# Age Group And Regional Accents



## Flaming Bassoon (Feb 15, 2013)

PowerShell said:


> What part of Wisconsin? I'm from Central Wisconsin and I find anywhere I go in the country, all the newscasters talk like us. When I drink, I definitely get the more "Yooper"-type accent going on. What I find interesting is when I travel to other parts of the country and talk to people I ask them what my accent sounds like and most say, "You have a Wisconsin accent." I find it funny that our state has its own accent (even though most newscasters, even in the deep south, sound like us).


I come from Northcentral Wisconsin, so there's definitely that Yooper influence, so to speak. I've talked to people from New England and they say, "You have such a cute Midwestern accent!" which baffles me, because we're supposed to have a neutral accent; this is why a lot of people on TV use it - it's supposed to be more professional.


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## TwitchdelaBRAT (Jul 24, 2011)

Wiscooonsun? 

Twitch


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## Aqualung (Nov 21, 2009)

I have a slight Texas accent. Used to be very thick before I left Texas for 2 years & lost it. Funny because Texans were telling me "You're no Texan! Where are you really from?" :tongue: Gained it back months after I returned & lost it again when I left Texas again for 8 years. Gained it back again but married someone with no accent years ago, so I've lost probably 90% of the Texas accent. Sometimes my fellow Texans ask me where I'm from.


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## finically (Nov 18, 2009)

I am in my early twenties and don't have a specific accent, having lived in various parts of the world since childhood. My "accent" is very volatile and receptive to the people in my surroundings. Inevitably, I pick up on the accent(s) of those with whom I spend the most time. Sometimes, just for fun, I'll practice various accents using tapes designed for those in the acting profession, etc.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Flaming Bassoon said:


> I come from Northcentral Wisconsin, so there's definitely that Yooper influence, so to speak. I've talked to people from New England and they say, "You have such a cute Midwestern accent!" which baffles me, because we're supposed to have a neutral accent; this is why a lot of people on TV use it - it's supposed to be more professional.


So basically the Wausau\Merrill area? I'm from Marshfield. We have some of the Yooper thing going on but not so much. I know the farther north you take 51, the more Yooper it gets (until you obviously get to the UP itself).


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## Figure (Jun 22, 2011)

"Yooper" XD

It's deceptively easy to pick up parts of the accent around you. When I went to NC for school, I started saying "y'all," and after many weeks of work on client site up in NJ, got accused of saying "cawfee."

The midwest does have some streaks of an accent in certain places, but it seems regional. I grew up in Ohio, and got crap for saying it "Uhayuh" when I went to college. There are a few others as well - "bull" like "bowl," the hotly contested "pop," shortening words like "family" to "famly." I think a lot of people from the area say things that way, despite it not being a particularly well-known "accent."


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## Flaming Bassoon (Feb 15, 2013)

PowerShell said:


> So basically the Wausau\Merrill area? I'm from Marshfield. We have some of the Yooper thing going on but not so much. I know the farther north you take 51, the more Yooper it gets (until you obviously get to the UP itself).


Yes, I live in a minuscule town near Wausau. My mom and dad are from the North and it's definitely noticeable. They have a tendency to say huntin' and fishin'.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Flaming Bassoon said:


> Yes, I live in a minuscule town near Wausau. My mom and dad are from the North and it's definitely noticeable. They have a tendency to say huntin' and fishin'.


Looks like you guy (yous guys by the regional accent) got hit pretty hard with some storms. They skirted us and went north. A funny phrase I find is "making wood." People think it's a dirty thing but it just means cut and split firewood. "Ya, eh. Don'tcha know we autta make some wood before it get too hot, ya know?"


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

I'm from Southern Central PA and have a bit of rural twang that comes out when I'm tired or just on occasional words. It's one of those things where, if you know about it, you can hear it, but otherwise I sound pretty standard. I can kind of feel it happen when I'm tired because my mouth becomes lazier and it just happens. 

I was an import into the area, my parents grew up in eastern PA in the metro areas, so despite being raised in Southern Central PA, my voice was pretty straight compared to those of some of my peers whose families had lived there for a few generations or more.

Central Pennsylvania dialect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As far as grammar things, the one thing that really stands out is the habitual dropping of "to be" -- people at my last workplace actually pointed it out to me, I never realized it was different. So instead of saying, "The house needs to be cleaned" or "the house needs cleaning," I would naturally say, "The house needs cleaned" and the other sentences sound weird to me.

The other item on the page that applies are the homophones (like "Don" and "Dawn" always sounded alike to me, it was later in life where I realized they're pronounced a bit differently and could discern what it was).

EDIT: Found a more complete list at: 
http://www.thefullwiki.org/Central_Pennsylvania_accent

Items that I grew up with: 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 33, 36, 37, 38, 40, 44

Pretty interesting stuff, there's some things there I had viewed as "normal" and didn't realize others spoke differently.


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## FakeLefty (Aug 19, 2013)

I live in Maryland, and I'm not sure if I do have an accent. It doesn't seem that I have a noticeable accent, although there was this one girl on an airplane that told me that I had a British accent... even though I've never set foot on Britain. o.0


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Jennywocky said:


> I'm from Southern Central PA and have a bit of rural twang that comes out when I'm tired or just on occasional words. It's one of those things where, if you know about it, you can hear it, but otherwise I sound pretty standard. I can kind of feel it happen when I'm tired because my mouth becomes lazier and it just happens.


I notice that PA has like a Southern twang to it. It's kind of weird because you go south of there and there's less of the twang.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

PowerShell said:


> I notice that PA has like a Southern twang to it. It's kind of weird because you go south of there and there's less of the twang.


Yeah, exactly! It gives more credence to the "Pennsyltucky" phrase to describe that area of PA. 

I live in Maryland now and there's not a twang here. I don't think that picks up again until maybe starting in the lowest parts of Virginia or maybe NC. I've mentioned before Winter's Bone was a weird movie for me because, despite growing up so much further north, I could identify with the lifestyle, the housing, and the language to some degree.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Jennywocky said:


> Yeah, exactly! It gives more credence to the "Pennsyltucky" phrase to describe that area of PA.


When I was in PBL (College Future Business Leaders of America) we used to joke that PA had accents that made them the South of the North. I've driven through PA on my way to NYC and I guess I can see where they can get those sort of accents since it is very rural there. The mountains are beautiful there. Also, on that same roadtrip, I never realized how mountainous Maryland is.


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## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

PowerShell said:


> When I was in PBL (College Future Business Leaders of America) we used to joke that PA had accents that made them the South of the North. I've driven through PA on my way to NYC and I guess I can see where they can get those sort of accents since it is very rural there.


It's even more sparsely populated in the mid/northern central areas. Pretty much the biggest cities are on the east and west ends, and the capital (smaller by far) is surrounded by cornfields in the middle of the state. Other than that? Well, I guess there is Scranton, made famous by The Office.

Up in the northern part there's even a landmark called The Grand Canyon of PA. Not quite as illustrious as the real one out west, but pretty large for our state.



> The mountains are beautiful there. Also, on that same roadtrip, I never realized how mountainous Maryland is.


I've been kind of surprised after living here (near Baltimore) for the last year. 

Although the westerners would laugh and say, "You guys don't have mountains over there." I guess technically they're more like ridges. But there can be lots of them here.


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## Devrim (Jan 26, 2013)

I'm a South African,
But based on accent alone people place me as someone from America,
So I don't sound like anyone here xD


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## LadyO.W.BernieBro (Sep 4, 2010)

Jennywocky said:


> I'm from Southern Central PA and have a bit of rural twang that comes out when I'm tired or just on occasional words. It's one of those things where, if you know about it, you can hear it, but otherwise I sound pretty standard. I can kind of feel it happen when I'm tired because my mouth becomes lazier and it just happens.
> 
> I was an import into the area, my parents grew up in eastern PA in the metro areas, so despite being raised in Southern Central PA, my voice was pretty straight compared to those of some of my peers whose families had lived there for a few generations or more.
> 
> ...


This reminds me of someone who didn't say ''l'm done with _____''


She'd just say ''l'm done Season 8 Scrubs." ''l'm done my history paper.''

And everyone was like (insert LOLLLLLL.gif here). From the east coast.


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## TheProcrastinatingMaster (Jun 4, 2012)

I like buttons


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

I like turtles but don't understand why they were on the road.


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## TwitchdelaBRAT (Jul 24, 2011)

I find my brain likes to cram as many words together it can fit in the shortest time period possible.
So my words will comeoutlikethis.
It likes to do that while writing too, so It may just be me.

Twitch


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## Swede (Apr 2, 2013)

I love accents! Sweden has an insane amount of accents; beautiful, hilarious, joyous - I love them all. Of course I am from Stockholm and we tend to be hated by the rest of the Swedes on principle, so I was always made fun of wherever I travelled.

Here in the US my accent is Swedish. Supposedly you have to practically be a genius in order to learn a new language without an accent after the age of 13. I like that I have an accent - keeps me connected to my heritage. By now it is so slight that some people are surprised that I'm not American. I sometimes jokingly answer that I am from Minnesota when people ask. They never believe me. People here in the US have guessed that I am from Germany, France (huh!?), and Wisconsin!
One of my friends, a guy I worked with for 7 years, used to whisper bork-bork each time he passed my office. Several times a day, for 7 years! That's a lot of borks...

Favorite US accents: Boston & New Jersey. The heavy KY accent can be pretty hard to get.


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