Arthur D. Hlavaty

James Fallows on Announcer Speak, aka Mid-Atlantic English. My parents spoke that way because they taught in the New York City school system in the 1930s, when it was required. My father and two of his math team classmates tried out for jobs out of college, and all passed everything but the speech test with flying colors. My father was foreign-born, one of the others was Jewish, and the third one was Black, and they all sounded like what they were. The second time around, they mastered the requisite Mid-Atlantic, and they all went on to distinguished teaching careers.