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We watch a lot of British content on streaming services, and I find the variety of accents interesting. I’m also impressed by the fact that so many actors from the UK act as Americans in American movies and television, yet I don't think many American actors make a similar transition - in British TV and movies, they typically play American characters. I’ve only recently been able to figure out what is unique about the Welsh accent. Looking up regional accents and figuring out what a “scouser” is has made for personal entertainment.
We watch a lot of Australian and New Zealand content as well, and I’ve not yet been able to discern the difference between these two.
But now, of course, back to the US. I grew up in Maine, then enlisted in the service and spent time in Texas, Mississippi, and Idaho before going to college in Syracuse. Next I was off to my first officer assignment in North Dakota, where I discovered that whole Dakota and Minnesota accent and pattern of speech that I had literally never heard before. Years later Mrs. Tex and I went to see “Fargo” at a San Antonio theater, and the exaggerated North Dakota accents combined with the Coen brothers' humor had us howling.
After a few months in North Dakota (the world’s third largest nuclear power), Mrs. Tex was off to Mississippi for pilot training. Now, remember, she had never been out of the northeastern US. As we checked out of a hotel, the clerk said, “y’all come back again.” Once we were outside, Mrs. Tex asked, in befuddled honesty, “What did she say?”
Now that we have been in Texas for 39 years, she fixes to do things, waits on people, and asks, “Who all is going?”
I may have related this on Ricochet before, but I knew I was naturalized in the South when on a visit to Maine, one of my aunts was talking about how my uncle had to get shots before he went to a Navy reunion in California. As I tried to figure it out, I realized that what he needed were shorts. I had absolutely failed to interpret Maineiac speech, despite having lived there for my first 20 years.
Vive La Difference!
Discussion (75)
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Mississippi has a few different dialects and sub-dialects, but the worst is Mississippi MushMouth. Lord help me, I thought that was a different language when I first encountered it at around age eighteen. I was working in a grocery store and covering the produce department one day when a fellow came up to me and asked a question. I did not parse out a single word.
"Pardon me, sir, I did not catch that."
He repeated himself, and I still had no idea.
After I asked for clarification again, he motioned his wife over, and she translated in a much more standard Southron dialect, "He's asking where the okra is."
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With the people I listen to, I hear so many different variations of UK and derivative accents, that it has all settled into a stew of people who speak English but ain't from 'Merica.
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I like how they have three in Scotland, but they are actually separate languages.
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It's surprising to me how well many British actors do American accents. Canadians sound very American to me until I hear the "ou" sound or a word like progress. Northerners may be surprised at how southern a Virginian can sound and how northern a Georgian can sound. Folks around western Pennsylvania hardly distinguish the names Don and Dawn. Accents are fun.
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Well, a lot of folks have no idea where the Mason-Dixon line is and that Maryland is Southern. Also, most of Illinois, a very long state, is below the Mason-Dixon Line.
As for Georgia, that's from all the Yankee carpetbaggers moving to Hotlanter back in the day. But try Macon or Columbus.
Also, Northern Florida around the Panhandle? Those folks have Southern dialects you can cut with a machete, but get further south in the state, and the dialect evens out towards Midwestern. Again, Yankees and Canadians coming to Florida and whelming the original dialects.
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