1

Being from what in our area is called the "Mid-Atlantic" I get this kind of thing from both sides. And it reminds me of the time I heard two kids in New England talking about the great "Maison Dixing" divide. It's where the mountains cut east, below which is an ocean, separating North from South.

2

Joe, I'm afraid you have oversimplified, with possibly disasterous results.

1. Many of your readers, not from Texas, may think that a Spanish/Hispanic/Mexican accent will be considered foreign. Not so. Tejanos are full-fledged Texans, and should be recognized as such.

2. You completely left out Louisiana. How could you do that? Most Texans would prefer a fence at the Louisiana border over a fence at the Mexican border. And this is pre-Katrina. Katrina just proved why we needed the fence in the first place.

I am a Texas, born in Ft. Worth, and you can't get no more Texan that that. However:

Many years ago, 1958, my family moved to Fredericksburg, TX, (the Hill Country, the most beautiful part of Texas, for those of you that don't know), where I started the first grade. Fredericksburg, like most of the Hill Country, was settled by Germans in 1840's. In 1958, and until LBJ became President, Fredericksburg was still linguistically isolated. If you were white, the assumption was that you were German, and they addressed you in German first. Naturally, everyone spoke English, but they all sounded like Sargeant Schulz on Hogan's heros. Being in my formative years, unbeknownst to me, I developed a German accent.

We moved to Denton, TX, in 1967 (30 miles north of Dallas, but not quite Oklahoma, for those who don't know) after the 9th grade. On the first day of school, they had a get-together for those of us who were not native Dentonites. The Spanish teacher asked me if I was a foreigner. To Denton, I admitted. No, she said, to the United States. You just don't sound like an American.

It took about 2 years to lose my German accent. I am now accepted as a real Texan.

3

My accent is an unsavory stew of everywhere I've lived--Maine (where I was born), Roanoke, Va. (where I grew up), and Maryland (lived here the past 20 years)--all bubbling in a stock of ADD mush-mouth. Just as well I've wound up in "Murland"--the natives sound northern to southerners and southern to northerners.

4

I remember getting directions in Texas from Texans when I was stationed there in the army. No matter how twisted the path of turns, block counts, river crossings and landmarks, the last line was always "And it's right strait ahead, you can't miss it."

5

I have lived in both Ft. Worth, TX and New Hampshire....and grew up/live in Nevada where people actually speak English. We are getting an influx of Californians though, so we are in trouble.

In TX, I heard the endlessly skewed "my daddy's in the awl bidnez" accent and in New Dngland I heard:
Me: Where is your restroom?
Bostonite: Ovadeh.
Me: Excuse me? Where?
Bostonite: OvaDEH!
Me: What?
Bostonite: OVA DEH!!

I also went to this Christian meeting where the lady kept shouting "Powah from on high!"

I was so glad to move back west.

6

My accent story - I am born and raised in South Carolina. The people I am around constantly have HUGE southern accents, so I never really heard my own until I went on missions trips up north.

One summer I went to Michigan, where no one knows how to talk proper English, using some foreign word, maybe French, called "pop" for a Pepsi. During my work as a summer missionary there, I got to be on a Christian radio station. We were taking requests from the callers, getting their name, hometown, the song and the CD it was on.

I answered a call from one girl who was asking for a DC Talk song. I asked her, "What city are you from?" She said, "Supernatural." Now granted I didn't know Michigan geography that well, but I was pretty sure there was no such city. I kept asking her for her city and she kept saying "Supernatural." Finally I said "where do you live," She said, "Oh I thought you were asking what CD the song was on."

The DJ scarred me for life by making me share that story over the Yankee airwaves - dang Yankee thought it was funny!

Me, I took solace in the fact that at least I was speaking correctly even if no one else knew how to.

7

I live where Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota all meet. We just had a two or three year stay from a weatherman with a strong New York accent. He lost the accent and is, I suspect, off looking for a national weatherman job.

8

"In second grade I had a teacher from one of the New England states - either Maine or Iowa, I can’t remember which - who scarred me for life."

One thing though, Iowa is not a New England State, it's in the Midwest. I guess that's the Texas School System coming through for its citizens.

9

Joe,

Whereabouts are you in Texas (city)?

Don't worry, I'm not a stalker, just curious.

10

I was born in Texas (Stephenville) but my family later emigrated to the US.

11

Chad, congratulations on your newly learned ability. What's the ability, you ask? It's to recognize sarcasm. We do also appreciate your commentary on the obvious.

We all support you in your future endeavors.

Y'ALL have a goodun'.

12

Try moving from Mississippi to California. That is when accent bias gets really bad. However, it doesn't take them long to figure out I am not dummer than they are, but I am meaner.

13

Like you, Joe, I have divested myself of my southern (East Tennessee) accent. I did it on purpose, though. The catalyst was my own recorded voice; I was appalled to find that I did not sound like the erudite talking heads on my television. I immediately went to work stripping away my dialectal heritage. Sadly, now when I walk into a watering hole where I'm not known and talk to the good ol' boys, someone inevitably asks me where I'm from. My response, that I am local, causes a discreet exchange of glances. I am reminded of the "Spongebob" episode in which the protagonist finds himself in a place where words are interspersed with raspberries.

I can't *thblllp!* understand *thbllp! * your accent!

14

Some things you'll never hear a Texan say:

"I'll take Shakespeare for a thousand, Alex."
"Duct tape won't fix that!"
"Pass the arugula please."
"Wrasslin's fake!"
"No kids in the back of the pickup. That's dangerous!"

If a Texan ever says, "Hey, y'all, come watch this!" run for your life. They're likely the last words he'll ever speak.

Y'all = singular
All y'alls = plural

15

Oh, and if you had an infinite number of Texans with an infinite number of shotguns and an infinite number of stop signs, could they reproduce the works of Shakespeare in Braille?

16

I remember a local Texan state that they need not go anywhere outside of the borders of Texas, because Texas has everything within its borders. I responded by saying..."Yeah, but you have to drive 10 hours to get to where you want to go." 10 hours could get me from Nevada to Washington state. Gee.

17

I take exception to some of this. I'm originally from Foat Wuth. I thought it was Heaven on Earth till I found Wichita Falls and Lubbock.

Anyway, I don't have no problem with Okies. (Except at the Big Game at the Cotton Bowl) Okies are pretty much like us.

I didn't realize that there was a difference between Yankees and Californians till some earlier comment on this blog said so. Avoid both of them every chance you get.

Well, the Stock Show is on, I gotta go now.

18

Where I'm from, in the Old (read: real) South, we consider Texas to be a western state, together with Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and California, except in election years and during Civil War reenactments. People with Texas accents are generally thought to be imitation southerners. We've never actually bothered to learn where Oklahoma is.

19

As a native Texan who is a church planter in New England, I find this post hysterical. Can you imagine the reality of "Bubba does New England?"

20

"Try moving from Mississippi to California. That is when accent bias gets really bad. However, it doesn't take them long to figure out I am not dummer than they are, but I am meaner."

That's my story exactly. Everyone snickered at football practice until we did the hamburger drill and they learned that real linemen use their forearms and not their hands.

21

Posted by: Chris Naron at January 28, 2006 12:28 PM

Hey Chris,

Are you the same Chris Naron that used to frequent Vox's blog. Just curious. Haven't seen you around there in awhile.

Cheers!

22

Should have been a question, not a comment. Egads!

Are you the same Chris Naron that used to frequent Vox's blog?

23

Where I'm from, in the Old (read: real) South, we consider Texas to be a western state, together with Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and California, except in election years and during Civil War reenactments. People with Texas accents are generally thought to be imitation southerners. We've never actually bothered to learn where Oklahoma is.

Posted by: Chris at January 28, 2006 05:04 AM

Amen Chris!

I recently relocated to Texas and it ain't The South brother.

Folks here are nice and all, but they're not truly "Southron".

24

I am a proud Vermonter. During the Civil War, the first American regiment to take rebel prisoners was a Vermont regiment. Several soliders wrote in diaries and letters home, "These southern boys say they're fighting for RATS."

25

Soup,

That would be me. I still post at Vox's blog here and there. Usually, I'm too busy stealing from Joe for my own blog.

26

Motopolitico: Some here might not understand that we were fighting for state's RATS!

I have my accent story as well. A native Mississippian, whose family goes back in east Mississippi and west Alabama for five or six generations, my mother , and then myself, were the first to attend college in living family memory. No doubt she and Reader's Digest affected my accent to a considerable degree, but the speech, debate, and acting classes I took in college sealed the deal. So when I dropped out of college, what field did I go into? Why, construction, of course!

The rednecks I met here, in Alabama, Florida, and yes, even Tejas, didn't believe me when I told them I was from Mississippi. One even said I was lying, but I excused him on account of extreme ignorance. Everyone was sure I was from "up north" somewhere. It's amazing what training in proper diction and grammar will do for a person't image!

As an aside to this story, all male southerners who attend college yet retain a semblence of their southern accents are suspected of being queers, no matter how many wives or girlfriends they may profess to have.

27

"This characteristic can probably be attributed to living in a place where the four seasons are Fire, Smog, Landslide, and Earthquake."

Not quite, smog is not a season to my knowledge. Their air is always that shade of yellow. It has always been my understanding that California's four seasons are wildfire, mudslide, earthquake, and riot.

At the end of my last trip to Texas, my relatives were tickled pink that I had switched from the coarse northeastern "you guys" to the genteel southern "y'all". They really couldn't have been prouder. And so my penchant for sweet tea began.

28

Some here might not understand that we were fighting for state's RATS!

True story: for anyone who has seen the film Gettysburg, you'll recall the scene where the Union Col. Joshua Chamberlain talks to a few Confederate prisoners from Tennessee. He clearly respects their courage but wants to know what makes them fight.

"We're fightin' for our RATS!" one Tennessean says.

"Your rats?" a puzzled Chamberlain asks.

"We're fightin' for our RATS!" the Tennessean repeats.

Now, Ron Maxwell, who co-wrote and directed Gettysburg, grew up in a French-speaking household, seeing as his mother was French. When given an opportunity to see his film dubbed into French, he says he almost fell out of his seat during that scene. The French translator completely missed the joke and translated the line, "We're fighting for our SQUIRRELS!"