As far as I know there are two basic types of southern accents, the everyday "typical’ southern accent we associate with country music stars and primary stump speeches. (Notice how Bill Clinton and Al Gore turned into Jerry Clower and Jeff Foxworthy when they campaigned in the south?).
Then there is the refined polished one, we associate with Virgina Tobacco Planters, Kentucky Horse Breeders, and Mississippi Riverboat Captains - the “Rhett Butler” accent.
But does anyone in the south really talk like that, or is it a convention used by (mostly “Yankee” or even British) actors to sound “southern” in films or TV series
(like “Blanche” from the ‘Golden Girls’)?
Is there anyone notable who has this “high class” Southern accent today in real life? Jimmy Carter is the closest example I can think of.
I was going to mention Jimmy Carter. He is the best example.
I have a theory that the high class Southern accent is an affectation. I know people who speak that way, and I know good and well that they grew up speaking the “low-class” Southern cracker accent and just made the switch to “put on airs.”
The fancy accent says “money,” and I think people affect the accent to separate themselves from their poor neighbors. After a while, it becomes natural to them.
I can tell you that Jimmy Carter’s accent is not a Plains, Georgia accent. It is a “money” accent. Go to Plains and you’ll find the common folk speaking cracker.
I have another theory, or a suspicion actually, that the “high-class” Southern accent did not exist as such until Gone With the Wind came out and people started imitating the on-screen accents.
Spoke, why suh, or ma’am are you intimatin that Mah refahned cultured accent is meant just to put on airs? How dahuh you suh, or ma’am! If you so much as suggest such even one moah tahm, why, I’m gon slap yew pure nekked in the middle of next week! 
Yowza! I do declare that ya’ll shall reesolve this heyah dispute by deweling with colt foh’tee five revolvers at twenteh paces.
but trust me! 
There are waaaaay more that two Southern accents.
Jaimest how bout if spoke- and I just drink a couple six packs, get all sloppy drunk and start saying I love you man.
Ogre’s right. I’m from southeast Texas and I don’t sound like an East Texan or a West Texan. And none of the above sound like South Louisiana, New Orleans or Southern Mississippi, which are all distinguishable. And there are more.
So…Am I to take from this that Foghorn Leghorn is an example of a high class accented southerner?
If you want to hear the classic Charlestonian accent, turn on C-SPAN sometime and listen to Senator Ernest “Fritz” Hollings (D-SC). He is at times nearly incomprehensible (even to Southerners :)) but he seems to be a pretty good example of one very distinctive brand of Southern accent.
Ok I know there’s more than one type of accent (dialect, idiom…what have you) in the south. Sorry I wasn’t clear.
But I would still say that there is a broader “southern” accent that more or less covers them all. As there are broad “Midwestern” or “New England” accents, then specific local accents within those regions.
Yet in films, or TV, you hear this very distinct mode of speech that quickly identifies a “high class white southerner” to anyone - yet I have never heard it in real life. It’s not so much a regional accent but a class related accent.
swampbear said:
“Jaimest how bout if spoke- and I just drink a couple six packs, get all sloppy drunk and start saying I love you man.”
Ooooh, can I watch? I promise I’ll be quiet, and I won’t touch nothing without y’all’s permission first. 'Cept maybe I might just want a lil sip of your beer. That is, if you’ve got a bottle you can spare along with a clean glass I can drink it out of 'cause I don’t like drinking beer straight out of the bottle. Beer needs to air a little so it can release all those yummy flavors that have been trapped inside the bottle.
Well, drink up now, fellas. Don’t get all shy on me. I want to hear those accents of y’all’s.
[giggle] Anyways, I’m not sure how I’d classify a broooaaaad Southern accent, jaimest. I think them refined accents you hear on tv and in the movies aren’t really true to form. I mean I just speeeak, and I don’t really set store on what come out of my mouth till somebody points it out to me. Likewise, I do note other folks accents. When I get around my people, my draawwwwlllllll just tends to deepennnnnnnnn. You knoowww? I can’t quite explain it. Now my mommmm’s got one a them, ummmmm, refiiiiiiined, lad’like accents, but I’m not sure how to characteriiiiize it beyond saying her accent’s different from my sister’s and miiiiiiine, even though she doessss draawwll too. ‘Course, they’s all kinds uh accents floatin’ round the South. Some ov’ ‘em realllll sloooowlike, and some’msreahfas. Metafelladownwayfromsomeolhicktown,anIsho’nuffcouldn’tunnerstan’awordhewassayin’. So I just smiiiiled, nodded, and inserted a “Um Hmmmm” in every nooowww and then, and he kept on tawkin till he said his piece and went on 'bout his bidness.
I’ll chime in, it was a hobby of mine while I was growing up in SC to guess the region of the state someone lived in by their accent. I was better than 50% by naming the “city”, or region, nearest their home. If you mean a stereotypical Southern accent, I can almost certainly guarantee it will fit no particular region, but be an amalgamation of perceived sounds. You may as well ask “What is the Asian look?” The vastly varied cultures and ethnic roots brought out vastly different (to the tuned ear) accents. To only see one is to see none at all.
Hm. My mother’s family is originally from North Carolina, although her relatives are strewn from Georgia to western Virginia. There are a few members of her family in the Charleston area that come the closest to the ‘high Southern’ accent as defined, but as Uncle Bill said, I don’t think there’s really an accent one could identify as being more ‘real Southern’ than another. Not surprising, really – Mainers and New Yorkers hardly sound the same, but they’re both from the same geographic region, yes? But if I were to say one area that sounds like it’s trying to be ‘high Southern’ (at least in my very humble opinion), it would be the speech patterns in the Virginia Tidewater area.
I identify a ‘southern’ accent in general as being a speech pattern that is slow(er), with some endings dropped or blurred into the next word. More of a relaxed way of speaking, if you will. That, and turns of phrase (or even words) which are colorful, but which aren’t typically used outside of the area. They seem given more to anecdotes and tale telling in general than the people of the North or East (or maybe that’s just my relatives. )
The more nasal accents (i.e. my dad’s family’s region of western Virginia/southeastern Kentucky - and yes, they do consider themselves Southern) are generally the regions where the families have been for a couple of hundred years. What’s really interesting in their case is how many of their usages (and even, to some degree, the speech pattern) are still similar to that of the Scots and Irish. The music and stories definitely are – I got really interested in old English, Scots and Irish ballads a few years back and was surprised to realize how many of them I had heard, almost verbatim, sung or performed by musical members of my dad’s family. It was neat.
I like Southern accents, though. They’re gentle to the ear and soothing to the nerves.
That’s because the accent you hear on TV in usually faked, and faked badly. The accent is wrong, the cadence is wrong, the speech pattern is wrong. Most egregiously, the diction is often wrong. It is painful to hear. If I hear one more actor/ess say “Y’all” when speaking to one person I shall scream. Again.
In Georgia there are three main geographic accents. North Georgia tends more toward ‘old country music’ southern, Middle Georgia tends to be less twangy, and South Georgia tends more toward the ‘softer southern’. South Georgia, especially along the coast, sounds more like the ‘refined’ southern of which you speak. I second Linors opinion that some Virginians consciously try for the ‘high southern’ sound.
There are, to be sure, differences in accent attributable to social class, but that is true in any region. How much is due to conscious effort and how much is due to environment is a matter for debate.
Not to me. After you’ve spent your whole life listening to a rural Florida accent (and don’t tell me that ain’t southern–if you think that, you’ve never lived here) and your teenage years getting rid of one, southern accents are not gentle on the ears OR soothing to the nerves, with very few exceptions. Thayat “twaaaang” drahves me raaaght up a waaahhll!!!
Noticeable Southern accents that I don’t particularly mind include Dixie Carter’s and Shelby Foote’s. It’s rare to find actors or people in the news media with a discernable Southern accent. As Doctor Jackson mentioned, very few actors get it right when they try—if I hear one more actor in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” say “[sub]Big[/sub] MAMA” rather than “BIG [sub]Mama[/sub],” Ah will jist scree-um!
What is funny is to listen to actors like Courtney Cox or Wayne Rogers (both of whom were born in Birmingham) but who long ago lost their accent—they sound really odd and stilted now when they try to speak with a Southern accent. I always liked Vicki Lawrence and Carol Burnett together, and a lot of the cast of the old Andy Griffith show did a good job.
As far as a “moneyed” or higher class accent, here in central Alabama there is an accent that I can only describe as “Alabama lawyer,” which is a very clipped or concise pronunciation, yet still has some of that moneyed planter timbre to it, with the soft “r” on the ends of words. I can even pick out a difference between lawyers who went to the University of Alabama and those who graduated from Cumberland. A name such as “Richard Frazier” is not “Rrrich-errd Fraaay-zherrr” but “Richuhd Frazhuh.” It is a required affectation in order to be elected to any state office, or to live in Mountain Brook.
My own accent comes and goes, depending on where I’m calling on the phone. Fortunately, I am a pretty good mimic, so if I have to talk to any out-of-state people (aka “dad-gummed furriners”) during the course of my job, I rarely have problems communicating. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Heh. Dixie Carter’s accent makes some stuff downright hilarious that just wouldn’t be otherwise. Example: “No, I don’t believe we can work for you. Because frankly, I find you to be lazy, rude, horny and dumb.”
By the way, I’m from the Tidewater area, and I don’t recall ever trying to “put on” any kind of an accent when growing up. So maybe that’s just the way people from Tidewater talk.
When I was a child, there was a different dialect for every town. There were some common elements that clearly communicated the level of education or refinement. People would change dialects in accordance with the occasion.
Shelby Foote has a highly educated Virginia/NC accent. Educated Southerner’s think through what they plan to say. When speaking, they taste every word they speak. Southerners speak slowly when in the presence of Northerners. They assume that folks who speak quickly rarely listen. They are busy crafting a retort rather than thinking about what was said.