# Southern and other dialects



## solar_plasma (Oct 14, 2014)

I just wondered, what is different between speeking "southern" and other american dialects? My girlfriend and I were just listening to Tom Petty "Stand my ground" and we got aware of the way he pronounces "down". Not like in "mouth" or "hound", but more with an "æ" like in "banjo". So I looked up on wiki and yap he is from Florida. So, is his pronounciation influenced by "Southern" or is it just normal american?


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## Geo (Oct 14, 2014)

Quick answer is no. Florida is a hodge-podge of American accents. Northerners spend the summer there and it is one huge tourist attraction. Look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Alabama along with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_Shoals,_Alabama to give you some idea of songs with a southern accent. In particular, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenandoah_(band) is a band that the members are from north Alabama. This is a relatively small place as far as towns go but there is a lot of representation of the way the local slang is sung in overall music scene.Anywhere in the Smokey Mountains to the Mississippi river as far south as the gulf coast. Excluding melting pots like Atlanta, Ga., or most of Florida, Mobil, Al., Tunica, Ms., almost all rural areas speak a dialect that is very slow paced and not well pronounced. I hate to hear my own voice and seldom watch my own videos. I sound very "back woods" and it's not a habit to break easily. I try to speak distinctly and articulately when recording and, I feel, I sound like a complete redneck. If you listen to my videos, that may give you an example of southern style speaking. I notice that unless I am very mindful of what I am saying, I do not pronounce my "R"s when it is at the end of a word, star becomes staw (somewhat).


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## FrugalRefiner (Oct 14, 2014)

If you want a good example of a southern accent, find one of Palladium's posts and listen. I'm not making fun.

There are many different accents in the US. Some, like southern, have variations from area to area. East coast, midwest, Canadian border states, etc. all have their own peculiarities. And then there's the west coast, dude! Totally gnar!

Dave


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## Palladium (Oct 14, 2014)

FrugalRefiner said:


> If you want a good example of a southern accent, find one of Palladium's posts and listen. I'm not making fun.
> 
> 
> 
> Dave



:shock: :shock: :shock: 

That's exactly what i was going to tell him. lol


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## galenrog (Oct 14, 2014)

Tried to tell my wife while in New Orleans that WE were the people with the accent, not the locals. She was not amused. Still, with the numerous dialects we encountered while in Louisiana and east Texas, I am suprised that I actually understood nearly everything. At least far more than I understand when in Wales or north Scotland. 

One language and still endless variety. Life is wonderful.


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## 4metals (Oct 14, 2014)

I've never heard anybody, northerner or southerner do to a pipette what Ralph did! It's kind of a moot point because I knew what he was talking about but it did get my attention!


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## Palladium (Oct 14, 2014)

Its all in the delivery. :mrgreen:


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## solar_plasma (Oct 15, 2014)

Thanks, y'all :lol: now, I've got an idea of, what it is. Love it. I think everyone should be proud of his local dialect. It is telling, where we come from and who we are. It signalizes community and makes the world more colorful. I like it, when I talk to friends from Germany's midwest and they call my northern slang and pronounciation funny. Though I think I just speak plain german and THEY sound funny.


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## Geo (Oct 15, 2014)

I drove a semi truck for a few years in my younger days. I had a real problem understanding people from about Ohio northward. There was a lot of "huh?" or "could you repeat that?". They speak so fast that its hard for me to visualize the the words before it was lost in the stream. I know the way I must have seemed scratching my head and asking them to slow down. No offense meant, I stopped at a truck stop in Ohio loading steel for SOS (southern Ohio steel) and noticed that there was pinto beans on the menu. I was happy to see something I recognized. I ordered pinto beans and corn bread and a cold drink. The waitress said she didn't know what "corn bread" was and that I had ice water in front of me. When you hear someone ask if you want a coke here, be ready for the next question "what kind?". A coke can be any brand or flavor of soda. you can say "I am going after a coke" and come back with a mountain dew and no one would think it was strange. A "cold drink" in southern slang is again, any brand or flavor of soda. People of the south are a tad lazy when it comes to talking. "Hello, how are you today?" can be shortened to "sup?" Many words here have a base in early history like "over yonder". There's also words that are totally made up, like "an-em". Used in a sentence, "howdie, how's ye momma an-nem?" Translated : Hello, how's your mother and family doing?. Please don't get me started with "git a warsh rag and wipe tha winder" or "my piller's too fat" or "don't fry taters in the tallor or it'll taste funny" Tallow comes from beef fat and lard comes from pork fat, big difference. Potato turns into taters and tomato turns into maters. Okra turns into Okry. Opossum is just possum. A "rusty" is a cotton mouth snake. "logger head" is a snapping turtle. Mud cat is a channel catfish. Raccoon is just coon. Sweet milk and butter milk. Biscuits and fat back with grits. Up n-under is when you have to get down low and look up. A car's muffler is "up n-under" the car. Oh well, no one said we was perfect. :lol:


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## macfixer01 (Oct 15, 2014)

Geo said:


> I drove a semi truck for a few years in my younger days. I had a real problem understanding people from about Ohio northward. There was a lot of "huh?" or "could you repeat that?". They speak so fast that its hard for me to visualize the the words before it was lost in the stream. I know the way I must have seemed scratching my head and asking them to slow down. No offense meant, I stopped at a truck stop in Ohio loading steel for SOS (southern Ohio steel) and noticed that there was pinto beans on the menu. I was happy to see something I recognized. I ordered pinto beans and corn bread and a cold drink. The waitress said she didn't know what "corn bread" was and that I had ice water in front of me. When you hear someone ask if you want a coke here, be ready for the next question "what kind?". A coke can be any brand or flavor of soda. you can say "I am going after a coke" and come back with a mountain dew and no one would think it was strange. A "cold drink" in southern slang is again, any brand or flavor of soda. People of the south are a tad lazy when it comes to talking. "Hello, how are you today?" can be shortened to "sup?" Many words here have a base in early history like "over yonder". There's also words that are totally made up, like "an-em". Used in a sentence, "howdie, how's ye momma an-nem?" Translated : Hello, how's your mother and family doing?. Please don't get me started with "git a warsh rag and wipe tha winder" or "my piller's too fat" or "don't fry taters in the tallor or it'll taste funny" Tallow comes from beef fat and lard comes from pork fat, big difference. Potato turns into taters and tomato turns into maters. Okra turns into Okry. Opossum is just possum. A "rusty" is a cotton mouth snake. "logger head" is a snapping turtle. Mud cat is a channel catfish. Raccoon is just coon. Sweet milk and butter milk. Biscuits and fat back with grits. Up n-under is when you have to get down low and look up. A car's muffler is "up n-under" the car. Oh well, no one said we was perfect. :lol:




I was going to mention that earlier but thought maybe the thread had run it's course. In the south, I noticed both (sweetened) iced tea and unsweet iced tea seem to be big favorites. And as you say they call any carbonated soft drink a Coke. Here in the north (Michigan anyway) we call soft drinks "Pop" generically, but if we want a Cola specifically we'd ask for a Coke or Pepsi (whichever brand the restaurant serves). In other parts of the country they call it Soda Pop. I had a friend in school whose parents had come from Pennsylvania and they always pronounced the word "Wash" with an added r sound, so it sounded like "Warsh". Even some business names they pronounced differently like Amoco gas stations for example. We'd say Amoco with the accent on the "Am" and almost sounding more like Amaco, while they would put the accent on the "o" in the middle so it sounded like three syllables "Am-o-co". A northeastern accent is just as distinctly different to an outsider as a southern accent is. I'd have to say those two regions (and New york/New Jersey which are unique unto themselves) are the most immediately recognizable to me. For the folks living in the northeast a Boston accent may sound very distinct from say, a Vermont or Maine accent, but they all sound fairly similar within that region to me.


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## artart47 (Oct 15, 2014)

Hi !
I went to red bay, alabama in the 80's to visit my sister for christmas. They were building a new highway to the Quad-cities and the old guy they sent there to be in charge of getting the bridge built over little bear creek was in the restaurant. I heard him talking about having a hard time finding people to strip forms under the bridge. When I told him that I had no problem with hights I ended up staying the summer and working for tillet brothers.
I had the problem that every time I'd start talking, everyone would say "what" or "slow down there" They were always laughing about that yankee talkin a-mile-a-minute!
I took a while for me to get used to it.
artart47


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## galenrog (Oct 15, 2014)

Oh, the variety within a single language. There was a phrase I heard years ago: "God loves endless variety". I do not remember where I heard it, or the context, but I like it when referring to things like language and opinions. 

Decades ago I lived on an American Base in Germany. I have been to Europe several times since, being married to a Dane. The variety of dialects within 50 miles of Berlin seems just as numerous as those within 50 miles of any major American city. Most Americans will not notice this in Europe, being out of their element. Just another example of the endless variety and variations within a single language.


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## 4metals (Oct 15, 2014)

A while back I took a quiz in the New York Times and after answering 25 questions by picking an answer from a list it predicted where I was from. Pretty amazing and, at least for me, it was right on. 

It asks things like what you call a soda or a hero, or the divider in the middle of a road and compiles it all. 

Here is the link; http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/tak...e-from-based-on-dialect-new-york-times-198995


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## Palladium (Oct 15, 2014)

Wow!

It picked Birmingham, Al !


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## solar_plasma (Oct 15, 2014)

Nice quiz! :lol: It puts me to the area around Boston. Do people in Boston sound like Germans?


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## rickbb (Oct 15, 2014)

When I was on a trip with a college friend across rural South Carolina once I had to translate for him every where we stopped. 

I'm from North Carolina and he was from California.

I thought how weird, I'm translating English to English between 2 Americans.


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## 4metals (Oct 15, 2014)

Boston does have a section called Germantown. I know the quiz didn't ask about pronouncing the word car, if it did it would never say you were from Boston. Nobody pronounces car like Bostonians!


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## Lou (Oct 15, 2014)

Scary accurate quiz!


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## g_axelsson (Oct 15, 2014)

It put me in Arizona and three cities there based on the same question, just because the only place I've seen a drive through liquor store in real life was in Kalgoolie, Western Australia.

The map showed that I was from anywhere in USA except Texas.

Göran


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## rickbb (Oct 15, 2014)

:lol: Drive through liquor stores, I've seen several. Used to be some drive through/up bars in Florida. You could drive up to the window and get a margarita, daiquiri, gin and tonic, whatever you wanted and drive away drinking it.

I used to work next door to a drive through store that served draft beer. They put it in a cup with a lid, that met the "closed" container law at the time. Got many a cup of draft on the way home from work.

I was much younger then, don't do that any more.


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## Anonymous (Oct 15, 2014)

We have the same things in the UK on our small island. Even though it's only 300 (ish) miles between most of the extremities it's entirely possible to completely misunderstand someone who lives 70 miles away.

Even WE don't even understand the Geordie accent..... (Newcastle) 8) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhHLmhchLrU

We also have one accent that sadly sounds stupid - even though the people aren't stupid. It's just hard to take someone with a Brummy accent seriously. *Winks at Nickvc* :lol: :lol:


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## nickvc (Oct 15, 2014)

I agree spaceships we have a problem with accents here..
Not sure if we speak the same language at times but I can understand Geordie and Glaswegian with out too much trouble, at least it's an honest turn of phrase and with feelings, southern ie London based accents tend to cost a lot more to follow, look at what the city cost us all! :evil:


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## artart47 (Oct 15, 2014)

Hey 4metals !
Neat quiz ! I grew up in Chicago and moved to milwaukee area 23yrs ago. They put me as being from Milwaukee, lighter red is Madison Wisconsin and third Twin Cities, Minn.
artart47


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## Smack (Oct 16, 2014)

I think having been in the military threw the test for a loop, it got close but not in my state, had me in NY, OH or ILL. I answered Cougar and the whole map went blue when it had me pegged. And I answered y'all and it did the same thing, I'm surprised it didn't ask what I called a soda-pop, I use both having lived in OK, sometimes it's soda but most of the time it's pop. I screw with the peeps at different restaurants (Arby's) sometimes and place my order with a big ol southern draw, a girl asked me if I was serious once lol, I said "Well hell yea sweet pea, y'all got dem dar franch fried taders ta go widit na ain't cha?".


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## jason_recliner (Oct 16, 2014)

g_axelsson said:


> It put me in Arizona and three cities there based on the same question, just because the only place I've seen a drive through liquor store in real life was in Kalgoolie, Western Australia.



Oh, you must mean the drive through bottle-o. Sadly this was not on the list.
I am supposedly from either New York, Jersey City or Yonkers - a city named after what we say for "a long time". I haven't seen you in yonkers/yonks.

Also direly missing was a slater beetle. Though I do think 'basketball beetle' a brilliant descriptor.


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## Smack (Oct 16, 2014)

jason_recliner said:


> g_axelsson said:
> 
> 
> > It put me in Arizona and three cities there based on the same question, just because the only place I've seen a drive through liquor store in real life was in Kalgoolie, Western Australia.
> ...



Got a drive through liquor store 35min. from me here in Michigan


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## Geo (Oct 16, 2014)

Here, it's a struggle in every election to try and legalize the sale of alcohol. I live in Morgan county, which is a "dry" county, but I live in Decatur city, which is a "wet" city. When I was young, you had to go to Madison county to buy alcohol, period. No other county within a hundred miles was wet until you got to Tennessee. Alabama will let you buy an assault rifle off the shelf and all the ammo you can afford but can't agree to state wide alcohol sales. Decatur is not a very small place but only has one place that sells DVD's in the back room that you have to buy a key for "wink, wink" (or so I've been told). Bikini's can still be measured to enforce decency laws. There are certain acts between a man and his wife that are still against the law even in the privacy of their own bedroom which upon admission they can be incarcerated for up to a year each. I try to be proud but .....


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## FrugalRefiner (Oct 16, 2014)

Geo said:


> Alabama will let you buy an assault rifle off the shelf and all the ammo you can afford but can't agree to state wide alcohol sales.


There's an odd sense of logic in that. :lol: 

Then again, we have the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Who the heck thought it would be a good idea to combine alcohol with firearms and explosives?

Dave


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## jason_recliner (Oct 16, 2014)

FrugalRefiner said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > Alabama will let you buy an assault rifle off the shelf and all the ammo you can afford but can't agree to state wide alcohol sales.
> ...


I don't know... It kind of sounds like a fun afternoon. :lol: 
But I understand you can't buy Kinder Surprise; they're banned in the US on the grounds that the toy inside is dangerous for kids.

In terms of accents, we have what we call bogans. I can't think of an equivalent; redneck doesn't even come close. There was a parody TV show called Housos which is amazingly accurate to certain low socioeconomic areas. I recently learned my next door neighbour is the nephew of one of the main characters. And he would fit right in. If you're going to look it up, I would warn you that there is an enormous amount of foul language, which if you can see past, the show is hilarious. At least to Australians.


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## butcher (Oct 25, 2014)

I took the quiz.
Being from the back woods of Kentucky, then West Texas and now Oregon.
I guess I confused the quiz, it didn't know where I am from.

You-uns Tote yer taters up yonder in at there poke.
Carry your potatoes home in that grocery sack.

Language, like spice, different places the food is different.


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## justinhcase (Oct 31, 2014)

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=705575922841242&fref=nf
This is what I have to deal with every day.
It took me two years to even understand when they called my name at school.
Got to love them tho
.


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## patnor1011 (Nov 9, 2014)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOUTfUmI8vs[/youtube]


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## Long Shot (Nov 9, 2014)

Interesting chat boys. Being from Canada and having been around a bit I can surely appreciate the differences in accent and dialect. Canada for one, is what they call in grade school "a cultural mosaic", people come from different parts of the world to start a new life here and they retain accents and phrasings for years if not there entire life. My next door neighbour came here from Germany when he was less than 20, now 70 and still has very pronounced German accent. There are a lot (note correct usage Harold) of Greeks in my town and they are big on being in the restaurant business - same thing, came here from the old country and when they get going you can't keep up - if ya'll think Yankees talk fast ya'll ain't heard nothin' like these guys! When I was a lad I worked in Edmonton with many nationalities - Scots, English, Irish, Jamaican (from different parts of the island and two different dudes with different attitudes and accents), Koreans, Romanians, Ukrainians, Australians, etc. and it was a real challenge trying to understand what was going on at any given moment! Also..bogans, we call em' mugwumps here and as you say Jason_Recliner, these guys pale "rednecks"! And then there is the Canadian born, eh? And the difference in the word "about" in particular. Any American will notice this, CND - "aboot", American - "abaowt"! I've noticed a wide variety of accent in Texas as well, some have almost none and some are very western drawl and anywhere between. And speaking of drive thru liquor stores (that one is for you Göran), I was in Winnie, TX once and the fellow had a drive thru liquor barn - it was awesome, nice looking girls would fill your beer purchase to your cooler than ice it up and the ice was free! What was even cooler, and lets one know how small the world can be, is that Dave the owner was there and I noticed that he had four 66 oz bottles of Forty Creek whiskey in his store (which is made about 3 hrs away from where I live here in southern Ontario) and I asked him why? He said it is popular around there, that was the last of a 10 case lot,was his personal favorite, and he hoped the order he made two weeks ago would be there soon. So much for dry counties eh Geo?


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## Geo (Nov 9, 2014)

Long Shot said:


> So much for dry counties eh Geo?



In the spirit of the thread, You would have asked "how's that grab you?" to which, I would reply "like a rusty fish hook".


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## Barren Realms 007 (Nov 10, 2014)

Geo said:


> Long Shot said:
> 
> 
> > So much for dry counties eh Geo?
> ...



Rofl


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## solar_plasma (May 9, 2015)

Dear friends,

my son has to write an english homework about, why people are moving to Hollywood today. He asked me, if I could help him. Since most of you actually are from the USA, I got the idea to ask you.

So, could you please tell me some thoughts and drop some clues?

Thank you in advance.


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## Geo (May 9, 2015)

solar_plasma said:


> Dear friends,
> 
> my son has to write an english homework about, why people are moving to Hollywood today. He asked me, if I could help him. Since most of you actually are from the USA, I got the idea to ask you.
> 
> ...



Chasing the dream of fame and wealth. Minimum wage is higher than in all rural states but the trade off is higher cost of living. If you want to become an actor, Hollywood is the place to be. From soup commercials to blockbuster movies, it all happens in Hollywood. If you have a pleasing face and good body features, you may be able to be a model. If you have a pleasant voice, you could be a spokesperson. Hollywood is where movie magic happens. California has many natural resources and workers are needed to exploit those riches. Oil, gas, farming, mining are all big industries. Silicon Valley was ground zero for the advent of miniaturization. Millions of migrant workers move through every year. California has 1,350 kilometers of coastline with all of the industry brought by huge sea ports. There is never a shortage of jobs but even the most meager of living arrangements seem grossly inflated when compared to other parts of the United States. 'California or bust" http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/45/messages/295.html


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## jason_recliner (May 9, 2015)

There's one less job available than there was yesterday. Geo takes his new role on Monday at the California Tourism Board. :lol: 

And then there's this:


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## solar_plasma (May 9, 2015)

Thank you, Geo! Great points, I would not have thought of!


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## solar_plasma (May 9, 2015)

Thank you Jason! Lots of good material! A touch of humour might pepper the the homework and round it out. :lol:


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## AndyWilliams (May 9, 2015)

Nice quiz! It says I'm from Wichita or Springfield, Ill based on the crawdad question, or whatever youse calls them! The drive thru liquor, we have but don't have a name for, in Cincinnati. That question put me in Lexington, Ky. Not too bad! The water fountain question I had to laugh, everyone here in Green Bay calls them bubblers! Dang yoopers!! Them and the "stop and go lights." Yoopers, by the way, are the people who live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (UP, or saying it fast, yoop-ers) and there is a band from the area that's popular in Wisconsin. Of course, yoopers and Wisconsinites identify much more closely than yoopers and Michiganites.

Here's the band, Da Yoopers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb9yhhflmvY

Edited to add the link!


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## rewalston (May 9, 2015)

macfixer01 said:


> Geo said:
> 
> 
> > I drove a semi truck for a few years in my younger days. I had a real problem understanding people from about Ohio northward. There was a lot of "huh?" or "could you repeat that?". They speak so fast that its hard for me to visualize the the words before it was lost in the stream. I know the way I must have seemed scratching my head and asking them to slow down. No offense meant, I stopped at a truck stop in Ohio loading steel for SOS (southern Ohio steel) and noticed that there was pinto beans on the menu. I was happy to see something I recognized. I ordered pinto beans and corn bread and a cold drink. The waitress said she didn't know what "corn bread" was and that I had ice water in front of me. When you hear someone ask if you want a coke here, be ready for the next question "what kind?". A coke can be any brand or flavor of soda. you can say "I am going after a coke" and come back with a mountain dew and no one would think it was strange. A "cold drink" in southern slang is again, any brand or flavor of soda. People of the south are a tad lazy when it comes to talking. "Hello, how are you today?" can be shortened to "sup?" Many words here have a base in early history like "over yonder". There's also words that are totally made up, like "an-em". Used in a sentence, "howdie, how's ye momma an-nem?" Translated : Hello, how's your mother and family doing?. Please don't get me started with "git a warsh rag and wipe tha winder" or "my piller's too fat" or "don't fry taters in the tallor or it'll taste funny" Tallow comes from beef fat and lard comes from pork fat, big difference. Potato turns into taters and tomato turns into maters. Okra turns into Okry. Opossum is just possum. A "rusty" is a cotton mouth snake. "logger head" is a snapping turtle. Mud cat is a channel catfish. Raccoon is just coon. Sweet milk and butter milk. Biscuits and fat back with grits. Up n-under is when you have to get down low and look up. A car's muffler is "up n-under" the car. Oh well, no one said we was perfect. :lol:
> ...


I have to laugh at this...I'm an Army brat from way back...My dad was stationed at Mt. Meade, Maryland...when I was in 1st to 3rd grade. We lived there for roughly 3 or 4 years some where around there anyways. I remember when we moved back home to Washington State it took me YEARS to get over saying Warshington whenever I was talking. Now I live in Ontario, Canada and boy howdy and I though there were weird accents in the States ...


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## Anonymous (May 15, 2015)

This is the accent a mere 150 miles from where I was born 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4TT3VtR8o


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## Barren Realms 007 (May 15, 2015)

spaceships said:


> This is the accent a mere 150 miles from where I was born
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4TT3VtR8o



Oh do you have an accent? I didn't realize it. :lol: 

You want to have fun with accent's, get thrown into a DOD school in Central America with 2,200 other kid's. You learn real quick how to decipher what someone is saying or trying to get across. I was told after being there for 4 years that I still had a heavy southern accent.


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## goldsilverpro (May 15, 2015)

Everything comes out in the warsh.


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