Accents?
 

I am a born and bred southerner. Please enlighten me. Do you find a southern accent charming or annoying?

From what I have heard from local newcomers to the south, they find it annoying.

I would offer "Just because I talk slow, doesn't mean I think slow."

Feedback, please.

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.