[lvoc]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

And I'm telling you that I can listen to someone for 15 seconds and know with a reasonable degree of accuracy whether they spent their formative years in Southern California. Just like I can for a Minnesotan, a New Jerseyan, a Rhode Islander, or a southerner.

Just because you don't hear the accent doesn't mean it isn't there.

Here, take this fun quiz. Results: What American accent do you have?

I have a $100 that says you can't pin down where I am from even over a long period of time anymore 15 seconds. And unless you get very lucky you won't get my wife either. My daughters can do "valley girl" flawlessly...or they can go to their other accent that you won't easily place either. In the daughters case you will know it is not CA but you will find it very hard to tell from where.

Yes there are New York accents that are easy targets. And Boston. But can you differentiate Long Island from NYC from NJ? That can be tough as there is a lot of overlap.

[Harrier]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

San Diego is no longer considered "SoCal?" Southern Californians talk with an accent. A "Big Lebowski" accent. Sure, there are lots of people who don't sound like "The Dude Abides." Just like there are lots of people in the South who don't sound like they're talking with a mouthful of Skol.

Californians don't say "SoCal" either - that is another out of state expression that grates on our nerves. Sometimes the news channels use that - and that is very irritating. They should know better.

San Diego is considered it's own area - it may be in southern California - but usually someone who uses the term "southern California" is referring to the LA Basin, Orange County, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, and the parts of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties that aren't desert.

A local would call those places by name and most certainly would specify San Diego as such - and not lump it in with "southern California".

[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by lvoc

I have a $100 that says you can't pin down where I am from even over a long period of time anymore 15 seconds. And unless you get very lucky you won't get my wife either. My daughters can do "valley girl" flawlessly...or they can go to their other accent that you won't easily place either. In the daughters case you will know it is not CA but you will find it very hard to tell from where.

Yes there are New York accents that are easy targets. And Boston. But can you differentiate Long Island from NYC from NJ? That can be tough as there is a lot of overlap.

You have moved around a great deal. And people's speaking voice becomes more homogenous as they get older. (Except for Southerners -- they sound more and more like they have a mouthful of grits as they age. By they time they're in their 90s, you would do well to have a translator.)

Just because I may not (or may, you never know, the English language is my "thing") be able to peg you or your wife, doesn't mean that I can't place a majority of Americans (and many English and Australians). I asked an Australian once what part of Sussex he was originally from. He couldn't believe I could pick out his Kent accent after decades down under.

[tgauchsin]

I believe putting "the" before the freeway numbers evolved from the names of the freeways before the Interstate system.

Take the Ventura freeway past the Santa Diego freeway towards the Golden State freeway and continue south on the Hollywood Freeway until you reach the Harbor freeway.

Take the 101 past the 405 towards the 5 and continue south on the 101 until you reach the 110.

Same thing. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

[lvoc]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

You have moved around a great deal. And people's speaking voice becomes more homogenous as they get older. (Except for Southerners -- they sound more and more like they have a mouthful of grits as they age. By they time they're in their 90s, you would do well to have a translator.)

Just because I may not (or may, you never know, the English language is my "thing") be able to peg you or your wife, doesn't mean that I can't place a majority of Americans (and many English and Australians). I asked an Australian once what part of Sussex he was originally from. He couldn't believe I could pick out his Kent accent after decades down under.

I am a difficult case in that I had some years of speech therapy as a kid. And got pretty good control over my accent in the process. I tend to sound like I come from wherever I am after a couple of weeks. Go to Dallas and in a week I got a drawl and even some mannerisms. The wife sounds proper Californian to me except she has a couple of linguistic variants that can give away her original home.

My mother moved in her early twenties from Manhattan to a rural town in Ohio on the Indiana border. She had to exchange notes with her Hoosier iceman as they could not understand each others dialect.

[orca17]

The one that drives me nuts is locals talking about "I-95". The highway here is US 95. Some people automatically tack an "I" onto any highway number, even though this only applies to highways on the Interstate Highway System. The real I-95 runs from Miami to the Canadian border in Maine. Also, they don't do it as much as they used to, but local traffic reporters used to talk about 95 "eastbound" and "westbound". US 95 is a north-south highway, and only runs east-west for a short stretch.

[ScoopLV]

Where I'm from there are only two roads. US-1 and A1A. And that's the way (uh huh, uh huh) I like it. And we don't use north south east and west. There's Bayside and Gulfside, and everything is measured in Mile Markers. I used to live at MM88, Gulfside. That's how it works until you get to Key West. And there nobody cares about direction. The sunset is thataway...

[Buzz123]

Originally Posted by Harrier

If someone just said "15" - I would wonder "15 what?" - Days? Pencils?.

The number "15" by itself indicates a quantity - while using "the" indicates that the number refers to an object - in this case a freeway.

They wouldn't Harrier, that's the point. Everywhere else but California people say I-15, or Interstate 15; and we say U.S. 95, or State Route 160. And FYI, I hear Californians say SoCal all the time. But I've never heard them say The Bu, or Cali.

We've had Johnny Come Lately news people here try to rename The Strip and call it "The Boulevard". Nobody from Las Vegas says "The Boulevard", and most of us (except for my very own daughter) dislike it when people say "The 15", or "The 95". Actually most of us call The Strip Las Vegas Boulevard unless talking to out-of-towners who wouldn't know it's the same as The Strip.

[Buzz123]

Originally Posted by von949

Same thing with New Yorkers saying "The Bronx". Why not just Bronx? Any other city or town does not sound right with "The" in front of it.

The Las Vegas
The Phoenix
The Miami
The DC
The Beverly Hills

......



Sent from cell...

It's not "The" Bronx, it's "Da" Bronx.

[swagger]

Originally Posted by ToeJam

While freeway names that "the" in front of it, I never put "the" in front of PCH. It was just PCH.

Ditto.