You know the one I mean, but it’s hard to describe. Think Tommy Chong, Otto the Bus Driver, or - going way back - that guy from the TV commercial for the Freedom Rock album (“Hey, man is that Freedom Rock? Well, TURN IT UP!”)
When you mimic that hippie stoner voice, what exactly are you doing? What is it called? Is it an accent? Is it a regional thing? Is it based on a character, or did real hippie stoners actually speak like that?
Don’t forget Sean Penn’s famous portrayal of Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Seems like its origins lie in coastal California. More than that I cannot say.
And of course Wikipedia has an article on it.
The article goes into details about the origins of the Valley Girl and Surfer Dude accents, as well as the Chicano English influences, and has a lengthy section on the California Vowel Shift.
Forget that old saw « A language is a dialect with an army. »
Nowadays, you’re only a dialect until there’s a wiki language article.
Lampooned on SNL.
My, God. When I read the title of the thread the Freedom Rock “Well turn it up, man!” popped into my head immediately.
And the ghost of Dr Pavlov makes a tick mark on his chart.
“mellow-speak” I like it.
Dave’s not here, man.
Munchese.
I have frequently found reason to say, “Oh, wow, look at the moon” since I read that strip in 1979.
I’m not sure it’s an accent so much as just the slurring and slow cadence typical of a heavily stoned speaker. Possibly with some added degree of long-term brain damage from drug overuse.
Just FYI , I have lived in CA all my life, and have never heard anything at all like that SNL skit.
Now some terms do slip in, I have always liked “dude”, but The Big Lebowski seems to have influenced that.
Yes, some of the slang 'whatever" and such, is around. Now, I do live only 30 minutes (with traffic) from The Valley, but still.
The funny thing is, I’m from Toronto, and I actually had a classmate in high school who seemed to speak with the “surfer dude” accent. He reminded me a lot of Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. I wonder if it wasn’t just some kind of affectation.