Random US accents question......

[Owenk]

You guys that live in the US might have to bear (bare?) with me on this one.

I have only been to the US 3 times so don't know it very well and realise what a huge country it is. When I hear and American accent, it's just an American accent to me I don't differentiate much. Well except when I watched Fargo and suddenly thought "wow they sound like Scandanavians....."

Anyway I have watched a few Owen Wilson films recently (just watching Marley and Me) and his voice reminds me of Jimmy Stewart. I assume it's because they both drawl a little and not that they have the same accent as I read Wilson was born in Texas and Stewart was Indiana.

The only weird thing is that they both reminded me a little of the New England accent the reader in Drunken Fireworks but neither of them are from anywhere near there.

I'm probably just being a dumb foreigner.

 

[not_nadine]

I think we think we all don't have one, till you travel to different parts of the US..

I don't sound like the movies when they depict this area that I live. No. But then again have been told that have some accent when I go somewhere different.

Funny, when I was in travelling days, I would pick up a southern accent so fast (for no reason) and it still comes out sometimes.

Guess I am a mix of everything.

 

[Dana Jean]

I am non regional in voice, but, I lived in Maryland for many years and I have a friend who says that I occasionally say something with an "eastern accent."

 

[Spideyman]

Original from NYC where they say the word "idea" with an R at the end-- idear.

So many regional accents and also variation on how words are pronounced.

 

[GNTLGNT]

...there are dozens of variations in dialects, accents and regionalisms etc.....we all sound different to one another at times....I have trained myself to lose my Southeastern Ohioism because of my career in radio, but every once in a while one creeps through...

 

[not_nadine]

Eastern yeah, I guess.

Dropping the 'ing' from things. Wudder instead of Water


Working on it.

 

[blunthead]

You guys that live in the US might have to bear (bare?) with me on this one.

I have only been to the US 3 times so don't know it very well and realise what a huge country it is. When I hear and American accent, it's just an American accent to me I don't differentiate much. Well except when I watched Fargo and suddenly thought "wow they sound like Scandanavians....."

Anyway I have watched a few Owen Wilson films recently (just watching Marley and Me) and his voice reminds me of Jimmy Stewart. I assume it's because they both drawl a little and not that they have the same accent as I read Wilson was born in Texas and Stewart was Indiana.

The only weird thing is that they both reminded me a little of the New England accent the reader in Drunken Fireworks but neither of them are from anywhere near there.

I'm probably just being a dumb foreigner.

I think a "southern" inflection can be found as far northwest as Indiana, as north as Ohio, and certainly as far northeast as Virginia. I've lived in Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, California, Wisconsin, and Florida. Also, I've visited lots of states. Lots of people in Florida have a general southern accent, while some sound like they're from New York and New Jersey because they are. I'd say the majority of Georgians have a southern accent except in Atlanta which is a melting pot - my next door neighbor's from Indiana (not a southern accent in his case) and my neighbor across the street is from Wisconsin. Neither of them sound like southerners even a little.

I lived in small towns in Louisiana, Wisconsin, and a relatively small city in Michigan and in each of those places there was a distinct and unique indigenous inflection. Some folks from southern Louisiana spoke Cajun which is a different language from English altogether as well as having its own inflection.

When I lived in Louisiana I began to sound quite southern, I think quite quickly, the reason for which might have been that the accent is easy to pick up, but I can't rule out the possibility that a natural survival mechanism began exerting itself since I was an ex-hippie big-city boy living among cowboys. Down through the years I've enjoyed noticing the differences in the ways people talk, and not only in how we sound but in how we say what we say, the interesting and unusual phraseologies and uses of various words. But now I digress.

 

[not_nadine]

My sister married a man from Eastern Europe.

He was taught proper English in school. Had the hardest time understanding us.

(and me, him )

 

[doowopgirl]

Ireland has so many accents for a small island. Even from one side of Dublin to the other. You can nearly postcode someone by their accent.

 

[not_nadine]

Ireland has so many accents for a small island. Even from one side of Dublin to the other. You can nearly postcode someone by their accent.

You are American, right? You have to have the most best one ever to them.

 

[summer_sky]

You guys that live in the US might have to bear (bare?) with me on this one.

Anyway I have watched a few Owen Wilson films recently (just watching Marley and Me) and his voice reminds me of Jimmy Stewart. I assume it's because they both drawl a little and not that they have the same accent as I read Wilson was born in Texas and Stewart was Indiana.

The only weird thing is that they both reminded me a little of the New England accent the reader in Drunken Fireworks but neither of them are from anywhere near there.

I'm probably just being a dumb foreigner.

Bare with me is correct. Bare with me would mean to unclothe and bare one's naked body along with another(s).

Jimmy Stewart is from the town of Indiana in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As opposed to being from the State of Indiana.
Sharon Stone, the actress, is from Indiana, Pennsylvania, too.

I have difficulty understanding a strong New England accent myself. One time I was travelling through New England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada and stopped at a country store somewhere well into New England to grab some lunch for the road. When the lady behind the counter asked me if I wanted a "fork", I thought she asked me if I wanted, well, something else.

No, you are not "just being a dumb foreigner". I love talking about these kind of things with you folks across the big pond.

 

[not_nadine]

I once spent an hour looking for 'hot spot' on a map. Wrote it down and everything. Horses and Castle.

Only to realize the operator in London said 'Hydes Park'

 

[GNTLGNT]

 

[not_nadine]

dammit

 

[blunthead]

Bare with me is correct. Bare with me would mean to unclothe and bare one's naked body along with another(s).

Jimmy Stewart is from the town of Indiana in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As opposed to being from the State of Indiana.
Sharon Stone, the actress, is from Indiana, Pennsylvania, too.

I have difficulty understanding a strong New England accent myself. One time I was travelling through New England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada and stopped at a country store somewhere well into New England to grab some lunch for the road. When the lady behind the counter asked me if I wanted a "fork", I thought she asked me if I wanted, well, something else.

No, you are not "just being a dumb foreigner". I love talking about these kind of things with you folks across the big pond.

bear, noun, often attributive \ˈber\ : any one of a group of large and heavy animals that have thick hair and sharp claws and that can stand on two legs like a person; finance : a person who expects the price of stocks to go down and who sells them to avoid losing money; : something that is difficult to do or deal with

 

[summer_sky]

OMG! Owen Kyffin, I made a typo... or Freudian slip? haha...
"bear with me" is correct! As in "be patient with me", unless you do wanna get naked with someone. lol
So, glad blunthead, caught my attention so I could correct myself!!
I'm from Pennsylvania Dutch country.... I'm the last person who should be giving English lessons! haha

 

[blunthead]

OMG! Owen Kyffin, I made a typo... or Freudian slip? haha...
"bear with me" is correct! As in "be patient with me", unless you do wanna get naked with someone. lol
So, glad blunthead, caught my attention so I could correct myself!!
I'm from Pennsylvania Dutch country.... I'm the last person who should be giving English lessons! haha

Well, I knew what you had meant to write. I just wanted to clarify while exercising my anal retentiveness.

 

[not_nadine]

Happy to see your are exercising again, Frank!

 

[AchtungBaby]

I'm from the south (Alabama) and you can tell it in my accent, though I don't sound like how the Alabama accent is often portrayed in movies and TV shows.

The closest to the AL accent I've heard in a movie is the one the cast members in The Green Mile use, though that film is set in Louisiana.

 

[Grandpa]

Big stripe through the middle of America, somewhere west of the Appalachians, but going to the West Coast that have the accent that mainstream movies and television tend to emulate. In the East, especially Northeast, the "ar" gets pronounced as "ah" (making it sound like "going to the party" is "going to the potty") and, as noted, the "-a" endings get an unnecessary "r" added on. Sometimes the short O gets lengthened, so "coffee" becomes "coaffee."

Then there's the Southern drawl, of course, which does vary by region. A Carolina or Florida drawl is softer to my ear than a Texas drawl. One thing I wish we would all adopt from Southernspeak: "y'all." It's nice to have a differentiation between singular and plural second person.

Up North, Chicago gets a more clipped accent, which is hardened and shortened from the Min-ne-sohh-ta and North Da-kohh-ta accents, which do sound Scandinavian and Canadian.

Not just limited to the white population either. In my Spanish-speaking Mexican-American friends, I've heard them complain that Puerto Rican and Cuban Spanish is hard to understand.