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Old 05-25-2023, 04:38 PM
 
Location: West Midlands, England
676 posts, read 407,837 times
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuLHJzDINP8

This particular accent of a president has always stood out to me as being a little hard to define compared to other presidents throughout history who's voices have been recorded. He clearly pronounces 'pin' as 'pen', which is a secondary southern linguistic feature, yet at the same time he lacks any sort of drawl or twang. Would this be considered a southern midland accent (a term for a type of dialect which I never could find what good example of one was, unlike the Northern Midland which is what's considered "General American") by today's standards? I wonder because many of the regions in the Lower Midwest where this dialect is spoken today would very likely have had different speech patterns 100 years ago, when Harry S. Truman came of age.
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Old 05-25-2023, 07:17 PM
 
Location: StlNoco Mo, where the woodbine twineth
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I don't notice much of an accent with Truman, he sounds like most of the people I know. I do find him to be one of the most interesting presidents to read about.
He had an uncle that really liked to pull the trigger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Chiles
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Old 05-25-2023, 09:58 PM
 
374 posts, read 257,185 times
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Southern Midlands.
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Old 05-25-2023, 10:26 PM
 
3,833 posts, read 3,335,667 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rrampage View Post
Southern Midlands.
Agree. He's from an area of MO that would be considered. It's an accent heard in half of Kansas, over half of Oklahoma, and far norther parts of the TX Panhandle. Not fully midwestern, not fully southern. I'd say it's a transition zone accent of the great plains and southern. More southern further south you get. I mean the NE part of Kansas it covers wont sound like Nevada Missouri obviously.

Lamar MO lies right on the South Midland and South accent line according to the univ of PA study. Then again that whole area of SW MO as well as eastern OK and also NW AR like Fayetteville and Rogers Arkansas seem to have a lot of Midlands influence, Great Plains influences as well compared to the rest of the south.

Btw Truman's family was pro South and some fought in the Confederate Army. I suspect Truman's mom and grandmother had much more southern accents due to the time they were born in. His Grandmother refused to stay in the Lincoln bedroom.

Lamar, Joplin, Fayetteville, Rogers/ NW Arkansas seem sorta quasi southern. They all I would label south before midwest but they have a lot of great plains influences in their culture as well that can't be ignored. Like Branson seems more southern than areas to the west. I don't see much plains influence in Branson. Fully southern in an Ozarks, upper south sense unlike Lamar or Joplin.

In more modern times Peter Kinder is a great example as a Missourian with a southern accent. A lot of speech pattern similarities to Arkansas governor Mike Beebe. Then again Kinder is from SEMO which shares a similar accent to NE AR where Beebe is from. Makes sense Trump appointed him to the Delta Regional Authority.


https://www.google.com/search?q=univ...bfB2WflBpuBFCM

Last edited by MOforthewin; 05-25-2023 at 10:43 PM..
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Old 05-26-2023, 11:14 AM
 
Location: The High Desert
16,068 posts, read 10,726,642 times
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Harry Truman left Lamar as an infant. The family/parents were farmers and they relocated to Jackson County - Grandview and at Independence by the time he was school age. He had an odd childhood by our standards and came into contact with a variety of people and influencers. He attended a Presbyterian church school in his early years. Had a well-known KC piano teacher. He was in the military in WWI and worked for the Santa Fe railroad in Oklahoma. He did Sabbath chores for a religious Jewish family. His mom was born before the Civil War and experienced the forced displacement of General Order 11 and pro-Union guerilla raids from Kansas. She had southern sympathies and went to a women's college in Lexington, still a somewhat southern enclave today. We don't know what her accent was but it most likely a genteel western Missouri rural accent. Truman and his mother were close. Truman's father was born in Jackson County and was engaged in local politics in the early Pendergast years.

I knew some older people from Moniteau and Pettis counties that had a similar speech accent. I would guess that Southern Midlands would cover it as much as anything else. You don't hear it much among younger people now and Truman's accent might be dying out.

Midwestern voices....Listen to Bob Dole and Al Gore and you might hear a little of Harry Truman. A lot more with Fred R. Harris.

https://youtu.be/Nyff_2DMd2k Bob Dole (Kansas)
https://youtu.be/96xV5nPcFQc Al Gore (Tennessee)
https://youtu.be/YKrPLVTb4g8 Adlai Stevenson (Illinois)
https://youtu.be/7Au2-J-3on0 Everett Dirksen (downstate Illinois)
https://youtu.be/s1H3igCvzpU LBJ (Texas -- with Dirksen on the phone)
https://youtu.be/R0TjLc93alg George McGovern (South Dakota)
https://youtu.be/ WBAXPomW-cg Gerald Ford (Michigan)
https://youtu.be/MUlddVibLQI Fred R. Harris (Oklahoma)
https://youtu.be/ppvsJnHqsvQ Harry Truman (Missouri) Merle Miller (Iowa)
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Old 05-26-2023, 05:43 PM
 
3,833 posts, read 3,335,667 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SunGrins View Post
Harry Truman left Lamar as an infant. The family/parents were farmers and they relocated to Jackson County - Grandview and at Independence by the time he was school age. He had an odd childhood by our standards and came into contact with a variety of people and influencers. He attended a Presbyterian church school in his early years. Had a well-known KC piano teacher. He was in the military in WWI and worked for the Santa Fe railroad in Oklahoma. He did Sabbath chores for a religious Jewish family. His mom was born before the Civil War and experienced the forced displacement of General Order 11 and pro-Union guerilla raids from Kansas. She had southern sympathies and went to a women's college in Lexington, still a somewhat southern enclave today. We don't know what her accent was but it most likely a genteel western Missouri rural accent. Truman and his mother were close. Truman's father was born in Jackson County and was engaged in local politics in the early Pendergast years.

I knew some older people from Moniteau and Pettis counties that had a similar speech accent. I would guess that Southern Midlands would cover it as much as anything else. You don't hear it much among younger people now and Truman's accent might be dying out.

Midwestern voices....Listen to Bob Dole and Al Gore and you might hear a little of Harry Truman. A lot more with Fred R. Harris.

https://youtu.be/Nyff_2DMd2k Bob Dole (Kansas)
https://youtu.be/96xV5nPcFQc Al Gore (Tennessee)
https://youtu.be/YKrPLVTb4g8 Adlai Stevenson (Illinois)
https://youtu.be/7Au2-J-3on0 Everett Dirksen (downstate Illinois)
https://youtu.be/s1H3igCvzpU LBJ (Texas -- with Dirksen on the phone)
https://youtu.be/R0TjLc93alg George McGovern (South Dakota)
https://youtu.be/ WBAXPomW-cg Gerald Ford (Michigan)
https://youtu.be/MUlddVibLQI Fred R. Harris (Oklahoma)
https://youtu.be/ppvsJnHqsvQ Harry Truman (Missouri) Merle Miller (Iowa)
Al Gore is from TN and doesn't have a really thick accent. He sounds nothing like Peter Kinder for example that has a typical SEMO accent that is southern.

Someone like Harry Truman I guess could be a good example of a person from the "transition zone." Influences from both. Someone like Governor Hearnes from example is full blown southern. He was considered a dixiecrat when he represented the Bootheel in the general assembly.

Governor Parson is a good example of a person from the transition zone in MO. Certainly he has southern influences in his speech, and politically he leans southern.
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Old 05-26-2023, 11:02 PM
 
Location: The High Desert
16,068 posts, read 10,726,642 times
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When I went in search of examples of a "south midlands" accent the two that were listed were Al Gore (TN) and Robert C. Byrd (WV).

South Midlands?
Byrd: https://youtu.be/hbIWLYiU6gg
Gore: https://youtu.be/96xV5nPcFQc

Southern?
Jimmy Carter: https://youtu.be/lkFGHGCSEuI
Shelby Foote: https://youtu.be/9m5Ma9_9H1w
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Old 05-27-2023, 07:14 AM
 
3,833 posts, read 3,335,667 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SunGrins View Post
When I went in search of examples of a "south midlands" accent the two that were listed were Al Gore (TN) and Robert C. Byrd (WV).

South Midlands?
Byrd: https://youtu.be/hbIWLYiU6gg
Gore: https://youtu.be/96xV5nPcFQc

Southern?
Jimmy Carter: https://youtu.be/lkFGHGCSEuI
Shelby Foote: https://youtu.be/9m5Ma9_9H1w
Gore doesnt sound very southern to me at all. Carter does. Byrd has Appalachian influence too. He's from the fringes of the south.
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Old 05-27-2023, 01:33 PM
 
Location: Climax Springs, MO
27 posts, read 34,336 times
Reputation: 11
Its roosevelt I have an issue with.
Truman should have waited (NOT) dropped the second bomb.
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