19 January 2007

What American accent do you have?

At last a site to help me plumb my American pals' - nay, daughters' - accents.

Throughout my time in the States - San Antone, Boston, WA state - as well as from visiting pals and the strays I met around my travels, the message drummed into me has been that everyone else  has an accent but not the actual person addressing me.

Now for the acid test, and also a chance for me to find out my *own* inner accent.

Result of accent test: Dude! I've just taken the test with as truthful answers as I could muster and my very best ear to how I would say the words, and

"That's a Southern accent you've got there. You may love it, you may hate it, you may swear you don't have it, but whatever the case, we can hear it."
Nothing could be further, as pals and loved ones will attest.

Silly test.

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it put me in the wrong area too. The real southern tell is "pin" = "pen."

Corfucius said...

Good one. Thanks for prompt response. How about the rest of you types who swam into my ken and left me such glorious memories?
Guitar maestro Eddie Williams (whom I miss like few other brothers of the fret), the piratical Works from *western* west WA; Buckley/Vidal-soundalike, Mike McDonagh who took me to my first basketball game in Boston '84, so close to the court that I could count the hairs on Larry Bird's armpit); darl choc voxed Jenie from 'Rahlee' NC (a shibboleth if ever I mispernounced one), Dave Hartog; Connie Sayre, soi-disante child of Akron; and all y'all rest of you ...

Chip in and let's have an accent-fest.

Question: what would be the Merkan equiv of Dr Higgins' testing 'Rain in Spain splattering mainly in da playun?

Anonymous said...

Question: what would be the Merkan equiv of Dr Higgins' testing 'Rain in Spain splattering mainly in da playun?

Hmmmm… well, you could weed out the Kanajians and some North Central Statesians with "about" or "sorry" in there. If I come up with a good one I'll get back.

I've had two linguistics guys accuse me of being from Philadelphia. I'm not sure which word I misuse that's the tell, though. I do habitually say pro'ly for probably…?