Naw, thanks. Y'all just talk too funny

Factual Questions
1

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?

2

Yes, you’re a freak and so is Tony! :smiley: 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.

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.

3

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.

4

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.

5

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?

6

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.

7

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.

8

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.

9

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?”)

10

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

11

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. :smiley:

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.

12

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.

13

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.

14

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.

15

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?

16

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.

17

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…

18

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.

19

Huh. Wasn’t aware of that. Good to know. Thanks.

20

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. :frowning:

Please drawl all ya want…