Don’t let them bring you down. I’m a Virginia boy and have a bit of an accent myself. I live out in the mountains of the Blue Ridge and any damnyank who wants to make fun of me (or frankly anyone out here) will get his own customized accent: the one you get by speaking through missing teeth.
So have some pride. Here’s a Tom Petty song that might cheer you up. Be who you are and devil take the hindmost.
Southern Accent by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
There’s a southern accent, where I come from
The young’uns call it country
The yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talkin’
But everything is done, with a southern accent
Where I come from–
Now that drunk tank in Atlanta’s
Just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando
If them orange groves don’t freeze
I got my own way of workin’
But everything is run, with a southern accent
Where I come from–
For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there, with me
There’s a dream I keep having
Where my mama comes to me
And kneels down over by the window
And says a prayer for me
I got my own way of prayin’
But everyone’s begun
With a southern accent
Where I come from–
I got my own way of livin’
But everything gets done
With a southern accent
Southerners must have stolen the recipe when they invaded Pennsylvania because I have had it served to me in Alabama
and in restaurants here in Virginia.
Oh,no, you mean that wasn’t Rebel Pot Roast I had last night?
On the face of it, shoofly pie SEEMS like it should be a southern dessert…one slice can bring on instantaneous and simultaneous insulin shock and tooth decay. It’s right up there with pecan pie in that regard.
I’ve had a southern pot-roast variant called “Creole Daube,” which originated in bayou country outside of New Orleans, and shows a definite Italian immigrant influence…you Cuisinart a couple of onions and about half a head of garlic with a few pounds of fresh tomatoes, put the puree into a Dutch oven with a nice big chunk of beef chuck or top round or whatever you like to make pot roast out of, then simmer it for about four hours. The only seasoning that goes into it is salt and pepper. You serve slices of the meat with the gravy over spaghetti. It’s…REALLY good.
In Canada a lot of people like to make fun of Newfoundlanders or “Newfies” and this is due in part to the uniqueness of their dialect. This must be where people think we all say “aboot” and not “about”.
I have met Newfies without much of an accent, it depends on where they live as even Newfoundland has many different accents within it’s confines.
The best thing about most Newfies I know is that they have a great sense of humour aboot themselves and they are considered to be the friendliest people in all of Canada.
Because of our adaptation to the heat and humidity. Not much better, in my estimation, than a hot, sultry, humid day in the South, followed by a cooling thunderstorm. The heat and “closeness,” as my grandmother called it, causes you to slow down, pace yourself. Our slower pace of life down here (Virginia born and bred - the family came over in 1615)translates into slower speech, slower driving, slower to change in general. I, for one, love it and can never imagine living anywhere else. I’m sure the good folks in Brooklyn, St. Louis, Phoenix, Walla Walla, and Compton all feel the same way about their little corners of the world. More power to them.
Accents are used to establish social status. When there was conflict between the north and the south, stereotypes were created about southerners to derogate them and exalt the northerners (and their views) by comparison. Since the north has a much larger population, those stereotypes were perpetuated and passed down to our society at large, through Gomer Pyle and the like.
[It’s much the same with a British accent, which to an American ear sounds refined and classy - at least until you’ve met enough Englishmen to unlearn the association (doesn’t take that many, usually). Americans used to have this inferiority complex where Europeans were concerned: our Founding Culture! So much better than we provicials could do! So we elevated the British accent. The Brits, of course, were happy to go along with it and still often consider an American accent some kind of mark of intellectual inferiority, or at least lack of sophistication. Oddly, many Americans act like they believe it too, when they’re in the by-definition-sophisticated company of people speaking with British accents.]
Beware of what lies beneath the subtle Canadian accent. There’s a reason they won’t let us on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire - ratings would go in the toilet if you had to watch all the money heading off to Canada.
Though you are right about the French-Canadian accents. You guys want Quebec?
