Part one. Part three. Part four. Part five. Part six.
11. I like to make up lyrics to any tune that happens to be in my head, and sing them out loud while doing chores. So far, the only ones privy to this have been my cats and a few children of (mostly) single-digit ages. (Teenagers look at me like I’m crazy if they experience my improv songwriting skills, because they could never admit liking it.) The children love it, and my current fourth-grade class was treated to this skill only last Sunday, because they were singing The Dreidel Song and added the lyric, “I made it out of X,” where X was their name. But they got stuck on the rhymes. I did not, and was soon standing in front of a line of children jumping up and down yelling “Me! Me next! Do my name!”
They all walked away smiling, though Erin was not the easiest of names to rhyme.
12. My father made up a song that he sang specifically to me when I was a child, and a few times when I was a teenager. It goes like this: “Meryl, Meryl, who’s my favorite gir-rl.” (You have to draw the word “girl” into two syllables and sorta make it rhyme with Meryl.) Perhaps that’s where my talent in the above item comes from. Dad also used to mangle songs, e.g., “Oh, how we danced, on the night we were wed/we danced and we danced ’cause we didn’t have a bed.” I’ve never forgotten that one, and had no idea what the true lyric was until I attended a local klezmer concert.
Anyway, I liked my song. Even when I was a teenager. It was one of the few signs of affection from a very unaffectionate dad.
13. I have always wanted to drive cross-country in an RV. I want to spend an entire summer driving through every state in the country, spending more time, of course, in the interesting spots, like the Grand Tetons and the Black Mountains and Yellowstone National Park. Now I could do it and still blog. If I ever win the lottery, and find a traveling companion, hello, USA Tour.
14. I have an extremely good ear for dialects. I can usually tell what part of the country you’re from after hearing you speak for a few minutes. If you’re from Chicago, I’ve got you picked out the second you say a word with a short “a” in it. This talent tends to impress people, but hey, my mom worked for Eastern, and I flew all over the country while I was in high school and college, and worked in New York as an adult. If you truly want to learn dialects, work in New York. Well, then there’s that little thing about paying attention to how other people talk, and even what they say. The funniest thing about Richmond is that the accent gets more pronounced the lower down in economic class you go–there are some native Richmonders from old Virginia families who sound like they were born in New Jersey and have no accent at all.
Corollary to the above: I can usually tell what country you are from. I can tell the difference between British, Australian, and New Zealand accents, though not all the time. I’m still trying to figure out why this guy’s accent makes me think Australia, not England. I wonder if it’s because he spent time there?
15. I have no accent. Well, I had none. I take on some of the speech idioms of the place I live, and have been told (by a New Yorker) that my NJ accent (which is basically speaking English the way the dictionaries say you should) now has a bit of a drawl to it. I expect he’s right. You have to slow down your speech in the south, or the natives can’t understand you. I have also taken to saying, “That’s fine” instead of “okay,” and sometimes even let myself speak the Richmond version: “Tha’s fahn.”
16. If I moved back to NJ, my Richmond idioms and drawl would disappear in a month.
People born in New Jersey have no accent at all? They speak dictionary English? Meryl – solipsism called. She wants her mirror back.
Now, you may not be a full-blown Joisey goil, but how can a self-proclaimed dialectician make those claims about New Jersey? If you truly had no accent, you would have grown up in the Pacific Northwest. If this is a fishing expedition, then consider me gaffed, but the idea of somebody from NJ claiming that they have no accent is unbelievable.
MakeMineRed
True, there are a few dialects in NJ, but not in the part where I’m from (Essex County). Bergen and Hudson County are the worst–they’re the ones who still say Noo Yawk. Nobody has ever said “Joisey” outside of the movies and Brooklyn. Interestingly, the closer to Delaware and Pennsylvania, the more southern or country the dialect. But those are the sticks. I’m from Newark. City girl.
The Pacific Northwest has a distinct accent as well. I spent plenty of time in the Seattle area while my cousin lived in Steilacoom and Tacoma.
The way I see it, if you pronounce words the way the dictionary says to pronounce them, you have no accent.
It’s “cawfee” in the dictionary, not “cahfee.”
I stand by my (formerly) accentless dialect. Hey, you can dig up Bruce Hill’s old podcast featuring yours truly and judge for yourself.
Saying ‘cawfee’ is a definite marker, just like saying ‘Flah-riduh’ for Florida or ‘ah-runj’ for orange. My friend from Bricktown (now Brick), NJ doesn’t say ‘cawfee’ all the time, nor does she have a broad pronunciation when she does. Doesn’t change the fact that she has an accent.
I’d be surprised if ‘cawfee’ wasn’t in the dictionary. After all, it’s part of their job to report the major pronunciations of every word. Both pronunciations are in my dictionary, btw (Am. Heritage, Coll. Ed’n. 1982).
I’ve heard East coasters make the claim that PNW’ers have an accent, but they can’t tell me exactly what it is. Maybe you can. I was marked for pronouncing roof with more of a ‘uh’ sound than with an ‘oo’, but that’s something I picked up from my midwestern parents. A German once told me that PNW’ers were the easiest Americans to understand because we lack an accent.
MakeMineRed
When you can make a civil response, humanitarian2112, I will not delete your comment.
I will point out, however, that nowhere in my post did I imply that southerners are stupid. I slow my speech down because we northerners tend to jumble our words together, quickly, and southerners tend not to get some of what we say. The reason I do it is out of courtesy, not insult. I have been told by more than one southerner that I talk too fast.
You want to be an asshole about it, and take insult where none was intended, go right ahead. No one else is going to see your comments.
Oh, yeah. The above was a deliberate insult. Trust me when I tell you that if I’m going to insult someone, they’re going to know it.
No one notices the accent where they live; everyone else talks funny.
Or as we used to say in Houston:
“Y’all are the wuns talkin lak Yankees…so jest sip yer sody pop and stop thankin that everun else talks funny”
BTW my understanding is that the “Standard American Accent” used to define dictionary pronunciations is that of New England…