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Scholars of Twang Track All the 'Y'Alls' in Texas
NY Times ^
| RALPH BLUMENTHAL
Posted on 11/28/2003 6:06:42 AM PST by Pharmboy
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Hmmm...I always thought "fixin' to" was from North Carolina. Oh well...
1
posted on
11/28/2003 6:06:43 AM PST
by
Pharmboy
To: Pharmboy
or fiddin to....people always ask me about my accent...i tell 'em i don't have an accent, i have been talking this way all my life...you are the one that sounds phunny.
To: Pharmboy
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.
To: Pharmboy
Makes me want to call and talk to my cousin Jane. I grew up in Texas and have something of an accent (or can at least pull it out of my unconsciousness when I need to) but Jane has the total full blown accent with that extra "y" and everything. It's wonderful to listen to but you had better have a lot of time because there's no hurrying the conversation.
4
posted on
11/28/2003 6:18:52 AM PST
by
Mercat
To: Pharmboy
These students are sort of re-inventing the wheel, linguistically. There was a study done in Chelsea, Michigan back in the 1980s that showed already that those with the strongest accents have the most positive attitude toward their home. Kind of common sense stuff anyway, really. Oh well, gotta write a thesis on something, ah s'pose.
5
posted on
11/28/2003 6:20:44 AM PST
by
wizardoz
("They're not Americans; they're Democrats." -NetValue)
To: Pharmboy
Texas bump
To: Mercat
... but Jane has the total full blown accent with that extra "y" and everything. My wife was born and reared in Ellis County, Texas -- the county due south of Dallas County.
In the mid-80's, we were visiting friends in Vienna, Austria, and attended a worship service at a church which ministered to English-speakers in the city (a large population there, made up of UN employees, OPEC personnel, business and diplomatic people, and -- at that time -- a considerable contingent of Christian missionaries who lived in Vienna but ministered behind the Iron Curtain).
Our host told us, "You must meet Reid and Betty. They're from Texas too." Reid and Betty had lived in Vienna over 25 years, and Reid was a Kammersanger in the Vienna State Opera. Upon being introduced, my wife's first words to Reid, "I'm very pleased to meet you." Without batting an eye, Reid responded, "You're from Ellis County, Texas."
Reid, of course, had an excellent ear for such things, needing a good ear for accents in order to do his work of singing in several Eupopean langauges. As it turns out, he grew up in North Texas, a couple of counties to the East of Ellis County. In his day, he claimed, one could recognize an Ellis County native by his accent. And my wife had it, according to Reid.
Many years later, when we settled in Ellis County, I saw a notice in the paper for a voice audition for an agency producing radio commercials. Thinking it would be fun, I showed up. I quickly learned I was exactly what they were NOT looking for. My English is ruthlessly Standard American (according to my daughter, majoring in linguistics). Headquartered in Dallas, this agency makes periodic auditioning forays into Ellis County, in order to find thick, unmistakeably rural, Texas accents for the radio commercials which require that sort of thing.
So, it seems that even perched on the edge of the Metroplex, Ellis County still preserves an abiding accent among its natives.
7
posted on
11/28/2003 6:35:34 AM PST
by
Brandybux
To: Pharmboy
Hmmm...I always thought "fixin' to" was from North Carolina. Oh well...More Slander from the Easterns...Y'all. :))
8
posted on
11/28/2003 6:37:48 AM PST
by
skinkinthegrass
(Just because you're paranoid,doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. :)
To: The_Victor
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.
9
posted on
11/28/2003 6:39:19 AM PST
by
jocon307
(The Dems don't get it, the American people do.)
To: 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."
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?
10
posted on
11/28/2003 6:39:48 AM PST
by
RipSawyer
(Mercy on a pore boy lemme have a dollar bill!)
To: Pharmboy
It's really strange that in the US and UK there's a real difference in accent depending on what part of the country you come from but in Australia we haven't got that. You could have three people, one from Sydney, one from Darwin, and the other from Perth (in the US it would be akin to New York, Fort Worth, and LA) and you wouldn't be able to tell who was from where.
11
posted on
11/28/2003 6:40:30 AM PST
by
Dundee
(They gave all their tomorrow’s for our today’s.)
To: Mercat
Traditional Texas speech is predominantly Upper South in origin, with some Midwestern and Lower South influences, depending on where in Texas you are. Along the Gulf Coast, Alabamians, Mississippians, and Georgians were important in the area's settlement. The Panhandle, the Red River Valley, and North Texas had large numbers of settlers from Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, Overall, Tennessee was the largest contributor of people to the Texas population and contributed more than any other state to the defenders of the Alamo. I have met people in southern West Virginia whose pronunciations sound almost Texan. The speech of the Upper South, especially Appalachia, was strongly influenced by the Scotch-Irish, with some English and German input. Virginia's Shenandoah Valley was the first area where Upper South speech developed, as Scotch-Irish and Pennsylania Dutch mixed with English settlers from Tidewater Virginia.
Overall, Texan and Southern English are more conservative and truer to the English of the King James Bible and Shakespeare than are the urban dialects of the East Coast cities, which are strongly affected by Italian, Yiddish, and Slavic speech patterns.
To: Pharmboy
The upgliding dipthong
Monica has moved to Texas?
13
posted on
11/28/2003 6:42:36 AM PST
by
tet68
To: Mercat
The border between east Texas (where the Dixie dialect of Texan is spoken) and north Texas (where the Midwest dialect reigns) is at the junction of I-30E and the I-635 loop in Mesquite, Texas, immediately east of Dallas. Folks east of that point say "warsh" (wash) and "naw" (no), and call iced tea "ahhs tay". Further east, behind the Pine Curtain that separates east Texas proper from the rest of the state, the speech patterns are amost entirely those of the deep South: "yeller" for yellow, "cobeer" for beer, etc.
In Dallas proper, people tend to speak with a flat, midwestern inflection, and say "you guys" along with "y'all". In fact, the presence of the east Texas inflection in one's speech is taken as evidence that the speaker is a hick.
I myself am from Dallas and generally use the Midwest inflection. However, when I visit my family in Tyler, I begin to speak with the east Texas accent. I don't know why this is.
14
posted on
11/28/2003 6:46:34 AM PST
by
B-Chan
(Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
To: Brandybux
"As it turns out, he grew up in North Texas, a couple of counties to the East of Ellis County. In his day, he claimed, one could recognize an Ellis County native by his accent."
I was born and raised in South Carolina and took a job in South Carolina fifty miles from my birth place in 1972 and people started saying,"you didn't grow up here, did you?" Alas, now everyone is sounding the same.
15
posted on
11/28/2003 6:46:39 AM PST
by
RipSawyer
(Mercy on a pore boy lemme have a dollar bill!)
To: Pharmboy
Hey Ralph Blumenthal,
You're attempt to make southerns and Texans look stupid and uneducated is just another hit piece from the Liberal NYTimes.
There is a new south and it is mostly Republican now! Eat your heart out!
Oh! By the way, Did ya'll happen to catch dat Texan having Thanksgiving turkey with our troups in Bagdad! huh?
To: RipSawyer
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?Now why'd you go an do that? I spent all that energy getting worked up over disperate treatment of the South, and you disarm me in three sentences. Dangit! I was enjoying that chip on my shoulder.
Oh well, thanks anyway.
To: tet68
"The upgliding dipthong
Monica has moved to Texas?"
I have to get my breath back after reading that, it has so many connotations I need a legal pad to list them.
18
posted on
11/28/2003 6:50:18 AM PST
by
RipSawyer
(Mercy on a pore boy lemme have a dollar bill!)
To: Pharmboy; Nightshift
ping
19
posted on
11/28/2003 6:52:37 AM PST
by
tutstar
To: Pharmboy
The problem with all this is we're so often misunderstood. Some years ago at the Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth, (It sits on a slight rise and is approached by a set of rather wide and steep concrete steps),there was a very large group of Japanese business people from Japan who were visiting the exibits there. When they were leaving and had already reached the bottom of the steps, the docent, who was standing at the top finally remembered to say our usual parting words. "Y'all come back now." It was then the entire Japanese delegation turned around and dutifully climbed back up to the top of the steps.
And then there was the new journalist on an east Texas newspaper who was initiated to the newspaper business by being assigned to write obituaries. He reported that a recently departed man had been, "a tar saleman." The family threatened to sue the paper for the ignorance of some upstart Easterner confusing an automobile "tar" salesman with someone who merely sold asphalt.
And lastly, the notion that Austin is the capitol of the United States is probably shared by most Texans. To wit: All directions begin there. No matter what part of Texas one lives in, when traveling, we all say, we're going "up" to Amarillo (that's north of Austin), "out" to El Paso (west) or "down" to Houston (south).
20
posted on
11/28/2003 6:53:55 AM PST
by
texaslil
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