[Indie'sOK]

I saw a similar thread on another forum and thought this would be fun. Some say people from Michigan have an accent because words sound drawn out and mispronounced. Example: "milk" is "melk". And there are words like pop instead of soda, couch instead of sofa, and tennis shoe instead of sneaker. Those are just some. But to us, there isn't a "Michigan accent". News reporters around the country sound just like we do. What do you think - do you have an accent?

Some words here are how we say them in MI, some are not. "Melk" is definitely true!

[eskielover]

eeeeegads......some kentucky people have such an accent that I just sit there & can't figure out a word they are saying....like listening to a foreign language that I don't even know a little of. At times I can't even pick up a word.

Other KY people have very little accent, but most of them do have a very thick accent.

I grew up a native Californian.....absolutely no accent's there a mixture of every state in the US it seems.....but I spent my summers in in Kansas from the time I was 5 until I was 15. We always went out fishing & would go to the small creeks that ran through the farms. The way everyone there pronounced creek was like "crick".......so that's how I always pronounced it.....many people have laughed at the way I pronounce it as so very different from how it's pronounced in California.

I have always tried to pronounce my words they way the letters are put together & sounded rather than any specific accent......always focused on that way of speaking. It doesn't surprise me that there are such horrible spellers here in Ky, if they spell according to how they say the words, it's amazing that anyone can read their writing either.

[radio_flyer]

I've been asked "what country am I from". shrugs shoulders.... Born and raised in the USA. But then, just maybe, it is when that ole "Pennsylvania dutch slang" surfaces that gets folks wondering.. So maybe sometimes one might say I have an accent...

[sanityseeker]

Only to people not born in BC. They all have an accent to me. You just have to cross the Rockies to find differences in the dialect. And that is not counting immigrants.

[Evening]

I have a, uh, Australian accent. Does that count?

[lynn P.]

I think what gives many Canadians who are born here away is, the famous "eh" at the end of some sentences.

[Typo]

I am from the Southren United States, and yes I have a light Southren light to my voice, the more excited, angry, worked up I get the thicker it gets. I also use a lot of Southren slang and am in a bad habit of calling people hun. Heh my accent is super thick on certain words like iron (I run) naked (na keed) and I take the ing off words all the time (lightning becomes ligtnin')

[Rachie]

Originally Posted by Evening

I have a, uh, Australian accent. Does that count?

Haha I too have that true blue aussie accent lol. The one we like to call bogan hehehe

[notz]

Typo and me speak the same language. Here it's Co-Cola not Coca-Cola.

[sanityseeker]

My sister really picks up accents easily. Whenever she travels she comes home with a new accent.

[Rhiannonsmoon]

I've got an Aussie accent...not broad slang but an Aussie accent not the less

[Indie'sOK]

Haha...the Aussie accent reminds me of the seagulls from Finding Nemo

[la doctora]

I grew up in the southern tips of the Appalachian Mts. This is where most everyone that is labeled a "hillbilly" lives. I have one of the thickest accents of any of the people I grew up with. It's because my parent's accents were so thick. When I went away for college it got cleaned up a little from being mixed with so many other accents. But when I go home, or even talk on the phone with my parents, I go into that southern drawl that people frequently say they can't understand. It definatley gets worse when I am excited or mad.

Examples: (some already used)
Co-Cola not Coca-Cola
Coke means any soda drink. Then you have to specify which type of coke you want.
Anything that ends in -ing, now ends in -in'
I drawl out my words so slow and long that they sound weird and run together.
It is a buggy, not a shopping cart.
Milk is mee-ulk, two syllables. And generally any one syllable word is drawn into two.
It is totally a couch not a sofa.
They are tennis shoes not sneakers. I thought sneakers were less for sports than tennis shoes and were a different type of shoe.
It's "The Walmarts" instead of Walmart.
I "reackon" a lot of things (ie. I reackon it's gonna rain today)
"Over yonder" - I reackon he's over yonder somewhere.


Oh I know so many more but can't remember now. Maybe I'll come back with more later.

[Typo]

Oh yonder I use that too la doctora! I grew up around the Ozarks of Arkansas :P

[Indie'sOK]

Haha doctora I use "couch" too - it's not sofa and definitely not davenport!

[la doctora]

Originally Posted by lynn P.

I think what gives many Canadians who are born here away is, the famous "eh" at the end of some sentences.

Yes Lynn, that one. And then the way "about" is pronounced "aboot". Tehehe, it makes me chuckle . And I love it when people with British accents say "bugger" and "bloody". But all you Aussies have my heart. I LOVE Austrailian accents! It sounds like the southern accent version of a British accent to me, lol.

I really love accents. A lot of people make fun of one like mine (southern/hillbilly), but I am so proud to have it. It makes me different.

[eskielover]

Ah Indie, so you're a "couch" potato..rather than a "sofa" potato.

I notice the Canadians from some areas have a different way of saying their "o" words.....like "out" is more like "ooout".

I really love to listen to accents. The one thing they warned me moving to KY was not to pick up the accent because just talking that way people would think of my IQ as lower my many points. That's really only the case in a very few in my opinion.

[Aunt Donna]

I definitely have a southern accent being born and raised in Louisiana. I used to work in a motel where the travelers liked to hear me speak because it is southern all the way. Plus my language has cajun mixed in with it. LOL.

[lonegael]

In what language? I'm fourth generation from Fresno in CA, and While I can pick out another Californian or an Oregonian, I have been accused of not having any accent when I speak with other Americans, some of whom have even been irritated because they can't place me. The advantage is that I lack the more nasal characteristics of "Standard American English" (whatever that is) but I don't drawl. What Does happen is if I get angry and go on a rant, I get an odd lilt to my language that my father and my fGrandfather (other side of the family) both got, and what one Belfastian has id'ed as a Nothern Irish, possibly Scottish intonation. Funny, we left them parts three hundred years ago. Seems some stuff never gets ut of your system. Huggs all!

[El-ahrairah]

yes i do

[Little star]

Originally Posted by Indie'sOK

I saw a similar thread on another forum and thought this would be fun. Some say people from Michigan have an accent because words sound drawn out and mispronounced. Example: "milk" is "melk". And there are words like pop instead of soda, couch instead of sofa, and tennis shoe instead of sneaker. Those are just some. But to us, there isn't a "Michigan accent". News reporters around the country sound just like we do. What do you think - do you have an accent?

Some words here are how we say them in MI, some are not. "Melk" is definitely true!

I'm English and I don't think I have an accent at all,haha..

[Indie'sOK]

Haha, most people don't think they have an accent until someone from another region points it out to them...I've never been outside of my state so haven't had that opportunity, but I don't think anyone would see me as having one - it just sounds like plain old American English with some Canadian thrown in

Servants Poor Professor Higgins!
Poor Professor Higgins! Night and day
He slaves away! Oh, poor Professor Higgins!
All day long On his feet; Up and down until he's numb;
Doesn't rest; Doesn't eat;
Doesn't touch a crumb! Poor Professor Higgins!
Poor Professor Higgins! On he plods Against all odds;
Oh, poor Professor Higgins! Nine p.m. Ten p.m.
On through midnight ev'ry night.
One a.m. Two a.m. Three...! Quit, Professor Higgins!
Quit, Professor Higgins! Hear our plea
Or payday we Will quit, Professor Higgins!
Ay not I, O not Ow, Pounding pounding in our brain.
Ay not I, O not Ow, Don't say "Rine," say "Rain"...
Eliza The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!
Henry By George, she's got it! By George, she's got it!
Now, once again where does it rain? Eliza On the plain!
On the plain! Henry And where's that soggy plain?
Eliza In Spain! In Spain! The three
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain! Henry
In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire...?
Eliza Hurricanes hardly happen.
How kind of you to let me come! Henry
Now once again, where does it rain?
Eliza On the plain! On the plain! Henry
And where's that blasted plain?
Eliza In Spain! In Spain! The three
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!

[Shangrala]

Born and raised Californian, I was always fascinated with accents as I believed that we "Westerners" had no accent whatsoever. The only accents I ever heard were from what I'd seen on tv, until I discovered Internet and had made many global friends.

Since, I've been told that "my" accent is of such fast talk that the words race together, making it quite difficult to hear a break in between the words. I never was aware of this accent...lol...or that I had one.

I found it interesting, especially how, friends from New York sound so much slower, yet seemingly more boisterous in their talk, (especially with the replacement of the "r" to "w"), what is 'car' to me is 'caw' to them...lol.
And how vast the slang is apart from the west to east coasts, (oftentimes having to explain the meanings of those slang word conflicts..lol).

I've been reminded many times to slow down while talking as they're finding it difficult to keep up, (it's not that I have alot to say, but what is said is highly motored...lol..if that makes any sense).

Shangrala

[shichi]

I have no accent. Everyone else does

Seriously, I have the West Aussie accent. Somewhat less nasal than our Eastern States counterparts.