[QUOTE=bits619;8083831]
Oooooh those sound interesting, taking note!
I once had a geology class in the same room the period after a linguistic class with a really fascinating professor and I started to come early just to sit in the hallway by the door and listen in on the lectures. Really interesting stuff![/QUOTE]
It is fascinating. My favorite course in grad school was sociolinguistics, and I teach freshman writing with a sociolinguistics theme.
Not to pile on to the poor OP, but I can’t imagine anyone not loving my MIL’s accent. She grew up in Columbus, GA. When she speaks, magnolias burst into bloom.
My husband is from the eastern side of northern KY with heavy Cincinnati ties, and I came from NJ, MA and Philly- eastern seaboard. When I met him I thought his accent sounded southern. I hardly hear the accent anymore- but the grammatical issues persist and can get under my skin. At first I thought it was all him, but over time I have discovered that some of the stuff is actually regional. Of course, being born somewhere shouldn’t doom a person to posting things like “It don’t supposed to rain until morning.”
Maybe I sound like a snob to have cringed over that. It’s that he’s a writer- a really talented writer.
Another one that really boggles my mind is the use of “ideal” when the intention is “idea”. Having grown up in NJ- I heard plenty of “idear” but at least there isn’t another word in our language that sounds like idear I could accept that as purely accent centric pronunciation- but when a person says, “I have an ideal…” you wonder if they really don’t know the difference. From what I understand the ideal thing is centered in Cynthiana.
There are many types of accents in the region, some even sound like “Boomhauer” from King of the Hill- and I’m not exaggerating or joking- there are people who really do talk like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIaUfBjHjpI
[QUOTE=Plainandtall;8084644]
There are many types of accents in the region, some even sound like “Boomhauer” from King of the Hill- and I’m not exaggerating or joking- there are people who really do talk like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIaUfBjHjpI[/QUOTE]
LOL, you are correct about the “Boomhauer”. We stopped in to eat at a restaurant/bar during Rolex two years ago. We literally could not understand what the guy at the door was saying to us. We were so embarrassed because we asked him to repeat what he said and we still didn’t get it. We did figure out where to seat ourselves. We still laugh about it.
My exceedingly unpleasant father grew up speaking the Pachuco (East LA) dialect of Spanish. He normally speaks English without any Spanish accent except for a few things. When there is a “th” in the middle of a word, he substitutes an “f” for the “th.” For example, he pronounces “bathroom” as “bafroom.”
He also pronounces the Spanish word “guero” as “weddo.”
I find regional -and especially sub-regional- dialects to be endlessly fascinating.
[QUOTE=lesson junkie;8084587]
Not to pile on to the poor OP, but I can’t imagine anyone not loving my MIL’s accent. She grew up in Columbus, GA. When she speaks, magnolias burst into bloom.[/QUOTE]
Love this!
Dewey, your posts have been great on this thread!
I’m from the Atlanta suburbs and have a very slight southern accent. I think I mostly speak without much of an accent, but with some very southern words thrown in.
I found myself in a funny situation when I moved to a more rural part of GA where the “natives” have a stronger accent than me. Most of the people here wrongly assume I’m not from GA because of my very slight accent. However, whenever I leave the south, everyone else immediately can tell I’m southern.
[QUOTE=OveroHunter;8085572]
Dewey, your posts have been great on this thread!
I’m from the Atlanta suburbs and have a very slight southern accent. I think I mostly speak without much of an accent, but with some very southern words thrown in.
I found myself in a funny situation when I moved to a more rural part of GA where the “natives” have a stronger accent than me. Most of the people here wrongly assume I’m not from GA because of my very slight accent. However, whenever I leave the south, everyone else immediately can tell I’m southern.[/QUOTE]
Thanks. I grew up in the northeast, had never met a southerner, and had only experienced the southern dialect through watching The Beverly Hillbillies and Gomer Pyle, USMC. Talk about stereotypes! My horizons have broadened considerably thanks both to graduate school and my residence in south Georgia for over 20 years. When I went north a few years ago for an event at which I saw people I hadn’t seen in years, one said to me, “Well, thank goodness you didn’t pick up that awful Georgia accent.” That was a comment I probably would have brushed aside in my younger days, but I was deeply offended on behalf of the people I had come to know.
Your experience with your own accent rings true to me. Most of the people I know from Atlanta don’t sound noticeably southern until they leave the South. Then the slight traces of the drawl stand out.
I’ve been spending a ton of time in Texas lately, and find the breadth of accents there fascinating. I mean, duh, the state is bigger than some entire nations, so it shouldn’t be surprising. But like with anything, the subleties don’t emerge until you get direct experience (and become curious and perceptive enough to pay attention). Sorta like how cattle look the same to me, whereas someone who knows cattle can distinguish the individuals as clearly as we can tell one chestnut horse from another.
To me the Lexington area accent sounded like a SLIGHT southern accent - very refined. Where I’m moving to Ky is a hillbilly accent - and hard (at times) to understand. :winkgrin:
We had an intern come to Georgia from the Louisville area. To me (northern VA native, in GA for the better part of eleven years) he didn’t have a strong southern accent at all. Except when he said Louisville.
Sounded like he was trying to swallow the word as he said it. Loulvul.
Same with oil. Oul.
Hehehe.
Duplicate wooopsie
[QUOTE=OveroHunter;8085572]
Love this!
Dewey, your posts have been great on this thread!
I’m from the Atlanta suburbs and have a very slight southern accent. I think I mostly speak without much of an accent, but with some very southern words thrown in.
I found myself in a funny situation when I moved to a more rural part of GA where the “natives” have a stronger accent than me. Most of the people here wrongly assume I’m not from GA because of my very slight accent. However, whenever I leave the south, everyone else immediately can tell I’m southern.[/QUOTE]
I’m currently in the same situation. I’m from rural northeastern KY and moved to an even more rural area in extreme southeast KY for my teaching position. Everyone I meet asks where I’m from and seems shocked when I tell them KY. This is always followed by, “Well, I knew you wasn’t from round here.”
My students love to pick on me about my accent and constantly tell me that I “talk all proper”.
I can easily slip into my much more “hillbilly” accent that I grew up with and do when it makes things easier but I try not to at school.
A phrase I often hear used in this area is “why for”.
Let’s see.
Over top of. Untelling. Don’t care to.
Don’t care to. Means I don’t mind to do it. Which is a dialect phrase in itself.
Untelling, no telling.
Over top of, mmm, I use it sometimes, to mean somebody got carried away and ran right over top of somebody else’s rights or feelings or physical self. Which is how I interpret everybody around here to use it.
The urban centers are full of transplants so the accents get lost more. If you get out where people have lived three and four generations and all the family names and place names are the same so people live on the same road that’s named after their great grandpa, then you’ll hear the accent and maybe a local dialect too.
Haha we have lived in far SWVA for 9 years. I have lost most of my Richmond,VA accent since we have lived in so many different places. However, I was told a few weeks ago that I had a “city accent” . Huh ?!?!?!?
I have heard " ideals" for " ideas" in Texas and Vermont. Go figure.
Does anyone remember the poor KY guy who told the American Idol judges to “Be Careful” as a salutation and the show made it out to be a threat?
I was so mad about that. "Be careful " is a common phrase to use in place of goodbye in many many parts of the country albeit mostly rural.
never heard of ‘be careful’ …more like ‘y’all take care’
I have been in the South almost my whole life and there are pockets of KY, TN, WV, NC, that I just cannot understand what they are saying. Once I settle and listen I can hear it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU
and genteel Alabama- also common in GA and the more genteel parts of the South…if you don’t think this is soothing and lovely, I don’t think there’s any help for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJIB1MH6XCU
It is said as often as goodbye here in Illinois farm country
there is a difference between a country southern accent and a non-country southern accent, just as there is a difference between a country and non-country accent in any part of the country.
Some of you seem to say that “country” is Southern and non-Southern is “not country”.
That is so inaccurate that I hardly even know what to say!
There’s Western KY accent, Shelbyville/Frankfort, Lexington which are southernish. Go to eastern KY in the mountains and it can be almost unintelligible. I used to use a farrier raised in a holler in E. KY and my husband never could understand him. Southern KY is more of a backwoods accent…not the melodious southern accent you get along the southern coast.
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