And to those who think that Americans don’t have much of a range of accents: you need to get out more.
I can usually pick out Illinois vs. Iowa vs. Wisconsin vs. Minnesota, and that’s a pretty small area of the states.
Then there is Texas, which probably has at least five distinct accents.
An extreme example: I once had a 20-minute conversation with a small-town Cajun, and didn’t understand a single word he said. Since he was at least 6’6" and 300#, I made every effort to pretend that I did.
Personally, I have always found a Carolina accent lovely, although I can’t separate the variations yet.
It’s interesting this subject came up. I’ve been watching the new season of the new Battlestar Galactica series, and there was this character by the name of Tarn. I won’t go in to spoilers or anything, but I had to rewind his dialogue a few times because his voice sounded so darn familiar to me. Eventually I decided he sounded like Sawyer, on Lost.
But the guy who played Tarn was likely from Canada.
Curiously Tennessee is one of the very few places in the States I have actually been to, but I didn’t recognise that.
Funny that it became a discussion. I really did think someone would just say “this or that place” and that would be it. And yes, I think for Ireland we could do that for a lot of the counties.
By the way, I think it’s a nice sounding accent. Will anyone swap me some Tennesseans for some Irishmen?
I don’t get people who claim they can tell from an accent where in the South someone is from. (With the exceptions of obvious Cajun, Appalachian, or Tidewater accents).
I hear Sawyer’s accent all over the South, from the Carolinas out to Texas. (See middleman’s post making the apt comparison between Sawyer’s Georgia accent and that of Texan Matthew McConaughey.)
In my experience, to the extent there are different accents in the South, they are mostly due to differences in class rather than location. Blue collar types up to middle class tend to sport a Sawyer-esque accent, while many in the upper classes cultivate the “moonlight and magnolias” accent with exaggerated drawl.
My father had a strong Appalachian accent and when he traveled people always asked if he was from the south. So even “obvious” accents aren’t necessarily obvious.
