Posted on 02/04/2005 4:09:39 AM PST by grassboots.org
aw, get aht! what's not pleasant n'at abaht a pittsburgh accent!! ; )
Yinzer ignernt 'n'at if you think we talk funny!
ignernt is a HUGE word in the burgh. that's just IGNERNT!
There is a little town in Arkansas called Antoine, pronounced by the locals as ANN-TOYN.
In VA, a town spelled Fries - pronounced Freeez - and Narrows - pronounced Naaarz :-)
There's something about pronouncing French names that flummoxes us! But then, who cares about the French?
Two local Atlanta shibboleths: Ponce de Leon Avenue and Piedmont Road.
You can always tell when somebody "ain't from roun' heah, ah you?" if they pronounce Ponce de Leon in the Spanish style (PON-say day leh-OHN). Locals pronounce it "PONSS dee LEE-awn".
A much more subtle pronunciation will reveal a native Atlantan born before WWII - "Piedmont" for some reason is pronounced by older natives as "PEEVE-mont", with the "v" sound very faint but audible.
Favorite story: a lawyer friend of my dad's was on trial in Darien, GA. He and another lawyer were arguing about whether it was pronounced the same as the city in Connecticut, or not. They fussed all the way down U.S. 17, finally he said, "Well, let's walk into the first business we see and ask them." So they pull over and walk into a store. My dad's friend walks up to the counter and says, "This is going to sound funny, but I want you to tell us where we are right now."
Lady behind the counter says (wait for it):
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"DAY - ree - Queen."
Keep your Southern accent
I ain't never heard an accent come from yer mouth!
One reason I moved (OH to WV) was to freely exercise the right of accent!
Appalachia forever!
Theater group... not surprising. My guess is that these are a group of guys who have a little sugar in their tank ...if you get my drift.
Southern speech is far from uniform, something Northeasterners and Californians don't understand very well. For instance, if a film is produced about West Texas, it is often stocked with actors who sound, or try to sound, like they're from the Mississippi Delta or south Georgia. Interestingly, British, Australian, and Irish actors seem to do a better job at imitating Southern speech patterns than do Yankees. The movie, "Cold Mountain," where only one of the principal actors, Renee Zellweger, was from the South, illustrates the skill of these non-American actors in speaking upland Southern speech. But this may be due to better training and a lack of anti-Southern prejudice.
There are times when I have considered living in the South for a while with hopes of having the accent rub off on me. I'm under the opinion that in business matters it might actually be to my advantage to have people treat me like I'm slow, thus underestimating me. Personally, I think that it's an advantage of sorts.
Of course, the trick would probably be actually leaving the South. Somehow I think I might be more inclined to stay rather than leave to test my theory.
Well, according to the "Dixie test" posted a while back, I do not have a Southern accent; guess I have just been too corrupted by the "Midwest neutral" from TV. Either that or the test was very biased in terms of specific regional colloquialisms. I used to have a knack for slipping into an accent to match someone with whom I was speaking, but I am a bit out of practice now.
I understand that the class in the article was from a theater group, so it actually makes sense to teach the kids not to "lose" their own regional accents but to be able to assume a different one.
You realize, of course, that that's part of the reason the Left says "Dude, Bush is, like, this total idiot, man." Anyone who speaks with a Suothern accent is, like, a total idiot.
Robert Duvall has the best Southern accent of any recent actor, IMO. Most actors slip in and out of a Southern accent while performing, and freely mash dialects together: Alabama/old Florida, Texas, Virginia, Charleston, New Orleans.
MAR-ti-nez Georgia. They hold a little golf tournament just outside of town at a club that feminists don't like.
Bly-ville Arkansas. The flattest place I have ever been to (other than that, a nice town).
Atlanta is a real hotbed for lose your Southern accent classes. There may be a need for that when you have to deal with some of the national and multi-national companies based there, but not very useful when you get out into the real world. People who live and work outside of the major business centers like Atlanta don't think too highly of folks that talk like yankees, and think even less of them when they find out some Southerner un-learned their accent to fit in with yankees who move down here. I knew someone once who took one of those classes, and then started working in LA (Lower Alabama). She had to re-learn her accent to work with her customers.
Blacks who talk like Uncle Remus = daring and revolutionary.
I've always loved the old rural New England accent. Unfortunately, it is now all but extinct. The only way to hear it now is to somehow get ahold of a recording of an old Fred Allen radio show with "Titus Moody" or else rent a Percy Kilbride movie.
Ironically, Kilbride was a San Francisco native whose most famous movie role was as an Arkansas farmer, yet he always used the rural Yankee accent. Beautiful.
Recently I heard a speaker from PA. He had a funny way of pronouncing 'baptism'. It was more like bAptISm.
What d'I know, I live in Texas?
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