Don't Call Him Redneck

Washington Post ^ | 10/18/06 | Libby Copeland

[rmgatto]

About a year ago, before he was running for the Senate, James Webb took a colleague to the mountains of southwest Virginia to do some research for a movie they were working on.

Rob Reiner , meet my cousin Jewel and her husband, Buck. Jewel made a home-cooked meal for Webb and his producer-director friend. She pointed across the way to a nearby hollow and said:

"Ah wuz bawn rat ovah theyah." That's Reiner on the phone from Los Angeles, doing a mountain accent.

[RegulatorCountry]

"It's hard to guess exactly where someone is found by the way his Southern accent sounds."

I disagree. There are all manner of cues, as to geographic origin, to be found in accents and regional dialects. That may be getting muddied due to cable and the influx of retirees, but it's still there if you listen closely. For instance, I've been told that pronouncing "motorcycle" in the same manner as "icicle' or "popsicle" is a dead giveaway for Carolina. Up in the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina, if somebody is dropping their "r," they're not from there, or they're being affected and trying to sound upper class, like Tidewater or "Chalston" blueblood.

[gathersnomoss]

ABC, NBC, CBS, PMSNBC, CNN....Where Are You?

Anti-American Press, MIA? Shocked? Nah!

[lowbridge]

Towel-heads and rednecks -- of which I am one. If you write that word, please say that. I mean, I don't use that pejoratively, I use it defensively. Towel-heads and rednecks became the easy villains in so many movies out there."

TOWEL HEADS????

Don't forget the meatheads.