With all of Illinois' deep, multi-faceted and important problems, it may seem trite to focus on something like Gov. Bruce Rauner's speech patterns. And yet, reactions to the Republican’s first State of the State address earlier this month focused less on the meat of his manifesto, and more on what many saw as a distraction: Rauner’s delivery. It was talked about enough that I thought it worth looking into, and getting an dialect expert to weigh in on whether it's genuine (as Rauner says is the case), or contrived.
If you were wonderin’ whether the governor again left behind the terminal “g” in his budget address … take a listen: “Oops! He Did It Again.”
Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorntook the time to count 'em. Zorn’s “folksy meter” again gaugedRauner hovering around using g's about half the time, though his 47 percent usage on Wednesday's budget address was down from his 51 percent for the State of the State.
By the way – here are some of my Facebook and Twitter posts about Rauner’s dropped G’s.
- "Going forward, whenever Rauner drops a G during a public speech he should have to put $1k in the "budget deficit elimination" jar."
- "So I'm listenin' to the State of the State speech and I'm wishin' that Rauner would use some of his millions to buy a f*ckin' G!"
- "Illinois has a new 'Overnor and a new drinkin' game. First one to actually pronounce a 'g' at the end of an '-ing' word busy a round. I saw we call it Raunerin'"
- "I thought I was imaginin' it"
- "We need some reformin'. It was makin' me cringe. I was a cringin', I feel ya."
- "It will take more than raisin's to increase the minimum wage."
- "There is no G in deficit."
- "I'm pretty confident Gov. Rauner only thinks there are 25 letters in the alphabet."
- "Rauner's state of the state is definitely not brought to you by the letter g."
Apologies if Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre or Britney Spears are now playing on repeat in your head! The ear worms will move out soon enough, and we can all get back to the important policy debates.
