Comments on footnoteMaven: An Accent - Have You Got One?

I love that commercial, and the accents youtube vi...

2009-10-29T09:45:49.942-07:00

I love that commercial, and the accents youtube video was funny! :)

I was born and raised in Alabama. I've got an...

2009-10-27T11:13:29.916-07:00

I was born and raised in Alabama. I've got an accent. I don't know why some people equate a southern accent with being less intelligent. Just sterotyping, I guess. Anyway, I'm southern and proud of it. Y'all come visit.

My Jersey-born in-laws often eat aranges that are ...

2009-10-26T09:25:35.125-07:00

My Jersey-born in-laws often eat aranges that are kept in the drawa in the refrigerator. I think they believe I'm the one with the accent even though I've lived in the (mostly) accent-free West all my life.

However, the funniest incident I've ever had was in a Manhattan restaurant with my Jersey-born husband and his sister, who married a Floridian with a true Southern accent that has softened over the years. A family sitting at the next table over was clearly from the South. The sister's huband turns to them and strikes up a conversation with, "Where bouts y'all from?" with the thickest accent I've ever heard out of him. Who would have thought in the middle of Manhattan over a cup of "caffee" he'd find a fellow Southerner?

I have no accent whatsoever. I'm accent depriv...

2009-10-26T06:42:24.162-07:00

I have no accent whatsoever. I'm accent deprived and all the poorer for it.

I must admit, I am drawn to the sounds of conversational Polish and when I hear it spoken in crowds I can't help but search for its source. Polish isn't the most melodic of languages. Its close cousin, Russian, is much more so. But it is the sound of the Polish language that reminds me of my youth, visits with Grandma (who never learned English), and boisterous family gatherings.

Interestingly, when I took Polish language classes several years ago, my teacher told me that I had an exceptional ear for the language. He also said my pronunciation was dead nuts on... the best he'd ever hear from a non-native Pole. I attribute that to the many years of my youth spent listening to a language I couldn't understand but was fascinated by.

Sherry - Glad you liked it. Kansas has an accent....

2009-10-25T14:50:53.870-07:00

Sherry -

Glad you liked it. Kansas has an accent. Depending on where you're from it can be a refined Midwestern.

-fM

Great post! I loved reading it. I tend to think th...

2009-10-25T14:25:30.166-07:00

Great post! I loved reading it. I tend to think that we hear in Kansas, being in the middle of everything don't have much of an accent, but I do hear occasionally... "Oh, I love your accent?" To which I think, if not acutally reply, "Oh, me? What accent!"

Love your Tweets!

Hmmmm, Brooklyn? -fM

2009-10-25T12:00:58.690-07:00

Hmmmm, Brooklyn?

-fM

I was born in Seattle, which is sort of accent-les...

2009-10-25T11:41:09.684-07:00

I was born in Seattle, which is sort of accent-less, actually, if you ask me, but have spent the past 40 years in Texas... guess which accent has won?

Joan: What a turn of phrase . . . "my McPher...

2009-10-25T10:05:38.118-07:00

Joan:

What a turn of phrase . . . "my McPherson family's Scottish accent was smoothed out just as the wind takes the rough edges from the hillsides around here."

Beautiful writing. It's one of those sentences that easily paints a picture similar to my favorite description - corduroy roads.

Girl, I'm on my way over to your blog for a good read.

-fM

Denise: OMG! I love your sugah. This has been so ...

2009-10-25T10:01:53.145-07:00

Denise:

OMG! I love your sugah. This has been so much fun listening to your written dialect.

-fM

Anonymous: Do you think Madonna just acquired tha...

2009-10-25T10:00:34.559-07:00

Anonymous:

Do you think Madonna just acquired that British accent because she was surrounded by it?

I have caught myself doing it and I do think they thought I was mocking them.

-fM

Here in the southern Oregon, my McPherson family&#...

2009-10-25T08:11:11.436-07:00

Here in the southern Oregon, my McPherson family's Scottish accent was smoothed out just as the wind takes the rough edges from the hillsides around here. I dinna realize what we must have sounded like 150 years ago, when that first McPherson of mine brought his Scottish brogue to NYC, and then Wisconsin. But a few months ago, I found and called a cousin of sorts, who is a generation closer to the old Scot. Introduced myself as coming from the McPherson family. Her skepticism of my lineage was clear when she replied, "Well, I dunno, we are McFearrrsons."

Now sugah, ya'll just know this little Fla'...

2009-10-25T05:01:02.168-07:00

Now sugah, ya'll just know this little Fla'da girl can turn on the Southern charm - and drawl - whenever it suits her purpose. And, although my part of the South (NE Florida) never had one of the "cultured" dialects, my Charleston and Savannah genes kept that beautiful low country drawl embedded in my soul.

I am from Michigan and went to college in Chicago....

2009-10-24T22:44:14.845-07:00

I am from Michigan and went to college in Chicago. According to my dad, I acquired a twang there that he wishes I hadn't. It is embarrassing, but I too fall into whatever accent I hear. I have the feeling some may think I am mocking them or trying too hard to fit in, when I almost can't help myself but to do it.

Donner & Greta, you can even write with an acc...

2009-10-24T18:56:41.444-07:00

Donner & Greta, you can even write with an accent. Wow!

-fM

Or can she do Picksberg? Hah baht dem Stillers? ...

2009-10-24T18:48:17.508-07:00

Or can she do Picksberg? Hah baht dem Stillers? I don't have an accent unless I happen to be talking to a person with the accent - a professional hazard for the linguist, I guess. My husband is also one of those accentless people - the only one in a family with very strong Brooklyn accents.

Killa, I would kill to have your non-accent! D...

2009-10-24T15:39:40.549-07:00

Killa,

I would kill to have your non-accent! Damn that Amy Walker is good. But yo, can she do Fillufya like me?

Donner

I love accents. That sound that gives a picture of...

2009-10-24T15:21:19.565-07:00

I love accents. That sound that gives a picture of some part of this country or a place in the world.

Thanks for stopping and commenting, Missy.

-fM

I grew up in an accent vacuum -- Montgomery County...

2009-10-24T14:39:21.805-07:00

I grew up in an accent vacuum -- Montgomery County, Maryland. It's where a lot of the government folks who work in DC work -- many are from areas all over the country and they come and go with each administration.

The result is that I'm kind of an accent sponge -- if I'm in an area with a definitive accent, I might develop a lilt of it while there. I'm living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland now, which has long Philly/watermen Os and a southern twang. I find myself lapsing into that accent nowadays, more often than not.

Missy

Oh Thomas, in my next life I will be a southern be...

2009-10-24T14:02:56.306-07:00

Oh Thomas, in my next life I will be a southern belle as well.

-fM

Oh my dearest fM, I too am an accent outcast. My ...

2009-10-24T13:57:12.537-07:00

Oh my dearest fM, I too am an accent outcast. My mother was raised in Jersey City and I too grew up with strange words such as Cawfee, Buttah, and weird names for Italian food like rigaut, canoles, manigaut, shcarole and more.

I don't know why I didn't pick up the accent - perhaps because we lived 90 miles north of NYC. But my brother somehow picked up the Inland North American English Accent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English) which technically starts up in Utica, NY. I blame is time in the Navy in Syracuse and Chicago for that.