You mean they are supposed to be pronounced differently?
When I moved to Tidewater Virginia years ago there was a guy who needed a translator. He spoke English but used an Elizabethan grammar and accent.
Plants were “plunts”. Stance was “stonce”, etc.
Later in life I learned that’s how people talked in the 1600’s as the colonies originally started.
You’ll hear this also in North Carolina.
“America’s various accents are particularly pronounced”
As if they aren’t in England. I visited South Yorkshire several times for business in the mid 80s for a research project. I swear those people were speaking anything BUT English. You needed an interpreter.
“If speakers drop the final “r,” that’s called “non-rhotic” as opposed to “rhotic,” wherein the “r” is pronounced.”
What about people who ADD an “r”? As in “I’m going to warsh my clothes.” Is that “neu-rhotic”?
*** Call it a drawl or a twang, but one of the primary hallmarks of Southern American English (SAE) is a melodic, relaxing quality. A marketing firm conducted a survey of global English accents, and the Southern accent was voted the most pleasant.***
Last summer I was visiting family in my hometown (Gainesville, FL), but we stayed at a nearby hotel because it is a large family, and no longer room to hold all of us. As I exited one day, I was chatting with a gentlemen while my husband pulled the car around for us. He told me that I had a very pleasant accent, and wanted to know where I was from. He was very surprised when I said, “Here!” I guess my Southern accent has become a blend of Southern and Midwestern. Still, he said it was most pleasant, and it very much seemed genuine when he said so.
Siri still doesn’t understand me though, so I don’t often use voice to text. Too many corrections need to be made.
(Oh, and check my tagline.) ;-)
Bookmark
I speak Cajun!
As with “pen” and “pin,” this linguistic merger makes “caught” and “cot” sound alike...
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I definitely merge “pen” and “pin”. Also “caught” and “cot”... but this one seems pretty common outside of the South.
Some say Southern accents are closest to those of the original colonists. On the other hand, Northeastern/Mid-Atlantic accents seem to have been influenced more by later immigrants.
I’m from Pittsburgh, my wife is from the mountains of north Alabama. When our oldest daughter was little she had loads of fun mocking both of our accents - she would say a word like I say it then like mom says it and just laugh (dog....dawg). Funny thing - she’a a high school English teacher now.
You go back and look at the byline again and scratch your head:
Word Smarts ^ | 01/10/2025 | Jennifer A. Freeman
Smarts?
Try again. It's "differently from . . ."
Every time.
Got that?
People in Iowa and Missouri speak the most straight up American.
Born and raised in southern California.
No accent what so ever.
Stationed in the South I picked up the “Drawl”.
I can pick it up whenever.
I can understand most every accent in the USA.
Including Canadian or South American.
If you speak English I’ll figure it out.
English is one of the most difficult languages
in the world to learn as it has so many roots.
That is probably why we talk so slow.
We have to think about what we say.
It takes a lot of words to say in English, what a single word in Mandarin conveys.
My favorite is the Kentucky/WV backwoods drawl https://youtu.be/7o36ssIchxA?feature=shared
Fascinating.
A Boston Irish friend of mine (with a thick accent) used to say when he went to the South, they talked funny. And when they came North, he heard funny.
The actual old Tidewater Virginia and Coastal South Carolina accents were more or less lost, or so I’ve been told. After the Civil War, Southerners wanted to sound as different as possible from Northerners, so they adopted the back country accent that has come down to us as the “Southern accent.” Perhaps some people cling to the old ways, but it’s similar to upper class Boston or New York or Philadelphia accents which aren’t much heard in the real world.
Yall crazy, Jennifer...bout to drive me up a wall.
Bless yer heart.