Tagged
Thanks to that devious Lutton Square, I’ve been tagged with a quiz.
| What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Inland North
You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.” |
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| Philadelphia |
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| The Northeast |
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| The Midland |
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| The South |
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| The West |
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| Boston |
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| North Central |
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| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz |
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My accent is more of a clusterfuck than you might expect, and there’s a reason for that. I moved to Connecticut after 18 years in Rhode Island, and was repeatedly mocked for a Rhode Island accent I never knew I had. Returning to RI years later, I turned on a local station to get the traffic report and heard the same vocal cues my Connecticut buddies found so much humor in (or should I say “hyumah”). I stayed in Connecticut for about three years, and headed north to Western Massacusetts to complete college, where the accent probably got even deeper.
However, the real quirks began when Jim Krewson announced that our band was moving to Philly. Jim was from here originally, and did an outrageously funny imitation of the accent. It’s kind of difficult to explain the intricacies of the mid-Atlantic accent, so I’ll try to provide some examples. “Wooder” for “water”. “Cake” for “Coke”. “Balmer” for “Baltimore” “Merlin” for “Maryland”, and “Nerk” for “Newark”. “Youse”, “myuns”, “your’ns”, the whole nine yards. If a nude man went running up the street, a Philadelphian might say “Hey, he ain’t got nay clays on! Yous gotta git yer clays on Mister!”
Jim would imitate Philadelphians and Jennie and I would be howling with laughter. There’s no WAY people talk like that, I remember thinking. He’s gotta be exagerating. As if. I wish. I was standing in line at a photocopying joint when i first heard the accent up front and personal, and so help me God, I almost laughed in the woman’s face. The accent was so silly, so present, and so weird I began to imitate it whenever I could, just to entertain myself. I’d practice on my housemate, who was from Balti– I mean Balmer. “‘Fluffya’, right?” I’d ask. “It’s pronounced ‘Fluffya’.”
“Depends,” he’d answer. “In SowFlufflya, definitely. In Northeast Philly, it’s probably more ‘Phil’delphia’”. And we’d laugh.
Until one day I woke up and the accent wasn’t a put-on anymore. The way I pronounced “no” had changed, with the long drawn out “o”s that mark Philadelphianese. “Youse” entered my vocabulary. I don’t visit my family in New jersey and go to the beach anymore: like all Philadelphians, my summers are spent “downashore”. When I follow football, I root for the Iggles: “Eagles” are a a type of bird. And like all Philadelphians, I have a bad attytood that I think is just beauty-full.
More on Fluffya’s accents here.
11 Responses to “Tagged”
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February 8th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
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 Inland North The South Boston The West North Central What American accent do you have?Quiz Created on GoToQuiz
February 8th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
YOU have a philadelphia accent?
I am shocked, just shocked I tellsya.
February 8th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
damn that philthy phluffia accent! even though i lived in nyc/lawn guyland for close to my whole goddam life, i still end up with the accent of my birth.
oh and sorry bout that bad cut and paste the code deal above.
February 9th, 2007 at 12:09 am
Here I am…
What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Midland
“You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
That includes The West, Boston, The South, The Northeast, Philadelphia, North Central, The Inland North
February 9th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Oh puh-leeeze, TLC.
Your texas accent pops out on a regular basis. It’s not a super-deep Peggy Hill style drawl, or even a Harrell, but it’s definitely there. Like the way you say “definitely”, for example. And sometimes your “I”s are “ah”s.
February 9th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I wanted you to see this before you started posting anything more. I wrote a diary and in it, some folks started making fun of the Boston accent.
Enjoy!
February 9th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Hey man I’m just telling you what the machine told me.
February 10th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
so when are you gonna audition for voiceovers, christina?
February 10th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
i was glad to see the author of the post that phillybits pointed to using the term “brazillion” which is my newest fave way to make fun of chimpy.
February 12th, 2007 at 6:08 am
What the F????
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 Inland North The South Boston The West North Central What American accent do you have?Quiz Created on GoToQuiz
February 12th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Tim, your accent is pure southern new england, the bastard child of a clusterfuck involving newport, boston, and every place in between, including new bedford. Or should I say, “new bedfid”.