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Well, since this is turning nasty, I will relate a funny experience I had when I, a lifetime Texan, moved up to Boston as a twenty-something with my husband and family. A new friend was relating how they had made a historical movie in that town and nothing had to be changed at all, except "they had to get the cows off the street." I had to think about that one a long time until I realized she had said, "they had to get the CARS off the street."
Without checking your profile and having never come across you before I can tell you're a right winger and you post a lot in the Politics forum.
LOL, looks who's being judgmental and stereotyping now.
No, even us educated liberals in the South notice the condescending attitudes many from large Northern cities have towards Southern people, even as they move here like plagues of locusts. Seems like if things were so much better where they come from (as they are quick to remind us), they'd have stayed put, I dunno.
But as someone with training in Linguistics, I have long paid attention to regional accents, and I can say there ARE people who are softening their Northern accent when they move South, you just don't notice them. The reason Southerners tend to adopt "standard" US accents when they go north is a) Northerners frequently make stereotypical presumptions about Southern people as stupid, overly religious, etc and a Southerner who does not want to be seen that way will consciously try to lose most of the accent to avoid being "tagged", but also, standard "Northern" American is what we hear on TV and in the movies, so it's not like trying to adopt to an entirely different "sound". Someone who moves South, however, has had less exposure to authentic "Southern" accents (I'm not counting the botched ones you usually hear in the movies), so even if the people all around them are Southern, they're less likely to adopt the sound. You DO often find transplants to the South adopting "y'all", however
I moved to Houston in my 20's for 4 years. When I moved back to RI I found myself still saying, as a friend of mine used to, "I'm FIXIN to go....(name a place I where I was about to go)" I also still have trouble pronouncing "important" properly. I still say it like I heard the southerners do, instead of how I was raised to say it, something like "impor'ent".
I hate to say it, but when I go downtown and have to wait for the bus, you can still hear the blue collar, horrible RI accents that are much different than those from Boston. It's an accent all it's own, sort of a micro-climate. I find many of the upwardly mobile people (or those trying to sound like it) are trying to adopt SAE so as not to be pegged.
Could say the same thing about Boston or North Dakota or any other accent you're not accustomed to.
Yeah, but you don't see many threads about "why won't people from the South talk like we do in Fargo?". Besides, I was being cheeky.....gotta laugh at threads like this.
I've lived in Massachusetts my entire life but when I go to Boston, there are people I can barely understand. Maybe it's more south of Boston, I don't know, but it can be almost incomprehensible. I don't think it's a very attractive accent--but they can't help it, LOL.
My sister moved to Virginia bout 25 years ago and I can hear a tiny bit of southern accent in her voice. At least she's not saying y'all yet. A soft cultured southern accent sounds nice to me. So does a northern non-Boston and non-NY/NJ.
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