I'm from DC, was raised there and in New England, and half of my family is from the South. The result is that my accent is a hodgepodge of regional and "from nowhere." That's because, I suppose, my parents and teachers were from the era when folks were taught, required really, to speak "
Mid Atlantically," but Dad and his kin's accents were that, blended with a Southern drawl.
In any case, even as I heard that accent at home, I wasn't taught/required to use it, so I didn't develop the Transatlantic accent beyond minor bits of it. Too, all the kids at school had accents from everywhere, and kids being kids, it was "cooler" to sound something like one's peers than like one's teachers.
Depending on where I am, people have said my accent sounds:
- Southern --> It does at times, but not usually. If I'm just back from visiting my Southern kin, yes, I sound Southern.
- "Up North Somewhere" --> Some folks, most often Southern strangers with whom I speak think my accent sounds like what they think to be a Bostonian accent. Though my accent is mildly non-rhotic, it's not at all Bostonian, but that's of no matter when someone thinks it's what one sounds like.
Whatever my accent sounds like, what it doesn't sound like is anything that might resemble the accents heard among folks running straight through the middle of the country in a band the width of Upstate NY to Pennsylvania and running across the US to Oregon and Washington.
- My tees are never dees, and one can tell there's a tee in the word.
- "Wanted" not "wan-ed."
- "Water" not "wadder."
- My short "a" only ever sounds like an "a."
- I say "hwhat" not "wut." "What" rhymes with "swat," not "but."
- Sometimes I drop final ars, and sometimes I don't.
- Saying "mother," I do, but saying "water" I don't.
- I have aunts, not "ants."
So what about you? Have you an accent that's typical? One that's bizarre? Or perhaps you have certain words you pronounce differently from most folks?
