The title about says it. I was born in Pennsylvania, lived there for two years; moved to Boston – for nine months. Moved to Western Connecticut (right on the New York border) when I was three, and I’ve lived there ever since.
I’ve long tried to determine whether I have an accent (knowing that everyone does). I’ve tried to keep an eye out for any regionally-specific usages. Much as it pains me, I’m beginning to believe that I truly speak the Queen’s English. Say it ain’t so. Point out what I’m missing.
Without hearing you speak, I don’t know what help we can be. Except to point out (for clarification purposes) that dialect and accent are separate things, and to some extent independent.
You may well be speaking Standard American English, but with a Connecticut accent – or a regional dialect, with a more generic “newsreader” accent. I doubt you’re speaking “the Queen’s English”, which would surely be Standard British English, even if you had some variety of American accent.
You’d certainly know if you were speaking any American dialect with the same accent as the actual Queen: people would be pointing at you in the street.
You sound just like Thurston Howell III.
Can’t you tell when someone is from south of Danbury and west of Stamford? Can you tell the difference between a shore accent and someone closer to Hartford? What about the rural parts of the state, like Putnam or Plainfield?
Years and years ago I did a stint as a bellman at the Dan. Hilton and could reasonably pick out general regions for intrastate guests. I don’t know if there are variations in Rhode Island, but that I took as a block. Not perfect, but enough to impress and up the tips. Wasn’t really that hard; they stand out.
Mr. Levins is from Connecticut; he says “draw” instead of “drawer,” and I can’t think of a phonic spelling for how he says the word “sausage” but it’s certainly a tip off that he isn’t “from around here.” Almost like the beginning of the word “sorry” only…“sausage.” Same for words like “awesome.” He also uses the word “wicked” as a description for any number of things, as in “that was wicked crazy” or “wicked busy” or whatever. Which is something only Yankees say apparently.
I’m sure he has other “oddities” because I like laughing at him for them, but I can’t think of any more at the moment. (His own pet peeve is the Texas habit of saying “do what?” when you really mean “what?” Like somebody says something you can’t hear, and instead of saying “What?” we say “Do what?” No, I don’t know why. But it drives him crazy.)
To answer the OP more specifically…to my ears he does have a definite accent, although he denies it because he says I don’t have one to his ears, so how can the reverse be true…but it is. Without knowing he’s from CT I would assume he’s definitely East Coast, but it’s nothing as noticeable as pronounced NY/NJ accents. (Which I’m glad of, because frankly I can’t take people seriously who have thick regional accents.)
Actually that’s funny. A lot of my friends who are also from Westchester County / Fairfield County area talk in an exagerated Thruston Howell III accent when we are trying to make fun of someone or something that we consider pretentous. Or for a sort of ironic self deprecating effect (affect?) when we are doing something that might be considered a bit pretentous (“Indeed! Let us adjourn for cocktails on the roof of that new hotel bar in Soho!! Huzaah!!”)
I wonder if we keep talking like that as we get older and make more money if it will no longer become an ironic joke and will just be the way we talk?
This is common throughout New England. There’s a tiny difference between how I say draw and drawer, but I know damn well that I’m not saying drawer like the rest of you do. People from Connecticut sound like other people from New England who don’t have the stronger Boston or Maine/NH “Yankee” accents.
Heh, thats part of it – Connecticut seems to equal “rich WASPy types”, stereotypically. Per above, I was just trying to say “drawer”, and while I may shorten it a bit, I don’t think I do a full cut-off to “draw”. Hmm, I’m thinking about making a little audio recording…is there a standard little snippet of speech that’s used in these situations?
Post up a sample. Try to speak at least 1 paragraph, introducing yourself would be good enough.
Not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty good at identifying accents. I can also tell where a foreigner’s English teacher was probably from.
The New England accent makes you sound like a Kennedy. No place in the US would have the British accent (i.e. “Queen’s English,”) but nowadays it’s not really something to be proud of. New Zealanders, Australians, Singaporeans, and people from Hong Kong all have it, simply because teachers tended to be British.
The standard American English accent is generally associated with the Midwest, ~Iowa, although Americans from many areas can do it if they try.
I’m hunting up my microphone, but on this: being from NE, I’d certainly disagree that Kennedy is typical of the whole region – he talks like people from Boston (and a portion of Mass) talk. A Mainer of the “old-school” would talk very differently (Stephen King hits it pretty well, but an old man going, “Ayup.” is typical). Hmm…
Most Nutmeggers / Connecticutians (link to Merriam-Webster) I talk with don’t have anything approximating a hoity-toity or New England accent. For the most part, it is pretty flat. One obvious thing that really stands out is that they swallow their T’s - e.g., “Important” becomes “Impor’unt,” with the accent still on the middle syllable. Their overall tone is a bit nasal, so the combination really stands out to my ear.
Different people will pick up different parts of the accent by moving places. The only way to know for sure is for you to record your voice. I restarted a thread on that a while back.
We could revive that thread, or try to come up with a new phrase to make your accent obvious. That’s the only way for us to tell you for sure.
FYI, some researchers at Yale and the University of Auckland are conducting research in North American dialects. The link is to the site soliciting people to participate, but I’m looking forward to seeing the results of their research. (Although I suspect that accents have lessened in recent decades with the influence of television.)
BTW, I’m from Connecticut, and in my opinion, people from there don’t have accents. Everyone else does.
There are many levels of dialects too. The Kennedy’s I would consider an “upper” dialect (e.g. the Queen’s English version of the New England/Boston accent,) while there is a “lower” version as well (e.g one example would be the film “Gone Baby Gone,” The British equivalent would be a Liverpool accent.) There are quite a few accents in New York as well, and I would lump them all together as a “New York accent,” much to the protestations of the people who live there.
A good way to see how sensitive your ear is is to watch South Park. Every family in the show has an accent from a different part of the country, implying they all moved to South Park. Even some of the couples have different accents. Kyle’s mother, for example, has a New York accent, while his father is further south. Kenny’s mother is North Dakota coal mine/trailer “people”, while his father is redneck south.
