what is your FAVORITE U.S. regional accent?

There, fixed.

wait - how else would you say it??

that's the spirit

Round-vowel Piedmont by a nose over Ozark hilljack.

wait - how else would you say it??

"Sirrup" here in the upper midwest. Fu'ther south, I've heard "Syrp" with just a hint of roundness that almost makes it "Sarp".

Haha yes the way I say it, the whole middle is one syllabic 'r.'

Fuck a vowel.

Dude I have to admit I find whatever NY accent Woody Allen has to be enormously attractive. Once, at a job, I was assisting a customer who was being a complete salty bastard, berating the shit out of me for not being able to get a black and white copier to do a function it could not do, and he had that accent. He wasn't a particularly attractive man, but that whole time I completely tuned out his words and just got lost in reverie of his accent. Oh my gosh.

xpost. Nope, I love me some vowel. That Piedmont thing -- I had a buddy from Elizabeth City , NC ("Libbasiddy") who drove a "cwore".

Y'knouw?

Ken-tur-kee.

i dont have an accent, its so sad

My grandma's 3rd husband was from the mountains of North Carolina and the way he called everyone, no matter what gender, "fellers" was quite endearing.

The kind of Minnesota accent that gets people asking "Are you from Canada?" is really cute. Also, I like how everyone in Richmond, VA, talks, but I haven't spent enough time in the south to generalize about regional accents.

Mandee, what accent don't you have?

i just have a very generic american accent that is not easily traced

but it probably sounds closest to american valley girl.

I think maybe the Minnesota one Maria mentions upthread but I'm not sure because some seem to have it and some don't but its where people say boots like hmm not sure how to write this phonetically but kind of boootz oh dear that doesn't look write can anyone help me out with what i mean?

You're talking about when 'boots' elides with 'boats' but elongated, ya?

right!
(funny thing: my mom's adopted accent is northern Maine. she talks a bit like that, too. which may be why i like it.)

No not really! Though I put lots of 'o's in its compact not elongated but with emphasis on the o part and kinda almost but maybe not germanic also kind of a bit how scottish people say it come to thkn of it!

"Sirrup" here in the upper midwest. Fu'ther south, I've heard "Syrp" with just a hint of roundness that almost makes it "Sarp".

Huh, I had no idea. It's "seeerup" all the way in my book.

noo yoyik

No matter how you pour it syrup's a pretty good word. Glad people are diggin' the MN accent, makes me feel a little less self conscious when it comes out of me.

Weird though, people around here have asked me (in regards to how I talk) on multiple, non-consecutive occasions if I've ever lived in Texas. I have but not since I was three years old. o_O

I aspire to sound like a cross between a Toronto native and a nocal person. In other words, I want to use the words "hella" and "hoser" in the same sentence.

That Minnesota accent in Fargo = great

nocal?

yah, as in Northern California...or wherever young people make a habit of saying "hella hella"

not local ? (xpost: oh! ok then)

Oh right, as opposed to "socal"...

yerp

Rhode Island, hands down

I aspire to sound like a cross between a Toronto native and a nocal person. In other words, I want to use the words "hella" and "hoser" in the same sentence.

-- dell, Monday, May 26, 2008 10:16 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

irl no one says hoser, sry

i live in stereotype-land, jhoshea. i dunno where you live, but i feel sorry for you in advance.

i'm still fascinated by the midwest newscaster accent -- with no trace of the german/scandinavian/polish that other midwestern accents have. but u.s. newscasters these days use western canada (e.g. vancouver) as a model.

xpost

in my world, white ppl survive via cheese whiz iv's and crushed wonder bread massaged into their pores is all i'm trying to say...

whats the accent like there

really? so vancouverese is considered to be "standard american english"?

i dunno if you were asking me or not, but in my world ppl talk in pat boone dialect

i'm also fascinated by older white people who say "sundy" instead of "sunday," etc.

"donit" instead of "donut"

yeah, that sounds cute

weirdo obscure massachusettsism: hut dug

an ex-girlfriend who grew up in lowell, mass, swore to me that they called a water fountain (like something you would drink from in elementary school, or in a park) a "bubbler". i still half-think she's pulling my leg about that

wha u neva heard of a bubblah?

Dell, that's what all my Wisconsin friends call it.

I didn't know it existed anywhere outside of cheeseland.

xposts

yes!!
that's the way she said it. shit.

i tried to tell her that "where i come from, we call shopping carts 'wheelers'", but she successfully called my bluff

those feisty quebecois; do not underestimate them!!

wow, rabies, yeah. well, this thread has been very educational

bubblah, fuck

one of my other favorite associated memories involves hanging out with her Meme...the first time I met her, she got embroiled in an argument with her grandson about which of them had just farted. Then we asked her about whether she had ever encountered Jack Kerouac in the local bars after he moved back there in the sixties...and her deadpan reply without hesitating was "yes, I remember seeing him. I wasn't very impressed..." She was such a sweetheart...

and then her grandson ordered a Harvey fucking Wallbanger, bless his heart

The one Minnesota/Wisconsin term difference I know is that "duck duck goose" is "duck duck gray duck" there.

duck duck gray duck

Ha! That's crazee. Almost as silly as Britishers calling tag "tig"!

"duck duck gray duck" waht? how un-american! i'm outraged.

OH NOT AGAIN. It's more fun that way because you can psych other players out with 'green duck...purple duck...red duck...grilled duck...roasted duck...'

I grew up in rural New England, and I pronouce it a lot closer to "surp" than anything. Then again, I also make roof and broom rhyme with "rum", have good "idears" and pronounce 'tomorrow' like a Canadian.

I like New Orleans and Texas accents, and I sort of like some strong northern midwest accents too. Really the only ones that I don't care for are a lot of southern california, and a lot of boston.

Apparently there's some other places that use bubbler too, maybe parts of ohio? Had to do with the Bubbler Company only distributing in a couple states, but utterly dominating the early water bubbler market there. Bubbler is one of the few words that I haven't been able to remove from my natural vocabulary, and I will probably be confusing people with it for the rest of my life.

Ha, wiki says that Northern Wisconsin, Michigan's upper pennisula, New England, Australia, and Portland, OR are the only places that use the term.

Ha, oh weird. Yeah, obv. "bubbler" still kinda wrecks my head; as I remarked above, I honestly thought that I was being fed some nonsense pointless linguistic prank.

In all the time I've lived in Boston I've never actually heard anyone say "bubbler" but that's probably because most people I know aren't actually from MA. We're living in a real old school neighborhood sans students now so I wouldn't be surprised if I hear it soon.

what is your FAVORITE U.S. regional accent?

the one where people end every sentence with a question mark?

is it a SF thing?

it's really cute?

I thought that was a Canadian thing?

its called up talking and its completely epidemic amongst young american ladies everywhere

like, really?

Yeah, well, as I hinted at above, this person was from Lowell, and was totally from old school Quebecois stock, so...

She went to middle school for a while in Wayland, and everyone made fun of her b/c of her accent

(obv xpost)

x-post tru - but don't Canadian men do it too?

Uggh, that is what I was talking about w/r/t s. california accents. Its in some New York / New Jersey too...drives me up the wall.

southern michigan flat "a" pronunciation - "dahd we're tahking the cahr to ahn ahrbor"

But, I, like, do that when I'm drunk? Like, it just comes out?

Almost as silly as Britishers calling tag "tig"!

We call it "it" mostly.

p.s. I know a girl from Kentucky who has the cutest accent ever!

The Canadian rising tone is different, its conveying a request for agreement/understanding (like eh? etc). The california accent gets used on forceful statements as well, to the point where I stop being able to parse the sentence because everything sounds like a question.

yes many cowardly canadians of both sexes uptalk

. I know a girl from Kentucky who has the cutest accent ever!

just got back from a family thing in louisville ky -- you would've been in accent heaven w/my cousins

my least favorite - long island variation of nyc accent

I thought uptalk was an australian thing?

bah, I habitually uptalk while drunk

And like, I also start to emulate the speech patterns of some of my more florid gay friends? But, like, that's probably b/c I'm chatting up some cute girl, and, I'm like, subconsciously trying to be, like, non-threatening or something? So, like, I don't know?

my least favorite - long island variation of nyc accent

:-( It's sad that LI is getting so much hate but I have to agree it's pretty bad. Every time I go home I'm like holy shit thank god I don't sound like that. People I meet on LI ask where I'm from and don't believe I was born/raised there.

Uptalk is also an australian thing, yes.

I think uptalk has been around longer in australia, but its also in a lot of american accents too. I'm not sure if they are casually connected, but its the same phenominon.

Every time I go home I'm like holy shit thank god I don't sound like that.

I hate my hometown accent too, the cincinnati nasal drawl. thankfully I've never had it

australians rounding off their rough edges w/conciliatory linguistic flourish?

haha

South African accent is soooo bizarre, though...i mean, c'mon people

It is but I sort of love it for that reason.

thing abt the long island accent is some seem to really enjoy indulging in it - they tend to talk abt frivolous things at high volume - its a complete cultural package

on its own really not so bad

downtown new orleans accent is the best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat_%28New_Orleans%29

people are always saying this nola accent sounds like brooklyn - maaaaybe a little but not really

I like how young women sound with a Texas accent.

Oh, I love the Missoureh aacent too!

old people totally call sunday "sundey" and restaurants "restrints" - its so darn cute.

i would support spelling reformation laws along those lines, anyhow

OH NOT AGAIN. It's more fun that way because you can psych other players out with 'green duck...purple duck...red duck...grilled duck...roasted duck...'

-- suzy, Monday, May 26, 2008 10:55 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

otm. MinneSOda yo

restrints? I've never heard that one!

well, you have not lived, then, sir

clearly not

i listen to this AM radio station that is totally for old people.. they play a lot of pat boone, johnny mathis, petula clark, that type of stuff.. and every Wednesday night a dude named Warren Byrne hosts "the restrint" show where old people call in to get restaurant suggestions. Basically its for old folks who don't know how to look up restaurants on the internet.

I am strangely addicted to it. My sisters and I talk about Warren all the time - i.e. "this place looks great, and warren highly recommends it!"

uh, that radio show sounds fucking amazing. is it available on the internets? please say "yes".

Basically its for old folks who don't know how to look up restaurants on the internet.

god, i started some grandparent tribute thread today of sorts, and yet i can't stop lol-INg at that. i am a horrible person, etc.

have a ball, dell:

http://www.studio1430.com/

oh yay they are playing phantom of the opera

SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

omg, you rule so hard. you just sorted me into the EZ LOUNGE. words cannot express...

When I end up hearing Warren's show, my life will be complete.

The idea that saying "hoser" makes you sound like a Toronto native = mind blown * 1 000 000.

My Dad was totally taught to say "Wednesdee" and "Sundee" etc.

ah, i grew up in the states. "strange brew" was a cult favorite, etc.

omg, why are ppl on these ez listening stations even more obsessed with "Fernando" by Abba than they are diabeetus?

then

then, there...

agh. this radio station has destroyed me. agh.

they just played a song called "be my life companion".

some georgia and tennessee accents are very pleasing to my ears -- probably my favorite southern accents.

maybe angeleno (lol, hollywood) with a side order of Kentucky

"den der"