The Brief

Over the past two decades, Taylor Swift has categorized her music, relationships and style in eras. But researchers have found another thing that Swift seems to change often — and that is the way she speaks.

Matthew Winn, an audiology professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and his student, Miski Mohamed, co-authored a study that analyzes Swift's dialect and accent from 2008 to 2019. For several years, they listened to old Swift interviews, focusing primarily on her time in Nashville and New York City, and found that her vowel pronunciation had significantly changed over time. These changes in Swift's dialect coincided with her gradual transition from country music to pop sensation.

"She's been recorded so often for interviews over the course of her career that we have this timeline of her voice throughout the years," Winn told Morning Edition. "So it sort of gave us a rare chance to do this kind of study because we know that people change their accent, but we don't often get a chance to measure it."

Swift was born in West Reading, Pa., where she developed a love for music and performance. When she was 14 years old, her family moved to Hendersonville, Tenn., a suburb near Nashville, to support Swift's country music aspirations. Her relocation to Tennessee markedly influenced her accent and dialect.

Although many people assume that dialects only reflect the region a person grew up in, dialects are also shaped by the social community someone wants to be a part of or fit into, Winn and Mohamed explained in a summarized version of their research on the UMN Listen Lab's website.

"As [Taylor Swift] started singing country music, she was integrating into a community that spoke with a Southern accent," Winn said.

In a 2004 interview with Good Morning America, Swift, 14 at the time, doesn't yet speak with a distinct Southern accent. But after four years in Nashville, she had adopted a thick, yet charming, Southern accent that can be heard in a Country Music Television interview recorded in 2008. That accent translated into — of course — her music, like her Grammy-winning sophomore album, Fearless.

During this era, Swift specifically named Faith Hill, Shania Twain and The Chicks as her country music idols. Winn says that to fit into the country music social scene, Swift might have studied more than just their music.

"Part of what it means to be a country musician is to speak with that Southern accent," Winn said. "And just to make sure that she was welcomed into that community, maybe that was something that helped that process."

After releasing three successful country-inspired albums between 2006 and 2010 — her self-titled album Taylor Swift, Fearless and Speak Now — Swift's music career and personal life began to evolve past Nashville and the country music scene as she entered her early 20s.

In 2011, Swift started purchasing houses on both the east and west coasts — in states like California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island — and spending more time away from the Southern influences of Nashville. So, when she released her 2012 album, Red, Winn says it's no surprise that her recent bicoastal moves were reflected in her dialect — and music.

"She was exiting country music and entering pop music where a Southern accent wouldn't have necessarily fit in as well," Winn said.

Red was one of the biggest pop music commercial successes of 2012 — it also did well with critics, as the album earned Swift two Grammys and sold over 1 million copies within the first week of its release. Swift had intentionally shifted toward a more pop-focused sound and style. But she was still being categorized as a country music artist and her Southern accent continued to linger, especially in her conversational speech, which can be heard in a 2012 interview with NPR's All Things Considered.

Two years after Red's release, Swift shared in a 2014 Rolling Stone interview that she had moved, again, and started a life in New York. That same year, she released her fifth studio album 1989, a full-stop pop album. The album was, again, a commercial success and critically acclaimed — it went platinum in a week and made Swift the first woman to win album of the year twice at the Grammys.

In a 2014 interview with NPR, Swift's Southern accent was absent. Her voice, vocally and conversationally, had shifted almost completely.

From 2017 to 2019, Swift released her sixth and seventh studio albums, Reputation and Lover, establishing herself as a pop music sensation. Although she was excelling in her career, Swift's music and personal life took a hit when Scooter Braun, a celebrity manager known for working with pop stars like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, purchased her first six studio albums' masters in 2019. Swift was publicly frustrated with Braun, and she worked hard to get back the rights to her music — re-recording four of her albums and, eventually, buying back her master recordings in March 2025.

During this tense time for Swift, Winn and Mohamed noticed that the pitch in her voice had dropped. Winn notes that the subjects she was speaking on during this time, social change, feminism and musician's rights, might have prompted her to drop the pitch in her voice. But he also attributes Swift's location and social life in New York City to this shift, which can be heard in a CBS Sunday Morning interview recorded in 2019.

"This was a time when she was being much more vocal about social and political issues and the autonomy of musicians over their own work," he said. "I think she did what a lot of people do. She took those issues very seriously. She started speaking with a lower voice."

Conscious and unconscious influences can affect the way a person speaks, Winn says. And Taylor Swift is no exception.

Winn attests that a person's dialect reflects all the places they've lived and all the people who have influenced them. He and Mohamed found that Swift's relocations to different geographic regions influenced her accent and dialect, but they attribute the change in her voice to her evolving social influences and aspirations, too.

"So this gives us a way to interpret these speech changes as reflective of social and career goals rather than just being in a different city," Winn said.

Winn and Mohamed don't plan to analyze Swift's accent and dialect beyond her 2019 Lover era, as she seems to have found her voice.

"She both has her own accent and also is influencing the public as well. So other people are maybe listening to her and sounding more like her because they like her so much," he said.

So, if you're a casual fan, a die-hard Swiftie, or consider the pop star inspirational, at all, don't be surprised if you start sounding like her, too.

The digital piece was edited by Treye Green. The audio version was produced by Kaity Kline and edited by Olivia Hampton.

An East Hollywood nursing home that nearly lost its license this year because of repeated state citations for deaths of residents at the facility was cited again last month after another person died.

The California Department of Public Health cited Brier Oak on Sunset after a 92-year-old resident bled to death on Sept. 27. Staff members had continued injecting her with blood thinners over a 40-hour period in violation of clinical guidelines.

It’s an AA citation, the most severe the department issues when violations of care standards are determined to be a substantial factor in someone’s death. The facility faces a $120,000 fine.

These kinds of citations are rare. The department has recently issued, on average, fewer than 20 AA citations yearly across more than 1,200 skilled nursing facilities in California.

Brier Oak has received three AA citations for patient deaths since late 2022.

State regulations require authorities to suspend or revoke the licenses of any facilities that get two AA citations within a period of 24 months.

The state Public Health Department began that process with Brier Oak in May based on resident deaths in 2022 and 2024. But officials dropped that effort later because they say they determined the two patient deaths had occurred 26 months apart — just outside of the two-year window.

A spokesperson for the company that owns Brier Oak told LAist it has appealed the first two citations and is considering whether to appeal the third.

Advocates for nursing home residents say the recent death could have been avoided if the state had taken action.

“There were red flags, and a lot of these red flags existed prior to the death of this poor resident,” said Tony Chicotel, senior staff attorney with  California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

The state said Brier Oak has until Dec. 19 to notify the department if it intends to appeal.

What led to the patient deaths?

In the recent death at Brier Oak cited by the state, multiple communication and technical failures by nursing staff led to the patient bleeding out over a period of 40 hours, according to the citation.

The 92-year-old patient was immobile and had been prescribed a blood thinner called heparin to help prevent blood clots from forming. But once a patient is bleeding, those injections make bleeding worse, and potentially fatal.

When nursing staff found bright red blood in the resident’s diaper the day before she died, Brier Oak failed to follow established processes for documenting the bleeding or communicating it to a nurse practitioner or medical doctor, according to the citation.

Nurses told state authorities they delayed informing physicians because they “get mad” when contacted in the middle of the night.

The facility’s staff also failed to fully assess the patient to determine the possible causes of the bleeding and or to properly monitor the issue during crucial periods, according to the citation.

She suffered four internal bleeding episodes over 40 hours and continued to receive blood thinner injections.

The citation says a nurse practitioner at Brier Oak told state licensing authorities later that if she’d been informed about the patient’s ongoing bleeding, she would have stopped the blood thinner and sent her to a hospital.

In 2022, Brier Oak received a AA citation after a 62-year-old woman died from respiratory failure in part because nurses hadn’t been trained to operate her breathing machine.

In 2024, the nursing home got another AA citation. This time, a 63-year-old woman with paraplegia and severe obesity fell from her bed and died while a nursing assistant was changing her. The assistant was alone, even though the woman’s care plan required two staff members.

Who owns Brier Oak?

Brier Oak on Sunset is primarily owned by Genesis Healthcare, a publicly-traded nursing home operator that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July.

Once the largest nursing home operator in the U.S., Genesis was facing billions in debt when it declared bankruptcy, according to court filings. That includes millions in potential damages from lawsuits related to patient care failures.

In a brief statement to LAist, a company spokesperson said it's still considering whether or not to appeal the recent citation at Brier Oak.

The citation should trigger a suspension or revocation of the facility's license, according to state regulations. The latter means it would have to close its doors. The two most recent deaths and citations at the facility occurred within the two-year window.

The California Department of Public Health confirmed it cited Brier Oak on Nov. 26.

The department said the facility submitted a required written response before a Dec. 6 deadline, showing how it will fix the problems and prevent them from happening again..

The department determined Brier Oak was back in compliance during an onsite visit last week, a representative told LAist.

Brier Oak on Sunset currently houses about 150 patients, according to state records.

A bankruptcy judge has stalled the proposed sale of Genesis Healthcare to an affiliate of one of its investors.

Experts say it’s unclear whether the state would revoke the license of an owner who is actively trying to sell and turn over operations to someone else.

It’s been a rough start to ski and snowboard season for California mountain towns. Snowfall is well below average, but Christmas could come with some of the white stuff. Here's where things stand:

Hmmm. Didn’t we just have a record storm?

Yes. That big atmospheric river that hit Southern California last month made it one of the wettest Novembers on records. But since then, it’s been unusually warm and dry, which is not good for mountain towns that depend on snow, and the outdoor enthusiasts that flock to them.

How bad is it?

California’s snowpack is about 20% of normal for this time of the year, according to the state’s snow-tracking website. Southern California isn’t quite as bad off — we’ve gotten about half our normal snowfall so far.

As for the resorts, only about 20% of the terrain at Bear Mountain in Big Bear is open. About 35% of Mammoth Mountain is open.

Can’t they just make snow?

They are, but the unusually warm temperatures have curbed resorts’ ability to make enough snow to open more terrain. “If you're blowing water into 40-degrees, it's going to stay water,” said Justin Kanton, a spokesperson for Big Bear Mountain Resort. “ So as much as people probably would want us to just crank the snow guns all day, every day up here and just get things moving, that's not really possible.”

But there’s a silver lining!

The dry weather has allowed Caltrans to make good progress toward opening Highway 38, said Evan Engle, who chairs the board of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce. The road typically handles up to 40% of traffic up to the mountain town, Engle said. But it’s been closed since September when it got washed out by Tropical Storm Mario.

Getting it open as soon as possible is key to keeping visitor traffic manageable, and getting supplies to Big Bear.

What’s the snow outlook?

SoCal mountains are likely to see some precipitation around Christmas, said Kyle Wheeler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But with temperatures not expected to drop much, it’s uncertain how much of it will be white, Wheeler said.

If you go to Big Bear: 

• If you plan to hit the slopes, get on it early, when the snow is at its best given the warm conditions. 
• No snow? There’s more to do than ski and snowboard. Check this list of winter fun events.  
• Worried about traffic? Consider going up earlier in the week. If you can’t do that, consider taking Highway 18 through Lucerne Valley. It’s a longer route if you’re coming from L.A., but less traveled, and less likely to make you car sick (fewer tight curves). 

The Los Angeles Police Department used more than 2,400 crowd control munitions in response to protests from June 6 to 14, according to a new report.

Officers used a total of 2,431 less-lethal projectile rounds and 35 canisters of tear gas over the nine days, according to LAPD reports. The department recorded 12 injuries officers caused with those weapons.

The LAPD released the missing report last week after LAist identified the use of crowd control weapons on four different days in June that had not been reported according to state law. Assembly Bill 48, which went into effect in 2022, limits when and how crowd control weapons can be used, and requires law enforcement agencies to publicly release reports on their use within 60 days.

A 30-day extension for these reports can be granted in some cases, but the LAPD released this report about three months late even if an extension was justified.

Officials acknowledged they were out of compliance on Dec. 10 before releasing the report, saying the delay “stems from the extraordinary volume and complexity of incidents” over that time.

This report is different from others

It is unusual for a crowd control report to include more than one day, and the report for June 9 through 14 covered six days and “45 sepearte [sic] non categorical use of force incidents.”

It does not describe any of those use of force incidents specifically, and the LAPD has not yet responded to LAist’s request for more detailed descriptions of those incidents.

The report also considered the entire six days to have been one continuous protest, though it included several anti-ICE protests over the week and the national “No Kings” protest on June 14.

Two reports released earlier this year for June 6 and 8 covered single days and provided more detailed descriptions of incidents where the LAPD used less-lethal munitions against protesters.