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What's your accent?

Xelor

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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?
 
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?

I still say "y'all" from time to time and, on occasion, a "darling" slips out. Those come from my Army days in the South.
 
My students love it when I casually slip into a British accent while I'm teaching, but most days I have a Midwestern accent. Aunt = "ant," pajamas doesn't have a "jaw" in the middle, etc.
 
I was born in Oklahoma, moved to Austin, Texas at 6 months, moved a lot more almost entirely in the South, including Louisiana, North Carolina, Alabama and Kentucky, and everywhere I went for as long as I could remember I was told I sounded like a northerner. I was guessed to be from North Dakota, Minnesota, even England once.

Then a linguistics grad student at my university told me I have an "urban Texan" accent. Mystery solved.
 
Growing up I had the horrible Mid-Atlantic accent at first but the more time I spent up in New York, the more New Yawkuh I became. I lived in Minneapolis for about five years but people insisted I was a New Yawkuh.
Spending almost thirteen years down South (Arkansas for 2.5 years and TX for ten) I picked up a lot of twang but now having been back in California since 2012 it's slipping away and the New Yawkuh is slowly coming back.

Karen grew up in Chicago. Ask her to say "hot dog" or "The Bulls" or "The Bears".
The funniest part is, both our kids twang a little bit because they grew up in Texas.

My older brother's Mid-Atlantic Maryland accent is so horrible that Karen can't talk to him without giggling sometimes.
To which he responds: "I don't HAVE an accent."

Yeah, right :lamo

Some Marylanders have twanged all their lives, it's all dependent on where in Maryland you grew up.
 
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?

Yo, from philly originally, living in florida for the past thirty years. I think I sound like I'm from philly but most people guess new york. I say things like 'are you goin' to the store? tend to drop my g's a bit, unless i'm fixin' to go over yonder, see y'all later.
 
I was born in Oklahoma, moved to Austin, Texas at 6 months, moved a lot more almost entirely in the South, including Louisiana, North Carolina, Alabama and Kentucky, and everywhere I went for as long as I could remember I was told I sounded like a northerner. I was guessed to be from North Dakota, Minnesota, even England once.

Then a linguistics grad student at my university told me I have an "urban Texan" accent. Mystery solved.

I grew up in Austin, TX. We went to British Columbia one summer on vacation and stopped for gas. Mom told the attendant to fill up the tank. The attendant asked her to repeat that, so she told him again. When he asked her to repeat what she said again mom asked him if he had a hearing problem. "No," the man replied. "I just like hearing your accent."
 
I don't have an accent... I am American and from the West Coast. Our English is the correct English.
 
I was born and raised in Texas, but I was raised by a single mother from Pennsylvania. So I don’t have a Texan accent. People usually assume I am from the west coast because I don’t have any kind of obvious accent...until I say “y’all”. I use the word “y’all” a lot. I will also use “ain’t” in casual conversation with friends. So if someone talks to me long enough they realize I probably am NOT from the west coast. But they never guess Texas.
 
RAY-he-did

that's my wife's version of "red". i wonder how long it took some of the elementary kids she taught art until they caught on. the visual cue of the crayon probably helped a lot

she, like Beaudreaux, is from the one time textile capital of the world. as any bubba would, i hold it over her head every chance i get, while pretending not to have an accent

but i surely do. all y'all probably figured that out, already

born in california, 'educated' in tejas, louisiana, south carolina, north carolina, florida, and SOUTH tokyo. had assumed i had a neutral, indistinguishable accent
then spent 11 months TDY in california helping victims recover from the northridge earthquake. spoke to a LOT of folks in that span and almost every one of them inquired what part of the south i was from
that was convincing

so, every once in a while i will slip up while officiating a basketball game. the muted chuckling is a giveaway. when identifying to the scorer's table the jersey number of the player charged with a foul, i will have said "RAY-he-did Number XX"
it's HER fault
 
People sometimes say that I have an accent but they can't pinpoint it. I was born in Italy, moved to Colorado when I was 5, then lived in Alaska for 8 years, and now currently living in Florida. My mom was born in Brooklyn and my dad was born in Chicago. So I guess I picked up a slight accent from one or a few of those places.
 
I'm a southern belle, y'all...:2razz:
 
Growing up I had the horrible Mid-Atlantic accent at first but the more time I spent up in New York, the more New Yawkuh I became. I lived in Minneapolis for about five years but people insisted I was a New Yawkuh.

Spending almost thirteen years down South (Arkansas for 2.5 years and TX for ten) I picked up a lot of twang but now having been back in California since 2012 it's slipping away and the New Yawkuh is slowly coming back.

Karen grew up in Chicago. Ask her to say "hot dog" or "The Bulls" or "The Bears".
The funniest part is, both our kids twang a little bit because they grew up in Texas.

My older brother's Mid-Atlantic Maryland accent is so horrible that Karen can't talk to him without giggling sometimes.
To which he responds: "I don't HAVE an accent."

Yeah, right :lamo

Some Marylanders have twanged all their lives, it's all dependent on where in Maryland you grew up.
Clarification request:
  • Do you mean the Mid-Atlantic/Transatlantic accent?
  • Or did you, in "red" and "blue," mean the Mid-Atlantic accent one hears with greater and lesser degrees of strength, distinguished easily by the way folks pronounce "u" and "o," throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania.
  • Or were you referring to each of them, albeit the "Transatlantic" one when you wrote "Yawkuh" and the MD/PA one when you referred to yourself and your sibling?

Red:


  • [*=1]The non-rhoticity of you're phonetic spelling, "Yawkuh," somewhat suggests, to me at least, the Mid-Atlantic accent; however, you later mentioned MD, and that Mid-Atlantic accent is "so very not" the "old movie" accent I associate with that term. The "conflict" is what confused me and moved me to ask for the clarification.

    The "old movie" Mid-Atlantic accent is the accent of my parents, aunts and uncles, Dad's side being a lilted version of it (0:48); thus my cousins and I have elements of it -- the cadence and enunciation, mostly -- but we don't sound like Cary Grant and Kate Hepburn, whereas Momma and her generation of the family do.

    Momma's accent is called "Mid-Atlantic" because it sounds like something from midway between Beacon Hill and Mayfair, which, of course, is in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, thus "Mid-Atlantic."
Blue:

  • [*=1]The MD/PA is one I hear often, but nobody in my family has it.

    That accent, for me at least, shows how little distance it can take for one's accent to vary. For instance, Justice Kav., who is in my and my siblings' age cohort and grew up a few miles from where we did, has a MD accent, and our accent is nothing like his.

    Re: my siblings and me, that's not so odd because after middle school, we went to school in New England. Listening to us and the two main groups of our peers -- those lived in DC and those who lived in the MD burbs, one can easily distinguish between a DC accent (the one that sounds like Chris Van Hollen, he didn't grow up in DC, but like DC folks, his accent influences are from "all over"), and MD's.

    I presume the difference derives from one's "hub" while growing up in the DC area having been DC rather than somewhere in the close-in MD 'burbs.

    Like you, I'm not keen on the stronger variant of the MD/PA accent. For folks not familiar with the variations, click the links and listen to the following:
 
People sometimes say that I have an accent but they can't pinpoint it. I was born in Italy, moved to Colorado when I was 5, then lived in Alaska for 8 years, and now currently living in Florida. My mom was born in Brooklyn and my dad was born in Chicago. So I guess I picked up a slight accent from one or a few of those places.

You have influences from "all over." I do too. Do you find that if you spend a lot of time in a region that sometimes your accent begins to slightly mimic theirs?

Ages ago, I spent several months living in London. When I got home, my wife, kids, the neighbor, the guy at the dry cleaners, etc. said I sounded British. Folks in London didn't think so, but folks back home sure did. Two days later it was gone.

When I visit my relatives in the South, I come back with a light Southern lilt. Of course, Dad was Southern, so even as a kid, I had plenty of Southern influence. Dad's Southern accent softened when he was in DC, but got stronger when he vacationed in the South. Momma's accent gets more "old movie" when her siblings visit, and softens a day or so after they leave.
 
Clarification request:
  • Do you mean the Mid-Atlantic/Transatlantic accent?
  • Or did you, in "red" and "blue," mean the Mid-Atlantic accent one hears with greater and lesser degrees of strength, distinguished easily by the way folks pronounce "u" and "o," throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania.
  • Or were you referring to each of them, albeit the "Transatlantic" one when you wrote "Yawkuh" and the MD/PA one when you referred to yourself and your sibling?
You have it pinned very very well, very accurately.
To your first question, the latter: "....distinguished easily by the way folks pronounce "u" and "o," throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania."
That was my accent, and of course I spent most of my years there convinced that we did not HAVE an accent, even though we did. "Everyone else has an accent, not us!" (LOL)

(I moved to Minnesota and that's when I realized how different I sounded, watch the movie "Fargo". That's how most Minnesota people speak, it cracked me up.)

I know of the "Transatlantic" accent. It was taught in early and mid-20th century "diction classes" to people in order for them to sound cultured but in reality it was almost as if Americans were ashamed and were trying to emulate the Brits, as if somehow "The King's English" was superior and we were the redheaded stepchildren. It fell out of favor starting in the 1950's but I remember old teachers who still spoke that way well into the 1970's.

By the way, as you hinted, the further down 355 (Rockville Pike) you went in my days, the more twangy everything got.
When I was growing up, Frederick was pure country and people liked to speak like cowboys, and they often lived like them, on ranches and farms, because Frederick was a tiny little berg surrounded by them.

Waldorf? We used to joke about Waldorf, saying that it resembled Aintry, Georgia, the town immortalized in Burt Reynolds' "Deliverance". I made about 80 brass and copper belt buckles for the La Plata Tobacco Grower's Rodeo in 1976.
No question about it, La Plata, Brandywine and Upper Marlboro might as well have been out in the Old West back then.
Same with Western Maryland, might as well be in West "by God" Virginia.

Maryland is three distinct cultures sharing a common state border, each with its own accent.

When I said "New Yawkuh", imagine the guys in "Goodfellas", that's all.
I spent a lot of time with extended family on Long Island, and that's where that story took place, and it's based on real life experiences of Long Island legend Henry Hill.
The bar that they burnt down? It was actually Sid's Golden Dome in Atlantic Beach, three blocks from my grandmother's house, just past the Atlantic Beach Bridge.

AtlanticBeachBridge.jpg

My mother's side of the family are Italian immigrants in New York. They all sound like characters from Goodfellas, they can't help it. :lamo

I had a friend growing up who was from Boston, named Frannie Ferrara. We called him "Fwanny Fawahwah" because that's how he sounded and he claimed that "his cah could do a hunnerd and farty" (140 mph) and every time he'd say that it would slay us with laughter...good old Fwanny and his "hunnerd and farty" POS Chevelle.

Our other good friend Gary, who we called "Fathead" and who was from New Yawk, used to slap Fwanny upside the head and correct him. "It's a hundrit and fawty, you dope!"
 
...
You have it pinned very very well, very accurately.
To your first question, the latter: "....distinguished easily by the way folks pronounce "u" and "o," throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania."
That was my accent, and of course I spent most of my years there convinced that we did not HAVE an accent, even though we did. "Everyone else has an accent, not us!" (LOL)

(I moved to Minnesota and that's when I realized how different I sounded, watch the movie "Fargo". That's how most Minnesota people speak, it cracked me up.)

I know of the "Transatlantic" accent. It was taught in early and mid-20th century "diction classes" to people in order for them to sound cultured but in reality it was almost as if Americans were ashamed and were trying to emulate the Brits, as if somehow "The King's English" was superior and we were the redheaded stepchildren. It fell out of favor starting in the 1950's but I remember old teachers who still spoke that way well into the 1970's.

By the way, as you hinted, the further down 355 (Rockville Pike) you went in my days, the more twangy everything got.
When I was growing up, Frederick was pure country and people liked to speak like cowboys, and they often lived like them, on ranches and farms, because Frederick was a tiny little berg surrounded by them.

Waldorf? We used to joke about Waldorf, saying that it resembled Aintry, Georgia, the town immortalized in Burt Reynolds' "Deliverance". I made about 80 brass and copper belt buckles for the La Plata Tobacco Grower's Rodeo in 1976.
No question about it, La Plata, Brandywine and Upper Marlboro might as well have been out in the Old West back then.
Same with Western Maryland, might as well be in West "by God" Virginia.


Maryland is three distinct cultures sharing a common state border, each with its own accent.

...

I had a friend growing up who was from Boston, named Frannie Ferrara. We called him "Fwanny Fawahwah" because that's how he sounded and he claimed that "his cah could do a hunnerd and farty" (140 mph) and every time he'd say that it would slay us with laughter...good old Fwanny and his "hunnerd and farty" POS Chevelle.

Our other good friend Gary, ... who was from New Yawk, used to slap Fwanny upside the head and correct him. "It's a hundrit and fawty, you dope!"
(Deletions due to character limit)

Red:
I feel you. I thought Dad and my cousins had accents. I and my siblings didn't. LOL Of course, since they sounded like Dad, we wanted their accent and couldn't have it.

Blue:
In that part of the US' history, Americans looked to Europe as went matters of culture -- France and Italy for art and fashion; England for behavior, speech, social norms, etc. I don't know whether folks felt ashamed of being Americans, but they certainly thought of Europeans as the models of what sophistication was.

Pink:
Ditto.

Tan:
It still is. LOL

Teal:
LaPlata and B-wine may as well still be. Upper Marlboro, maybe not so much. I don't know Upper Marlboro that well, but a former colleague tells me that Redskins players have bought their parents homes there.

I wouldn't know Western MD from WVa were it not for the speed limit signs. LOL

Brown and Green:
LOL!!!

Brown:
A Chevelle was a great car, or at least I thought so. One of the guys in my club had one. It was "chick magnet."

y78chbse
 
Last edited:
Blue:
In that part of the US' history, Americans looked to Europe as went matters of culture -- France and Italy for art and fashion; England for behavior, speech, social norms, etc. I don't know whether folks felt ashamed of being Americans, but they certainly thought of Europeans as the models of what sophistication was.

---No no, not ashamed of being American, conditioned to be ashamed of the way our language sounded. As you said, we seemed to believe that the Europeans and the English had the culture market cornered. Even today, you certainly have heard the old saw about how American women are suckers for the British accent. Worse than that, even today, when American advertisers want to portray a culturally sophisticated image, it's not surprising to hear the familiar clipped tones of a British voiceover.

We had one extremely wealthy kid in our school. Our student body was generally somewhat "affluent" but Richard Perman was "Ritchie Rich" all the way. His home on Connecticut Avenue was a historic mansion atop a large hill and it was adorned with massive iron gates. The damn place even had cupolas, a "carriage house"...I'm sure you've probably seen the place.
It's probably the largest and most sumptuous residence in Kensington.

Young "Master Perman" and his family had never set foot in England, and their heritage was Dutch but the family was American stretching back five or six generations, but the little bastard had a British accent.
He wasn't a jerk...in fact he was actually a fairly nice fellow albeit somewhat detached sometimes.
His first car: A Lancia Fulvia Rallye, which weighed in at around eight thousand bucks, which in the early 70's was outrageous by any standards. Last I saw him: graduation in 1975, still had a trace of the accent, LOL.

Brown:
A Chevelle was a great car, or at least I thought so. One of the guys in my club had one. It was "chick magnet."

y78chbse

HAR!! Make it a faded puke green "hahd-top" and swap that 396 big block for a 350 with tappet noise.
Fwanny didn't have a "con-vahdabul cah", it's too cold up in Beantown. :lamo

He was a pretty good looking guy though and he was very funny so he actually did okay with the ladies. He always attracted the kind who would try to make HIM laugh, too.
If he could "cook up the right kind of baloney", he could sell it, because they would fall for it.
He was a lot of fun.
There's a certain kind of New York girl, or there was back then anyway, something about their personalities was like catnip.
They just used to kill me back then, I loved how extroverted they were.
In fact, my wife, although normally a bit reserved, has a side to her personality which is very "Miss Vito" and she can doll herself up to look a lot like Miss Vito.

KarenMonaLisa2.jpg
 
Being from Montana I don't think I have an accent really, but when I use crick instead of creek it confuses some.

Not sure if it's just a MT thing or my area or what.
 
You have influences from "all over." I do too. Do you find that if you spend a lot of time in a region that sometimes your accent begins to slightly mimic theirs?

Not that I've noticed. I only had a couple of people saying that I had an accent. Up until those two instances, I always thought I had a generic American accent.

Ages ago, I spent several months living in London. When I got home, my wife, kids, the neighbor, the guy at the dry cleaners, etc. said I sounded British. Folks in London didn't think so, but folks back home sure did. Two days later it was gone.

When I visit my relatives in the South, I come back with a light Southern lilt. Of course, Dad was Southern, so even as a kid, I had plenty of Southern influence. Dad's Southern accent softened when he was in DC, but got stronger when he vacationed in the South. Momma's accent gets more "old movie" when her siblings visit, and softens a day or so after they leave.

I think my accent is barely noticeable and doesn't change much.
 
Let's boil this down to the heart of the matter...

Do you say ant or aunt to describe a relative?
 
I have a thick and unmistakable 6:00 O'clock news accent. Numerous accent reduction classes have not diminished it.
 
i've taken the quiz before, but i took another one to check. looks like my accent is Midland.
 
You have influences from "all over." I do too. Do you find that if you spend a lot of time in a region that sometimes your accent begins to slightly mimic theirs?

Ages ago, I spent several months living in London. When I got home, my wife, kids, the neighbor, the guy at the dry cleaners, etc. said I sounded British. Folks in London didn't think so, but folks back home sure did. Two days later it was gone.

When I visit my relatives in the South, I come back with a light Southern lilt. Of course, Dad was Southern, so even as a kid, I had plenty of Southern influence. Dad's Southern accent softened when he was in DC, but got stronger when he vacationed in the South. Momma's accent gets more "old movie" when her siblings visit, and softens a day or so after they leave.

YES. It is perfectly normal for some people to "pick up" a bit of the accent in their environment after a period of time.
My niece married a boy who originally came here from England a decade earlier and when I first met him he sounded very British, acted very British, too.

After five years in Austin, Texas, he is now shooting guns and has a twang which makes the wife and I have to try hard not to double over in fits of laughter, because the both of us remember his use of "shan't" and other Anglo gems.
Now he can "cain't" and "ain't" with the best of them, and yet he's an economics prof at UT Austin.
 
I have a thick and unmistakable 6:00 O'clock news accent. Numerous accent reduction classes have not diminished it.

So you say "nee-yewz" instead of "nooz" and "Tee-yewz-day" instead of "Tooz-dee"?
CBS Brown Broadcasting grad here. :)
 
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