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[Off-topic] Cultural notes

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Tue, 15 Mar 2011 07:44:09 -0400

From a conversation I had yesterday with a man in his 80s that I met on the street; all this in a slow, unhurried Southern accent.

I used to work f' the Forestry Service, y'know. A man there - he must be dead b'now - tole me once: "Never hire a man t'do a job o'work for you who eats salt herrin' for breakfast, rolls his own cig'rettes, er wears a straw hat. Reason bein', he's either chasin' his hat down th' road, rollin' a cig'rette, er lookin' fer a drink o'water!"

Mark Twain would have felt right at home. :)

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *


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Ben Okopnik [ben at okopnik.com]


Tue, 15 Mar 2011 23:11:44 -0400

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 06:58:41PM +0700, Mulyadi Santosa wrote:

> sounds a bit texas to me... is that right?:D

"Ever'body says words different," said Ivy. "Arkansas folks says 'em different, and Oklahomy folks says 'em different. And we seen a lady from Massachusetts, an' she said 'em differentest of all. Couldn' hardly make out what she was sayin'." -- John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, 1939

Regional accents can be very hard to judge even for a native - e.g., the average Californian probably wouldn't be able to identify a north Georgia drawl or a Texas twang... might be able to tell one from the other, though - which isn't much to boast about, given that those two average more than a thousand miles apart. They're going to be essentially impossible when presented in written form - unless the writer has Mark Twain's gift for conveying accents... which I can't lay claim to. So you're definitely climbing a steep hill. :) No bonus points for guessing "Texas", though - that's the most likely guess for a non-American about some unknown American regional accent.

For the record, it was pretty similar to this, although a bit slower:

http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_language.php?function=detail&speakerid=105

(A lot of accents are disappearing these days; people move around and resettle quite a lot. E.g., if you want to hear a real Florida accent, you have to go at least 20 or 30 miles inland and then search fairly hard; the coast is all populated by Yankees now. :)

Ben

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Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:38:03 -0400

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 03:48:15AM +0000, Jimmy O'Regan wrote:

> On 16 March 2011 03:11, Ben Okopnik <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Regional accents can be very hard to judge even for a native - e.g., the
> > average Californian probably wouldn't be able to identify a north
> > Georgia drawl or a Texas twang...
> 
> No kidding. Both times I was in America, I was asked numerous times
> which state I was from. My son's mother thought that was extremely
> amusing, and on her honeymoon in Las Vegas told everyone who asked
> that she was from Washington.

Boston, MA would have been a totally safe bet. Ditto New York. (I'm pretty sure that the Irish in those places are still allowing the rest of us to live there, although I may be wrong.) Just a couple of miles away by water from southern Brooklyn is a place called Breezy Point, a.k.a. The Irish Riviera - 60%+ Irish (had to look that last bit up, which also brought up Squantum, MA - 65% Irish.)

> On the other hand, on the flight over the second time I asked the
> woman seated beside me which state she was from and it turned out she
> was actually also Irish (but had lived in the US for most of her life
> - the Donegal accent only emerged for 'Donegal' and quickly
> retreated), and had spent most of the last 10 years living in the same
> 20 mile radius as me :)

[LOL] Cue the "earthworms in love" story. That's just wonderful.

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *


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