The Accent Thread

[Dex]

A chat with Ulpian in the Rumours forum inspired this. Hopefully it won't die a quick death because I'm genuinely interested.

Accents! People love them. People hate them. People fetishize them. Everyone has one, no matter what they might insist to the contrary. And in many cases they are really tied up with a persons identity. Let's talk about them.

What accent do you have? What accents do you love? Do you think people make assumptions about you based on your accent? Go!

I'm from a rather linguistically boring part of the world (Western Canada) where everyone sounds pretty much the same for a good 1000 miles around, so I never developed much of an "ear" for accents. I've been very guilty of using those hated phrases "British accent" and "Southern (American) accent" in the past, as if I'm speaking about very specific things and not a wide and diverse accent group, as is the reality. I like to think I'm learning quickly, though.

The better half has a West Country farmer-ish English accent (think Hagrid, Harry Potter fans) that has (perhaps regrettably) been somewhat neutralised by his self-consciousness about it while living in the Southeast, and also, perhaps, by living with me. But it's so much fun when we head back to his home country and it all comes back to him. He really pronounces the ever-loving-s*** out of those r's. Perhaps its primitive of me, but to me he really does come off as somehow a different person when his accent adjusts like that (no less loveable, though). I'd like to say I don't pay attention to people's accents in that way, but I think I really do when I'm honest with myself. I guess I'm lucky to have an accent that doesn't seem to have been culturally stereotyped in any particular way as far as I can tell, but I could be wrong and it's just that nobody's told me.

[bluefox4000]

I have a Long Island/New York accent which I slip in and out of, lol I never really thought about which accents I like. Not something I ponder.

Mick

[holidayroad]

I live in Alabama, but I am not originally from there. People here talk with a very 'country' accent. A lot of people away from the South think people here talk like Scarlett from Gone With the Wind, but that isn't the case. More of that accent seems to be in places like Florida, Southeast Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

I don't really have an accent. I try my best to not start sounding like the accent I hear around me every day!

I think other people would make assumptions about the people who have a 'country' accent. Not to be rude, but every day I hear speech full of gramatical errors and mispronunciations and it makes these people sound uneducated.

[darkcat]

I am from Nova Scotia, Canada, but live in Maine. I have been told I have a very distinctive Maritime Canadian accent, which makes me laugh because the Mainer accent is so ridiculously distinctive (sounds somewhat like a Boston accent)

[Dex]

Darkcat, I'm ashamed to admit I'm largely unfamiliar with the Maritime accent in Canada. I know the Newfoundland accent, which to me just sounds like the accent of an Irish person who's lived in Canada for a while. But everyone I know who comes from the maritimes seems to have either dropped that accent or never had it to begin with, so my exposure is sadly nil.

Holidayroad, I'm one of those non-southerners who is guilty of lumping all southern accents together even when there are clearly many different varieties. I need to travel around that area of the globe some more and get more of an ear for it.

I find it really interesting that when Americans (and a lot of Canadians) want to put on a caricature of an unintelligent person, they immediately put on a southern "country" accent. I know that strong regional accents are often thought of as signifying a lack of education/worldliness, but there are a lot of strong regional accents in the US to choose from beyond the southern, yet they are rarely used in that way. I guess there's some strong historical connotations that have stuck with us.

Kathy Griffin making fun of the women on I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant is a prime example of this. She employs a fake southern accent despite the fact that the women on that show rarely seem to be from the south: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfc4PQkhuLA

[GypsySorcerer]

I live in Kentucky, but I grew up in Illinois. So I guess you could say that I have the "standard Midwestern" accent. People in the North think I sound "southern." People in the South think I sound "northern."

There are dozens of variations of accents in Kentucky alone. Personally, I think accents are fascinating and are identifiers of regional culture. I'd hate for everyone to sound alike.

I love Australian accents. I've always wanted to listen to an American accent through the ears of someone British, Canadian, or Australian.

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by holidayroad

I live in Alabama, but I am not originally from there. People here talk with a very 'country' accent. A lot of people away from the South think people here talk like Scarlett from Gone With the Wind, but that isn't the case. More of that accent seems to be in places like Florida, Southeast Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

The Scarlet O'Hara accent is a Lowcountry accent, which is really only native to the area between Charleston, SC & Savannah, GA (and it only stretches maybe 50 miles inland from the Atlantic). So the funny thing is, if Scarlet O'Hara were a real person, she would NOT have sounded the way Vivien Leigh did in Gone With The Wind. Being a lifelong Southerner, whenever I hear the Lowcountry accent used in TV shows & movies for every Southerner from Texas to Virginia, I get pretty annoyed. Southern accents vary pretty wildly, even within any given Southern state.

I also strongly resent the fact much of the US feels the Southern accent is evocative of a lack of intelligence. True Southerners have an absolute LOVE of language, and take great pains to communicate with a dramatic flourish for description. I think the movie Steel Magnolias touches on that notion, though Daryl Hannah was the only one to get the Northwest Louisiana/ArkLaTex accent correct. But I digress.

[TerraRhiannon]

Originally Posted by darkcat

I am from Nova Scotia, Canada, but live in Maine. I have been told I have a very distinctive Maritime Canadian accent, which makes me laugh because the Mainer accent is so ridiculously distinctive (sounds somewhat like a Boston accent)

This is funny because I am a Maritimer, and we have a very distinct accent. I went out west and they just knew. A couple thought I was from New England. Also, I was at a friend's house the other day and his uncle is from Bangor Maine, and I swear to God I thought he was from Boston because every single word her pronounced was Boston accent. The accent drive me crazy, however, but I can live with it.

Personally, I enjoy the good old Oxford British accent on the boys. Spanish or French on girls.

[WildHearted]

I'm American, so I suppose I would have an 'American' accent, if that's what you would call it. But truly I don't have much of a regional one. I'm from the South but somehow managed to come out of here unscathed and speaking about as neutrally as is possible for anyone to speak. I guess growing up around a large city (Atlanta) helped me out in that respect.

I can't even fake a typical "country" accent, which is kind of depressing. I always end up sounding like Scarlett O'Hara which is a different thing altogether.

[singertobe]

I live in NC but I'm originally from NY so I sorta have a NY and Southern accent combined.
I love Christine's accent though I'm not sure what the name of it is. And I love Scouse/Liverpool accents. Which reminds me...

HELP ME! Ever since that Grammy thing with the Beatles I've been obsessing over them. I think its coming to a point where I might like them more than Fleetwood Mac. AND I'VE BEEN OBSESSED WITH THE MAC FOR 17 YEARS, SINCE I WAS THREE YEARS OLD!!!!!
HELP ME!!!!!!!

[urbanscot]

I'm a bit confused about the words for the challenge. Surely there's only one way to say on, last etc? lol. I'm Scottish so here's the words that North Americans commonly say differently to the Brits:

Aluminium is said like al-u-min-i-um.
Herbs - emphasis on the h.
mirror - more of an i sound. In movies it always sounds like mere.
garage - gar-age (as in age, how old you are).
Tomato isn't said like potato. The a is like apple or aligator.
Anti - ant-ay, movies (sad that everything I knew is from movies) say it like antiiii or semiiii, we don't emphasise that i.

Oh nearly forgot:
scone - said like gone.

Think that's all

[Dex]

Originally Posted by urbanscot

I'm a bit confused about the words for the challenge. Surely there's only one way to say on, last etc?

Heck no! Accents manifest themselves in all words. People elongate sounds, insert different vowel sounds, emphasize different bits, etc. "Last" in particular is a great one to demonstrate accents. "On" is admittedly more subtle but the differences are still there. You said you're Scottish. People in my bit of England are notoriously bad at understanding Scottish people. It's definitely more than just the words you listed that are pronounced differently. It's every word. Every accent takes some getting used to if it's new to your ears.

[FuzzyPlum]

Originally Posted by Dex

Heck no! Accents manifest themselves in all words. People elongate sounds, insert different vowel sounds, emphasize different bits, etc. "Last" in particular is a great one to demonstrate accents. "On" is admittedly more subtle but the differences are still there. You said you're Scottish. People in my bit of England are notoriously bad at understanding Scottish people. It's definitely more than just the words you listed that are pronounced differently. It's every word. Every accent takes some getting used to if it's new to your ears.

To my mind the 'standard' English pronunciation of on is 'on'. Whereas (and I appreciate there are several Scottish accents) I feel the Scottish pronunciation of on is closer to 'orn' and the American (and I appreciate there are many American accents) is closer to 'arn'.
Does that make sense?

Also, I think Christine's accent would best be described as Standard Southern English.

[goldustsongbird]

Originally Posted by urbanscot

I'm a bit confused about the words for the challenge. Surely there's only one way to say on, last etc? lol. I'm Scottish so here's the words that North Americans commonly say differently to the Brits:

Aluminium is said like al-u-min-i-um.
Herbs - emphasis on the h.
mirror - more of an i sound. In movies it always sounds like mere.
garage - gar-age (as in age, how old you are).
Tomato isn't said like potato. The a is like apple or aligator.
Anti - ant-ay, movies (sad that everything I knew is from movies) say it like antiiii or semiiii, we don't emphasise that i.

Oh nearly forgot:
scone - said like gone.

Think that's all

Myeh-rurr is how my dad says "mirror," and he grew up near Glasgow. (Everything is "near Glasgow" )

[Montclare]

Chicago girl here. I don't have the stereotypical (ie SNL Superfans) accent, but not many do anymore. That's more of a southside or old school city worker accent. I do notice a more nasally "o" in comparison to my coworkers who aren't from here (ie I say "Cahstco" instead of "Cawstco"). There's also a dialect difference, such as me saying gym shoes, pop, and kiddy corner, whereas they say sneakers, soda, and kaddy corner.