<p>I just looked up the Canadian raising thing on wiki and I find it odd that when reading a word aloud, I pronounce it differently than when I’m just saying it in conversation. Is anyone else noticing that?</p>
<p>“Ages ago, a minister told me that they taught standard American pronucation in seminary, to wash out the regionalism- somehow the “standard” was then Ohio.”</p>
<p>I think this is an urban legend as I heard they teach broadcasters to speak as people in Connecticut do which is/was supposedly “accentless.” </p>
<p>I am sure we have an accent but perhaps compared to NY to the east and MA/Boston to the north and east, we sound like we have no accent.</p>
<p>As for Canadians, I find it amusing that every sentence ends in “eh.”</p>
<p>What I find hysterical is Asians with southern accent. My niece and nephew grew up in NC, and their mother won’t let them use it, but I have heard them speaking like southerners. </p>
<p>I love Henry Cho, a Korean comedian with southern accent. His “Going to Korea” is very funny.</p>
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Trying saying it more quickly instead of enunciating it.</p>
<p>I know someone from Tennessee who is fond of calling large groups of people “folks.” Is that a normal thing for around there?</p>
<p>emilybee–I’ve heard that they teach national broadcasters to speak in the Iowan accent-which, I think, there is no real accent and words are pronounced “correctly”.</p>
<p>I’m afraid that this is OT, but I had to chip in after Oldfort’s post. S’12 was a linesman at a pro tennis tournament in Canada (just a small local one!) when a fellow linesman called one of the balls out. The player who had lost the point then said something to the linesman in Spanish. The linesman went to the umpire who cautioned the player that he shouldn’t swear at the officials. The player was indignant and asked how the linesman could possibly know that he was swearing as the linesman was Indian (from the subcontinent). The umpire came back with “No, he’s not, he’s from Texas!”</p>
<p>^^^That is hysterical.</p>
<p>Recently we were at a resort in Mexico. Having lived there for few years, D2 was fluent in Spanish, but the staff didn’t know. She was doing an activity, she got hit and she started cursing and babbling in Spanish to them. They were shocked, but became very friendly to us after that.</p>
<p>“I am sure we have an accent but perhaps compared to NY to the east and MA/Boston to the north and east, we sound like we have no accent.”</p>
<p>Sure you do. Everyone has an accent. It’s just what your ear is used to.</p>
<p>I had heard the mid-Atlantic/DC area was thought to have the least accent and therefore was most understandable to people across the country.</p>
<p>“y’all” and “all y’all” are such useful terms that I refused to give them up when I moved from NC to the Midwest!</p>
<p>I haven’t lived in the south for 30+ years, but apparently my accent remains. An earlier work supervisor tried to convince me that it would be advantageous to lose the “hick” accent (his term, not mine) but I thought he was the real hick for suggesting it in the first place.</p>
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<p>oldfort, there are masses of Asians in Vancouver and Victoria, BC, where I was “from” before the last 10 years (in Georgia). But when I lived in Canada, I once visited a southern US city on a business trip, and we went out for Chinese food. It sounded so bizarre, the family in the restaurant speaking English with a Chinese+southern accent. I realized that I thought of Chinese immigrants as “naturally” speaking English with a Chinese+Canadian accent, but of course, when I thought about it, that was just absurd of me.</p>
<p>@scout59: For some reason people in the Midwest love to diss the south. This makes no sense to me, because in addition to the very useful “y’all,” the south also has better weather…and Chick-fil-A.</p>
<p>Count me another northern transplant fan of y’all (although I think overuse of all y’all is a bit much). As mentioned by jaylynn, addressing adults, particularly older adults as “you guys” feels disrespectful, and the collective “you” tends to be unclear (singular or plural?) and seems a bit brusque. Y’all is great and I use it all the time in work emails to my team. The midwesterners in the group (we’re a geographically distributed team) think this is amusing of me, but I do it anyway. There are things I don’t so much care for about the south, but I see no reason not to embrace things that are done better here!</p>
<p>The DC accents are a mish-mash, since so many come from elsewhere. There’s no one type. And, you still get the Md influence. N.Va can be “less Southern” than other parts of the state. </p>
<p>I love “eh?” And, use “folks” all the time. “You all,” in some business or professional contexts, is too slangy for me. I’d say you or “you both.” Or, “all of you.”</p>
<p>I think we Midwesterners make fun of Southerners BECAUSE you have such nice weather. After all, we also have the heat and humidity but it is coupled with blizzards, lake effect snow and wind chill factors. Of course, we now have Chik-fil-A, so we can feel superior for a long while ;)</p>
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<p>Again, there is no such thing as “least accent.” You are making linguists cry :-)</p>
<p>I always heard that the “official” American accent was Hartford, Connecticut because that is where Noah Webster was from, and he wrote the first “official” American dictionary!</p>
<p>We are users of “folks” in the PNW It can be specific as in “you folks” or more general as in “If folks would like to get up and move around a bit . . .” when addressing a group.</p>
<p>Wait, Pizzagirl, how’d you get so fancy? I thought you were a Midwesterner, born and bred? I knew there were SOME people who didn’t rhyme “Mary, Larry, merry and marry,” but I thought they were the ones with the accents. 
When I go to the East Coast this summer I’m going to corner some locals and get a demo up close and personal. And when my Maryland-born BF comes back from the grocery store, I’m going to quiz him. I hope he brings some pop!</p>
<p>Seriously, I’m too old a dog to change (correct?) my Midwestern phonetic habits, though I am enjoying the discussion, y’all. I picked up that regionalism after 10 years in Texas, and I must say it sounds much better to my ear than “youse,” which was my parents’ idiom of choice for groups. As in, “Stay right there until I get back … De boat a youse.”</p>
<p>Ha! No, born on the east coats and grew up in Philly. Since we’re now relatively close to one another, we’ll have to go for coffee (or, as I would have said as a kid, caw-fee) and I can teach you the Mary/marry/merry differential up close and personal!</p>