What's. Your nationality?

[bitterhope]

In the area where I live, there are several accents, all southern except that the true “hillbilly accent” isn’t of quite the same nature. But it’s counted as southern.

Another is what is sometimes referred to as the “Arkahoma accent”; a sort of southern/southwestern mixture. All truckers seem to have adopted it. Mildly amusing thing, I know an Asian doctor whose son became a doctor. The father was born in Asia, but the son was born here. Anyway, the son picked up a very major “Arkahoma” accent locally. I can just imagine how new patients are sometimes surprised to hear that come from the mouth of an Asian. It would be kind of like hearing a very Hispanic-looking person with a very Texas accent. Some Hispanics have lived in Texas since the dawn of time, and a lot of them have Texas accents that are not normally associated with Hispanics at all. Kind of like listening to a black person with a hillbilly accent (I have). You just don’t expect it.

Yes, there are many regional accents but all are unmistakably southern. And when they are put on it really gets to me. You can hear it when it’s fake. Some of my cousins are biracial and have accents not usually associated with the race people think they are, but everybody can tell it’s real. I can tell over the phone, on the radio, movies…

My kids look very Hispanic but have no real accent at all. My husband has a thick accent (he learned English as an adult) and mine is thick too. But we’ve moved 8 times in 14 years all over the US and a few other countries in Europe and South America. My poor kids have picked up it all! Some words will sound southern, others are sound Spanish, some are western (2 yrs in AZ and loved it! Want to go back), midwestern, Yankee (thanks to grandma), seriously no one can p(name removed by moderator)oint their accents.

One thing that bugs me more than someone faking an accent is when I’m somewhere besides the south and people will ask me to say a particular word just because they find it “so cute.”

 

[LegoGE1947]

Yes, there are many regional accents but all are unmistakably southern. And when they are put on it really gets to me. You can hear it when it’s fake. Some of my cousins are biracial and have accents not usually associated with the race people think they are, but everybody can tell it’s real. I can tell over the phone, on the radio, movies…

My kids look very Hispanic but have no real accent at all. My husband has a thick accent (he learned English as an adult) and mine is thick too. But we’ve moved 8 times in 14 years all over the US and a few other countries in Europe and South America. My poor kids have picked up it all! Some words will sound southern, others are sound Spanish, some are western (2 yrs in AZ and loved it! Want to go back), midwestern, Yankee (thanks to grandma), seriously no one can p(name removed by moderator)oint their accents.

One thing that bugs me more than someone faking an accent is when I’m somewhere besides the south and people will ask me to say a particular word just because they find it “so cute.”

I never expected to hear a black person speak "The King’s English " such as someone right from Africa or Britain speak. What you said about asking someone from a certain area to say a particular word because it sounds “cute” would bug me too, so I don’t do it. ( I might have to ask the person to repeat the word if I don’t understand what they said, but that would be the exception)

 

[bitterhope]

I never expected to hear a black person speak "The King’s English " such as someone right from Africa or Britain speak. What you said about asking someone from a certain area to say a particular word because it sounds “cute” would bug me too, so I don’t do it. ( I might have to ask the person to repeat the word if I don’t understand what they said, but that would be the exception)

Yeah, people always expect my kids to have a Spanish accent and not something jumbled or generic. One of our current neighbors adopted four children, two from Africa, one from Asia and one from Central America. These kids have lived in TN all their lives just about, so you can imagine the surprise on a lot of people’s faces when they hear the thick southern drawl roll if their tongues. These “kids” are older teens now. It doesn’t ever surprise me because we have traveled so much and live in communities that are transient. We’ve kind of seen it all I guess.

And thank you for not playing the parrot game. It is rude! Asking to repeat if not understood is different and never bothers me, or anybody I know. It’s understandable and prevents problems from miscommunication. The other is just childish.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes, there are many regional accents but all are unmistakably southern. And when they are put on it really gets to me. You can hear it when it’s fake. Some of my cousins are biracial and have accents not usually associated with the race people think they are, but everybody can tell it’s real. I can tell over the phone, on the radio, movies…

My kids look very Hispanic but have no real accent at all. My husband has a thick accent (he learned English as an adult) and mine is thick too. But we’ve moved 8 times in 14 years all over the US and a few other countries in Europe and South America. My poor kids have picked up it all! Some words will sound southern, others are sound Spanish, some are western (2 yrs in AZ and loved it! Want to go back), midwestern, Yankee (thanks to grandma), seriously no one can p(name removed by moderator)oint their accents.

One thing that bugs me more than someone faking an accent is when I’m somewhere besides the south and people will ask me to say a particular word just because they find it “so cute.”

When I was in college in Yankeeland, in my class I was from the most southern place of any student, except for a couple of guys from parts of Oklahoma that weren’t much farther south. (I’m in SW Mo)

Anyway, some of the guys would have me pronounce things just for entertainment. One of the most common was “I like ice”. Knowing, as they did, that I was from the Ozarks, that seemed to fascinate them as well. (One guy from New York had always thought the Ozarks was a fictional place…didn’t really exist, and thought I was pulling his leg about where I was from. Insularity, it appears, can exist anywhere.)

Anyway, some of my fellow students enjoyed hearing my Ozark stories. I started out telling them things that were real. But seeing how much they enjoyed those stories and were astounded by them, I eventually started just making some of them up. Made me wonder just a bit whether that sort of thing encourages erroneous sterotypes. When people are just rendered slack-jawed by the truth, it’s awfully tempting to embellish. My stories about the “spook light”, and catamounts, though, were all true. Well, and the “Baldknobbers” really did exist, after all.

Possibly one of the strangest things was when I remarked that I had been surprised by the last names of so many of the students; Polish, Lithuanian, Slovak, Ukrainian, German, you name it. My surprise surprised them, and my hearers asked what I meant by that. “Well”, I said, "where I’m from everybody is named “Smith” or “Jones” or “McKnight” or “Shelton” or something like that. Nobody has a name like “Androzunas” or “Mazziovecchio” or “Schickschneit” (some of the students there)

They didn’t believe me, so after one vacation period, I brought a telephone book from home. It was astonishing how interested people were in looking through it. They did have to admit there were virtually no names other than the kind I said were there. One upper class English major remarked, jokingly, that Faulkner probably got the names for his characters out of my home phone book.

My “piece de resistance”, however, was when I brought an article from my home town newspaper about a fellow name Slats James who shot an extraordinarily large razorback hog near Shell Knob. Just about every element of that story caused Yankee synapses to fire uncontrollably. But they had to believe it. It was right there in black and white.

All of it was in good humor, though.

 

[bitterhope]

When I was in college in Yankeeland, in my class I was from the most southern place of any student, except for a couple of guys from parts of Oklahoma that weren’t much farther south. (I’m in SW Mo)

Anyway, some of the guys would have me pronounce things just for entertainment. One of the most common was “I like ice”. Knowing, as they did, that I was from the Ozarks, that seemed to fascinate them as well. (One guy from New York had always thought the Ozarks was a fictional place…didn’t really exist, and thought I was pulling his leg about where I was from. Insularity, it appears, can exist anywhere.)

Anyway, some of my fellow students enjoyed hearing my Ozark stories. I started out telling them things that were real. But seeing how much they enjoyed those stories and were astounded by them, I eventually started just making some of them up. Made me wonder just a bit whether that sort of thing encourages erroneous sterotypes. When people are just rendered slack-jawed by the truth, it’s awfully tempting to embellish. My stories about the “spook light”, and catamounts, though, were all true. Well, and the “Baldknobbers” really did exist, after all.

Possibly one of the strangest things was when I remarked that I had been surprised by the last names of so many of the students; Polish, Lithuanian, Slovak, Ukrainian, German, you name it. My surprise surprised them, and my hearers asked what I meant by that. “Well”, I said, "where I’m from everybody is named “Smith” or “Jones” or “McKnight” or “Shelton” or something like that. Nobody has a name like “Androzunas” or “Mazziovecchio” or “Schickschneit” (some of the students there)

They didn’t believe me, so after one vacation period, I brought a telephone book from home. It was astonishing how interested people were in looking through it. They did have to admit there were virtually no names other than the kind I said were there. One upper class English major remarked, jokingly, that Faulkner probably got the names for his characters out of my home phone book.

My “piece de resistance”, however, was when I brought an article from my home town newspaper about a fellow name Slats James who shot an extraordinarily large razorback hog near Shell Knob. Just about every element of that story caused Yankee synapses to fire uncontrollably. But they had to believe it. It was right there in black and white.

All of it was in good humor, though.

Thanks for the laugh!

My husband pulls that stuff too. He started telling true stories as well and they just expand. The guys sit around on deployments listening to “actual” accounts of La Lloranda and Chupacabras chasing him around his town. It’s sad that so many believe everything he says because he has backed up many of his tall tales with proof like you did.

And well, I’m not from the hills, but when I get together with my dad’s family in Appalachia, I do start speaking hillbilly. My kids laugh at the words we use together and the way things are pronounced. It really is a different language. Never been to the Ozarks, but my sister lived in So Mo for about 10 yrs. Now she’s north of Kansas City. She says she misses it down there.

 

[AClaire11]

I’m originally from Connecticut (USA), but my mother was born and raised in Texas, so I had a Southern accent when I was little. My parents have video evidence. Now that I’m living in Virginia, it’s starting to come back!

 

[LegoGE1947]

I’m originally from Connecticut (USA), but my mother was born and raised in Texas, so I had a Southern accent when I was little. My parents have video evidence. Now that I’m living in Virginia, it’s starting to come back!

Is anyone remember “Deacon Bill” on EWTN. He used to appear on their “Daily Mass” sometimes and do the Scripture reading. It was funny to hear him speak Latin with a Tennessee accent.