Naw, thanks. Y'all just talk too funny

[smaft]

So here's the deal. I grew up (age 3-23) in a smallish town in rural North Carolina, surrounded by natives who'd been in the area for several generations. Twangy drawls everywhere- excessive diphthongs, "y'all", "Mamma and Diddy", etc., etc., etc. Even as a child, I didn't care for the way it sounded, didn't want to talk that way. And I have almost no Southern accent at all (a couple of my vowels, but non-Southerners don't notice;)).

A guy at work, very soft-spoken with a neutral accent, recently disclosed he's from Queens, NY. His name IS Tony, but that's the last place you'd expect he came from. And he'll tell you he, too, consciously did not like the accent he grew up in and never picked it up.

And here I was beginning to think I was the only one. Is this actually a common occurrence, are we both just freaks?

[samclem]

Yes, you're a freak and so is Tony! :D Hey, you live in Seattle, whadda you expect?

I'm curious--when did you move from North Carolina? And to where? If you lived there until you were 23, and now have no noticeable accent, why, you're amazing! Maybe you lost it in college?

As for Tony, I'd be curious as to where he lived and when. If he grew up in Queens until he was, say, 18, and then moved West, it would be strange if his accent didn't come along with him.

And he'll tell you he, too, consciously did not like the accent he grew up in and never picked it up.

If this is possible, then I missed something. I am not totally saying it can't be, but it sounds implausible, that one can consciously reject an accent that they are bombarded with day after day, and not come away with that accent after 18-23 years of hearing it.

[StephenG]

Just to add my own story... I'm from the suburbs of Boston, with two parents from Southie (the South Boston neighborhood, for you non-locals). Most people from my town and surrounding area have a Boston accent, as does my father. My mother doesn't. My sister, who tends to take after my father, has the accent. I, who tend to take after my mother, don't.

I still cringe when people mistake a New Yawk accent for a Bahstin accent, and I can affect the accent whenever I choose, I just don't use it in normal speech. (Except in the word "drawer", which I pronounce "draw". But ever since I became aware of this, I've done it less and less...)

I sometimes hypothesize that I don't have the accent because I like to blend into my surroundings. (I'm good at picking up other people's accents, too, which adds to the theory.) This makes sense when I'm in Ontario, but I don't slip into the accent when I'm home, either -- perhaps because I mostly associate with people who don't have the accent.

This leads me to speculate why some people don't have the accent, and I'm usually led to assumption that the people I speak with are more educated. Even my father, who has a graduate degree and works in professional circles, loses his accent when he's speaking to business associates/clients. I don't think this is a conscious decision on his part.

I don't mean to imply that people with a Boston accent (or any!) are uneducated, or anything of the sort. Rather, people who are even subconsiously aware of how they're speaking (e.g., in formal settings) and the effect, may revert to the accent known as "General American". (With folks on the other side of the Atlantic reverting to "Received Pronunciation".)

That's a loose working theory, with far too many assumptions and inconsistencies, and not intended to be derogatory in any way. It's just what I'm sort of thinking at the moment.

[samclem]

StephenG We need a few facts.

Where was your father born? Where did he spend his first 18 years? Where were his parents from?

Where was your mother born? Where did she spend the first 18 years of her life? Where were her parents from?

And, I would like to know if you lived in the house with your father and mother for the first 18 years or so of your life? And did your sister?


Example: My parents were born and lived in Danville, Virginia for the first 18 years of their life. I was also born in Danville.

They moved to Northern Virginia in 1947, when I was three. I grew up with a mother(at age 78) who still has an accent that would melt butter in her mouth. My father has lost some of that. I never had it. I went to school and associated with kids who were from varied locations. I have, essentially, no accent.

I'm still not convinced that people with an accent that they acquired in ther formative years can "turn it off" and speak in a non-accentual way. But I would love to hear from someone who can offer some facts.

[Scarlett67]

Dunno, but my father speaks with a Southern drawl. People always think he's a Southerner, but he was born in Upper Michigan and has never lived farther south than Wisconsin. Can anybody figure that one out?

[BlackKnight]

I wonder if the proliferation of movies/TV (starring people who only very rarely have strong accents) might have something to do with it? A child growing up in a heavily accented area (for lack of a better term) might be bombarded by the accent daily, but might also idolize and emulate, consciously or not, TV or movie stars.

Just a WAG, really.

[anenquiringmind]

being from the South, I have an accent,but not one of the thick ones. Thank You God....... We genreally say I (eye)
not I (ahh) etc. however
there are people who live in the the same town who talk so BAAADD that even we cant understand a word they say!

Also, my niece has always had , right from the git go, the thickest accent imaginable, NO ONE
around her talks that way, We have no idea where it came from. We do however bring her out on occasion and show her off.

[dwyr]

Both my parents were born and raised in Kentucky, as was I, but neither spoke with the usual country accent. Neither do I or any of my siblings. I just always supposed this was because we spoke the way our parents did. Now why they didn't have any accent beats me. Certainly our cousins do and my Grandmother did to an extent. Mom reared us kids in a town not 40 miles from where she was born and raised. Several times, while we were dining out, the waitress would ask where we were from and would always be amazed we were locals.

I just figured we were mutants.

[Zsofia]

Many adults who grew up on modern TV and radio and such don't have strong accents these days, especially if they leave home for some other region. However, it's extremely common for these same people to get tired or drunk and have it all come out - get me tipsy and another South Carolinian can peg my birthplace to within a few counties. While everybody around you might have an extremely thick accent, you hardly ever hear any accent at all in the media we surround ourselves with these days. It's kind of a shame, really.

Also, people hold on to speech quirks, like saying "kin" and "fixin' to" and "I reckon", when they don't necessarily have obvious accents. I'm quite guilty of this one - it's because you don't even notice it. (I don't know how to excuse "she fell out of the ugly tree and hit every damned branch on the way down, didn't she?")

[hazel-rah]

Television doesn't have any effect on your accent, even if you watch it 24/7 (and some people do). Television influences our lexicon, particularly catchphrases, but not our accents or grammar.

Moving to a new town, on the other hand, does. Interaction with different people is what makes your speech habits change.

If you told me you grew up immersed in a particular dialect and came out of it without speaking that dialect, I'd be... well, suspicious. But don't take that to mean I don't believe you, I'd just want more information about when exactly you stopped speaking in dialect and adopted Standard American.

I envy mimics their ability to easily pick up and imitate accents, and appreciate social desparation in most forms. If I could adopt other accents, I would. All the time. My mother was English and I can't fake an English accent to save my life. Nevertheless I still hope to someday end up in a situation where I need to fake an English accent to save my life, because the events leading up to that point would no doubt be amazing.

-fh

[AWB]

My wife is from Maine (a Mainiac?). Anyways, she doesn't have a Maine accent, but her immediate family does. She didn't try to get rid of one she had, she just never developed it. Oh, also our nibling on her side don't seem to have accents, but it's tough to tell in children.

I also had a friend from New Jersey when I grew up in Colorado. Her accent only came out when she drank. :D

I don't think I have an accent, but my wife says I say certain words funny, mainly those with a long-O sound: e.g., roof, route, etc.

[ElDestructo]

Another tangental anecdote:

I was raised in rural east Tennessee, surrounded by some very thick accents. Have you ever heard "yesterday" pronounced "Yist-dee"? Well, I have. Quite a bit.

I now live in Memphis, not exactly a city known for neutral, Midwestern accents. For about two years I waited tables at a kind-of ritzy restaurant where I had to wear a shirt and tie and white apron. That sort of thing. After i'd been there a few months, a curious thing started happening: people thought I was English or Austrailian. The first time it happened, I had a table ask me "How long have you been in this country?" I thought they were ignorant freaks, but replied politely "All my life!" Then it started happening about once a week. So many people were asking me where I was from I made a game of it. "Where do you think I'm from?" I would say. "New Zealand" and "Austrailia" were the most common responses. To this day I am at a loss to explain it. I don't think I have a very thick accent. I did try to drop my accent when I went to college, but I was only partially successful. It is most noticeable when I read a new word and try to pronounce it. The new word always comes out in the thickest of TN drawls. And I was a pronunciation disaster when I took French. But to my ears, and to almost everyone else I know, I have no trace of Aussie in my accent. The only explaination I could come up with was that some, less cosmopolitan folks thought anyone who was very polite (as I had to be while I was working) and who occasionally used a big word or two must be English.

[robby]

As an Army brat, I was raised primarily in Texas and Tennessee. When I was 14, we were transferred to Illinois. I was teased unmercifully. Consciously or not, the southern accent just vanished.

Though I then went to college in Houston, the accent did not return (unless I was around my family). I did get the word "y'all" back, though--quite a useful word, really.

Incidentally, when I was a freshman in college. I took a linguistics course. On the first day, the prof tried to guess where we were from based on how we pronounced words, and what words we used for objects. Example for carbonated beverages: pop (midwest), tonic (Boston), coke (Texas), etc. Anyway, the prof was just a loss when he got to me.

[ElDestructo]

Another tangental anecdote:

I was raised in rural east Tennessee, surrounded by some very thick accents. Have you ever heard "yesterday" pronounced "Yist-dee"? Well, I have. Quite a bit.

I now live in Memphis, not exactly a city known for neutral, Midwestern accents. For about two years I waited tables at a kind-of ritzy restaurant where I had to wear a shirt and tie and white apron. That sort of thing. After i'd been there a few months, a curious thing started happening: people thought I was English or Austrailian. The first time it happened, I had a table ask me "How long have you been in this country?" I thought they were ignorant freaks, but replied politely "All my life!" Then it started happening about once a week. So many people were asking me where I was from I made a game of it. "Where do you think I'm from?" I would say. "New Zealand" and "Austrailia" were the most common responses. To this day I am at a loss to explain it. I don't think I have a very thick accent. I did try to drop my accent when I went to college, but I was only partially successful. It is most noticeable when I read a new word and try to pronounce it. The new word always comes out in the thickest of TN drawls. And I was a pronunciation disaster when I took French. But to my ears, and to almost everyone else I know, I have no trace of Aussie in my accent. The only explaination I could come up with was that some, less cosmopolitan folks thought anyone who was very polite (as I had to be while I was working) and who occasionally used a big word or two must be English.

[Cervaise]

(hazel-rah) Television doesn't have any effect on your accent, even if you watch it 24/7 (and some people do). Television influences our lexicon, particularly catchphrases, but not our accents or grammar.
How sure are you of this? I seem to recall a major thesis in The Story of English (co-written by the late newsman Edwin Neuman), that many dialects in the British Isles have been diluted over the last few decades by the prevalence of BBC broadcasts, with their "Standard High London" dialect (or whatever it's called). Has this been discredited?

[ruadh]

My accent (suburban DC) is correctly identified as American 95% of the time here in Ireland, where I've lived for the past year. Occasionally I get taken for Northern Irish and, bizarrely, Australian, but those are pretty rare instances.

My best friend (also from suburban DC) was out here visiting last week, though, and an interesting thing happened: several random strangers we got into conversations with - cab drivers, barmen, etc - told me that I was picking up a bit of an Irish accent. Nobody ever has said this when I've been on my own, so I think it's probably only recognizable when contrasted with the accent of an American who actually lives in America. It's probably less a case of picking up an Irish accent than of toning down the stronger aspects of the American one, though.

And Cervaise, I'd be careful about using The Story of English as a source for anything.

[Saint Zero]

Now this is a funny one. My Dad was born up north. (Gasp! :)) My Mom is native. Dad moved down here when he was young. I've lived in Jackson all my life, and I still get asked by people here if I'm from here! Now, what's funny, when I've been up north and talked on the phone with my Canadian friends, I get pegged in a second for being from the South.

Of Course, all the ladies agreed I had a sexy voice, but that's another thread...

[KneadToKnow]

Originally posted by samclem
Where was your father born? Where did he spend his first 18 years? Where were his parents from?

Where was your mother born? Where did she spend the first 18 years of her life? Where were her parents from?

You sound just like a drama prof I ran across in school. He did voice coaching and dialect instruction and refused to believe me when I told him that I was a South Carolina native, son of two South Carolina natives, grandson of ... well, you get the picture. Two or three generations back, at least.

No discernable accent whatsoever, and he was a professional accent detector.

BTW and FWIW, I know it's deliberate on my part because I am told that my dialect starts to peak through the later it is and the tireder I get. It was also noticeable when I was around my grandmother, God rest her.

Sign me "Puttin' On Airs," y'all.

[Cervaise]

And Cervaise, I'd be careful about using The Story of English as a source for anything.
Huh. Wasn't aware of that. Good to know. Thanks.

[elelle]

Saint Z... ya mighta let a "might-could" slip in there. Or maybe the wayward "h'yah".

Hell, I'm all the way up here in Nawth Carowlina, and I'm *missin'* the MS accent. :(

Please drawl all ya want...

[hazel-rah]

Cervaise: How sure are you of this? I seem to recall a major thesis in The Story of English (co-written by the late newsman Edwin Neuman), that many dialects in the British Isles have been diluted over the last few decades by the prevalence of BBC broadcasts, with their "Standard High London" dialect (or whatever it's called). Has this been discredited?

Pretty sure. As ruadh said, be wary of The Story of English. It wasn't written by linguists. See if you can find "Language Myths" in your local bookstore. One of the essays in it by J.K. Chambers, a sociolinguist, is about the myth of television's influence on our speech. It's not the most in-depth essay, but it should be easy to find and has pointers to other stuff if you're interested. Be interested!

Sometimes Received Pronunciation is called BBC English, since they use it, but it didn't originate with the BBC, and its status the model of "correct" English pronunciation in the British Isles doesn't derive from the fact that it's used by the BBC. TV is a red herring. Think social upheaval from the industrial revolution and how accents are class indicators. If you're a middle-class Englishman for whom the aristocracy is out of reach and you would sooner die than be mistaken for a working class bloke, using RP is a good way to go. I won't say any more because my memory is hazy and I might be making this up as I go along. Personally I think they should use Mark E. Smith as the model for correct English pronunciation-uh.

A tangerine-flavored anecdote: When I was in Montreal, even the Anglo speakers would assume I was from Toronto. Pretty shameful accent-wise for a Texan. I later found out that assuming someone in Montreal is from Toronto is something of a left-handed assumption. It's like asking a Texan if they're from Oklahoma :)

-fh

[tomndebb]

Both my parents grew up in Nap Town (pronounced NA yuhP taown) (i.e., Indianapolis) and lived there until their early thirties--as did all their brothers and sisters. The family is a complete melange of accents with several people carrying their down home twangs into their 60s while both older and younger siblings had very little discernible accent, sounding more like Chicago or Detroit.

Neither of my parents (who only moved to Michigan at 34 and 33) was ever picked as a non-native in the Detroit area (except when my mom would let fly with cattywampus to mean diagonal).

The same thing was repeated in the next generation who stayed in Indy: my Dad's older brother had no "down home" accent, his middle son did, while his oldest and youngest sons did not.

[Zyada]

Here's an interesting article from Smithsonian on language: Accents Are Forever (http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues01/jan01/phenom_jan01.html)

"By their first birthday, babies are getting locked into the sounds of the language they hear spoken"

This article is about how infants 6 months old can distinguish sounds not used in the local language, but by one year of age, they can't anymore. For instance, a Japanese six-month old can tell the difference between "la" and "ra" but not a one year old.

So we get back to the same question - where are your parents from and where did you live before you were three?

[aenea]

Wasn't this all covered in "My Fair Lady"?

I thought Prof. Higgins had pretty much proved that accents can be consciously overcome.

Enunciation people, enunciation.

;)

[smaft]

Originally posted by Zyada
Accents Are Forever

"By their first birthday, babies are getting locked into the sounds of the language they hear spoken"

So we get back to the same question - where are your parents from and where did you live before you were three?


I suppose I should respond, since I started this! ;)

My parents aren't from N.C. (mother from Chicago, father Florida); before I was 3 we lived in California, Michigan, Tennessee, and Michigan (again!). Per responses and the quote above, I would expect to speak some conglomeration of mid-Western and deep Southern- but I don't have either. My sister, though, one year younger, had a real mid-West twang at first, then changed to the local drawl.

We had the same environment- same household, same schools, roughly the same age, etc., but she tawks suth'n, I don't. (Or, rather, she did until she moved to the Southwest- she's lost much of it since!)

Hmm... the mind boggles. Well, okay, maybe not.

[Lute Skywatcher]

I'm originally from rural northestern Illinois, about 90 miles south of Chicago, but went to high school near New Orleans. My geometry teacher had a strong drawl, some of which I picked up. I now speak with a strong Midwestern nasal mixed with a drawl and can really bring out the drawl when necessary, like when singing "Jambalaya". I once was on an Amtrak from DC to Chicago; after hearing me speak with the attendants and a few words to him, my seatmate asked if I was Canadian. He seemed a bit confused when I said I wasn't. Admittedly, I do have a odd accent, but Canadian?

[StephenG]

To answer samclem's questions, my parents were both born and raised in South Boston (just a few blocks frome ach other, actually), attending Southie High. I believe their parents were also from Boston. I know that both of my grandmothers, at least, have the Boston accent.

Originally posted by samclem
I'm still not convinced that people with an accent that they acquired in ther formative years can "turn it off" and speak in a non-accentual way. But I would love to hear from someone who can offer some facts.
If my accent's turned off, it's been turned off for a long time now. Ever since I started school, maybe. I think I just never acquired the accent...

Originally posted by BlackKnight
I wonder if the proliferation of movies/TV (starring people who only very rarely have strong accents) might have something to do with it? A child growing up in a heavily accented area (for lack of a better term) might be bombarded by the accent daily, but might also idolize and emulate, consciously or not, TV or movie stars. That's right; I always wanted to be Luke Skywalker. :D

hazel-rah, see my earlier post for why I think I lack/stopped using my native accent. Your guess is as good as mine! (I do often wonder why I don't talk the way I should, though...)

robby, it's always been "soda" to me, although I've started saying "pop" since Ontarians look at me funny for the former. My whole family all use "soda" .. I think "tonic" is a much older word, even in the Boston area.

There seem to be a couple of folks here who know sibling groups with mixed accents.

[hazel-rah]

This article is about how infants 6 months old can distinguish sounds not used in the local language, but by one year of age, they can't anymore. For instance, a Japanese six-month old can tell the difference between "la" and "ra" but not a one year old. So we get back to the same question - where are your parents from and where did you live before you were three?

That's an interesting article, Zyada. I can readily believe that language acquisition begins that early, I would be surprised if we didn't discover it begins even before that. But it seems misleading to say that and then say "Accents, in whatever language, stubbornly hang in there for years, decades, a lifetime, without being easily rubbed out."

That could imply that the language or accent you learn in the first year or so of your life is the one you are stuck with for potentially all of your life, and that doesn't jive with what I know about child language acquisition, which is basically that kids can pick up new languages and dialects without half trying up until they hit puberty, and with sufficient immersion, will speak them with native speaker proficiency because in effect they are native speakers.

Going from the example you quoted, to my knowledge, although a Japanese one-year old will lose the distinction between /r/ and /l/, if you later expose them to a language where that distinction is morphologically significant, like English, then they will learn to distinguish it again. For example, a bunch of Japanese families moved into our neighborhood when I was in the first grade, and we had Japanese kids in our class that didn't speak a word of English. By high school you would never guess they hadn't been here their whole lives. No trace of a Japanese accent.

On the topic of accents within the same language, I spent the first two years of my life in England. Then we moved to Texas. I have no English accent at all. All my favorite bands seem to come from there, however.

I'd still go with samclem, guessing that whatever accent your peer group had when you were about age 13-18 will be the accent you take with you. But then some people have a talent for modifying their speech or learning new languages.

one other thing to note:

samclem: If this is possible, then I missed something. I am not totally saying it can't be, but it sounds implausible, that one can consciously reject an accent that they are bombarded with day after day, and not come away with that accent after 18-23 years of hearing it.

Sadly, I can think of situations where this can happen. If you grow up speaking a dialect that society deems bad or lower class or stupid, you might quickly learn, either from being harrassed by your peers or being scolded by your parents, to never ever speak that way.

smaft, I grew up surrounded by Texas Twang, but I don't have one. Not because I don't like it and consciously avoided it, but because none of my peer group used it. Could this be the case with you? Also, your parents having a strong accent does not mean that you will. Parents don't influence the accent of their children that much, unless their kids talk to them and them only. Sorry parents!

-fh

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

Originally posted by tomndebb

Neither of my parents (who only moved to Michigan at 34 and 33) was ever picked as a non-native in the Detroit area (except when my mom would let fly with cattywampus to mean diagonal).



Well, this doesn't speak to the overall differences in your family's accents... But I do know that there are traces of "southern accents" in the Detroit area and other places in MI. Earlier in this century--ooh, wait, it's 2001, make that LAST century [that's the first time I've had to say that woohoo!]--there was a pretty good migration of Southerners up to MI to work in the automobile plants. There was work up here (this might go for other places in the rust belt, too).

There are still vestiges of the culture here. Our nearby town, Ypsilanti, gets called Ypsitucky a lot because of the southern influence there. And I don't know if THIS is related to or attributable to that migration northward, but the top money-making concert venue in country & western music is just outside of Detroit.

Anyway, there are still pockets of Southern accents here in SE Michigan, and little traces of former accents are in a lot of people's speech. So if your parents brought a little bit of Southern Indiana with them, it might not have been noticed as much as it could have been in, say, Albany.

[smaft]

Originally posted by hazel-rah

I grew up surrounded by Texas Twang, but I don't have one. Not because I don't like it and consciously avoided it, but because none of my peer group used it. Could this be the case with you? Also, your parents having a strong accent does not mean that you will. Parents don't influence the accent of their children that much, unless their kids talk to them and them only. Sorry parents!

-fh [/B]

Unfortunately for me, I can assure you my peers were born-and-bred natives of Naw C'lina. Rednecks & white trash everywhere (well, they weren't all that bad, but quite a few were!)

[Zyada]

hazel-rah - I think I agree with you that the thesis of the article is suspect, although the research is very interesting.

For another data point, my mother and her sister grew up together (they are 4-5 years apart in age). When my mother graduated from HS, she stayed in Ft. Worth and married my father who was from West Texas. When my aunt graduated from HS, she moved to central Texas and married a man there. My aunt has a very pronounced Central/East rural accent, while Mom has very little accent, certainly in comparison to Aunt Martha. The main difference between them is that Mom went to work for American Airlines reservations (where she got teased for her accent) and made a concious effort to reduce her accent. OTOH, Aunt Martha became a teacher and principal in local schools.

IMO, all of the reasons listed already have an effect on accent. I doubt that any person is going to have an accent based on only one effect.

smaft - it sounds like there was a distinct emotional component to your rejection of a southern accent. It may be that you rejected the accent because you were unhappy in some way about the move. At that age, it's hard to say what could have been happening, because most people don't remember events from that age range well, and most children of that age don't have a very good perspective on events either.

[Sunspace]

<hijack>
Apparently southern Ontarian and northern US accesnts are becoming more similar. Look for an article in the Toronto Star at http://www.thestar.ca/. It's in the "Canada" section, titled "Language free trade with U.S. is eh-okay" by Peter Calamai.
The URL just doesn't work in the SDMB; possible the wordwrap of the entry form introduces newline characters that munge it.
</hijack>

But I still remember the nasal Upper New York State accent on Buffalo (NY) television from when I was a kid...

[jsc1953]

Originally posted by tomndebb

Neither of my parents (who only moved to Michigan at 34 and 33) was ever picked as a non-native in the Detroit area (except when my mom would let fly with cattywampus to mean diagonal).

Interesting...are you sure you're remembering this right? I always have heard cattywampus as meaning cock-eyed, screwed-up; whereas catty-corner means diagonal. Unless you'ver uncovered a regional variation of some sort. :)

[tomndebb]

jsc1953:
Cattywampus, as spoken by my mother, meant diagonal. The word has appeared on this MB a few times, and the four or five other posters who noted it gave diagonal as the meaning.

Since it is obviously a partially invented word with a limited range, I am not surprised to see your meaning applied to it (and would not be at all surprised to see that become the primary meaning if the word survives another decade or two).

CrankyAsAnOldMan:
We lived in Royal Oak before the Kentuckians moved through it (most settling in Hazeltucky to the east) and then lived in Rochester (where there was never a strong influence of the Middle Dialect of the U.S.). Neither of my parents had any sort of twang and we did have a (very few) neighbors with down home accents that were remarked upon.

Listening to the gathered siblings of either of my parents, you would generally come to the conclusion that each family had members raised in at least three separate regions of the U.S., yet my mom and her five siblings and my dad and his five siblings all lived within the same section of Indy throughout their childhood. You can walk the circuit of the four houses where the two families lived from 1909 through the 1940s in about fifteen minutes.

(I lived in Ypsi for a year, but I didn't pick up any of their speech--of course, I was long out of school when I lived there.)

[Phallyn]

I was born and raised in Mississippi (and you thought smaft was from the South! ;-) and yes, I have the heavy, rolling "drawl" right on down. My mama was born in the Delta, and I have a much rougher and more "country" accent than my city-bred peers.

Phrases like, "Ah'm fixin'to!" are common in my home, as are:

"Ah gaht sumthin' in mah ah."

"Shut up in there, ya lil' haint!"

"Yer buying pickets to the movies? Ya'll get me some, won't ya?"

There is a difference between "Y'all" and "Ya'll". Notice the apostrophe. "Y'all" is short for "You all", that clumsy phrase Northerners (or less politely, 'Damn Yankees') are wont to use. "Ya'll" is short for "You will", as in "You will mow the lawn t'morrow, or yer Daddy'll tan yer hide!"

And for the record, we never, *ever*, use "Y'all" in the singular sense. "Y'all" stands for two or more people! I would never say, "David, y'all go get me a coke" unless David has a few multiple personalities.

Interesting story...my mama, my brother (yes, I called him "bubba". Stop laughing.) and I were vacationing in Florida. We stopped at a steak house and all ordered glasses of tea. The waitress stared at us a second and asked, "What kind?" We ogled her in shock, and then my mama replied, "Sweet! What other kind is there?"

Suffice it to say, the waitress cracked up, and said, "Y'all from Mississippi, ain't ya?" We were all astounded, and asked how she knew. "The way you talk. And that you ordered tea and expected only sweet!"