| What American accent do you have? Your Result: Philadelphia Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard. | |
| The Northeast | |
| The Midland | |
| The South | |
| The Inland North | |
| Boston | |
| The West | |
| North Central | |
| What American accent do you have? | |
I suppose it's nice to know that, after spending pretty much my entire adult life in New Mexico, I still haven't lost the old South Jersey accent. Even though no one here has told me I talk funny in years.
It pegged me (correctly) as Northeast. Even a decade in Pennsylvania couldn't wash that away from me, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI came out as Northeast. Not bad for a Brit.
ReplyDeletehey, got any advice for integrating my kitten into my very territorial cat family?
ReplyDeleteJen: You know, I read a whole book on the subject of dealing with multi-cat households. It had lots of advice like: when the kitten is around, do nice things for the other cats, such as playing with them and giving them treats, so they'll associate the newcomer's presence with positive feelings. I have to say, though, that trying that never seemed to accomplish very much for me. The best advice I have is to give them time. It's always rough at first, but eventually they'll sort out their hierarchy on their own.
ReplyDeleteOK, so, so far, all my adult cats run away from him. He has sniffed noses with 2 of them, one just this morning. Doesn't seem to matter tho. Man, is this gonna take a LOOOOONG time or what?
ReplyDeleteIf they're only running away, rather than fighting or hissing or intimidating him, and if they actually let him bump noses with them, however briefly, than I'd say you're actually doing pretty good! It took mine a while just to get that far. Give it a couple of weeks, maybe. Cats adapt to change very slowly and really don't like anything new, let alone another kitty on their territory. But once they realize that, no, he's not going away, they'll probably learn to put up with him.
ReplyDeleteoh, there is hissing and growling but no claws so I am thankful for that.
ReplyDeleteI tied - The West and Midland. But just ask me how pronounce vehicle, garage, roof and decal.
ReplyDeleteOK. How do you pronounce vehicle, garage, roof, and decal? :)
ReplyDeleteveeicle as oppossed to VEE-hick-le.
ReplyDeletegar-AHzh (gar as in far or gur as in fur and azh sounds like Taj as in Taj Mahal - soft j sound) The Brits say it like GEHR-ahzh or GAIR-ahzh. I've even heard as GAIRadge as in carriage. Most Americans I have met say grr-ADGE or even grADGE. (ADGE as in badge)
roof with an oo as in boot or goof, not as in gruff. Ruff is what the dog says.
Decal is deckle not DEE-cal.
Then there is always Zed vs. Zee and spelling issues such as labour vs. labor, etc. There were publishers up here in the 90's who were pushing for conformity with US publishing standards, but people seemed to get riled up and - in a rare show of backbone - began to complain. Somethings have changed and will never change back. My parents grew up spelling tire as tyre. That was fazed out as mine and Betty's generation reached the schooling age.
Depends on where you are from I suppose. I just remember watching Saturday morning cartoons (all of them on the big American three back in the 70's) and the cereal commercials would talk about getting a free "dee-cal" in every box. Meanwhile my Dad would put a "deckle" on his car.
I'm from the "Inland North", which is basically true, considering both my parents were from the Chicago area. This totally confounded my friends growing up in NJ, who always pronounce "water" as "wooder", but I didn't talk like them, even though I was raised there. I don't think I'll ever understand how a Pakistani student in college thought my accent was either British or Bostonian.
ReplyDeleteMagnus: Except for "decal," I pronounce all of those words the same way you do. I'm not sure I've ever heard "decal" pronounced that way, though.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading a book about the English language once that had a picture of a Canadian sign that said "Tire Centre," and noted that Canada was the only place in the world you'd find that particular combination of spellings. :)
CC: I was a little surprised that it pegged mine, because I always had much less of an accent than most of the people around me (including my mother). Although, yeah, "water" is, well... something at least vaguely like "wooder." :)
I had a British person tell me once, after having listened to a small recorded snippet of my talking, that I sounded almost British. I'm not at all sure where he got that from. I mean, I know I was influenced by all the PBS I watched as a kid, but I didn't think it was that much.