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.

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.

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.

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.