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Subscribe to RSSAlthough the United States is an international melting pot and the average American makes a dozen moves in a lifetime, regional accents are alive and well. In fact, regional accents are becoming stronger and more different from each other, says William Labov, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, although it's not entirely clear why.
One possibility, says Labov, is that these original sound differences are being exaggerated, like trains moving in opposite directions on two railroad tracks. "The other is that dialect differences have become associated with political differences, so that the Blue States/Red States division comes close to the boundary between the Northern and Midland dialects," he explains.
Labov says that our dialects change little after age 18 and we tend to retain the accent we grew up with. Young people first match the dialects of their parents, but then they often change to match their peers. These changes, though, are unconscious, he explains.
Linguists say there are about ten major regional accents in the US, such as New England, mid-Atlantic, Inland North, for the cities surrounding the Great Lakes, and the West, the country's newest dialect. While some people sound more regional than others, everyone has an accent to some degree.
Some people are simply better at repressing some aspects of their local speech. The way they talk -- their pronounciation of words (some "r-less" dialects on the East Coast may say "cah" rather than "car") or choice of words ("pail" in the North versus "bucket" in the Midwest) -- adds a local flavor and diversity to speech. But it can also contribute to misunderstandings and confusion (hearing the word "buses" as "bosses").
While some people keep their regional speech styles because it's the hallmark of who they are and a tie to their communities, certain accents may have negative stereotypes or societal prejudices associated with them, says Amee Shah, director of the Research Laboratory in Speech Acoustics & Perception at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Although there's nothing wrong with a regional accent, some people become ashamed or self-conscious of them for either personal or professional reasons and they want to tone them down.
Shah, who has training as a speech-language pathologist and has designed an assessment tool to measure the severity of accented speech, offers "accent modification therapy" to clients. Shah says a strong accent might take six to eight months to modify, a moderate one three or four months, and a light accent a month or two.
"My goal is to help a client modify an accent, not to correct or reduce it," says Shah.
Have you ever misunderstood a regional accent (with humorous results)? Or do you lapse into regional speech patterns when home?
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I received a phone call at work from a gentleman in Massachusetts, he was requesting that a product catalog be mailed to him. Upon giving his address he said his town was "pee-ba-dee" I asked him how to spell it. PEABODY ! I had to laugh at that! I grew up in the Philadelphia area and still retain the philly accent, my brother who moved to colorado about 20 years ago makes fun of my accent when I talk to him on the phone, yet when he comes "home" for a visit he reverts right back to the accent!
I had a very similar situation with a resident of Peabody. I work in a customer service call center and was verifying a customer's order with them. When verifying the address I got to Peabody and said it as I saw it- the customer made sure that I would never make that mistake again! I was just talking about it to my husband the other day- so I laughed out loud when I read your post!!
Yeah, I'm from the Boston area and we pronounce a lot of stuff weird. Try Gloucester ("Glah-sta" or "Gloah-sta") or Worcester ("Woosta"). We also really do say "wicked" all the time. I honestly think my accent is getting stronger as I age...
A local commercial makes fun of companies that outsource their call centers by having a Southern phone rep (filing her nails, naturally) mis-pronouncing "Sayko, Maine" instead of "Sahko." Also we call it "Bangore" not "Bangir" Maine and Calais is pronounced "Callous" not the French way of saying Calais.
People in southern Illinois say things differently as well. We overpronounce a lot of words: "fire" sounds like "fie-yer," "sword" sounds like "so-werd," etc. We also put unnecessary prepositions at the end of questions: "Where are my shoes at?" "If you're going to the store, can I come with?"
I get a kick out of my accent. You won't find a sound anywhere else like it.
Sarah, I have also noticed that we change a lot of our "t"s into "d"s. For instance "Water" becomes more like "Wah-der" and "Theater" becomes more like "Thee-der". In essence, we try to soften multi-syllabic words to make them sound more monosyllabic. Though I don't have a really strong southern Illinois accent, when I am trying to be nice or joke around, I tend to slip into it more.
Once while working in South Dakota a worked for a call center that took incoming calls for a bank in the Boston area. The first thing we had to do was learn to say the names of the towns were the branches were located and other nearby towns and streets that might be referred to during the call. They didn't want people to know they had outsourced....funny no one ever thought to address that we all spoke every "r" in every word. We were just to say we were new to the area so we weren't familiar with all local landmarks.
I live in northeast/central PA, and many of us have a rather strong "PA Dutch accent" and it tends to be different than the rest of the state....many of us will say "warsh" instead of wash, for instance, or "haaas" instead of "house", or we'll mix up our words......I'm famous for saying "reach me down".
I had an uncle that left our area for the Navy right after he graduated from high school....even though he never lived in the area again (and lived about every place imaginable due to his or his wife's Navy careers, he still had that PA Dutch accent until the day he died.
Regional accents tend to be nothing more than an uneducated take on the english language.
They forgot to add Urban Ghetto speak
"Is you going to the store?"
a lot of that is actually things many pittsburghers say
It's English. It's still alive. There is no necessary propriety about it.
Hey RowanMoon, have you ever noticed that those of us who are PA natives never pronounce the "l" in the state's name? My PA Dutch accent has modified somewhat since I left home (Boyertown/Reading area) but there are still a number of things that crop up.
Sandy S.--you're right! I never thought of that before. Penn-syl-vain-ya is the only way I've ever pronounced it, and same thing with my friends & relatives in PA.
If you ever get a chance, go to www.coalspeak.com. Totally hilarious website about the Coal Region of PA....how things are said, local landmarks, slang terms, you name it.
Never ask a man from Boston if he has a hat on!
RowanMoon & Sandy S--I was just going to alert you to the "heyna" site of NEPA. Google "heynabonics" for a laugh at our expense.
The only thing I dislike about "The Office" is that no one, even the warehouse people, speaks heyna.
". . . an uneducated take on the english language." Is that right Jessica?
Then how do you account for the various dialects in the British Isles? Which one is 'educated'? How do you explain words that are taken directly from ENGLISH in their pronunciation?
I gather you know very little about etymology and the history of what is called the English language. You're simply being snarky.
A gentlman called our place of business and inquired about our health care coverage. When I told him we already had health insurance he replied, "Oh, so day do offer health care?" I said, "Yeah, day do." Is that a dialect thing, or just sheer laziness?
This conversation is too funny not to share: Read aloud for best results (and some semblance of comprehension).
* * *
Following is a telephone exchange between a hotel guest and Room Service, at a hotel in Asia which was published in the Far East Economic Review.
Room Service (RS): "Morny. Ruin sorbees"
Guest (G): "Sorry, I thought I dialed Room Service"
RS: "Rye..Ruin sorbees..morny! Djewish do odor sunteen??"
G: "Uh..yes..I'd like some bacon and eggs"
RS: "Ow July den?"
G: "What??"
RS: "Ow July den?...pry, boy, pooch?"
G : "Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please."
RS: "Ow July dee baykem...crease?"
G: "Crisp will be fine."
RS : "Hokay. An San tos?"
G: "What?"
RS:"San tos. July San tos?"
G: "I don't think so"
RS: "No? Judo one toes??"
G: "I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo one toes' means."
RS: "Toes! Toes!...why djew Don Juan toes? Ow bow singlish moppeen weed bodder?"
G: "English muffin!! I've got it! You were saying 'Toast.' Fine. Yes,an English muffin will be fine."
RS: "We bodder?"
G: "No..just put the bodder on the side."
RS: "Wad?"
G: "I mean butter...just put it on the side."
RS: "Copy?"
G: "Sorry?"
RS: "Copy...tee...meel?"
G: "Yes. Coffee please, and that's all."
RS: "One Minnie. ... Ass ruin torino fee; strangle ache; crease baykone tossy singlish moppeen; weed bodder honey sigh, an copy....rye??"
G: "Whatever you say"
RS: "Tendjewberrymud"
G: "You're welcome"
Jessica-1170252,
Bring your elitist view to Harkers Island, NC...
They will be glad to teach you the Original ENGLISH spoken in the Americas...
You will quickly learn that you are the one with the accent and do not know how to speak English...
An educated person talks to their audience, in terms that can be understood...
I agree that what Jessica said is silly, but your remark is just as misguided (unless you were being sarcastic, in which case I apologize). Even if your NC accent were the "original" American accent, that wouldn't make it any more correct than any other American dialect. And it's even less justified to go on to say this is the "correct way to speak English" based on that supposed seniority. What about Britain? Wouldn't those dialects be way older than NC? Which British dialect is "correct," since your criteria for that status seems to be longevity? Even if we figure out which British dialect is oldest, wouldn't that dialect still be nothing more than a bastardization of a still older extinct dialect? How far back do we have to go? 8th century Britain, until we're practically speaking a version of German?
I don't understand the first message in this thread...how else would you pronounce peabody??
Lacy: I think it was meant to sound like "Pee Baa Dee".
lol, that's the only way i've ever heard it, i guess. like the dog on the rocky and bullwinkle show. "pee bahdy here"
baa like a sheep. :)
whut ar yew talkin' 'bout? Ah ain't got no die-leck. Win ah espres mahself ah duz it n' ING-lush jes lak iverbuddy else 'round y'ere 'bowts.
Dad-gum yankee aig-heds.
Three Canucks stop to ask directions in MO, my buddy says, after we got straightened out, 'They sure talk funny 'round here, eh?' I said' I'm sure we're the ones talkin' funny. LOL
I have never met a person in real life who says Tomahto. I think that's an antiquated pronunciation.
My boyfriend says it, he's from the Channel Islands.
I used to be English, & I can't get away from it.
Funny though in the UK "regional accents" can change within 50 miles of any given point.
The Channel Isles produce some of the best tasting Tomatoes in the world.
P.S. and "route" is ROOT not RAWT (Chuck Berry didn't sing "RAWT 66") just sayin....
"Tomahto" is rarely used in this country, but it's a very common pronunciation of the word in the UK.
"Tomahto" is also common here in Australia. Although I don't understand why Australians pronounce "potato" as if it rhymes with American "tomato". I like to make fun of my Aussie friends for that and try to use it as a reason as to why they should say "tomato" and not "tomahto".
All my English speaking Canadian relatives say tomahto
Chuck Berry may not have, but Nat King Cole sure did!
(actually he did sing "root" 66)
@Phil -- regional dialects change in a pretty short distance here, too. For example, someone posted about people in MA pronouncing Worcester as "Woosta" (sounds like "rooster"). That's common in the Boston area, but go 30 miles away and closer to the city in question, and you'll find people pronouncing it "Wuhss-tah." Go figure. People who move to MA think some city/town spellings are peculiar (which they are, like Leicester, Gloucester, Worcester) but chalk up our pronunciation of them to regional accent. They don't realize these places are named after (and pretty much pronounced the same way as ) cities/towns in England - which makes sense, when you give it some thought.
What really cracks me up though is people who think they can speak in a regional accent or know what one sounds like, and just can't pull it off -- like actors in movies who are supposed to sound as if they're from Boston but exaggerate it so much they sound to us like they're from DownEast Maine. Or the person above who said don't ask a guy from Boston if he has a hat on. If you did ask that question, you'd get a straight answer because it's the R sound that we don't pronounce. Sorry to disappoint that guy, but although "car" becomes "cah," "hat" just stays "hat."
Lizzie - I think the "hat" joke was that it would sound like you were asking the gentleman if he had a "hard on." To people from out of your area, your pronunciation of "hard" sounds like "hat."
Yeah, I got the joke. But it's only funny if we pronounced "hat" so that it sounds like "hard" (or, as we would say it, "hahd"). But we don't. At least I don't know anyone who does, and I was born in Boston and lived here most of my life. And that's my point about people who think they know what a regional accent sounds like but really don't.
@Lizzie - When I lived in Boston, not only did I notice that people dropped their "R's" from words as already stated, but they also seemed to add them to words where they didn't belong. I knew a woman whose daughter's name was "Jessica" and she always pronounced her daughter's name as "Jessicur."
I've lived in Pittsburgh (PA) for almost a decade now and I still can't understand some of the natives sometimes! From Dahn-tahn (downtown), to redd up (clean up) and the infamous yinz (Where yinz guys goin'?) it takes a pause or two before I answer sometimes.
When will you Western PA people learn it's "Youz" and not "Yinz" - if you are going to speak improper English at least mess it up the right way.
I grew up in NE Ohio and developed a hybrid dialect. Along with an Ohio accent I spoke my parent's southern West Virginian combined with old Pittsburgh learned from close family friends.
I remember using "you-all" (we didn't really say y'all) as well as younz; "to town" as well as "don-ton"; "Do you not..." along with "duncha or dunchins"
As a young adult, I lived in Virginia with a Texan roommate. The Pittsburgh vocabulary disappeared and my southern drawl became more pronounced. After living all over the US over the years my hybrid dialect has settled more toward West Virginia "lite" even though I have lived near Lake Erie for decades. People who like to identify accents can't quite figure mine.
We lived in New England for a time when my children were small. It wasn't till we returned to Ohio that I noticed my 3 year old was saying "cah"
no it is yinz in Picksburgh- I went to school in New England so you can imagine how I sound when I talk fast. I'm a Pittsburgher till death but I do pawk my caw in Pea-b-dee.By the way I went Peabody High School in Sliberty.
It's only "yinz" in parts of Pittsburgh. The rest of the region says "yoonz". The farther south you get, the more it sounds like you-uns. But you only need to get past the tunnels for the change to be evident.
Also, I laugh when I hear Pittsburghers say "sammich", because they are actually trying to sound like they don't say "sangwidge" like everybody else in "tahn".
Here's a typical pixberger giving driving tips.
"Yunz can't go faster than fordy-fy mahlnahr after yunz make the lefhan tern by the fahrhahs acrossed from tawhcew bewwl, or the cawps'll give yunz a ticket. They're lookin' aht fer people drivin their cohrs whahl tawkin on a cell phewn too."
My husband is from Pittsburgh, and they have a truly unique dialect there. He has dyslexia, and I always thought that he was "mispronouncing" a lot of words, so was continually trying to correct his pronunciation. Then I met his mom and she talked the same way. But I still thought it was just a family thing, until one day I found this website: and found out they were speaking Pittsburghese. I didn't know it until I had been married for almost 30 years!!! My poor husband! I took a lot of his native dialect away from him! But I've gradually been trying to help him get it back - I think different regional dialects are really great!! I hope yinz all enjoy that website! :)
Oops - I guess they won't allow links! If interested in that website, it's just pittsburghese dot com. Very funny for people who are from there or especially if they're married to someone from there!
Down here, we think everybody else has an accent, but not us.
Mike
Charlotte, NC
I'm in Charlotte, too. I have a Southern accent, but not as bad as most others down here. The biggest thing I get from Northerners is that I talk verrrry verrrry sloowwww. With Delaware people, they laughed when I said car wreck instead of accident. They also liked how I said insurance (N-surance vs. inSURance).
Max, I have an in-law from Alabama. By the time he finishes a sentence I've long since forgotten what he started out about.
I'm from central NY (CNY) and I believe that I use car wreck and accident interchangeably. Also, I apparently say "N-surance" as well, although I don't know where I would have gotten that. I believe all my friends in CNY say "inSURance".
I grew up in Kentucky, spent a good part of my 20s in Tennessee, and then moved to Philadelphia. Besides the complete culture shock, I noticed that no one took me seriously because of my accent, especially on job interviews. The biggest obstacle I had to overcome with the southern accent was the assumption that since I am white and from the south, I must not like people of color - both people of color and racist white people (which there are a surprising number of in Philly) who thought it was safe to "comiserate" in my presence. Also, with the accent came the assumption that I am not as smart or as motivated as an uptight, fast talking northerner. So, I worked to tone down the accent and now if you talk to me, you cannot tell that I am from anywhere but Philly.
However, if I call my dad on the phone, there is instant reversion.
My mother, who is from Tennessee, and has lived in Ohio for 30 years, ordered two iced teas with lemon at a restaurant. The server left with our lunchtime orders, looking a little confused. Minutes later, she returned with two bottles of Asti (champagne) with lemon.
That's hilarious. But, iced tea is itself something that apparently differs by region. Down here, we make it correctly. They can make it correctly in parts of the midwest. But, I went to a Tasty Freeze (or the equivalent) once in northern Maine and OH MY GOD! That was the most foul tasting iced tea I've ever had. Just across the river in Canada, the tea tasted alright, I guess, but it was dressed up like a mixed drink in an umbrella with a cherry on a sword - and priced accordingly (and, no, they had not brought me a Long Island Iced Tea, either)!
And, this is even more off-topic, but I went to lunch one day with some guys in my Army unit. We went to the bowling alley and I ordered a burger with a Royal Crown cola to drink. My senior NCO looked at me like I'd lost my mind as the counter person set up a Crown Royal and coke on my tray! (The "RC" in RC Cola stands for "Royal Crown." Apparently that's not universally known.)
I didn't know anybody ever asked for RC Cola. I'd thought that was just what people bought when they didn't want to spend the extra few cents on Coke or Pepsi. That's a funny story though.
No way! I prefer RC over any other cola out there. I only buy Coke (which I prefer over Pepsi) because it's almost always on sale for less than RC.
Miker, I once made the mistake of ordering iced tea in the south, and it was so ghastly sweet my ears were ringing after the first sip. Amazing that that much sugar can stay dissolved. Up here, we like iced TEA, not iced sugar water. To each, their own, I suppose...
Yes, it can be a bit syrup-y! I've gotten to the point (weight and taste-wise) where I ask for unsweetened tea, drink about half a glass, and then get my glass topped-up with sweet tea. That seems to balance it out pretty well.
Speaking of iced tea in the South... when I first moved to NC (Raleigh), the restaurants mostly asked if you wanted sweet or unsweet. As a kid in NY my mother made sweet tea just like the Southerners do.. She's Canadian.
I had an aunt who drank iced tea with cream. This was in the 50's. She was from Illinois close to Saint Louis, but lived in Denver.
21st Century Patriot -- If the tea's too sweet, you can always add more ice and squeeze some lemon in it to balance it out. That's what we do here in Atlanta. ;) Or do what Miker does and dilute with unsweet to taste.
Illinois man -- iced tea with cream -- they have something very similar in Thai restaurants. Thai iced tea rocks. :)
And speaking of regional differences, if you want unsweetened tea, many places here you have to specify UNsweetened tea. Else we'd think y'all are ordering sweet tea, which is our default iced tea. ;)
fuggedaboudit geddaddaheah lol
I was sent to southern Oklahoma to run a store. On my first day there an elderly gentleman came in and asked me "Whar are the lat bubs?" The third time I asked him to repeat it he became agitated. Then one of my employees rescued me and translated..."Where are the light bulbs?" Now i know what a "lat bub" is.
When I worked in a store on first coming to Maine a lady came in and asked for a "caard." I said "a caard? a Christmas caard?" She said, "no! a caaard! A caard! Like you plug in - an extention caaard!"
I'm from Texas, and Oklahomans have a similar accent. Not pronouncing long i's is one example.
I was in the petrochemical industry for years, and often talked to people all over the country. One incident sticks in my mind. I was speaking to a woman in Massachusetts about a problem I had with a lab instrument. I thought the problem was resolved, but she kept asking me irrelevant questions. I finally asked her what was the problem. She replied, "Nothing, I just love to hear you talk. Your accent sounds like the movies." She also got a kick out of my frequent use of ma'am.
Spike - I had a waitress in Washington State tell me " if you will say apple pie I will give it to you"
I'm from southeastern Illinois, a region colloquially termed "Illitucky," and we have our own accent that is as distinctive as the accent in Chicago. Matter of fact, if you listen to someone from Illinois who has an accent, you can tell by the accent how far north or south in the state they live.
Here in Kentucky, when we are talking to a couple of people, we say "y'all". However, when talking to a group of people, it's "All y'all". I grew up in southern Indiana and had a slight southern accent; but living here in Kentucky has really made it more noticeable. Also, if you are in Central Illinois and asked for a "pop", they'll laugh and say it's called a "soda". I responded, well, if you asked for a "soda" in Southern Indiana, you'll get something with ice cream in it!
When I moved out of New England, I learned very quickly to answer the question "Would you like anything to drink?" with "Do you have any 'soda'?" rather than "Do you have any 'tonic'?" in order to avoid being served tonic water by my confused host(ess).
I was also very confused the first time I encountered somebody from Texas who followed up the question "Do you want a Coke?" with "What kind?" When I asked her what she meant, she went on to list a bunch of different types of soft drinks she had, only one of which was Coca-Cola.
@Nana YoYo, when I moved to Kentucky (just outside Cincinnati) from Delaware back in 1986 I had to laugh at the local dialect. When they want you to repeat something they would say "please?" to which I initially said "please, what?"
Also, all of the extra "R's" that are missing from New England have migrated here and mysteriously added to words, such as "Warshington, DC" or "warsh" your car, or put "oirl" (instead of oil) in your car.
And of course you are right on the "y'all's"... There is a water tower in Florence, KY that you can see off I-75 that says "FLORENCE Y'ALL" in big letters.
I am from IL, but my parents say "warsh" all of the time, and it DRIVES ME NUTS!
If you're in New England, what the rest of the country calls a "milkshake" is a "frappe", unless you're in some areas of Rhode Island, where it can be known as a "cabinet", of all things.
@CrimsonWife - I was born in the south and I've always called soft drinks 'Cokes.' I thought everyone did until I traveled around.
@ MaxPowers & CrimsonWife,
I grew up in California and whenever we ate out it was always "What kind of "Coke" do you want?" Which of course meant what flavor soda. Sometime in the last 35-40 years (at least on the West Coast) the practice of calling soda generically "Coke" disappeared. They don't even call it cola out here anymore. It's soda. Wonder how that happened?
Damn right! A SODA has ice cream in it!
When I was a kid we lived in Northern VA. Our neighbors were from NY. The guy asked me once if I'd like a soda. I envisioned the ice cream treat that I used to get in the ancient (now gone) soda fountain in Indiana. Man, was I pissed when he brought me a coke! A coke (generic in many regions for any cola drink or in some regions for any soft drink at all) is NOT a soda.
When I grew up in Texas, all soft drinks were called soda water. Haven't heard it in a while.
21st Century Patriot - The first time I (a Pittsburgher) asked for a milkshake in Boston, I got a glass of shaken milk. When I questioned the waitress, she said that I hadn't asked for a frappe. The reason Rhode Islanders call a milkshake/frappe a cabinet is that they used to be made with carbonated water, and carbonate becomes cabinet with a Rhode Island accent. I lived in Providence for 7 years, and I thought that Rhode Islanders sounded funny until I went home and realized that Pittsburghers sounded just as funny, but in a different way.
For all you folks who have never lived in New England and wondered what happened to all those Rs that got left out of words like park and yard, they get added to words that end in ea or ia. For example, idea becomes idear, area becomes arear, and my name is regrettably pronounced Ma rear.
I'm from Central Indiana, and my daddy always called it "sody-pop"!! I sometimes still call it "soda-pop" myself. :)
Joy: I may have had a crush on you when I was a little kid. Did you ever live in Eagledale?
@Calvin-2982701
Thank you thank you thank you!
Growing up in Mendocino County, CA this is exactly the way I remember it as well!
Me to friend: "Hey you want a coke?"
Friend: "Yeah sure, What do you have?"
Me: "We've got coke, lemon lime, orange, and root beer,"
Soda is carbonated/selzer water, and a pop is frozen treat (e.g. Popsicle).
Diet Coke - is ordered in WA restaurants simply as "diet". When my DIL orders lunch and is asked what beverage she wishes - she says "diet" and that takes care of it. Since I never drink the stuff, I have no problems. "Water" seems to work just fine.
Crimson and Max-- I grew up in Southern Indiana, and we did that same generic "Coke" thing. This is how an order would go:
What'll you have to drink?
I'll have a Coke, please.
What kind?
Pepsi.
It's funny how most people don't realize they have an accent until they travel. I remember having a speech teacher who moved to our area from the north who spent YEARS trying to teach all of us redneck-Hoosier speakers the difference between the short "e" sound and the short "i" sound. PEN was a huge pet peeve for her. To us, ink "pen" and a push "pin" were pronounced identically- "PIN." She'd say, "It's pEn," and we'd say, "Pin." She'd say, "No, pEn," but to us, it sounded almost like she was saying "pUn." She started working there when I was a freshman. I remember FINALLY hearing the difference- when I was a junior. Some people never did hear the difference. :)
Try living in South Florida, where you don't have just regional accents. You have accented English that has translated into a completely different language altogether. (Spanglish, anyone?) Mee-da in Boston would be meter, but down here, its kind of like "pay attention" or dammi might be dummy in the north, but down here, its "give me." Still, I like the way people sound. Makes it interesting.
My husband is Hispanic...I love Spanglish. :)
Mira (pronounced "meeda") means LOOK!
Dame (pronounced "damay") means GIVE ME or GIVE IT TO ME.
I was born and raised in New England and had a very heavy accent when I joined the Air Force. One afternoon I was in the chow line, and as the rule was, we needed to have one of each utensil and as my luck would have it, I stood there looking for forks, and there were none.
I, as politely as I could, asked the woman working for a Fork, but my wonderful New England accent made it sound much more impolite to the woman who was of Southern Texas upbringing. I thought Fork, said Fawk, and I'm sure you can see what she thought I said. I was taken aback for a moment, not understanding why she was now becoming very upset. As Instructor after Instructor quickly made their way over to me to assist in my "professional adjustment" IE screaming at me from a hats brim away. I continued to try to explain, that "All I needed as a Fawk, I need a Fawk, I just asked for a Fawk", the yelling continued, I then had an "AH HA" moment, I then reported that "I have my spoon, I have my knife, but there are no more Fawks" it took a few repeats before the now 6 different instructors understood that it was an accent issue, to which they had quite a laugh at after returning to their positions. It was that day that I decided to do whatever I could to ensure to either A) have as little accent as possible and/or B) ensure that my accent was as close to the local accent as possible.
Greatly funny stuff! I sent a copy of your comment to several friends. I lived in Texas once and everyone told me that I sounded like a Kennedy. I don't - but they could tell where I was from.:)
I grew up in New England as well, and got used to mentally adding back the R's. When my husband was in the Army and stationed at Ft. Knox, I took a job as an office manager where one of my duties was taking phone messages. A gentleman called one time and gave his name as "Mahk". I wrote down "Call Mark". My boss called Mark later that day, and then came out to give me a talking to for messing up the phone message. When I explained what the gentleman on the phone had said, my boss laughed and said that in Kentucky, "Mahk" would be MIKE, not Mark.
And down South, Michael is 'Mackl' like Mack..
I was laughing so hard reading your post! I went to school in Boston and had many a head scratching conversation, where I was trying to decipher/translate what the locals were saying :D
I'll never forget when I worked in a church office with a British native (Manchester). We had a birthday party for one of the pastors and were cleaning up the parlor afterwards. She called out to everyone to "be sure to give me all your FOKS." Dead silence. You could have heard a pin drop. One of the older pastors asked her to repeat her statement. "I need your FOK." I haven't seen such serious clergy types laugh so hard! Poor girl didn't get what she said for the longest time. We were dying laughing and she kept asking for our FOKS. Hilarious.
I wrote a paper about this subject when I was in college. My father was in the military and we lived in places like Mississippi, Hawaii and Minot North Dakota. Every where I lived I would pick up the local accent especially in Hawaii, much to displeasure of my mom. Now my favorite accent is that of Arkansa trailer inhabitants.
Yes, also being an army brat, my brothers and I picked up accents willy nilly. Especially noticeable and humorous was the southern accent we brought home to Northern Ireland. But it evened out when my young sister who was learning how to speak then brought a Belfast accent back home to New York.
I wasn't an army brat, but lived in every major region of the US at one point or another growing up. When you're always "the new kid" in school, quickly conforming to the local patois can mean the difference between social survival or becoming a consistent "wedgie target." Needless to say, I developed an early talent for accents ;)
North Carolina has a lot of variation. Two people from the Smokies and the Outer Banks might as well be from different countries.
I called a business in Chicago once and after I hung up, the girl at the business called back. She had me on her speaker-phone and I could hear her co-workers laughing in the background. She had called back just so they could hear my Southern drawl.
JR, as a child I spent my summers at my family's summer place (read: mobile home) on Harker's Island. The accent and local patois there was unlike that of the rest of the Outer Banks, including nearby Beaufort and Morehead City. Later, I took a few linguistics courses in university; I learned that the English spoken on island has ties to Elizabethan English. Interesting.
I love regional accents. When my parents came to the U.S. from Europe, they settled in northeast Vermont, as later did two of their siblings. I have relatives born and raised in Vermont who will say "milk the cow" and it sounds like "meelk the kew". When they say "measure" it sounds like "mayzure". I live in new England, (Massachusetts) and the sound of the New England accent is supposedly what one would have heard in England 300 years ago. Inflections of speech that changed there were preserved in living language here.
I think the specific accent you're referring to is that of the Boston Brahmin, not the general accent that is generally accepted as being New England based.
Yea, I grew up in New England, and the New England accent is far different than the one described. I don't talk like that, and neither do most of the people I know in New England. However, a few areas (Boston being one of them) do have a lot of people that speak that way. It isn't a New England accent, it is a Boston accent.
You're right--it's generally true that in colonial countries like the USA, older pronunciations are preserved.
I have always been puzzled by an accent that removes the "r" from car--thus, cah--and puts it on "idea"--thus, idear.
I still recall asking someone from New Jersey to spell the surname they had repeated several times--"Clock"; totally baffled they spelled C-L-A-R-K.
Regionalisms and accents can be amusing, but can also interfere with clear communication, and unfortunately, can make one sound less educated.
If a word ending is "a" is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, that's when the extra "r" gets added by New Englanders.
Her name is Tina, but Tin-er is her name.
I have always noticed that the English and people fron the Northeast, do not pronounce their rss. It's part of a word and in the alphabet, so why can't the pronounce the r? I know a person that from the Midwest who will say something like, I need a beg. A what? A beg to put somethig in. Oh. A bag. Having been raised in the West, I thought that was pretty funny.
we moved from WI to New Mexico and I worked retail for awhile. I guess I said "beg" too, I would ask people if they wanted a bag, and inevitably got a "a what???" in reply....
My husband is famous in our circle of friends for saying "fleg" while watching football. Now when there is a flag, everyone cries out "A FLEG!!!"
This is entirely true! While I live in Chicago now, I am from NW Indiana. The whole of the population around Lake Michigan from Southern Wisconsin to Southern Michigan has a regional accent, but when you get farther south (in IN we like to say if you go south of US 30) the entire accent changes, gets more twangy and southern.
I am kind of an accented anomaly though, both of my parents are from Pennsylvania, and not only that they have completely different accents since they are from different parts of PA (Mom is western PA, Dad is more central PA), but they each have their own way of saying things that is completely different. One would think a state wouldn't have so much variation, but it does. I inhereted a lot of their regionalisms, on top of the NW IN/Chi accent I grew up with. My dad likes to make fun of the way I say back, or any word with the "ac" sound. Says I sound like a Hoosier, which I am. :)
Herb, this is from the website of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. Apparently, the dropped "r" began as a fashion statement! A way for the rich to be different.
"The Boston area and the Richmond and Charleston areas maintained strong commercial -- and cultural -- ties to England, and looked to London for guidance as to what was “class” and what was not. So, as the London dialect of the upper classes changed, so did the dialects of the upper class Americans in these areas. For example, in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, r-dropping spread from London to much of southern England, and to places like Boston and Virginia. New Yorkers, who looked to Boston for the latest fashion trends, adopted it early, and in the south, it spread to wherever the plantation system was. On the other hand, in Pennsylvania, the Scots-Irish, and the Germans as well, kept their heavy r’s."
I am multilingual and I have noticed that my accent, especially when speaking Spanish, changes depending on where I am while speaking the language. I tend to imitate the accents of those around me, often unconsciously. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that English is my first language and I learned the others by imitating. I learned my Spanish in Argentina but have pretty much lost the very distinct Argentine accent as the years went by and I traveled extensively to other Latin American countries. If I get to speaking with an Argentine, however, my old accent reappears almost instantly. And when I'm in Mexico, I start to singsong Spanish just like the Mexicans do.
I live in Sacramento, CA, and I LOVE sing-songy Spanish! I only understand enough of it to get me in trouble, but most native Spanish speakers here can either speak English or Spanglish, so it's cool. Being from No Cal almost my entire life, I really notice it when someone from anywhere east of here starts speaking. I always want to guess where they grew up!
This whole thing reminds me of a girl I worked with while I was in college. I was born, raised, & still live in Southeast Texas, & while she was still from Texas, she was more from the Northeastern part of the State & she had probably one of the thickest southern drawls I've ever heard! *LOL* I remember my first day at work when I met her, my first thought was "Good Lord, I work with a hick!" She turned out the be one of the nicest, smartest people you could meet, but anyway...She was dating & eventually married a baseball player who ended up being drafted into the Minor Leagues to play for a team somewhere up north (I believe Boise, ID, but I might be wrong...), & she'd go up there with him on weekends sometimes. Well, one Monday she came back & told us that they'd gone to dinner & she asked the waitress for a glass of ice. Well, you can imagine what it ended up sounding like with her drawl thrown in, & she said she had to repeat herself at least three times before the poor waitress understood!
"These changes, though, are unconscious, he explains." Are you sure they don't do it "subconsciously"? Or are they really "unconscious"?
Actually, among linguists "unconscious" is a term of art, and means something slightly but significantly different from "subconscious". Unfortunately, it's often a confusing bit of jargon for non-linguists, since for linguists it doesn't mean "involving a lack of consciousness", but rather "involving no conscious direction or notice".
Silly regional accent poem:
When I was on Tour, I saw, A wild boar, Eating Cole Slaw, right off the floor
When i was on taugh, I saugh, a wild baugh, Eating cole slaugh, right off the flaugh*
*(augh - as in "Cawfee")
When I was on Tore, I sore, A wild Bore, Eating cole Slore, right off the Flore
When I was on Tah, I sah, A wild Bah, Eating cole Slah, right off the flah**
**(ah - as in "October")
This whole thing reminds me of a girl I worked with for several years while I was in college. I was born, raised, & still live in southeast Texas, & she'd come down here from the northeastern part of the State to go to school. Now, I admit I have a pretty thick southern drawl, but hers was seriously one of the worst I've ever heard! *LOL* I still remember when I met her on my first day at work, my first thought was, "Good Lord, I work with a hick!" She actually turned out to be one of the nicest, smartest people you could ever meet, but anyway...She was dating, & eventually married, a baseball player at our university who ended up being drafted into the Minor Leagues & playing for a team up north (I believe it was in Boise, ID, but I could be wrong there...). She'd sometimes go up there with him on weekends, & one Monday, she came back & told us that they'd gone out for dinner & ran into a little problem. She asked the waitress for a glass of ice, & I'm sure you can imagine what "ice" came out sounding like with the thick drawl. *LOL* And she had to repeat herself at least three times before the poor waitress finally caught on & figured out what she was asking for!
I've lived up and down the east coast and the accent that I had the most fun with is roh-diland's!
Rhode Island accent is brutal, it's a bastard combination of Boston and New York.
Are you makin' a fun of us? (RI resident) lol
Belinda, honey, you still got it wrong. It's "ruh Diland".
(glad you had fun w/ us!)
It's YINZ! I'm not from Pittsburgh, but have many friends, we all speak our own language, let it lie!