Idaho vs California (move, place, accents)

[dcisive]

I guess it's a YMMV kind of thing. I'm the opposite. I lived in the SF Bay area for 10 years back in the 80's. It is a completely other world from back then and I don't mean in a good way. You couldn't buy me a home there or anywhere else in California at this point. So enjoy you'll never have me as a neighbor that's for sure. The folks here in Idaho I've spoken to at any length disdain California in particular due to their liberal ways in both politics and lifestyle. I frankly haven't met anyone yet with a pro attitude you're referring to, so I have no idea where you met these people. On the general Idaho forum rife with folks from the North mainly, they sure have NO love lost for Cali either. In Oregon and Washington you'll run into the very same thing

This is what happens when people come into an area with boatloads of cash from having sold inflated homes and plunk it down on lavish new homes making the land and home prices elevate beyond the locals ability to buy. This is pretty well known so I'm not exposing some radical idea believe me. So I for one am not losing sleep for your move back there that's for sure. It's obviously a better fit for ya so enjoy.......and we will as well.

[pll]

Originally Posted by dcisive

This is what happens when people come into an area with boatloads of cash from having sold inflated homes and plunk it down on lavish new homes making the land and home prices elevate beyond the locals ability to buy. This is pretty well known so I'm not exposing some radical idea believe me. So I for one am not losing sleep for your move back there that's for sure. It's obviously a better fit for ya so enjoy.......and we will as well.

This doesn't make any sense and we heard it all.the.time. So you would prefer the dirt poor to move up there over the hardworking industrious person? That doesn't sound right.

Many Californians that move up there are conservative (as we are) but that doesn't matter to the locals. They will continue to judge you.

[dcisive]

My statement is what reflects the reflection of the elevated attitudes of those that are affluent or better off then others. Guess you don't get that. Most up here ARE hard working and industrious and NOT homeless as all too many are in Cali. But their lifestyles are more modest on average. You are right however that the majority of Californians I've run across are indeed NOT liberals but wanted to escape that aspect of living there. Over where I live there are some Californians too but without any attitudes so we don't judge them. Boise however is full of them along with being a whole lot more blue........

Originally Posted by pll

This doesn't make any sense and we heard it all.the.time. So you would prefer the dirt poor to move up there over the hardworking industrious person? That doesn't sound right.

Many Californians that move up there are conservative (as we are) but that doesn't matter to the locals. They will continue to judge you.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by pll

............ They keep reminding us about where we’re from. They’re very anti- CA. I lived there for almost 15 years ...........”

Wow, 15 years, I'd think in 15 years everyone would forget where you came from, or never even know where you came from unless they met you the first month or so after you moved to Idaho. Unless you kept reminding them.


Well, I'm happy for you that you are in a place now where you enjoy living. Parts of California are lovely: along the coast, up in the redwoods. The National Parks are spectacular and the weather close to the coast is the best in the whole United states.

[CAHntr]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

Wow, 15 years, I'd think in 15 years everyone would forget where you came from, or never even know where you came from unless they met you the first month or so after you moved to Idaho. Unless you kept reminding them.


Well, I'm happy for you that you are in a place now where you enjoy living. Parts of California are lovely: along the coast, up in the redwoods. The National Parks are spectacular and the weather close to the coast is the best in the whole United states.

It's not like people in either state have some distinctive accent when speaking like in the South. And you would have to change your vehicle license plates when you become a resident. Maybe old bumper stickers give it away?

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by CAHntr

It's not like people in either state have some distinctive accent when speaking like in the South. And you would have to change your vehicle license plates when you become a resident. Maybe old bumper stickers give it away?

Actually, Idaho does have a distinct accent of it's own. It's called the Sandpete County accent, and it does sound slightly Southern but is tempered with Scandinavian accents and German accents.

It's usually heard in our small towns, and was once only regional, but has spread to all parts of the state. The only other place the accent is heard is where it was first recorded in Sandpete county, Utah.

Apparently, that county was first settled by folks who were almost all from one place in Missouri who all arrived at the same time. It's one of very few distinct accents that are so regional the linguists were able to trace the sources.

The accent is now more commonly heard in Idaho than in Sandpete county. It's another of those things that makes Idaho unique.

[Sandpointian]

Originally Posted by KittyToy

Can someone please explain to me if it's a REALLY BIG DEAL for someone to move to Idaho from California? I've looked over some of these threads posted by Idahoans {?} practically cursing the Californians migration towards the north. Nonetheless. I'm am somewhat afraid for my relocation to Pocatello now. Will I be shunned for my language, and speak? I move on October 1st from San Diego...and aside from the culture-shock....grrrrr I hope it won't be hard to make friends and fit in {25 years old...wanting to marry and start a family with my boyfriend}

The problem is the harsh reality that what makes Idaho so great is its small population. It gives us space to breathe. It enables the wealthy and the not-so wealthy almost the same acmes to natural beauty in almost no time.

What makes Idaho so great is its small government, Taxes are low and we tend to see the results right away. There is a distinct lack (relatively speaking) of social engineering via public policy.

And of course, what makes Idaho so special is that the environment which dominates the state. The rather ugly yahoos tend to be fresh transplants or embittered local losers who see trashing the environment as a God given right.

Finally, population growth is slowly destroying California. Talk to people who are 55-75 who grew up in California. They will describe how peaceful it was. Today, one must do battle for everything.

None of this has anything to do with you whatsoever and everything to do with the long queue of migrants behind you. There is no better example than Lake Tahoe, now a miserable parking lot of rude and entitled people. It was not always that way.

Discovery ruined Tahoe. It has also ruined Seattle. And before too long it will ruin Idaho.

S.

[dcisive]

It's one of the reasons I chose a rural place to live that doesn't have job opportunities for the most part. Keeps growth down a bit and more so to those of the retiring type which I much prefer. A whole lot quieter day AND night which is pretty priceless compared to what I moved from. I've lived the last 20 years with ear plugs. Now they are superfluous.

[CAHntr]

Originally Posted by banjomike

Actually, Idaho does have a distinct accent of it's own. It's called the Sandpete County accent, and it does sound slightly Southern but is tempered with Scandinavian accents and German accents.

It's usually heard in our small towns, and was once only regional, but has spread to all parts of the state. The only other place the accent is heard is where it was first recorded in Sandpete county, Utah.

Apparently, that county was first settled by folks who were almost all from one place in Missouri who all arrived at the same time. It's one of very few distinct accents that are so regional the linguists were able to trace the sources.

The accent is now more commonly heard in Idaho than in Sandpete county. It's another of those things that makes Idaho unique.

Cool. Now I have something fun to listen for when visiting. I've met a few Idaho transplants in CA and never noticed a specific accent. But they may have lived in CA for a while and lost some of the accent.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by CAHntr

Cool. Now I have something fun to listen for when visiting. I've met a few Idaho transplants in CA and never noticed a specific accent. But they may have lived in CA for a while and lost some of the accent.

Though the accent did spread out here, it was never a common thing.

Accents typically hang on in small towns and in some family trees. If either of those change, so does the accent.

I got into this years ago during a period when I was really interested in folklore. Folklore studies things that are passed down through word of mouth and from person to person instead of things that are taught in school or are passed down in writing.

One of the strangest things I learned was when folklorists want to study old past traditions, they don't go to the mother country; they go find immigrants who have moved from there a long time ago.

When immigrants leave their homes for new ones, they take their culture as it was then with them and hold to it stronger than those who stay and never leave the mother country.

Culture always changes, so the mother country changes over time, but since the immigrants don't live in the changes, the old stuff is preserved (and cherished) by them. It's sometimes almost unchanged when the immigrants move to a really unfamiliar new home as a small group for a very long time afterwards.

Immigrants tend to move where there are other folks from the old mother country who have lived in the new homeland for a little while. Idaho has lots of really good farmland, but it's scattered all over the state, and the good farmland is often surrounded by mountains. This makes for lots of little towns and traveling from one town to another difficult.

That's why the Sandpete County accent did better here than in Utah. But over the 20th century as roads, cars, mass communication and all that stuff improved, all of the regional accents have tended to fade and change.

It's now much harder to distinguish where a person came from by his speech as a result. All Americans are losing their regional things in our speech and are developing a national accent because we are such a mobile society.

I still have a few folks who are serious folklorists I talk with once in a while. It's a subject that's a lot of fun, as it covers lots of different things. Music, speech, inventions, story telling, medicine, carpentry, cooking, superstitions, games, history, and many others.