Best Stupid Guest Ever

[Whazzup]

One doesn't notice their own accent. That's why the only reason I know my accent is all weird is because I've been told by a number of people.

I was much too polite to mention it. :D:

[Amphigorey]

I've learned to recognize mine since living in the South because Southerners are not at all shy about pointing it out! It's made me very aware of my pronunciation of certain words. Also, I've noticed that the expression y'all has slipped into my lexicon...probably sounds especially weird when spoken with a Chicago accent.

Y'all is very useful. Standard English doesn't have a second person plural any more, which is weird. We lost it a few centuries ago, when we switched from using "thou" and "you" to just "you." "You" was once the second-person plural as well as the formal address - the equivalent of the French "vous." English dropped thee and thou, and kept you, and the meaning of thou was folded into you.

What's weird about that whole business is that English kept the formal address and dropped the informal. Most languages do it the other way around (if it happens at all).

[felinefan]

I haven't heard of Val-speak since the 80s, when it was big.

German also has different forms of "you". If you are addressing a sibling or close friend, you use "du" for you; if you are addressing someone like your parents, or an older person, or an authority figure, you use "Sie". That's the singular. "Ihr" is you-plural. I took German in high school for two years, so it's been quite some time; otherwise I could go into you-plural, familiar and formal.

I once read an article by an author who was originally from Hungary; he said Hungarian has seven forms of you, and one time he got slapped by a girl he was dating when he used a form of you that was just a little too intimate for her. I am sure other languages have similar boobytraps.

[Zazu]

Zazu can confirm or deny this, but I heard on some Discovery Channel show or something that the way we speak in the Pacific Northwest, Toronto and like places is actually what the English (British) accent was sometime around the 1400's. I would love if that was true, but I'll still sleep well tonight if not.

The way I heard it was backwoods Carolinas and Scotland of the 1600s, but then language is a funny thing, you may be right, but I'm too lazy to look it up tonight.

But I think the only real difference between a lot of Canadians and me is how we say words like "couch", etc.

Yeah, my cousins from Saskatoon pronounce it "davenport"!

[Rob562]

I'm from Boston, and while people say I have a slight accent, they always have a hard time placing it, and never guess anywhere near Boston. It's mainly because I say my "R"'s. And hearing someone imitate a Boston accent is like torture. I remember that show Crossing Jordan, it took place in Boston, but only one person tried to talk with the Boston accent. It was horrible. What was so great about The Dearted is that the ones that talked in the Boston accents were actually from Boston.

I'm in the same boat. Grew up about 30 miles west of Boston from age 3. For the most part I don't have much of a typical Boston accent, but I do hear myself dropping an R now and then.
Until I was 3, we lived outside Camden, NJ. But my family is from all over the northeast: Dad is from Hartford, Mom is from Pennsylvania Dutch country, sister was born in Buffalo where they lived until she was 8 and they moved to NJ.

My sister has lived in Maryland and Virginia since college, and I kid her every time she drops a "y'all" in the conversation. :)

-Rob

[hhsrat]

Yeah, my cousins from Saskatoon pronounce it "davenport"!

And do they pronounce the city in FL as "couch" ?

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

And do they pronounce the city in FL as "couch" ?

No, I think they call it Settee, like the city in Iowa!

hehehehe

[thomaskr]

Similarly, I've heard multiple times that the French in Québec is the most similar to how they spoke it in the 1600-1700's and that that "Frenchy-French" they speak in France is modern, clean French.

Anyway, "autobus" in French is pronounced sort of "ow-too-boo-sss".

I'll never forget the waitress in South Carolina who said "y'all wan' paiz wi'that?" ("Do you and your family want your meal served on plates?") Took me a couple of tries to translate.

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

Similarly, I've heard multiple times that the French in Québec is the most similar to how they spoke it in the 1600-1700's and that that "Frenchy-French" they speak in France is modern, clean French.

Anyway, "autobus" in French is pronounced sort of "ow-too-boo-sss".

I'll never forget the waitress in South Carolina who said "y'all wan' paiz wi'that?" ("Do you and your family want your meal served on plates?") Took me a couple of tries to translate.

Umm, what would the alternative be? Cup your hands?

Just exactly what kind of place were you in?

[hobie16]

Just exactly what kind of place were you in?

It must have been a Choke 'n' Puke.