Southerners losing their accent

[W2R]

New Orleans has it's own regional accent, called a "Yat" accent, and associated vernacular. Until one gets used to it, it sounds more like NYC than southern.

Only on TV do all native New Orleanians come out with that flowery Mississippi/Alabama/Georgia drawl.

I didn't think I had picked it up in the slightest, but in recent years several people have expressed honest surprise when I mention I was born elsewhere. Maybe I am picking it up from Frank and just don't realize it. He grew up in "da uppa Nint' wahd"! But he turns it on and off, since he does have a very rigorous educational background.

 

[Grizz]

Jeff Foxworthy tells a joke which essentially points out that when going in for major surgery, you'd feel much better about your doctor having a British accent than a Southern U.S. one. There was also an East Indian comedian who pointed out that the East Indian accent is not one that lends itself well to being "smooth and cool".

I wonder why it is that we tend to equate the Brits accent with higher intelligence than any other. Sure, it's "The Queens" english but it's not like that accent is devoid of local slang terms any more than any other accent.

I've also heard that foreign news broadcasters often choose Canadians as correspondents since the accent seems to be the middle ground that Europeans and North Americans both find relatively easy to understand eh.

 

[Nords]

Ja, sister has much stronger rural Minnesohta accent ten I to. Youse talk like a yooper, eh, Marquette poy?

That's frightening-- a local friend grew up in Denmark but emigrated as an adult. He's in his 60s and has lived in Hawaii for nearly 40 years but still talks like that.

Our daughter can speak fluent pidgin. It freaks out the rest of the family and especially friends on the Mainland but it's sort of a Hawaii calling card. I guess she'll find her local college friends that way.

When we were making the Smithsonian circuit of DC a couple summers ago we had no problem picking out the Hawaii families... some even down to their island.