Sachs too frequently lapses into a sort of reductio ad PowerPoint. It seems every catastrophe can be averted if we take fewer than 10 simple steps.  Sachs presents “four compelling reasons why the poorest countries need to speed the demographic transition,” “a list of seven requirements to enable family planning programs to accelerate the decline in fertility” and “six steps to transform” American “security policy into a workable framework for the 21st century.”

Maybe it was the little thrill of seeing a Latinate/geekspeak mash up, or just the fact that, structurally, PowerPoint and absurdum are in parallel, but it made my evening.  Sometimes it’s the little things….

Well, hah! Finally, I have “scientific proof” (or at least one linguist’s corroborative test results) which prove that I’m a New York City native. According to Tom Kun’s very interesting American Regional Accent Map:

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Northeastern.
You’re probably from somewhere near New York City, possibly north Jersey, or Connecticut or Rhode Island. If you are from New York City you may be one of the types who people never believe when you say you’re from New York.

So it turns out there is more than one New York Accent. According to Kun, there is another variant of the famous “fuggedaboudit” New York accent. Here is Kun’s explanation:

Q: How did you know I was from New York City when I don’t have an accent?
This is the best part of avoiding stereotypes and focusing on obscure stuff. If you say caught and cot differently, rhyme on with don, and say Mary, merry and marry differently, you can’t be from anywhere besides NYC, north Jersey, and southern New England. It doesn’t matter if you pronounce all your R’s.

If you’d like to test yourself and find out what sort of American accent you have, try the online survey.