Some regional American accents are strongly associated with a single word or phrase - because people almost always use it when demonstrating how that accent sounds:
Long Island: “Lawn Guyland”
Boston: “pahk the cah in Hahvid Yahd”
Any others? I’d also be interested to hear examples from other languages/countries.
Working-class Chicago accent: “Daaa Bears.”
“Là là” , often exaggerated with additional “là” for effect to describe the accent of the people of Saguenay -Lac-St-Jean.
Y’all for the South.
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edit already.
“Hoi toid” is the local pronunciation of “high tide”, for the Hoi Toider accent located on the outer banks of North Carolina.
Ya can’t get they-yah from hee-yah. Maine.
“Yinzer” for those of us from the Pittsburgh region.
“Yah sure, you betcha” (or just “you betcha”): upper Midwest, particularly Minnesota.
“New Joisey” for the New Jersey accent
Southern California: Duuuuuuude.
Ay-yuh.
Awwww-HEEEE: Cajun or “Nawlins” for New Orleans, even though I’ve never heard a native say it that way.
“Yo” and “jawn” for Philly, though the former has been largely culturally appropriated by a jealous nation.
“Nah then” for stereotypical Yorkshire, “Ayoop” for Lancashire, “Look you” for Wales (that one’s in Shakespeare), “See you, Jimmy” for a Glaswegian, “You’ll have had your tea” for an Aberdonian, “Wotcher, cock!” for any Cockney over 70 or so, “Ooh -arr” for anywhere in the West of England (do NOT be tempted to use any of these if you’re visiting).
Which exit?
Bawlmer, Merlin
…and if you can get there from here:
“Ya go up the road a piece, and take a left where Clahk’s fahm* used ta be.”
*[Clark’s farm]
More like ‘daaa Bearss’ - slightly more sibilant ‘s’ sound. At least according to the 9000 SNL ‘Bears fan’ skits I’ve seen.
Our friends to the north (or to the south if you’re a Detroiter):
Ending a sentence with ‘eh’: “how’s it going, eh?”
Or ‘sorry’ (with an ‘O’ sound as in ‘sore’).
Or “let’s go oot and aboot in the boot”.
People in the US say “Aboot the hoose” to mean a Canadian accent.
In Indiana, children use “Talk country” to refer to a rural accent.
We said this (“talk country”) back in the 70s in a college city in southern IN, and I have heard children using in a different southern city in the 90s, and in Indianapolis in the 2010s, and very recently. I’ve never heard an adult say it though, and when I first said it to my non-Hoosier bred mother, it took her a minute to understand what I meant.
There is a pretty sharp distinction, I should say, between the rural and the urban speech in Indiana. I once misunderstood a high school classmate saying her house “was on fire” as saying her house “wasn’t far.”
In all fairness, I didn’t move to Indiana until I was 4, and I’ve lived other places; I think I speak mostly the generic “American” than either the New York (Manhattan), where I learned to speak, or the urban Hoosier, with which I grew up.
Toidy-toid and toid for Brooklyn, or possibly genericized to all of NYC.
“The <highway number>” for California.
I’ve heard it several times from natives but I can’t say it correctly myself, let alone recreate in text. But here goes. Something like “Bal’mere”.