Sunday, October 08, 2006

Accents and Colloquialisms

Before I start into the topic at hand, I just wanted to thank everyone again for helping me with my Sociology project. I turned it in Friday, so we shall see how well I did. All the information you gave me was very helpful, but ultimately it will be my analysis that will get me a grade.

Now to the discussion at hand: accents and colloquialisms. We have been studying culture and societies in Sociology, and one of the topics we discussed was language. Everyone who speaks English in the United States speaks it a different way. Most people have some hint of an accent, or even a full on noticeable one. Then there are some people that don't have an accent at all! In particular, we watched a movie in class that went around to different regions to compare the accents. They visited some of the typical "accent headquarters," such as New York, Boston, Texas, and Louisiana. I think most of us would be familiar with these accents, and would be able to pick them out of a crowd. (The most prominent one to me was the Boston accent since it's so distinguished. "Pahk the cah in the yahd. I sar it! Dachesta." In case you didn't get any of that, "Park the car in the yard. I saw it! Dorchester.")

So, I thought it would be fun to see what kind of accents everybody thinks (or knows) they have. And if you are one of those people that doesn't really have a distinguishing accent, you probably still use the language of a certain part of the country (colloquialisms). I will use myself as an example, since this is, of course, my blog. I am from the South, born and raised. I don't have the Southern drawl that is commonly stereotyped, but I do use some of the language and mannerisms. One of my favorite "words" to say is "y'all." In case you don't know what that is, that is simply a contraction of the words "you" and "all," when referring to a group of people.

Does anyone want to share their accents and colloquialisms? Or, would anyone like to comment on the stereotypes of certain people of certain regions? My comment on stereotypes would be that they are merely exaggerations and are not always true. Take the South for example, since I know a great deal about it. If you only watched programs like "Hee Haw" and "The Beverly Hillbillies," you would assume that all Southerners talk really slow with that recognizable accent, and would be relatively simple and uneducated. Of course, that stereotype is clearly untrue, since I am defeating it as we speak...

Well, that's really all I wanted to comment on for today. As you may have noticed on the top of my page, I have a Fall Break coming up this week, and I will be going home for a long weekend. I will probably be away from my blog during that time, so please forgive me. Be assured that I will be back to blogging once I get back to school. Thanks again for you help, and have a great week!

10 comments:

Marcel said...

Do you have a problem with Ryan placing an order in a resturant with: "I'll have me uh swee tea."?

Tim B. said...

You have heard about the law regarding conservation of energy. Well, regarding accents there is a law about conservation of consonants. See, there are only a fixed number of consonants in the universe. People from Boston drop consonants like 'r' as you noted. So people somewhere else MUST pick them up. When we lived in Ohio I noticed that people put their clothes in the "warshing" machine, for example.

The Speech difference between a Canadian and a New Yorker is in "placement" of the words. A Canadian says "Don't touch the car, eh?" and a New Yorker says "Eh! Don't touch the car!"

Someone from Pennsylvania speaks with implied commas as in:
"Throw your father, down the stairs, his hat."

Southerners "mash" an elevator button, rather then "press" it (one of my pet peeves).

:-)

Adrienne said...

I too use y'all alot, and I have never lived any farther south than Virginia. And used it even before living there.

The biggest difference I notice is when my family is visiting either her in Cali or we go back to Mi. Soda -vs- pop. If you ask for a pop out here in Cali no one has a clue what you are talking about.

EZ Travel said...

Lyle did a language thing in one of his classes and found out that the English have completely different pronunciations for "mary," "marry," and "merry."

paulette said...

In my young single days one of my college roomates (Pat Kehoe) and I visited another roomate who lived in Memphis. When we tittered at her mother's use of y'all she countered with "What, do you think I should say You'se guys".

EZ Travel said...

OMG I just had a flash to My Cousin Vinny saying "Dese two yoots."

marty said...

Maybe you can fine out why when someone adds a 'e' to idea, they sound stupid. However an 'er' on the end of Cuba has a touch of class.

My ancentors called soda 'tonic.'

Monica said...

Most of you remember Bob Smitherman, the Texan that I married. Bob was an educated man, with a degree in Business Administration and Engineering. He spent most of his working years with Martin Marietta Aerospace Orlando as a mechanical engineer. They have quite a few colloquialisms down thar in East Texas, and he continued to use some of them all of his life: Bob used to call soda ‘Dr. Pepper’. (I guess that’s the only thing he used to drink as a youngster.) Instead of giving someone a ride in their car they ‘carry’ them in their car. This one I loved: he would refer to the back of a station wagon or the back of the boat as ‘way back in the back back there’. Ask Mitch; they went huntin’ , fishin’ , and campin’ . And they enjoyed every minute of it! When I was young, we got lickings, when my kids were young, they got whoppins. Berni’s French word for licking was ‘bon-bale’,(spelled wrong, but that’s the way he said it), meaning GOOD licking. Years ago, one of Bob’s older brothers, just out of the service, married a New Orleans Cajun girl, and you should hear the way those children speak. It’s really cute. This shows how your early environment can influence you for life. Some of y’all might remember others that Bob had used; if you remember them, I’d like to hear them again.

EZ Travel said...

Yes, I remember Uncle Bob as the one real southern person I knew.

I remember the first time Steph heard a true southern drawl from a waitress in a restaurant. She was probably around 5 or 6 and she kept her mouth shut until the waitress had left and then she looked at mom and I and said "did you hear that lady talk?"

My Grandma Van Houten had some interesting ones that I never figured out where they came from. She sat on the davenport and not the couch and she "looked at" Johnny Carson at night instead of watching him.

Adrienne said...

I don't think they are colloquialisms but I have two pet peeves when it comes to speech Ahmediately and Famahly. Those are I's people say them!