ngdawg

I was discussing my accent with an online buddy. Well, I don't think I have an accent and it's not a Jersey one as is portrayed on tv if I do. No...I have a....*sigh*....Philly accent, once removed because I was born and raised in South Jersey.
During our discussion I found this essay and it is dead on. To me, the Philly accent is horrid; going to my sister's house and hearing her neighbors makes my ears want to explode and my jowls start to constrict.
Interesting thing about accents: Sam Elliott, who one would think might be from at least the Kansas/Missouri area, was born and raised in Oregon. Danny Devito, who sounds like he's from Brooklyn, was born and raised in Central New Jersey, as was Jack Nicholson. And good ol' Larry the Cable Guy is from....Nebraska !?!?!?!
This is how 'we' tawk from Seouth Jerzzzzzey:
Philly Accents

A couple left out: "Fire" is two syllables. FOI-errr. or FYE-errr. "Stone" is stee-own. A friend from the south once teased after hearing that from me, "What the hell is a steeown??" Ok then...rock.

What is it about your own region's accent that sets it apart? Even the south has different accents-I can tell a Tennessee from a North Carolina, for instance. And southwestern GA to about Birmingham, AL is different than, say, Savannah, GA.
What regional accents make your jowls constrict? Or your heart melt?

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RenaissanceII

I like the variety of drawls and accents other than my dull nasally midwestern twang...\

New england accents like a South Bahstan Accent or a Down East Maine accents.

of course a good southern drawl especially spoken by a southern belle :melts:

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StellaLuna

I'm not going to lay out the entirety of the NC twang for you... it varies from beach to mountains and all points in between. But what used to drive me batshit crazy when I moved here were the words "pen" and "pin". Both of them are pronounced "pee-un". "Y'all got a pee-un?" Sometimes there is no way in hell to tell what that person wants... a writing implement? A pointy stabby object? WHAT? That's more of a downhome back-country way of talking, though. Here in the city you don't hear it so much. It's tempered by people from other places coming in and settling.

I admit I have a bit of an accent now, but that ain't nuthin compared t'my office mate, or somma tha girls ah work with. Living in the South around Southerners tends to soften your speech, pulls those consonants from the ends of words and rolls those vowels out a biiiit more than they really need. Helps when I'm talking to clients, too, because it puts me on even ground. They don't feel like I'm trying to be "better" than they are, because I talk like they do. Softer, sure, and less swearing, but we sound alike. BiqueerChris-- I used this accent (nay, superpower) to get out of any liability in a traffic accident in NY. Stood on the corner screaming like a crazy woman at the cabbie who hit my car, and when the cops arrived they found a sweet lil' Southern thang half in tears in her car with her momma. You could see the policeman's heart turn to Jello. Hee.

A black man with a British accent is what stops my breath for a second. I love it and can't do anything but sit and quietly listen.

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ngdawg

My two best friends are from Missouri and the other, born in NC and living in TN. While out visiting my friend in MO, I called the other and handed him the phone. I should mention that he has a drawl, slightly southern, totally sexy-cool. Upon hearing her voice, he laughed and said, "That's so cute!! You have a southern accent!" To which I replied, "Hey! So do YOU!" When he handed the phone back to me, my TN friend simply said, " Lord! Have MERCY!" regarding his voice and accent.
Oddly enough, while I can note the accents they have, I can't really put my finger on what it is that makes them 'accents'. There's certain words like 'mah' for 'my' and she draws out the oo sound in words like 'book'; when I'm down there, it takes about 24 hours for me to start sounding like her, but it's subtle.
And yes, StellaLuna, she can also pull off the sweet southern belle deal when she wants to. Some friends call it the "Bless Your Heart" act....that southern women can do this thing where they might say a sweet, smiling "Bless your heart" but their heads are planning the recipients imminent demise or thinking how stupid they are

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StellaLuna

"Bless your/her/his heart" is also the best way to say whatever you want about someone without sounding like a total bitch. "She looks like she rolled out of bed and through a dumpster, bless her heart."

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Screw tradition!

Jetée

Interesting one notices such things...

Most interesting...

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BadNick

Well it seems you have Philly well covered and that's where I've lived since I was 4yrs old, so that's more than the last 50 years. Whenever I travel people still tell me I have a "mild" Philly accent. I'm sure it used to be a lot stronger of an accent. After graduating from college, moving downtown and starting to meet more people from out of the neighborhood, many of my various speech eccentricities were being pointed out often enough that I became conscious of wanting to change. I found that I was using sloppy speech too often. Though I could write in perfect grammar, I didn't usually speak that way. Two of my favorite Philly slangish terms are "yous" and "igles", and the misuse of "seen" instead of "saw".

So I don't know about yous guys but how do ya think the Igles will be this year? I seen them practice and they look pretty good.

Before we were married, my dear first wife gave me a birthday present of a couple of personal artifacts she made for me; one was an "eye seen" which related to my misuse of "I seen".

roachboy

the purest philly accents that i remember hearing were proudly bourne by folk from northeast philly. it was warter warter everywhere, particularly along bal-TI-moah avenue, up near the ak-a-mee. i used to think that if you were from boston and wanted to make fun of old-school brooklyn-ese (like you'd have heard on the honeymooners) you'd sound like you were from north east philly. but these folk i remember mostly from my first sentence to the philly region, in the early 1980s. the second tour i did in philly was strange in this respect--i know the city much better for the past 6 years of living in west philly, but i hear fewer of the old-school accents.

but i could just be "being ignorant", as the odious little saying goes.
or i just know alot of expats and only a few locals.
but my sense is that philly has changed alot between the early 1980s and last year (when i left), that its older neighborhoods are dissolving one after the other (except maybe the northeast, which is still as it has always been to me, a mystery, the void that begins with yard's brewery and extends north well past the extent of my ability to care)...and that the accent is dissolving along with it. which is good, i think: it was truly awful. worst and more annoying (even) than my family's militantly north shore massachusetts accents.

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ngdawg

Mine, too (or, my-inn) have always been pointed out to me and I really try not to say things like 'stee-own' or the long drawn out short vowels(although I still am not sure, is it 'OR-ange or ARE-inge? I say the second). There are still some good-natured arguments around here, since I moved up to North Jersey; it's a "hoagie", not a sub and I put "jimmies" or "sprinkles" on my ice cream, not sprills. And I say my R's....my dresser has DRAWERS, not Draws.

Roachboy: I would celebrate the day no one has that horrid accent any more.

LOL@ 'ak-a-mee'!! (for those that don't know, that's supposed to be "Acme")

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Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.