www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall American accent quiz

What American accent do you have ?

http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have

-- John

Dear Harmon,

What are you trying to do, get the Bishops to write NEW Liturgies for each place around the country.

Perhaps they have already started. Around the country we may soon be hearing "God is Gracious and Loves Ya'll," or "God is Gracious and Loves Yuuns," or even "God is Gracious and Loves You Guys."

At least We know that the Bishops will not consider "...Eh God is Gracious Eh, and he loves us Eh,...Lord, Have Mercy EH" That would take too long and so it wouldn't be pastorally sensitive, Eh. Maybe I'll move to Canada and learn Ukranian, Eh. That'd be nice, Eh. We could build a Byzantine Village, Eh.

Harmon,

I enjoyed taking the quiz and it was right on! Even asked me if I was maybe from Wisconsin, which was in fact my birthplace.

And InCogNeat3.

Don't you mean "God is Gracious Enna? and he loves us Enna? ... Lord have mercy Enna? And it's not just the words they need to rewrite, the music must all be rewritten so that each phrase ends on a rising note as though we are asking a long series of questions Enna?

I saw a program on PBS that said that there is a strip of the country from Kansas to Ohio, North of Arkansas but south of somewhere around Peoria, IL... that section of the US has the true "American Accent." Everyone else speaks a dialect.

And it's soda, not "pop!"

Did you see "Do you Speak American?"

My MA thesis and a paper I co-wrote with my old advisor were references for that show! pretty sweet.

The soda/pop line runs through central PA.

As a socio-linguist, I can say there is no one standard "American English", though the midwest dialect is considered standard because it's the most easily understood and closest to Broadcast American English, which I suppose is the standard.

I'm a frequent practicioner of "standard", Pittsburghese, and Coal Region English, as well. Ain't?

Dr Eric,

I think this is the first time we disagree. It is POP not soda. The very idea...Harumph!

CDL, reared in SE Michigan whose anscestors came from Allentown, Pa.

Pop goes the weasel! Soda goes in the mouth.

I should know: It says I don't have an accent.

How in the world would bag rhyme with vague anyway?

Marc and CDL,

Yes I do believe it was Do You Speak American.

I still insist it is soda and not pop!

Dr. Eric

Who was disappointed when he was 15 when his Connecticut cousins called it soda and not pop. They also called them submarine sandwiches instead of hoagies or grinders.

You mean that you've tested this theory? You've had a weasel in your mouth?

When I was an undergraduate, I took a course with a professor who could tell each of us where he was born, where he had lived, and where his latest domicile was just by listening to us read a paragraph. The man had a really well-trained ear. It was interesting to hear him tell a young woman in the class where she had been in her life and come within a few months of her travels--she had had a father in the military and had spent her life prior to university traveling from base to base around the country and even had a stint overseas. The best part was that without prior knowledge he called the development of each of our speech patterns within a few months of the moves people had made in their living places.

Whe he got to me, he told me that my accent--from a thin band of Pennsylvania that ran through my hometown from the western to the eastern part of the state--was the one that speech therapists considered to be the one easiest to understand and what they aimed at when working with people with speech difficulties of one sort or another. But maybe I date myself because language standards and scholarship are constantly on the move. At that time, this man had mapped out the entire United States using this paragraph and his ongoing research was fascinating. His separations were much more restricted than what you describe--Pennsylvania alone had something like a dozen bands and/or separate configurations and few of his distinctions seemed to have very large areas in any state.

BOB

P.S.: Another trio of words that we might ask about include "barry," "berry," and "bury." Even in PA there are those who make no distinction, those who may say two of the three differently, and places where all three are different. Or "Mary," "marry," and "merry."

A real-life Henry Higgins (Pygmalion and My Fair Lady)! Brilliant.

I have The Story of English and have heard Robert MacNeil (marvellous Canadian voice) speak in person.

The man did have an unusual ear for the slightest variations in the spoken word.

BOB

I was quite surprised to learn that I also have an accent, specifically a Minnesota one. I always thought my English was quite standard.

I'm afraid I have to side with CDL on the pop issue...

I enjoy my spiritual father's Conneticut brogue--he pronounces Orthodox as "Ah-tha-dox."

Let me tell you an anecdote awhile:

I had a strange incident happen a few months ago. I've lost all of my Coal Region accent (which is very much like Irish, with some PA Dutch and local Polish flavor thrown in).

I was away in the Poconos for a weekend with my brother and his Coal Cracker buddies drinking Yuengling and eating meat for my brother's bachelor party. I had a date the following Tuesday back in Pittsburgh. The girl (from Ohio, fyi) said "You've got an interesting accent!"

Never had that happen before. I blame the weekend in the woods wit da boys.

The point is that you can easily be influenced with regards to dialect. My mom's from New England and to this day, I say "ahnt" for aunt, not "ant" as so many in PA do. I even insulted a girl by accident once.... she made a written joke about going to see that movie the Ant Bully by writing: I'm taking my niece to see the Aunt Bully

I was like... what's the "ahnt" bully...?

funny, ain't it though.

Interesting. It said I have a "Midland" accent, but the geography is off for me. The funny thing is, people around here sometimes ask me where I got my accent from, but I was born here ! Go figure. It makes me want to have a soda . . . Aha ! Now I get it: my mom is from Pennsylvania, and she raised me to speak with her diction ("soda"), but I live in Ohio (land of "pop").

-- John