Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I've seen several threads on regional vocabularies, but what about pronunciations or words that are so changed by dialect that they become different words? Hopefully this isn't too close to the other threads (or hopefully I didn't miss a thread that's the same), just thought it was a different twist. I figure local phrases and sayings aren't the same as specific pronunciation. I'm looking for stuff like "New Joisey/New Yawk" (although I realize those are mostly just exaggerated).
Some examples I've heard, both at home in Southeast Missouri, and at my new hometown of New Orleans:
Actual Word - How Your Region Says It
Lack - Like; When I was still working for Dad on the farm, he'd call me over the radio and ask "How much you like being done?" meaning "How much do you have left." I'm assuming that's just a huge stretch of a word due to the dialect in our area. Very much a southern twang.
Oil/Boil - Erl/Berl; started hearing this one in New Orleans. Cracks me up. We recently had a crawfish berl at work.
Oil (again) - I hear several folks in SEMO pronounce it kind of in between "all" and "ull". Kind of odd.
A lot of older people and some young people from really small towns say "warsh" for "wash" It's pretty common here in TN, my dad is from OK and he also says this. It seems to be common throughout this part of the South & some of the Midwest.
One thing I noticed that I pronounce differently from everyone around here (which is crazy because I've lived here my whole life) is Halloween. Almost everyone here says it with the long "a" sound. I've always said it like "Holloween"
I tend to pronounce things both ways. I say ad-dress and ah-dress. I think I tend to switch up my accent randomly. I say "rOOf" though.
Milk - Merk (moreso the older folks/my grandmother)
Eyes - Ass or Ahzz (I use to get in trouble for this a lot as a kid; I would be like "my eyes (ass) hurt", and they would always be like "what you say?")
I say Ah-dress
Last edited by VA7cities; 07-07-2010 at 12:46 PM..
The reason...to harvest the almonds, you shake the "L" out of the trees. It took me a while to get used to, but I still catch myself saying aamond once in awhile.
I also hear pecan pronounced differently depending on where you are:
Log and dog doesn't rhyme. (I use an "aw" sound)
hotter and water doesn't rhyme. (hotter doesn't rhyme with daughter either)
Pong and long doesn't rhyme. (Pong doesn't rhyme with song, wrong, strong, etc)
Law, jaw, saw, etc doesn't rhyme with "Nah" (meaning no)-- Same concept for "chocolate" Choc doesn't rhyme with lock
I usually pronounce my R's at the end of the word except with Dolla(r)
I say Pee-Can (not Pee-con)
I say Car-mel (not Care-a-mel)
I say Salsa like the name Sal.
Almost everyone outside of the NYC area pronounce my sisters name Tara like Tear-A (Don't "tear" the paper, not "tear" meaning cry tears)--I pronounce it Ta-ra (like in Tap) same goes for "Sara" (like is Sap).
They say those in Houston too, just without the accent.
It's more like Doh and Poh, and Houston you'll hear Doe and Poe every now and then.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.