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Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
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 *
Ben Okopnik [ben at okopnik.com]
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]
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 *