I’m pretty sure that was not the point of the OP, but you do have a generally valid point regarding the various accents of the South and Central states of the U.S.
There are several things that have led to this (none of them “fair” or, at times, even very accurate).
The South remained mostly rural long after the North was industrialized and there is a long tradition that “city slickers” are either sharper or more sophisticated than rural folk.
Several Southern states spent a significant portion of the last 150 years (or longer) refusing to invest in education, meaning that there was a greater likelihood that an “average” person from the South would be more poorly educated than an “average” person of the North. (During that same period, of course, there were many brilliant and well educated people in the South, but they tended to be viewed as exceptions.)
Some archaic practices continued in sections of the South and were treated as though they were representative of the entire South. (For example, in a few places, feuding continued well into the 19th century. When the Hatfield-McCoy feud was played up in many papers (North and South) it was treated as though it was a bunch of “hillbillies” just shooting each other for breakfast, even though the reality was rather less bloody than portrayed and that it was actually more of a “gang war” for political power between two groups that were not particularly poor or uneducated.)
Southern writers did nothing to diminish the notion of the South as a haven for the poor and culturally backward, with novels such as Tobacco Road and Faulkner’s tales of Yoknapatawpha County. (Contrast the essential nobility of Steinbeck’s portrayal of the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath.)
If someone is portraying a “dumb hick” in a movie, it is easier to give them an accent from Alabama or Tennessee than it is to set them up with a a lot of exposition explaining that they are from a farm in Ohio (and sound like anyone else from downtown Columbus or Toledo).
It is not fair, but then the world tends to not be fair. (OTOH, complaining about being pilloried for your Southern accent after posting “i think it is genetic since both are from warm to hot climates.” is probably not helping to make your case against Southern ignorance.)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by tomndebb *
It is not fair, but then the world tends to not be fair.
*(OTOH, complaining about being pilloried for your Southern accent after posting “i think it is genetic since both are from warm to hot climates.” is probably not helping to make your case against Southern ignorance.
Howdy Tom,
If I used the word “fair” or implied the concept of “fair”, it was a mistake on my part (I did not review my post). “Fair” is an egualitarian meme, I’m a Darwinian and a Dawkinsian (memetics).
Was I complaining? Complaining is a reaction to the egualitarian meme “fair”, if “fair” is in ones meme box.
Again and again, I am saying that climate and diet are the “ultimate causes” for the first differences in language, and likewise for skin color. Our ancestors in the South chose to eat watermellons more than they chose to eat meat because it was adaptive. This is genetic selection (I think).
The emotions of shame and embarrassment are the reactions to social comparison, if your genes and memes are less than equal to your competitors, in the “perceptions” of a “significant” evaluator.
As far as all the literary stuff explaining anything, it’s all second culture, the “third culture” (science) is gradually replacing it. “Who is John Galt”?
I have long read and admired tomndebb’s erudite thoughtful posts here and elsewhere, and am loath to put myself in the unenviable position of disagreeing with him. . .
However, I must say that anytime a “hick,” or person from the “South” is portrayed in a movie, they are not given an accent from Tennessee or Alabama, rather they usually adopt a godawful generic southern accent (call it Hollywood Southern, perhaps), that sounds abominable and unlike any person from the South I have ever heard. The latest example is the Engineer on the new Star Trek: Enterprise series. Where the hell is this fellow supposed to be from?
There are exceptions, we once had a “Who Did A Good Southern Accent in Movies” thread on the SDMB, but they are few and far between, and usually come from actors from the South or ones very familiar with th various regional accents and dialects therein.
I’ll accept that correction easily enough. I recall an NPR broadcast on regional accents in movies and TV. One of the points was that there is some guy who has gotten a name for himself in Hollywood training actors to speak with various regional accents–but he is clueless regarding how people actually speak.
The prime example given was the accent that Julia Roberts had in Steel Magnolias. According to several linguistic scholars, her natural speech patterns are closest to what she should have spoken to fit the character as written in the book (and, one presumes, the movie), but she wound up speaking some godawful drawl that sounded like no one in the world.
