# Question about accents? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 6, 2008, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268 "2008-05-06T06:45:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/61 "2008-05-10T15:14:32Z")
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable] Oh, dammit, I fucked up the quote tags in the middle. It’s piddling, but I guess I’d like to see it repaired; could a moderator remove the period from the [/.QUOTE] up there? (What’s the protocol on this? Is it reasonable to report the post to get it fixed?) [/QUOTE] Done. Yes, it is reasonable to report it. We’ll generally fix it if it makes a significant difference to the post and we see it within a reasonable time. We may not bother fixing minor spelling errors or typos that don’t change the meaning of a post. Since you can’t report your own post, the best thing to do if you want something fixed is to report another post above or below it and indicate clearly the post in question. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/62 "2008-05-11T16:46:13Z")
I didn’t want to start a new thread for just one reply so could anyone tell me what the accent is of Snake in the Simpsons? Cheers. ---
**Author:** ![Cillasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@Cillasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cillasi)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/63 "2008-05-11T19:30:24Z")
Ummm…if it’s south of the Mason-Dixon line, it’s “the south” and that line puts Pennsylvania and Delaware in the North and Maryland and (West) Virginia in the south, if my memory serves me correctly. [QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] Alessan writes: \> I thought Maryland is the South. No, it’s not, neither in terms of accents nor in terms of cultural divisions of the U.S. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/64 "2008-05-11T19:35:50Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Wow. I pronounce all of those differently, except for ‘peeing’ and the first part of ‘piano’. I wonder whether you distinguish things that I pronounce the same. Maybe it’s time for another Vocal Samples Thread. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Thus necessitating what for most of the country is a set of archaisms - “Bring me an ink pen.” “Do you have a straight pin?” “Will you stop peeing on every tree we pass?” ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2008, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/65 "2008-05-11T20:20:51Z")
[QUOTE=Lust4Life] I didn’t want to start a new thread for just one reply so could anyone tell me what the accent is of Snake in the Simpsons? Cheers. [/QUOTE] I’d say Southern Californian. The [Simpsons wiki](http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Snake_Jailbird) calls it a “Valley Boy” accent, which is roughly the same thing. Like an exaggerated surfer dude. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/66 "2008-05-12T02:43:20Z")
Cillassi writes: \> Ummm…if it’s south of the Mason-Dixon line, it’s “the south” and that line puts \> Pennsylvania and Delaware in the North and Maryland and (West) Virginia in \> the south, if my memory serves me correctly. Read the threads cited earlier about the question of whether Maryland is in the South. As I said, this isn’t really relevant to this thread and shouldn’t be discussed in this thread. The Mason-Dixon Line has no relevance to current cultural distinctions in the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/67 "2008-05-12T03:19:01Z")
[QUOTE=Inner Stickler] Do it! Please? [/QUOTE] Sure! Another Vocal Samples Thread [coming up](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=467688). :). Incidentally, what accent does [Dave Ramsey](http://www.daveramsey.com/) have? ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/68 "2008-05-12T05:29:03Z")
> [@](#): > > **diggleblop** : I can speak a perfect Tennessee accent. According to the chart with the dotted lines, there are at least four. I was aware of three dialects. I naturally speak two of them. I grew up in West Tennessee and continue a friendship from that period although I live now in Middle Tennessee. My husband is able to tell when I am on the phone with the friend from West Tennessee because my dialect shifts slightly. And we would be silly to ignore the neighborhood dialects within just one city. > [@](#): > > **BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed** : The midwest is supposed to have a very neutral accent, but I’m sure they deviate a little from dictionary English. Is it said that you have a neutral accent? A dictionary one? Standard American? If the broadcast schools had been located in the South instead of the Midwest, you would be saying that the South is supposed to have a very neutral accent. (The broadcast schools came first, _then_ the acceptance of the Midwestern accent as “broadcast standard.” Change you accent and you change people’s perception of you. You’d never know that Stephen Colbert is from Charleston, South Carolina, now, wouldcha, huh? Too bad that in such enlightened times people still have to do that. > [@](#): > > **indistinguishable** : …but they won’t tell you whether that vowel is a monophthong or diphthong (much less the precise parameters of its articulation). Which would be the accent-less realization of that vowel? It can’t very well be a diphthong if there’s only one vowel. Dictionaries won’t tell you the parameters because in recent years they have redefined, so to speak, their own task from how things _should be_ to how they _are_ – a much less elitist point of view. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/69 "2008-05-12T05:40:06Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] It can’t very well be a diphthong if there’s only one vowel. [/QUOTE] Really? :dubious: I think there are quite a few words that are written with only one vowel but are spoken with two vowel sounds. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/70 "2008-05-12T05:44:41Z")
[QUOTE=Zoe] It can’t very well be a diphthong if there’s only one vowel. [/QUOTE] I’m not sure what you mean by this; a single vowel phoneme most certainly could be realized as a diphthong (the vowel of my example in the post you quoted (the one in “fly”, “ride”, “hive”) is a diphthong in my accent, as are the ones in “say”, “so”, “soy”, and “south”, though they are all single atomic phonemes, and some of them are realized as monophthongs in other accents). ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/71 "2008-05-12T15:27:03Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > It can’t very well be a diphthong if there’s only one vowel. I was talking to a southern visitor about the planetarium show at the museum where I worked, and at one point she asked, “Do you see it in the planetarium?” I was a little puzzled by the question, but explained, “You just look up at the dome screen, and we project the night sky onto it.” She said, "Yes, but do you **see it**? I still didn’t get it, until she asked, “Do you see it, or stand?” She was asking, “Do you **sit** ,” but spread out the short I into a diphthong. I grew up south of the Mason-Dixon line, but had never heard “sit” made into two words. (Sheeee-it, yes, but not seeee-it.) ---
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/72 "2008-05-12T19:10:14Z")
On a similar -unrelated note- whilst traveling in Tennessee, we stopped in a convenience store to get some grub. I ordered a simple cold cut sandwich and the woman working the counter asked: “Do you want the deli?” I gave a sort of nonplused look and said, “Yes. I want, uhhh… deli meat on my sandwich.” She returned with an equally quizzical look and said, “No,the deli. The deli special,” and pointed to a handwritten sign that read “DAILY special! Sandwich + chips + coke for $2.99” ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2008, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/73 "2008-05-12T21:55:22Z")
I just took several online “accent quizzes” (for what they’re worth) and came up with “Midlands” (the supposed “newscaster” neutral) and “Western.” I have spent 19 years in Utah, 18 years in Southern California, two years in Eastern Ohio-Appalachia/Pittsburgh, and one year in Central New Jersey. I’m not very susceptible to accent shift, so it will be interesting to see if I’m still Midlands/Western after more time in NJ. I just realized that I’ve lived in a few places thought to have distinctive accents, but haven’t picked them up. Just to add to the dogpile: \*everyone \* has an accent. My co-workers, who are mostly New Jerseyians and Philadelphians, have an accent; they think I have an accent 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2008, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/74 "2008-05-16T20:42:18Z")
[QUOTE=Bosstone] I’d say Southern Californian. The [Simpsons wiki](http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Snake_Jailbird) calls it a “Valley Boy” accent, which is roughly the same thing. Like an exaggerated surfer dude. [/QUOTE] Cheers mate. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/75 "2008-05-16T20:44:20Z")
[QUOTE=TPWombat] Cheers mate. [/QUOTE] Sorry mods that was me not **tpwombat** ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268/76 "2008-05-16T22:16:49Z")
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] For that matter, what is bogue? Some Googling tells me that “bogue” is a slang word for a cigarette, but I’m not sure if that’s what meant in this case. [/QUOTE] Grew up south of Ann Arbor, we used ‘bogue’ as a diminutive of ‘bogus’ (bad), as a remnant of hippie speech. eg. “That is so bogue, dude.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-accents/448268.md?page=3)