Someone (lost in the mist of things once read) once likened TV power to communicate and share information to Gutenberg's invention of the printing press–only they felt the analogy would only hold true if nothing but comic books had been printed for the first 500 years.

it's nice to hear Xara that TV offered you a "mid atlantic" accent to emulate, but region words and accents make the world interesting. It's still true that the Cumberland's have a gaps, but in NH, Dicksville has a notch. (NY/NJ have a gaps too, notch's only start north of NY.)

TV tends to homogenize. One of the joys of AWAD is that there are so many views, so many words, so many ways of saying the same word– schedule has two reasonably standard pronunciations, but there are many words that act as marker for regions. how do you pronounce ROOF?

I hate Mc Donalds too. Standardization is for insects. Human are diverse! ( Heinlien, more or less))