I've been seeing a lot of commercials for Sarah Palin's book tour interviews, and I'm always struck by her dialect (and Tina Fey's spot-on impersonation of it). But I can't quite figure out what the characteristics of her dialect are. Any ideas? All politics aside, please.
Jesse Sheidlower has written on this very topic in Slate: http://www.slate.com/id/2201318/
Thank-you! I had to laugh when I read about the Canadian influence of making "about" sound like "a boot". I've been told that I do that (and "bag" is a homophone of "beg"). Now I'm going to have to watch at least one interview so I can listen more closely to her dialect.
See also this article from All Things Considered: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95306504