacqueline Springfield

Actor, director, and voice/dialect coach Jacqueline Springfield returns to the podcast for October 2024 to discuss voices of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Paul and Jacqueline analyze snippets of 11 speeches, ranging in time from Booker T. Washington in 1895 to President Barack Obama in 2017, looking at dialect, content, and style. It’s a remarkable journey through not just pronunciation but American history.

Jacqueline previously appeared on episode 43 of the podcast, from August 2021, to discuss heightened language and Black playwrights. She serves as assistant professor of acting and co-coordinator of the acting concentration in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Kennesaw State University. Her dialect coaching credits include: the Alliance Theatre, True Colors Theatre, American Players Theatre, Synchronicity Theatre, Actors Express, the Kennedy Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (NY), and the Black Arts Institute at Stella Adler.

Jacqueline holds a master of fine arts degree in acting from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and is a certified associate instructor of Fitzmaurice Voicework and an IDEA associate editor for the Southern United States. She is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, and continues to work as a performer in film, television, theatre, and voiceover.

The podcast features short, fair-use snippets of 11 speeches, in chronological order. You will find the speeches in their entirety below:

1. Booker T. Washington

2. E.B. DuBois

3. Mamie Till Mobley

4. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Interview is copyright 60 Minutes/CBS News.

5. Fannie Lou Hamer

6. Malcolm X

7. Stokely Carmichael

8. Shirley Chisholm

Interview is copyright Meet the Press/NBC News.

9. Jesse Jackson

10. Al Sharpton

11. Barack Obama

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 81 (Voices of the Civil Rights Movement) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

David Crystal

Podcast favorite David Crystal returns to In a Manner of Speaking for the September 2024 episode. The legendary linguist is back to discuss his new website, https://tracethatplace.com/, which allows users to enter a British place name and learn all about its origin and history. You’ll also be able to hear the place’s (often bizarre, ambiguous) pronunciation.

Billed as the site that allows you to explore “the story and sound of place names on the road signs and railway stations of Britain,” TraceThatPlace took David about three years to create. On this month’s podcast, he and Paul discuss not just the site but the fascinating etymology and evolution of place names.

This is David’s sixth appearance on the podcast. His prior appearances:
June 2018 (Episode 5): Pragmatics
November 2019 (Episode 22): Received Pronunciation (RP)
September 2021 (Episode 44): Let’s Talk
September 2022 (Episode 56): Sounds Appealing
September 2023 (Episode 68): English Through the Ages

For more information about David, visit DavidCrystal.com and https://www.shakespeareswords.com/. And visit his YouTube channel.

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 80 (Trace That Place) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Joel Goldes

On the August 2024 episode of In a Manner of Speaking, Paul discusses dialect coaching with IDEA Associate Editor and successful dialect coach Joel Goldes.

They focus on two of Goldes’ many projects: Come from Away, an award-winning musical set in Newfoundland, about the hospitality that Newfoundlanders afforded airline passengers stranded by the terror attacks of September 11, 2001; and The Woman King, a 2022 epic film directed by Gina Prince-Bythwood and starring Viola Davis.

To learn about Joel, visit his IDEA page, or check out http://www.thedialectcoach.com.

For more information on Come from Away, visit Apple.TV.com, and to learn more about The Woman King, visit Wikipedia. and IMDB.

And for prior podcast episodes that address similar topics, see

May 2022 (Episode 52): How To Do Accents, with Edda Sharpe and Jan Haydn Rowles
August 2021 (Episode 43): Heightened Language and Black Playwrights, with Jacqueline Springfield
August 2020 (Episode 31): Foreign-Language Accents
January 2020 (Episode 24): Dialect-Coaching Film & TV, with Jill McCullough
October 2018 (Episode 9): Accents and Dialects, with Jim Johnson

Joel visits the Anthony Gilardo Acting Studio:

BUZZCast interview:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 79 (Come from Away) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Barrie Kreinik

Cinephiles and time-travel enthusiasts are in for a treat with the July 2024 podcast, as the topic is the American dialect known as Transatlantic, Mid-Atlantic, American Stage Speech, or Upper-class American. Paul’s guests are Barrie Kreinik (dialect coach, IDEA associate editor, actor, singer, writer, and audiobook narrator) and podcast co-producer Cameron Meier (film critic and historian, and executive editor of IDEA).

Barrie has a unique take on the dialect, as she has just released The Queen of Fourteenth Street, an audiobook celebrating the life of actress Eva Le Gallienne, who spoke in a dialect similar to Transatlantic. And Cameron’s movie background adds another dimension to the conversation, as the three discuss the accent in the context of older Hollywood movies.

Barrie’s theatre credits include The Dead, 1904 (Irish Rep), When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout (Fallen Angel Theatre), 39 Steps (Union Square Theatre), Fiddler on the Roof (Goodspeed Musicals), and The How and the Why (Trinity Rep). As a singer and songwriter, she has performed at Birdland, 54 Below, The Bitter End, and the Laurie Beechman Theatre. A recipient of two Audie Awards and ten Earphones Awards, she has narrated over 200 audiobooks, including numerous national bestsellers and one of The New York Times Best Audiobooks of 2022. She specializes in accents and dialects, particularly those of the British Isles, and has been a freelance dialect coach for nearly two decades.

Eva Le Gallienne

Barrie’s original audio drama, The Queen of Fourteenth Street, was released by Hachette Audio in June 2024. As a playwright, she’s been a semifinalist in the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the Ashland New Plays Festival, and the Garry Marshall Theatre New Works Festival, and her plays have been workshopped at Trinity Rep and the Bechdel Project. She has also written and performed in two solo shows, a short film, and an episode of the web series Love in NY. Her essays have been published by LitHub, Months to Years, and Theaterhound, and she writes a creative nonfiction blog called Points of View.

A native of Hartford, Connecticut, and longtime resident of New York City, Barrie holds an MFA in Acting from Brown/Trinity Rep and a BA in Theatre and English from Cornell. Find out more at https://www.barriekreinik.com/, on Instagram (@barriebarriepix), and on her IDEA editor page.

Cameron Meier

To learn more about Cameron, visit https://www.meiermovies.com/ or his editor page on IDEA.

Snippets of most of the clips below were featured on this month’s podcast under the copyright doctrine of fair use. They are presented here in more complete form for your enjoyment and research. We also suggest listening to Mo Rocca’s “Death of an Accent” episode from his Mobituaries podcast, on Apple podcasts.

Eva Le Gallienne interview with Dick Cavett, 1977:

William F. Buckley on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson:

Singin’ in the Rain, 1952:

Bringing Up Baby, 1938:

Now, Voyager, 1942:

The Third Man, 1949:

Bette Davis interview with Dick Cavett, 1970s:

Eleanor Roosevelt speech on human rights, 1951:

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, 1963:

Eva Le Gallienne, in Resurrection, 1980:

And for an interesting contrast between the Transatlantic of Katharine Hepburn and the General American of Ginger Rogers and others, watch Stage Door, from 1937, below. (Rogers, adept at dialects, also parodied the Transatlantic dialect in Once Upon a Honeymoon, with Cary Grant, from 1942.)

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 78 (Transatlantic and Old Movie Dialects) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Lukas Hassel

Welcome to the June 2024 episode of Paul Meier’s In a Manner of Speaking podcast. This month’s guest is celebrated Danish-American actor, writer, and director Lukas Hassel, who has forged a unique path to success in film and television.

Paul and Lukas are joined by film critic and co-producer of this podcast, Cameron Meier. The three discuss Lukas’s career, life on the film festival circuit, and the challenges of acting in a second language. Accent modification or “reduction” is central to this discussion.

Currently living in New York City, Lukas was born and raised in Denmark. He studied acting at the Samuel Beckett Theatre School, Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland. He is perhaps best known to American audiences for his recurring role on The Blacklist, on NBC, as Elias VanDyke in seasons eight and nine. Lukas has also appeared on Blue Bloods, Elementary, Law and Order and other shows, and in feature films such as The Black Room, Slapface, The 7th Secret, and Art of the Dead. Early in his career, he was known to Norwegian audiences as Mr. Melk, the popular spokes character for Norwegian Milk.

As a writer, he has won the ScreenCraft and CineStory fellowships and many more writing competitions with his screenplays across genres such as horror, sci-fi, drama, and psychological thriller. As a director, Lukas created the award-winning short films Into the Dark (a sci-fi movie being developed into a feature) and the psychological horror The Son, the Father…., both of which screened in hundreds of film festivals around the world. He just wrapped filming on his feature screenplay, the psychological thriller House of Abraham, starring opposite Natasha Henstridge and Lin Shaye.

For more information on Lukas, visit https://lukashassel.com/ and watch the clips below:

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 77 (A Unique Path to Film and TV Success) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.

Patricia Cukor-Avila

The topic of the May 2024 podcast is African-American English, which Paul discusses with American Dialect Society President Patricia Cukor-Avila. Paul and Patricia principally listen to and analyze historic Black dialects in the United States, from Colonial days to the early 20th century. Gullah is discussed in depth.

Recordings come from Patricia’s own research, done over several decades in a small Texas town (nicknamed “Springville”), plus IDEA, YouTube, and the Library of Congress’s Voices Remembering Slavery.

Fountain Hughes

In addition to her role with the American Dialect Society, Patricia Cukor-Avila is professor of linguistics at the University of North Texas. Her primary research focuses on the study of linguistic change and variation, specifically grammatical change over time in African-American English. Her longitudinal study (1988-present), with Dr. Guy Bailey, of a rural Texas community has provided much of the data for presentations and articles concerning approaches to sociolinguistic fieldwork, transmission and diffusion, and language change over the lifespan, as well as documenting innovations in African-American English. This research was included in the 2004 PBS documentary by Robert McNeil Do You Speak American?

She is one of the associate producers of the award-winning documentary series Talking Black in America and was interviewed in the 2017 documentary Talking Black in America and the 2022 documentary Talking Black in America: Roots in that series. She is co-editor (with Guy Bailey and Natalie Maynor) of The Emergence of Black English: Text and Commentary (1991) and author of several articles and book chapters, most recently a co-author (with Guy Bailey and Juan Salinas) of a monograph Inheritance and Innovation in the Evolution of Rural African American English in the Cambridge Elements World Englishes series.

To learn more about Patricia, visit UNT’s website. For more information on the American Dialect Society, visit their website.

To listen to the full sound clip of Wallace Quarterman, referenced in this podcast, click or tap the triangle-shaped play button below. And go here for a transcript.

To listen to the complete audio clip of IDEA’s South Carolina 12, go here.

Listen to the entire recording of Booker T. Washington that Paul and Patricia discuss:

Other podcast episodes referenced in this episode, or those with similar themes, include:
March 2024 (Episode 74): Folk Linguistics, with Dennis Preston
February 2024 (Episode 73): The American Dialect Society, with Betsy Evans
August 2021 (Episode 43): Heightened Language and Black Playwrights, with Jacqueline Springfield
December 2020 (Episode 35): The First Sound Recordings, with Patrick Feaster
August 2019 (Episode 19): Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), with Joan Hall

(Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major BMV 1007 Prelude (by Ivan Dolgunov) is courtesy of Jamendo Licensing.)

The post Episode 76 (African-American English) first appeared on Paul Meier Dialect Services.