If your dog barks with a southern act-cent. Yip..Yip

...and you're a farking hick, too!

What will Jeff Foxworthy do now?

Forrest Gump sez:

"If yew want pee pul to think yew are a moh ron talk with a southren ak sent"

If local sheep can pronounce your name while blowing smoke rings. You mite be a red neck

FacelessMaster

Speaking as a southerner, there's far more racism and stupidity in the north, I've discovered.

You must be white.

I've found that the difference between up North and here in Georgia is that racism is so ingrained into the culture here that it just sort of becomes part of the background noise - but up north it's so unusual, so shocking, that it sticks out like a sore thumb and people notice it more.

There are racists up North, for sure - but they keep it to themselves for fear of ostracism. For example, if someone were to display an openly racist bumper sticker on their car in New York, they might just find that sticker shoved up their ass. Down here, though, you can't spit without hitting some redneck with a Confederate flag prominently displayed somewhere, despite the history of bigotry associated with that flag.

When I moved to Georgia from Los Angeles I would come across some people that have what seemed to me a very thick southern accent and I actually could not understand what they were saying. The funny thing is I was born in Europe and still have a European accent so when I talked back to them they had no idea what I was saying either although I am fluent in English and people in LA would say I have a light accent. I guess you just have to get used to the different dialects.

/no idea why I typed t his out

20/20: For some reason, most blacks hang on to their accent/dialect no matter where they live. Can't figure that one out.

It helps one avoid looking like an Uncle Tom.

South/Central Texan, and glad I can speak like a normal farking person.

fracicone
I never had an accent. I used to work phone tech support for Creative Labs, and the people calling in were confused when I told them where the tech support center was located.

"You're in Oklahoma? You don't have an accent, though."

I've been thinking about picking one up.

Confirmed. My mother is from Kansas City, my father from western Oklahoma, and I grew up in Tulsa, where it's a 50/50 split between first and second generation migrants (from within the U.S.) and native Tulsans. Nobody's child has an accent here. I say "soda", and "y'know" because I probably heard someone say it during my formative years. I've never once said "ya'll", but my girlfriend from Michigan says it daily. I have the fast/slow/fast speech pattern of southern Californians.

That said, drive 30 minutes south to Okmulgee, and you can hear the theme from Deliverance being played from loudspeakers throughout town.

PigBimpin: I've found that the difference between up North and here in Georgia is that racism is so ingrained into the culture here that it just sort of becomes part of the background noise - but up north it's so unusual, so shocking, that it sticks out like a sore thumb and people notice it more.

Heh funny you said that, the first thing people ask me is where I am from when I talk to someone. That rarely happened in Los Angeles. After they find out I am not from Iraq or something they become more friendly. When I said I was from Europe once someone asked "where is that, somewhere in Africa?"

Half of the "southern accent" is merely a mindset/culture that means you are polite and ask how folks are doing before you get down to business.

In TN peole don't ask how you are, they ask a leading question...

Not "How are you?"
but "You doin' all right?"

Similar with cashiers at a store...

Not "Anything else?"
but "What else?"

If you think rap is somthing done on christmas eve.

I don't really think my area of Michigan has much of an accent (Suburban Detroit). Everybody sounds just like the people on all the national news sows.

I got my southern accent from living in a small town in Lousiana for ONE YEAR at age 14. (army brat, dad stationed at Fort Polk) That's all it took.

/y'all dammyankees jes dream on about we-uns losin' ahr accent, y'heer?

If you like Jeff Foxworthy but hate red neck jokes on public forums.

dsmo: "I don't really think my area of Michigan has much of an accent (Suburban Detroit). Everybody sounds just like the people on all the national news s[h]ows."

I'd agree with that for most of Michigan. I think we're pretty close to that fictional mid-Atlantic (non-)accent.

But, in my case, sometimes people ask if I'm from Canada.

/Yooper

southern accents aren't even half as annoying as the New Yawk/New Joizy mobster wannabes up here...

Doc Daneeka
Seriously, though, I think "y'all" is stupid. "You" is already plural, depedning on context. It doesn't need to be pluralized.

That's stupid. Everyone knows that the plural of "y'all" is "all y'all". (Plural possessive being "alls y'alls".

I don't care if we did have this thread already, I didn't see it that time around.

Being from Albany Georgia, most folks I know have the accent, but I don't have much of one apparently. Growing up I was often asked where I was from. So I'm glad to see other southerners who don't have an accent as well. And I contest that despite what Jeff Foxworthy says, that "y'all" is not a 'redneck word'. Just more of a 'southern word' that caught on very quickly.

Though, people tell me that on the phone I have a porn-voice. "Jeff, is that you? What are you running some kind of porno phone line?"

/worked in a call-center once.
//the ladies liked me.
///most action I ever got.

Working in North Carolina, my co-worker got off the phone with a client and said, "Gawd, he had such an obvious Northern accent!"

To which I responded, "You mean he didn't end a sentence with a preposition, or it sounded like he had all his teeth?"

Ahh, to be a Kentuckian -- not Northern, not really Southern, too far west to be East Coast, too far East to be Midwestern.

Guess that means I have no accent...

If you are affraid of phone sex because of hearing aids. You mite be a red neck.

Jeffool: Everyone knows that the plural of "y'all" is "all y'all"

Beautiful.

serpent_sky:

I managed to escape the dreaded New York accent because I idolised my grandmother, and she had a Welsh accent. I now just get made fun of when I say things like "sandwich" or "bathroom" or "garage" because I do not say those words remotely the way someone who was born and raised in NY would. But I am glad for that -- I despise pretty much all American accents, NY/NJ and southern ones the most.


That always cracked me up when I moved from Washington (State) to New York. Everyone says "coffee" like "cwoofey" and such. They said I had a 'west coast' accent, but I just said the damn word the way it's pronounced in the dictionary. I never understood why they pronounce "R"s where there is no "R", and don't pronounce "R"s where there is. I guess variety is the spice of life.

TOM PETTY unavailable for comment.

I grew up in Southern Indiana farm country, and my mother was from Texas. No matter how hard I've worked to get rid of this damn southern/hick accent, it slips out at the oddest times - usually when I am drunk or VERY mad. One time I was trying to tell off a boyfriend of mine(now ex, of course), and what came out of my mouth sounded a lot like "Git tha HAIL outta my house, boy!"

Needless to say, the effect was not what I had intended. Of course, as soon as I got married we moved to Indy, which only succeeded in making my twang all the more noticeable.

I think it will be a few more generations before we have to worry about Southernish accents disappearing - they have a way of sticking around even when they aren't welcome.

hehehe whomever wrote this article have never been to Texas, or Oklahoma...

English is not my first language, and I'm aware that I still have a somewhat harsh accent. But after spending the last few years working for an Oklahoma based company it doesn't sound so bad... Kidding. :) I've learned a lot from them, but I make a conscious effort to not sound like them, personally I think it would be really strange to have a regional accent. If I succeed? Good question, I get mixed feedback from people. Americans in general say "Hey, your pronunciation is really good" but brits and australians go like "Have you been spending time in Texas?". hehehe

Anyway, accents are part of a place's culture, imho claim "superiority" for not sporting one or people who judge based on this are real asshats.

The only people I've ever met in my life that biatch about southern accents are the ignorant and untravelled trash that no one should pay any attention to, in the first place. Case closed.

But Roswell? How did they decide on studying Roswell? That's just a northern 'burb of Atlanta. They should've gone somewhere like Dalton or maybe Athens; then they'd see a lot more rural accents.

And people hear me talk and usually assume I'm from Indiana or Ohio. Lived in Georgia all my life.

wow, prejudice abounds. Just because someone has a southern accent doesn't make them a redneck, and be assured, every area has redneck hicks, even Fark, Total Fark and Ultra Fark.

Accents develop when people of different areas spend time in verbal isolation. When a population has little contact with other populations far from home, an accent develops. It starts with colloquialism, and infects other words like a virus.

Accents die as more and more people are exposed to a standard, be it in school or in just about every voice on radio and television. Remember the sound of a radio voice pre world war 2? High, nasal, fast fast fast.

Every city in the US have regional accents. The easiest to ridicule are probably Boston, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Chicago maybe.They're the rednecks of the north, eh.

"Ghetto" has an accent. It's also unbearable to listen to, makes the speaker sound retarded, and isn't going to die out anytime soon.

/once visited Omaha, they thought I was a native
//Rochester, NY native

Educated Southern girl. Men love the accent.

I can use whatever accent I hear, people hate me, I listen to someone from anywhere in the world for an hour, and I can copy their accent almost perfectly.

Me and my father take pride in guessing where people are from based on their accents (not just English or German speaking countries, but worldwide). It use to be easier, by an accent and dialect you can track down almost to the village where some one came from, but do to mass communication dialects are slowly dissapearing throughout the world.

It isn't the accent that bothers me, but instead it's the general butchering of the English language that I hear when I go south. How you pronounce the words isn't as important to me as properly stringing the words together to form a coherent sentence.

krelborne:

20/20: For some reason, most blacks hang on to their accent/dialect no matter where they live. Can't figure that one out.

It helps one avoid looking like an Uncle Tom.



So if you speak like a educated person, you must be an 'uncle Tom'? Grow up. Welcome to the year 2005.

Educated southern man without accent. Women love my lack of sounding like a complete dumbass.

Goodfella: So if you speak like a educated person, you must be an 'uncle Tom'? Grow up. Welcome to the year 2005.

I never said that I thought that anyone was an Uncle Tom. I was talking about other people's perceptions.

I have been up here in Yankeeland a good while. Up in Maine for school. With a Masshole girlfriend, who morphed into a wife, and then again into an ex-wife. My sojourn into the depths of Yankeeland has taught me the value of my Southern roots.

In part, because I was an Army brat, I pick up accents fast. You have to in order to fit in, and not get the holy hell beat out of you. That being said, I spent most of my life either in the South, or to someplace like Germany where I was surrounded by other Army brats, and in that setting, we settled into a neutral accent, not quite Midwestern, but a nice blend.

Coming out from there, I was thrust back into the South, and it was like being dipped in sunshine and honey, wrapped in a warm embrace, that is the sounds of home. While in Maine, I picked up a bit of the Down Eastah clip, that strips off consonents like you sand off planks, but under it, I still yearned for the cadence of home.

And that is what the Southern accent does. It is a rhythm, a cadence, it is laden with a music that matches the warm red clay and waters. It isn't for nothing that so many of our greatest poets have come from the South, because the language of the South is rich in storytelling, of oral tradition, and the language builds patterns of thought, patterns of speech, and lays that into their writing.

My accent is odd. It has tinges of Texas Twang. It has hints and promises of a South Carlonian drawl, more honeysuckle and magnolia than the harder edges the cities are putting on the lilt, and then I sometimes dip into that Down Eastah, that can put up a wall of disinterest and neigh untranslatable sound that is perfectly understandable to a hard nosed Yankee, but can leave other New Englanders trying to figure out what the hell was just said. I can turn them all up a bit, and the layer that I put on in my time in Lousiana has made my French on object of great derision when presented to folks from Canada, France, or the Islands, but it works just fine when visiting coonass relatives.

When I was younger, I did try to emulate others, and I fit in just fine. But the cadence and the lulls in the language that I spoke at home, when I was my most comfortable stayed with my writing.

As I grow older, I have abandoned the pretense of the Midwestern clip--which is an accent as much as any--and now wallow in the blend of Texas and South Carolinian that rises up naturally. It is natural, it is right, and like young folks of every generation who have dispaired at their parents' speech patterns--be they New Yorkers, Yankees, or whatnot, they will drop the pretension of abandoning their roots in later years.

The Southern accent is in no danger. It will evolve, it will change, as most American accents have done--though, there are linguists who convinced that some sections of the Appalachias have the closest lock on what English was when this country was settled--and that includes the English of our neighbors in Great Britain, not just America, who have muddled along with their own accents.

The fun portion of the show, is now that we have recording technology, the language isn't quite as mutable. Not quite as flexible--because there is now a record of what our langauge is. Before, language was a local affair, and subject to change, but now with examples of language up for display, held static by both radio, and television, you have examples of what an American accent is 'supposed' to be--or a New Yorker, or Bostonian, or Southern. These changes are leading to both a homogenonization of accents across the nation, a melding of a lot of local accents down to a particular and popular style, and a Midwestern 'Standard' American accent that we're exporting.

I for one, will miss some of the smaller accents and dips and variations, but that's how things roll. I have no fear that the Southern accent will fade, because it is as much a part of the South as that red clay and warm waters. It will change, but it has always been changing. That some folks fear it, are ashamed by it, or deride it only means that some folks will abandon it, and their roots. Others will take up the banner for their own, and their children will be raised with a glorious drawl, and be emmersed in those rhythms. No fear there.

I do feel bad for the folks who haven't learned how to adjust their patterns without assistance--but as an Army brat, I had some advantages--and I feel bad for the folks who feel that they can't be true to their roots and try to change themselves to fit others' notions, or rather, what they think others' notions are.

The thing is, you listen to a person's words, not just the accent that delivers them. If your are focused on the ideas of class and place first, beyond the words themselves, then you're not really paying attention. That shows more about you than the bastiche you're getting ready to hop all over. Man judges me for the twang and drawl that have blended together in my speech, that's just fine with me. Let them. That's their look out. I will continue to be who I am, and true to my roots, and if that means I have to meet some close minded asshats along the way, there you go. I file them away under their reaction, and keep moving on.

I'm proud of my accent. It tells a story of where I've been, who's been important to me, what land and people are important to me. It tells folks right away a bit about me, and I rather like that. Which is what regional accents do--they are a badge of honor and place. You want to abandon that, then you are telling folks another tale as well.


If nothing else, the fact that this little charming and well written piece slipped by without comment, makes me feel better about my inability to draw comment.

Well written.
////Library clap

I'm from WV, and I have no accent. I've met a metric shiat-ton of people at WVU from all over, and no-one can guess that I'm a Morgantown native. And yet everyone else from around here has some twang or another.

No idea.

I'm very very lucky. I've lived in New York my whole life, and my entire family has that very strong accent (think Fran Drescher, but much less nasal and exaggerated). Fortunately, I'm a chameleon - my accent changes based on who I'm talking to - so I've gotten rid of my accent except for when I'm talking to family members.

It's a great help with fitting in anywhere I go, since I unconsciously mimic the speech patterns of my conversation partners.

Does anyone else have this knack or is it just me?

It's funny, the true test (for me) is in how someone says the work 'accent'. If they say 'AYK-SEYNT' (yes, both syllable emphasised they're speaking really farking southern. If they say 'AK-sent', they're not.

I am from the north and lived in the south. I speak from the red neck exsperiance. I hate all hate. and love to play on tractors.

pretty is what pretty does.

Geoge Carlin for President

Yappy Jappy Midget
It's a great help with fitting in anywhere I go, since I unconsciously mimic the speech patterns of my conversation partners.

I definitely do this, but usually to only a small degree. Though I've actually picked up some things permenantly. One from a guy I know from Bed-Stuy. He drops the last 'd' in 'dude', so now I say 'doo'. (Or is that 'due'?) Another from a guy who, when agreeing, says quickly 'yeah yeah'.

It drives me insane. Or at least the 'yeah yeah' one.

it's sad for any regional accent to disappear. i do hear the older southern accent fading as many of the elderly southerners i know die. my southern accent has proved quite popular and has gotten me out of so many jams i cannot even tell you, when out of the region or country. it's gotten me jobs, dates, friends, free passes in all forms. before i ever left the south i feared it would hinder me, however it's proven just the opposite.

My mother is from the North (Penn. ) and my father is from around here ( Backwoods of North Carolina ) and I have one of -the- thickest accents people around here have ever heard. I even fark up the word "accent" but saying it "axe-cent" and the word "Jeep" like "jea-ep". Well thats close anyway. I think all axe-cents will change over time, but they will always, basically, reflect their region, so really whats to worry?

/loves her Southern Drawl
//got a boyfriend just using it
///slashy mcslash!

Jeffool
No, mine is pronounced. As in, West Indians, southerners and californians have all mistaken me for one of their own.

But I've definitely picked up speech patterns permanently. Just not my own.

My parents laugh at me for not saying Caw-fee correctly. Go figure!

I'm from southern Oklahoma; however, as a kid I consciously resisted the Okie accent spoken by my family. I watched a lot of tv and read a lot of books, and picked up the generic midwest/northern accent spoken widely on tv and radio. I remember being in the second grade and some kid's mom asking me if I was from New York.

Later in life, after escaping Oklahoma, I discovered MUCH to my surprise that I missed the Okie/Texas accent. I always feel sort of homesick whenever I hear someone speaking with it, and found myself picking it back up with a vengeance whenever I speak to relatives who still use it. My husband laughs his ass off at me whenever he hears me chatting with my Okie kin - says I sound like a sure 'nuff hick. I can use it or not. I have been known to use it with locals in Oklahoma when I want to be perceived as "one of them;" I can also drop it completely when I don't want to be thought of as kinda stupid or low-class.

Now my hubby is from Rhode Island, and his mother sounds really funny to me - it's all "pahk the cah" and "qwata" (quarter) and "wicked" and "cwoawfee" (coffee). But hubby, now in Arizona about fifteen years, has all but totally lost/dropped his RI/MA/NJ accent, except when he says "quarter". And he doesn't pick it back up when he visits family or speaks to them on the phone. Hm.

I love accents. I love the diversity and regional atmosphere they invoke. A great deal of what we think of as southern accents evolved from British and Irish/Scottish settlers. It's fascinating stuff, imo.

/but then I'm weird like that
//wijidiji - You didn't brang yer truck wijidiji?
///LOVE the etymology of words and regional dialects
////fixin' to eat lunch now