Episode 1 Million in My Speech Pattern Obsession
Unlike the speech pattern that inspired the last couple of entries on this topic, this one doesn’t incite irritation, just curiousity.
In The Wire, some of the street kids’ occasionally use an “oo” sound that sounds like what you hear in East London grime music like Dizzee Rascal.
I’m not quite sure how I can write it out phonetically, but it’s a highly rounded “oo” that’s truncated in this very particular way. Like it’s pure “ooo,” not like an “ew” that starts with a smile then comes into the final sound.
What I am curious about is how and when these two different communities came up with it. Independent? Somehow linked between both community’s developing a signature musical style based on dancehall and hip hop that also has some element of what I can only think of as masochism towards the dancers (Bmore’s speed and Grime’s off-kilterness)? Catholiquing minds want to know.
