[The_Victor]

Why is it always the South whose accent is treated like a foreign language? I'd love to see this sort of effort put into the "yous guys" New England perversion of the language.

[jocon307]

I think they probably do study other regional accents. I've been told the New Yorkers are the only people who wait "on" line, not "in" and we often use the phrase "off of" where plain "off" would be acceptable.

A lovely gal from Alabama once told me that saying "fixin' to" is the ultimate Southern Expression.

One phrase I picked up right here on the threads, which I love and use all the time now is "good on ya", it's much better than what I used to say "good for you", which of course I still use sometimes. Now I have two useful shades of meaning, before I only had one. I was advised "good on ya" is Australian.

[RipSawyer]

"Why is it always the South whose accent is treated like a foreign language? I'd love to see this sort of effort put into the "yous guys" New England perversion of the language."

Well, it must be 'cause we sound so much better to lis'n to! Ain't nobody fixin' tuh waste a lot o' time lis'nin' to no Damn Yankees nohow. Who'd you rather spend a' hour lis'nin' to, Lindsey Graham or Barney Frank?

[hispanarepublicana]

I remember when my aunt, uncle and cousins--Texas ex-pats from Michigan--came to visit us one summer. I don't think I'd ever met anyone from outside Texas in person at that young age, and I was repulsed and offended by my cousin--older than me by a year--and the way he spoke. "Hey, do you guys want to come oatside to the backyerd and play with my toy kerrs and trucks?"

I'd never been called a "guy" until then. Of course, the fact that they'd never been taught to say "Sir" and Ma'am" didn't score big hits with my parents, either. They were doomed from the beginning when they came driving up our driveway in a Volkswagen bug, and my dad decided right then and there that they must be Communists because "good" Americans would have been driving Chevies, Fords, or Chryslers.

[Winfield]

How 'bout a study of the "dialect" of the Kennedys and New Englanders who insist on saying "Aferker" and "Cuber"?
Drives me up a wall. Actually, I hear a lot of "Warsh" and "Warshington" in Pennsylvania.(And "din", as in "Din you know that?")

[PJ-Comix]

I'd love to see this sort of effort put into the "yous guys" New England perversion of the language.

Actually that's NY, not NE.