Posted on 07/31/2014 4:26:21 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
A nuclear lab in Tennessee has canceled a "Southern accent reduction" class after employees raised heck about what they saw as a slap in their Southern faces, the class instructor said Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Awhile back, she introduced me to one of her neighbors - he was from Vermont, or maybe Connecticut - as "This is WBill. He's from the north, and a Republican too! Just like you!" ..... Like all of us Yankee Conservatives know each other, or something. The guy was a decent sort, he played along and made a wise-alec comment about needing to see "The Secret Handshake" or somesuch. sigh.
I was brought up in the backwoods of Maine. Same people. Same values. Different accent. I get back there as often as I can, as WBill Jr. loves it and I figure that it's important to know where your roots are, and where your family is. But the south is home, now.
Am from Boston area and we say “Bawstin” though people from other parts of country seem to think we say “Baaah-stin”. And no, a Boston/New Eng accent isn’t the same as, er, ah, er, a Kennedy accent. Go not too far away in New England and there’s a bit of a twang; in W. Mass or VT, Bob isn’t “Bawb” but “Baaahb”. We pronounced “Route” (as in a highway) to rhyme with fruit while people in other parts of the country rhyme it with “doubt”. And we usually say Route rather than Highway.
Some people from midwest seem to have the voice go up at the end of a sentence...? Like they’re asking a question...?
Sometimes I have trouble understanding a Southern accent; no offense, y’all :) Maybe I just associate the Southern accent with Nancy Grace. There are some weird pronunciations;
a singer from a Washington DC/VA area band did a station ID for my college radio station and said our signal was “careening its way into your heume (home) at this very moment”. And hear how Garth Brooks pronounces “love”—”leeuve?” in the line “When we’re free to love anyone we choose” in “We Shall Be Free”.
Have taken trips to Pittsburgh the past few years and enjoy the yinzer accent an’ ‘at. Are yinz gonna watch the Stillers game on your caaaach at your haaase or go dahntahn? Don’t be a jagoff.” The accent comes out loud and clear on the
“Pittsburgh Dad” videos on youtube, and as I went to a Pirates game at PNC a few weeks back most of the guys around the bars nearby sure sounded like Pittsburgh Dad. What’s the section up a hill that you gotta take an incline to get to?
Mt Warshington, of course.
Dennis Miller is from the Pitt. area and on his audiobooks, etc. you can hear him say things like “what’s going ahn?”
Some TV/radio personalities try to lose their accents. Sean Hannity said when he, a Noo Yawker, got a radio job in Atlanta his NY accent stuck out like a sore thumb. Vermont’s commie senator, Bernie Sanders, is orig from NYC. I heard him on a radio ad: “Hoy! Oym Boynie Sandizz!”
I have a collection of baseball related music and other stuff and one bit was a radio show where Babe Ruth was talking to some kids and the Bronx, Brooklyn etc accents were pretty clear...
Some time ago, I was in an Indian restaurant, in London. The owner/proprietor spoke with *BOTH* a thick Cockney AND Indian accent. Simulataneously.
I could tell it was English, but honestly couldn't understand a word. And he didn't mumble, or swallow his speech....I just couldn't understand him, though he understood me perfectly.
Fortunately, I was with a few friends who were local. They translated for me. :-) I was glad, the place had great Indian food.
Accents can stand out—a few times someone sent me “airchecks” (tapes) of radio from his area, and there was a classic country show on WEVL from Memphis. The guy sounded more like me (or close to it) than someone from Tenn. I e-mailed him (Ken Young his name I think) and he said, “Oh, I’m from Rhode Island—I came down here to go to school and wound up staying.” Ah.
Indeed, as I said in my own post. We do say “Baw-stin”.
We pronounce “aunt” to rhyme with “want”, not “ant”. An ant is an insect. An aunt is a relative...it may come from wanting to sound British or refined. I grew up in a small town opposite Boston called Nahant. We said “Na-HONT” or “Na-HAWNT” while others might say “Na-HANT”, rhyming last syllable with “ant”.
Pe-CAWN pie, not Pee-Can, for us.
Interesting, thanks. It looks like the video may have been set on Daufuskie Island.
I was in the marine construction business at Beaufort during the great depression of 1973-4, and my partner was Pat Conroy’s
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Is_Wide_(book))
successor as the teacher at the Daufuskie Island School. He (my partner) said the ticks were so abundant that they made the pine tags on the paths move.
Chris has three syllables: ker-ee-iss.
A`lot of people try to type Bostonian, but you just cahnt pick it up unless the sound is in your head.
I often say I was raised wheah my uncle did not marry an insect.
sometimes it sucks and sometimes it's pissah.
Sorry bee ill, y'cain't get theah from heah.
Ha yeah.
The Kennedys do use the same pronunciation
in some ways. Ted K: “it cahn’t get any worse.”
Ted also pronounced urn as “yearn” as in
“My mother”s yearn...”
I think that's common for Bostonian.
I have to stop and pay attention to;
I saw you the other day because I'll say, "I sawya the othah day"
People here in SW Pa kind'a like my accent and I'm rather pleased I still have it.
HA!
You folks from away. Your ack-scent will nev-ah fool a na-tive Main-ah. But, you can fool each oth-ah, and that's goo-ud enuff....
My sister and her husband are born and raised southeastern KY hillbillies. She is a nurse and he is a doctor. Upon medical school graduation they moved to Minnesoooota for nearly 15 yrs.
Whenever they would return home for a visit we could detect that Yankee accent sneaking through. Then they had children and it was really pronounced in them speech. When she introduced her neighbors to sweat tea she brought from back home they were enthralled with it along with other mountain recipes.
Three years ago they moved to southern Virginia to escape the high taxes of Minnesoooota. With the accent they acquired from living up north they are often asked where are you from? Kentucky came the reply which causes looks of what, that is a Yankee accent. Then comes the explanation.
I have noticed that they have lost all their northern accent at this point and the children are starting to pick up the Virginia accent.
“Black”?
A local weatherman here has lost his “black” dialect over the years. When he first started he said “axe” and now can say “ask” perfectly as well as any other English words.
The famed Bert and I comedy albums, like the one about the Mainer trying to give directions to Millinocket. “Well you could go west at the next intersection, get on the turnpike...go no’th thru the tollgate at Augusta...well, no,
just keep the river on your left...then again you can take that scenic coastal route that the tourists use and after you get to Bucksport...well, let me see now...Millinocket...Come to think of it, you can’t GET there from here.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIJBUZm1HoY
Tim Sample is a decent replacement. Though, if you ain't from Maine, you ain't likely to get it.
Tim does an excellent bit called "The Junk of Marshall Dodge", that's worth a listen to.
yup; I remember the records (at the time) being advertised in Yankee Magazine and such. Finally when I was up at the Me. State Museum in Augusta I saw a “best of” CD and bought it
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