Accents?

As a southerner, I find bad grammar offensive whether it is a Texas drawl or a Georgia accent.

Southern accents vary by state.

Hit send to soon.

By bad grammar, I cringe when I hear someone say "I'm fixin to carry Jethro to the store".

GoTravel, I couldn't agree more.

I had the privilege of working for a book publisher here in my city for a couple of months and he gave me some advice: "Never lost your southern accent or regional dialect. That's what gives us distinction."

He was the most intelligent person I have ever met, and I have remembered his advice over the years.

Ya'll come to North Carolina. But please wait until after hurricane season. We're a mite busy while that's goin' on.

That should be "never LOSE your southern accent."

(I just hate it when I'm incorrect.)

Honey Chile, as a born and bred Southerner who's lived on the West Coast for a long time, I've run into occasional funny situations where I'm not understood. One time I was teaching a class to adults and was discussing rules. Noticing funny expressions on the faces of some of the students I stopped the lesson to ask what was wrong. Well, the students wanted to be polite, but they couldn't understand the way I was pronouncing "rules." We all had a good laugh and proceeded.

I do think a Southern accent is sometimes associated with a certain unfortunate stereotype. However, just because I speak with a Southern accent doesn't mean I have cotton between my ears. Actually, I've grown to love my accent over the years.

I always found it interesting that whenever I turned on the local news in any given Southern state that I've visited, the newscasters all sounded like me....a Northerner.

Which southern accent are you talking about? There's a lot of difference between a "hillbilly" twang from the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee and a delightful Southern Belle accent from Charleston, for example.

And before I get slammed, please read what I said. Less "rural" accents from Kentucky and Tennessee can be delightful as well.

I don't have a problem with southern accents.

I don't know why, but I don't like it when people say words like "that" or "back" or "class" with an aah sound, like in "father".

I first noticed it a few years ago on Full House when the girls would always talk like that. Since then, I've noticed it on many other TV shows. If you pay attention, you'll hear it a lot.

Is that an accent of some sort?

I'm from southwestern Louisiana, and although I "lost" my accent as a child growing up in Pittsburgh (where the local accent is truly abrasive-- but that's another "Oprah"), it comes back quite strongly when I'm talking with another Southerner. And it's still specifically a southWESTERN Louisiana accent, different from northern Louisiana, different from my mom's southEASTERN Louisiana accent, different from the "very Southern New Joisey" accent of lower-class New Orleans (my mom's cousin, who's lived in Metairie most of her life, has this accent and it's actually pretty hilarious), and different from surrounding states. Go figure.

Oh, and everyone finds it "cute" when they hear it.

Now, mushmouthed east Texas accents...! THOSE are irritating!

There are some very learned people who speak with a Southern accent, and I love to hear it -- like any other accent -- when the grammar is correct and the speech isn't lazy. In fact, a well-educated Southerner of a certain era may very well know quite a bit more about "proper" English than Northerners who think they've had a good education. That was probably the first thing that struck me when I moved South.

But dropping the final "g" in "-ing" words and saying "all y'all" and "fixin' ta" do things and purposely using bad grammar ("ain't") so that one doesn't seem too pretentious is as much as pretense as anything else. And it gets old.

That said, I have to admit that "proper" English for some people still may have some regionalisms, and a good way to know you've found one is when a preposition is involved:

"change of/for a dollar"
"stand in/on line"
"wait on/for someone"
"get back with/to you"

and so forth. I just don't think I'll ever get used to having a native North Carolinian tell me they'll "get up with you in the morning" meaning we'll meet tomorrow before noon, not get out of bed with me!

Hate to say this but accents are directly related to geography and
socio-economic background.

Does anyone know where the type of accent I'm speaking of originates?
I'm talking about pronouncing words
like "that" or "back" with an aah
sound like in father. It's kind of
valley girlish, yet I hear sophisticated news anchor talking
like that too.

GoTravel: yes, so? What's your point? Why do you "hate to say" it?

(Don't tell me you think there's such a thing as not having any accent at all, which is supposed to be "better" than having an accent. Truth: Everyone has an accent of one sort or another -- depends as much on the hearer as the speaker.)

Gotravel.....one of the dumbest points ever made. Gee,it is also funny that those French talk with a French accent.

GWB comes from a very wealthy socio-economic background and I've never heard of anyone take abuse for the way they talk.

And what about Bill Clinton,he is a southerner who comes from nothing.

Not a very asute statement.

Wow, still boring as a topic.

PCH..Why don't you spice it up with some rhetoric that all right wingers talk with southern accents or innane banter to correlate a point that you have.

I love the post about various Louisiana accents. It's so true! New Orleans has two or three distinct speech patterns/accents just in this one city! As a newcomer from South Florida in 1999, I sometimes found it hard to really understand what people were telling me. Now, of course, I probably sound just like the rest of the locals.

Hi,

I'm from the northeast, but I have a friend from Memphis, and I LOVE his accent. For some reason, I love how he says his long "I"s. He also speaks with perfect grammar.

I don't find particular accents annoying (well, maybe a Brooklyn accent, but I can say that, as I am from NY). I find improper grammar annoying. And lazy speech, as Cassandra pointed out.

I find most accents (english, french, australian etc) charming and fun, however, I really dislike a moderate to heavy southern accent. To me it sounds like they are dumb and don't know how to pronounce the words. I also particularly enjoy asking them to repeat themselves and they keep saying it the same over and over again - if I understood you the first time I wouldn't have asked!

If the words are pronounced correctly - with all the letters that are supposed to be in the word pronounced I think I would find it less annoying.

I know there are smart people that have southern accents but my experience with them is limited so they do just sound ignorant to me.

Traveling through the south I was amazed how often I simply could not understand what people were saying - might as well have been in a different country!

Where is the bad grammar in "I'm fixin' to carry Jethro to the store" ?

Subject - verb - object. No bad grammar there !!

I think that people that judge a person's intelligence based on their accent are "dumb"

I would be willing to bet that you have an accent of the nothern persuasion. Maybe the southerners that you encountered during your travels could not understand a word that you were saying!!!

Regards,
*A born and bred southerner*

Make that people *who* judge.

Went to college in Dallas & Chicago, although I am originally from New Jersey. I laughed at southern accents, but was most annoyed by midwestern accents. However, a New York accent coupled with bad grammar is the worst!

I'm fairly smart, educated, etc. and still slip in my grammar. Not in ridiculous ways-- no "Him 'n' Bill's been rasslin' in those 'Backyard Brawlin'' videos and they jus' bought a new double-wide" talk. However, I will say things like "Look, I spoke with Marie and she don't (sic) care what wine it is as long as there's a lot of it." Even typing it makes my brain cringe, but I say it without any hesitation. And no one flips out until I point it out.

Kinda weird....

Amp322--DITTO a million times!

I've always thought Southern accents were delightful to hear. When I went to New Orleans, it was charming to hear southern accents all around me. After a week and then some time in Houston, I have to admit that it grew tiresome. (Wonder why it happened when I reached Houston??) Perhaps too much all at once? Not sure, but once I was back home for a while I am back to finding Southern accents soothing to listen to.

Miss SaraLM, you contradict yourself. On one hand you say "I find most accents (english, french, australian etc) charming and fun..." (Oops, you must have forgotten to capitalize the languages) and on the other hand you say that "If the words are pronounced correctly - with all the letters that are supposed to be in the word pronounced I think I would find it less annoying (Oops, you must have forgotten how to use a comma). Tell me, Sara, how would you pronounce, for example, the French mustard brand, Maille. Would you pronounce all the letters?

Frankly I find your attitude annoying. Also, you should look up the words "tolerance" and "acceptance" in your dictionary.

Good point Betsy....They are "pronouncing" the words correctly. The "accent" is what makes it sound different from someone else. What is the definition of "correctly" if we are all speaking English just with different accents ? Doesn't make any sense.

soccr, hated to say because I knew someone would flame me. Ahhnold pointed out my pointless post.

The southern accent originates back to the days of the settlers. The accent of the Queens English of the settlers combined with the African accent of the slaves.

GoTravel...Is that true? Very interesting. In fact, I've often wondered how different accents came about...any more on that?

Queen's English ? There was no queen in the days of the early settlers. And they did not speak English with an accent. The southern settlers WERE English and they spoke English the same as English settlers in the North and the same as English people in England.

Oh, SaraLM. I was SO looking forward to your next trip to see us all here in the South. But of course since you find us all so "annoying," you'll not be bothered to head this way will you?

Let me ask you...

When you kept on asking Southerners to repeat themselves because you couldn't understand them, did you notice how polite they were in obliging your request?

That's because they would never dream of being rude to you. They probably just assumed you were simple-minded or hard of hearing when you kept asking them to repeat the same thing again and again.

People in the South are much smarter than you give them credit for - smart enough not to get on here and make inaccurate assumptions about a person's intelligence based on the manner in which they speak.

yeah, gotribe, I think I understand (in a vague way) what you mean. With your first post on the "back to that class" pronunciation thing, I was thing of it as a valleygirl speak. It would go along with a rising tone in a sentence?, or when just about every sentence sounded like a question? yaah, you know what I mean. It is a honky nasal thing, but the other place that i thought of with the the ah is, I think, Maine.

I love Southern accents. I find urban New York and Boston accents very grating. Furthermore, I find the accents of many African-Americans hard to understand though I have lived in close proximity with them for most of my life.

There was an excellent series on PBS several years ago tracing the sources of the various American accents (can't now remember the name of it), and it's enormously complex. However, some of the tidbits I remember are that Southern English had, in addition to "Elizabethan" English a fair amount of French influence (not just La.), which survives in constructions like "I haven't but a dime," while some northern accents are related to the Cockney and even Yorkshire accents.

But the biggest single influence was the Scots-Irish culture/language which seems to form the base of much of the linguistic culture from Appalachians to Rockies. The influence of African patterns was, of course, much more dominant in non-white populations of the South.

Much as I question GoTravel's sweeping comments, it's no less correct to refer to the Queen's English than the King's English, since Queens Mary and Eliz 1 reigned for the last half of the 16th century, which was when some of the earliest settlements were settling. If you are looking for the "purest" and earliest version of North American English, you'll have to go to some islands off the coast of NC and GA where some very old forms have survived -- and by that reasoning, all of the rest of us are the ones who have accents.

For that matter, what about the Queen's Spanish -- Isabella sent Columbus over, but of course, he spoke Italian, so who was in power in Italy in 1492?

I have no clue where ValleySpeak came from, y'know?

hey, ahhnold, how are you, guy! help me out, okay - is it the big words you use or trying to express the big ideas giving you fits? Kind of like Trent Lott, or maybe Gary Coleman.

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I now live in Florida. Everyone here gets a kick out of my accent. My kids even make fun of me (5and 3) when I say "hot dowg" or cohwfee.
I tolled a friend I would (call) cawl her and she had no clue what I was saying. I tried to say it like, cal (like cal-ifornia and that didnt work either. So I finally hasd to just spell it to her..lol
I love NJ accents.

While living and working in Cincinnati, my co-workers just loved it when I'd say "bye ya'll".
Pretty soon I even had my Japanese friend saying it!..she thought it was so cute.

The PBS documentary you might be thinking of is "The Story of English." Maybe not, but I recall part of the series focusing on regional dialects here in the US. The settlers of different regions carried their regional dialects from The Merry Olde... Northern accents are primarily from London and parts of Yorkshire (as someone stated), Tidewater accents from someplace else, etc...

Personally, I find some Southern accents warm and welcoming and others grating. Anything like Flo's exaggerated "kiss my grits" is like nails on a chalk board to me. Despite being relatively accent-free, myself, I grew up in NJ and now live in Boston, so I know nails on a chalk board!

soccr, you seem to be well informed with regards to historical accents. What kind of accent would the following have had- George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, JohnQuincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Abe Lincoln and Stonewall Jackson?

Growing up in PA whenever I heard a southern accent it made me cringe. But now that I've actually lived here for a few years I find I barely notice it anymore. But I do notice the thick PA Dutch accent my relatives have and it now makes me cringe!

Funny thing though, my SO is from Russia, moved here about 7 yrs ago. An associate of ours speaks with the thickest Southern accent I ever heard. Sometimes I can not understand him. But my SO can understand him perfectly! I think it is because he has gotten used to listening more carefully than I have had to.

SteveJudd:

*LOL... little publicized fact = Alexander Hamilton was from St. Croix, so perhaps he spoke wit a bit o' an islands accent, mon.

Good point on Hamilton. Euro-Caribbeans are almost a lost tribe, if you may, and are mostly absorbed into the African-Caribbean population. It would be interesting to know what kind of accent Hamilton spoke with.

Yikes! My face is red and burning! I'm sorry to offend, guess I should write my responses in one sitting. I will attempt to be more clear about what I meant.

I admitted that I do judge people's intelligence by the way they speak. I am not necessarily proud of this but people who use both bad grammar and talk slower (like many southerners do) I tend to think they are slower mentally. I KNOW they are not dumb. I appreciated Catherine's comment "Just because I talk slow, doesn't mean I think slow" as something I need to remember when talking/listening to people with accents, especially southern.

I meant to say I find it easier to understand those people who pronounce the words with all the letters that are supposed to be pronounced.

I am not sure it was 'politeness' that kept people repeating what I did not understand. Yelling at someone who does not speak your language is not polite. It might have been nicer to try and find another way to say it. Usually, when I figured out what they were saying (if I was able to) I usually would make a joke that was learning (taking the blame on myself).

The question asked if we found southern accents annoying, my opinion is yes. Not all but certainly a heavy southern accent will eventually grate on my nerves.

So sorry!!

Well, flame away, but I do associate poor grammar with lower intelligence levels. i think that's pretty valid.

You don't know nuthin' about no grammar !!

Good on Rusty...actually I'm going to ammend that last statement. I associate poor grammar with a severe lack of education...not necessarily a lack of intelligence.

Where do you draw the line? Turn on the radio, you'll hear some pretty egregious errors in spoken grammar ("none of the survivors were [sic] injured"-- that should be "...was..."; "she told my wife and I [sic]"-- it should be "she told me and my wife"). Do you call everyone who makes mistakes like that a nitwit?

I know what you mean. In business situations, around strangers and in public speaking, I actually hyper-correct myself, speaking extremely precisely (I studied language in college, so it's ingrained in me-- and annoying to friends; but I can't help it). Around people with whom I'm comfortable, my Southern grammar comes back and it's "ain't" and "Can y'all get me a Stoli Screwdriver?" and "WhaddayaMEAN he don't have Stoli?!" (and I curse like a sailor with Tourette's and hemorrhoids). If sufficiently surrounded by other Southerners, all bets are off. But everyone still thinks it's cute.

My brother-in-law is from rural Arkansas, and his twangy accent is a bit grating (maybe because of the annoying banalities he's usually saying, but that's another whole family therapy session). The gentle purr of my uncle's wife's Virginia drawl (and she's a brilliant woman who happens to speak in measured cadences) is beautiful, in contrast. It just depends on the region and the speaker.

Oh how I wish Jeff Foxworthy would respond to this one.

You might be a redneck if............

If my memory serves me correctly, this great southern comedian (who uses lots and lots of incorrect grammer)is a GA Tech graduate (electrical engineer, I believe)...and worked for IBM for a few years before making tons of money by talking southern!!

None WAS injured ????

That's right-- "none" is singular (a shortening of "no one"). You're also right-- it sounds and looks funny. It's a grammar error which is so ingrained in spoken and written English that it's accepted as correct.

Yes Rusty. None is the same as "not one."

Sara, you're digging yourself a deeper hole.

If I were to judge you on your sentence structure and grammar the way you judge us silly, slow-talkin' ole' suthenuhs, I'd say you must not have done too well in your English classes deah!

Bless your heart

I saw "George Washington" on TV the other night and he talked just like that actor fella Barry Bostwick.

Hey Kal, now that you mention it one of those Roman slaves in "Spartacus" sounded just like Tony Curtis. He musta been from Little Italy....

As a born & raised Southerner I find your comments very offensive. I have traveled all over the U.S. and I have never had any one treat me like an idiot because they couldn't understand me. My husband has some difficulties understanding some people from different regions, but he will ask me "what did they say", and makes every effort not to be impolite. Sounds like you need a lesson in how to be a human being.

Thanks Kal, I needed a giggle.

According to the Merriam -Webster Dictionary "none" as a pronoun is EITHER singular or plural. It means "not one" OR "not any" as in "not one was injured" or "not any were injured".

PCH,my friend...It is the simple ideas that the liberals can't fathom that are giving me fits.

What is really giving me fite now is that Hillary may need to enter the race now that Dubya is losing ground the the pathetic field of democrats. Waddya think,Clinton/Clark ticket for the Dems?

I was selling a car, and a guy drove a friend over who was interested. He had moved here from London less than a year ago. A few times he would say something and I'd say, "Pardon? I'm sorry." I felt bad that I couldn't understand him. His friend was cracking up laughing at him! He said that happens all the time.

ahhnold, interesting post. I have zero thoughts on any of them - W, Dean, Clark, Gary Coleman, the real Ahhnold. I look at '04 as a sleeper, when I catch up on my snooze time, and turn my TV to mute when the talking heads appear. Hillary is being mighty quiet these days. Not what I expect from leaders.

But am I really a liberal? You judge. Voted Bush Sr. in '88 (Mike the Tank, no thanks - leaders should reach a minimum height). Clinton in '92 (when I was thinking about tomorrow). Wrote in Jesse in '96 (it wasan integrity thing, but wow, if I'd only known about the love child). Reluctantly voted Gore in '00 (but my surveys showed Bush by a mile - anybody who cannot carry his own states no longer gets my support). Enjoyed W's acceptance speech (his high point), but he aint getting my vote in '04. My view is lets bring back Nixon. Where are the real leaders when we need them. So, next year, who knows. I'm not enchanted with any of them. Have a good day.

PCH..I thought W's high point was the bullhorn speech. Funny how I agree we have had no true leaders,since, Kennedy?
After which we had a long string of true leaders.

RNC. You're all wet. No leaders since JFK. How about Martin Luther King or Ronald Reagan. Both were more successful than JFK. Actually, the unloveable Lyndon Johnson accomplished a whole lot more than Kennedy until he got bogged down in that stupid war in Vietnam.

Leaders set visions - perhaps the powerful enduring influence of JFK, even though his legislative score was about 36 percent.

MLK as well.

Where are the Johnson programs today, as fine and idealistic as they were in 1964-1965? Civil Rights has endured, of course. The GOP has savaged the rest, with some help from Bill.

Budget deficits will tale care of the rest. Bush's great legacy - a bankrupt nation (financially, morally, economically, internationally)unable to meet the needs of even the late years of this decade.

I have no opinion one way or another on the accent but still remember (slightly fuming)a spelling test given by my southern raised teacher (my school was in central NY state). The word was "dovecot" (hardly a word that a northern raised city kid could be expected to know and it was on none of our study lists). She pronounced it as "dav (short A)- cat". It's one of the only spelling words I ever missed on a test and my protestations that her pronucniation made it unrecognizable fell on deaf ears.

You still can't spell it!! It's "dovecote".

Back to the accents...

There is a theory that people in the South man sound like the English did in the 1700's more than current residents of England do. Accents are constantly changing, and while the South was relatively isolated after the Europeans arrived, England was involved in an era of exploration around the world, bringing new languages and ways of speaking back to England. We'll never know how this country's founders sounded.

I don't find any REAL accents annoying, but I do know people who fake Southern accents, and that drives me crazy.

Mah mah, muh deah Mizz Buttahcup! What do ya'll mean about phony Suthern accents?

Col. Kal

Steve..I am unaware that MLK was president. Yes, I was only referring to the White House.

Reagan is my hero,but I am not sure he will be remembered as one of the GREAT leaders.

I'm sure you know Reagan's letter in the early 1990s when he knew about his disease and wrote to tell people he would have to retire from public life. A classy expression from a classy guy, regardless of how one viewed him as Prez.

Good observation PCH. His handling of the Iran-Contra will be his legacy as a leader. I think he was a great president and a class act. He gave this country a proud feeling.

What's with Madonna's accent? Anyone notice that once she started having kinds and cleaned up her act she started talking with some quasi-English accent? Isn't she from Detroit?

(Back to the topic.....)

I also find "fake" southern accents very annoying.

I always think about James van der Beek (the guy from Dawson's Creek) in the football movie "Varsity Blues".

That was so annoying to listen to! It definately does not sound authentic!

Buttercup,

If you find "fake" Southern accents annoying, you can probably only imagine how annoying they are to those of us who are from the South.

Some that come to mind are:

Olympia Dukakis in "Steel Magnolias,"
Nick Nolte in "Prince of Tides,"
Julianne More in "Hannibal," et al...

My all-time favorite terrible pseudo-Southern accent belongs to Lou Ann Poovey - Gomer Pyle's girlfriend. (Don't even get me started on his "Gawww-leee!")

Fake accents rot. I know you think fake southern accents are trash, but when you live in New England and hear phony actors trying to mimic the Kennedys... oy vey!

Diana,

I agree with all the actors you mentioned, but I was actually thinking about real people who fake it.

I was amazed at how many girls I went to high school with developed a Southern accent when they went to college. I think they thought it sounded cute.

Having grown up in the South, I must have some kind of accent leftover. But I sound like a Yankee to me!
Personally, I find the Southern accent lovely, soft, soothing, and if we have to choose one of the two, charming or annoying, I vote CHARMING.
There are people that say really ugly things in a perfect way, does that make them nicer? I prefer those who say nice things in any accent to the ugly ones

I would like to know if Vivian Leigh's accent in Gone With the Wind bothered anyone or did it sound close enough to Southern ears? When I first saw it, I was still up nawth, and it sounded tinny to me, but haven't seen it recently so don't have any recent measure of it.

Actually, I thought she did a pretty good job with it (Vivian Leigh).

She had the spoiled Daddy's girl Southern belle down so well, I can't ever even imagine anyone else playing that part.

I also thought pretty much everyone (but especially Jessica Tandy) did very well in "Fried Green Tomatoes."

I always thought Vivian Leigh did it well, considering the fact that she was British also. Although it seems that the British do a Southern accent pretty well, except for Kenneth Brannaugh (sp)

Yes, it was a broad statement and I did not know the details of how the southern accent originated.

Sorry if my sweeping statement bothered you.

I give up.

One of the bad aspects of globalization and homogenation is the potential loss of accents. I like all accents, even those which grate on my ears.

RNC, when in Beverly Hills recently, I drove to the Reagan compound and doffed my hat. Couldn't see anything through the fence, except a guard shack. Will be out there again in three weeks, and plan to drive by again. I didn't vote for RR either time, but always got a smile on my face when he came on TV or the radio. Always though he and Nancy were both a very classy pair, and wow, would love to have a few more like him these days. The group in the WH now has all the pizzazz of a toad from dry old Texas. Baseball simply doesn't produce good country managers. I'd say Hollywood and GE did a better job.

PCH..Reagan is a great man because he gave those who didn't even vote for him,such as yourself,that warm fuzzy feeling when he spoke.

Setting aside your current opinion of GWB,wouldn't you agree that post 9/11,you felt good with him as your president? Which will at the very least,have him remembered as a true leader.Accent aside, that is.