Suthern Accents

[41magsnub]

We are a Montana company.  Our phone trainer is a Virginia girl.  We just deployed a new phone system for a customer and they asked her to do the various voice recording work.  One of the options in an auto attendant is "if you have a draft problem dial X".  However, her accent makes it sound just like "if you have a trash problem".  The customer is freaking out right now. 

She is heading back over to rerecord and is practicing pronunciation.   

[mtnbkr]

What part of Virginia? 

Northern VA is very different than Central VA is very different than SW VA.

I've lived in all three (currently live in NoVA, married a girl from SWVA, much of her family is in Central VA).

Chris

[41magsnub]

I actually don't know.

[Monkeyleg]

My wife works at a company here in AL where a lot of the guys and the customers have very thick accents. Often she can't understand them, and has to have her supervisor translate.

One customer came in and said, "I have some all in my truck." My wife asked him to repeat what he'd just said, but still couldn't understand. She called her supervisor, and even she couldn't understand. Finally they figured out that he was saying he had "oil" in his truck.

[280plus]

he was saying he had "oil" in his truck.

Not to be confused with "earl". 

[BlueStarLizzard]

What part of Virginia? 

Northern VA is very different than Central VA is very different than SW VA.

I've lived in all three (currently live in NoVA, married a girl from SWVA, much of her family is in Central VA).

Chris

No Va is almost nothing.

My momma and her family is from richmond, and have what I like to call the richmond redneck.
 

[mtnbkr]

No Va is almost nothing.

No, it's isn't nothing, just different than the rest of VA.  The problem is finding a native NoVA resident in order to hear the accent. 

My momma and her family is from richmond, and have what I like to call the richmond redneck.
 

Do they say "warsh" and doah (that's door)?  My wife's family does.

Even better, when she's been on the phone with them, she picks up some of the words.  I can always tell when she's been talking to her aunt. :D

Chris

[wmenorr67]

First Mrs. was from Massachusetts, when I moved her to Colorado, couple of guys in my unit made fun of her accent, until she drank them under the table.

[Monkeyleg]

My wife is often asked what country she's from.

[BlueStarLizzard]

No, it's isn't nothing, just different than the rest of VA.  The problem is finding a native NoVA resident in order to hear the accent.  

Do they say "warsh" and doah (that's door)?  My wife's family does.

Even better, when she's been on the phone with them, she picks up some of the words.  I can always tell when she's been talking to her aunt. :D

Chris

My dad is from NoVa.

My family doesn't do "warsh" or "doah". Ours is closer to "proper, southern". We have the correct enication and don't add or remove letters, just a slight slur and slower.

The scary thing about me, is my paternal family is Swedish from CT and my grandmother was from Bosten. Every so often, I slip into that combo of midwest, yankee, boston. My mom spent half a day making fun of me cause I couldn't say "dog" right.

[Jocassee]

My wife works at a company here in AL where a lot of the guys and the customers have very thick accents. Often she can't understand them, and has to have her supervisor translate.

One customer came in and said, "I have some all in my truck." My wife asked him to repeat what he'd just said, but still couldn't understand. She called her supervisor, and even she couldn't understand. Finally they figured out that he was saying he had "oil" in his truck.

I was born here and I still sometimes have trouble with accents, usually out-of-state Southern accents.

I have had/used different accents. I was born in N. GA and early VHS tapes from when I was 4 or 5 have me with a very broad Georgia accent. When my parents were at the school here in SC I was surrounded by Yankees and my accent moderated out. Then in SA I would change my accent and inflection but mostly only when I would go out so I did not stick out like a sore thumb when I opened my mouth. (My two younger sisters never really learned Afrikaans but they would speak rough English with a heavy Afrikaans accent when they were with their friends. )

Now that I am back here and mostly re-naturalized I've been told I have either a mild rhotic Carolina Accent or none.

I love reading about the different accents and dialects in the US. This is a quick primer on rhotic vs non-rhotic accents in the US, which is explains some of the differences even in Southern English, even in the same state.

Always helps when you include the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rhotic_accents

[MillCreek]

My parents were born and raised in NE Arkansas.  They moved to Seattle at the outset of the Korean War for family reasons.  My Dad started working at Boeing in 1950, and he still remembers that back then, people in Seattle thought you were stupid if you had a Southern accent.  Both of my parents lost the accent pretty quickly.

[zxcvbob]

My parents were born and raised in NE Arkansas.  They moved to Seattle at the outset of the Korean War for family reasons.  My Dad started working at Boeing in 1950, and he still remembers that back then, people in Seattle thought you were stupid if you had a Southern accent.  Both of my parents lost the accent pretty quickly.

A southern accent (or Texas accent, they are similar but different) makes it easy for people to underestimate you.  That can be useful.

I was raised just north of Houston, and I don't *think* had had much of accent until I went to Texas A&M and was around all those folks from Central and West Texas for a few years, and I picked it up from them on top of whatever East Texas accent I had already.  And it stuck.

I've been living in Minnesota for 20 years and I still talk like a character from King of the Hill.

[vaskidmark]

My dad is from NoVa.

My family doesn't do "warsh" or "doah". Ours is closer to "proper, southern"  prop-uhrr, suth-arn  FIFY. We have the correct enication and don't add or remove letters, just a slight slur and slower.

The scary thing about me, is my paternal family is Swedish from CT and my grandmother was from Bosten. Every so often, I slip into that combo of midwest, yankee, boston. My mom spent half a day making fun of me cause I couldn't say "dog"  dough-agg again, FIFY right.

Please complete the following recitation of part of the alphabet:  ell, ___, enn, oh, pee, cue, ___ .  If it comes out as emm-eh and arr-ah you are very Richmond.  Now, when you are finished with the automobile for the day, what do you do with it and where do you do that?  We'll see either Bahs-tun or Connecticutt River Valley yankee.  Now if it turns out the family was, as I actually suspect, from Southie then it's going to be altogether different again.

stay safe.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Momma's family is richmond, skid.

[Harold Tuttle]

Best practice is to emultate effected python British English pronouncation for voicemail prompts

[41magsnub]

In a system we used to sell we could pick different default system prompts.  My favorite was the British lady who called the # key "hash".  I know it is the proper name, but it means something else around here.  At least she wasn't talking about cigarettes!

[zxcvbob]

Best practice is to emultate effected python British English pronouncation for voicemail prompts

The screechy "pepperpots" voice?

[lupinus]

My accent actually mellowed out pretty quick, to the point people don't generally pick up that I'm not from around here.

The nj accent generally only comes out when I get I talk fast, in which case most people around here don't understand me anyway. Or when I get....excited.

[Bob F.]

TV has gone a long way toward killing regional dialects, for better or worse. To me, my wife, a local girl, doesn't have much accent; just a funky vocabulary. But not a funky has her Mom had. But she went to Texas for training on new lab equipment & spent most of her time in the break room so everybody could listen to her talk. Now one county over...

Had a gorgeous little blond where I worked: "Cud you hep me hode him still?" Could barely keep a staright face.

How 'bout Ward & Jeff Burton, Nascar racing brothers? Woud has a mouthful of marbles!

Bob

[RoadKingLarry]

I still talk like a character from King of the Hill.

They don't have accents

[Perd Hapley]

My parents were born and raised in NE Arkansas.  They moved to Seattle at the outset of the Korean War for family reasons.  My Dad started working at Boeing in 1950, and he still remembers that back then, people in Seattle thought you were stupid if you had a Southern accent.  Both of my parents lost the accent pretty quickly.

I'm not sure about Seattle, but I think plenty of people think that way.

My mother's family lives mainly in Southern Missouri. It's amazing how the Midwestern accent in the middle of the state (where I grew up) changes to a Southern accent just a couple of hundred miles further south in the same state.

[zxcvbob]

They don't have accents

I tell you what.

[Lee]

My mother's family lives mainly in Southern Missouri. It's amazing how the Midwestern accent in the middle of the state (where I grew up) changes to a Southern accent just a couple of hundred miles further south in the same state.

You got that right. Ever been to Saaaakston?  Southern Missouri/Illinois/Indiana and Western Ky....ain't no big diff-rance tween em.

"I have some all in my truck."

I didn't even have to think bout that one. Probly a quart shy though.

[grislyatoms]

When I moved from S.E. Virginia to Austin, Tx., I got the occasional "You're from the South, aren't you?" Don't hear it in ABQ.