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Old 03-23-2012, 10:13 PM
 
Location: Jefferson City 4 days a week, St. Louis 3 days a week
2,709 posts, read 5,061,266 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Saintmarks View Post
Thank you for pointing out what I have observed in my lifetime, grew up 50 miles southwest of Atlanta in Meriwether County, very much a strong southern accent in most everyone there. A difference in speech patterns from more "educated" types vs. blue collar, but both still southern.

But my kids that have grown up in Cobb County, Georgia and Collin County ,Texas have very slight southern accents.... if any at all. Ty Pennington graduated from Sprayberry HS in Marietta, the HS my kids would have attended had we not moved to Texas. I remember him as the handyman/carpenter on Trading Spaces long before he became better known on Extreme Home Makeover on ABC. Would a low budget cable show really spend that much money on voice lessons for the carpenter? He sounded then just like he does now. I would say he has not had voice lessons. I would also say his accent is typical of younger people from Cobb County today.

Julia Roberts is from an acting family but grew up in the Atlanta suburb of Smyrna, so she grew up with understanding accents and diction as a performer I am sure. I actually found her southern accent in her first big role, Steel Magnolias, to be somewhat affected and not as good a southern accent as some of the other "non-southern" stars of the movie.

Holly Hunter is from the Atlanta suburb of Conyers, GA and does have more of a southern accent, as does Alan Jackson from Newnan, GA. The suburbs to the south of Atlanta have attracted less northern transplants, so those burbs tend to sound more southern than the northern burbs.

Great post starsandstripes!
Dexter, Missouri is a standout from the rest of Missouri...it is in the southeastern portion that is truly part of the south in every respect. It is practically in Arkansas and nearest to Kentucky and Tennessee as well...Hannibal and Ste. Genevieve are far north of the area where the southern dialect is predominant..they are not southern. You and StarsandStripes are attempting to do the jobs of professional linguists. Let them do their job, and just accept what the facts are...they are as close to right as anybody will get...as far as Atlanta being 60%....that's more than enough to classify a place as southern...you don't get statistics like this in hannibal and Saint Genevieve..none of these accents are southern according to professional linguists, yet both of you believe you are better fit to judge that than them and stand by your stances...among the less respectable things ever honored IMO.
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Old 03-23-2012, 11:04 PM
 
Location: Georgia native in McKinney, TX
8,057 posts, read 12,777,348 times
Reputation: 6318
Quote:
Originally Posted by stlouisan View Post
Dexter, Missouri is a standout from the rest of Missouri...it is in the southeastern portion that is truly part of the south in every respect. It is practically in Arkansas and nearest to Kentucky and Tennessee as well...Hannibal and Ste. Genevieve are far north of the area where the southern dialect is predominant..they are not southern. You and StarsandStripes are attempting to do the jobs of professional linguists. Let them do their job, and just accept what the facts are...they are as close to right as anybody will get...as far as Atlanta being 60%....that's more than enough to classify a place as southern...you don't get statistics like this in hannibal and Saint Genevieve..none of these accents are southern according to professional linguists, yet both of you believe you are better fit to judge that than them and stand by your stances...among the less respectable things ever honored IMO.
Stlouisan, I have been to Missouri once in my lifetime, to Branson. Had a layover on the way from Atlanta to Denver in Kansas CIty if you count that. I am sorry my posts about suburban sunbelt boom towns has upset you. Other than that I don't care one bit how southern patterns of speech in Missouri vary from one area to the next. These linguistic maps (and yes I have seen them) are decades old and are not keeping up with the sweeping changes in major boom towns like Dallas and Atlanta. I have spent the majority of my life in rural AND suburban Texas and Georgia, so I post about what I know and have observed. I do not care if everyone in Saint Louis sounds exactly like someone from Opp, Alabama or if everyone in Dexter sounds like someone from Jersey. But I do have enough of an ear for southern accents to notice changes in my lifetime in both Atlanta and Dallas. I don't care if linguistic maps have kept up with the change or not, it has changed.

In other words, my posts are NOT about you and Missouri. The OP is not about Missouri. My posts are not about Missouri. I don't have enough info or experience to make a judgment call one way or another, nor do I want to or care to. So, don't quote my posts and then go on about my judgment of you and your state and being less than honorable. I DO NOT CARE. Clear?

Last edited by Saintmarks; 03-23-2012 at 11:13 PM..
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Old 03-23-2012, 11:48 PM
 
144 posts, read 269,037 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GraniteStater View Post
I lived in Clark county, IN for nearly 2 years. That was more than enough for me.
I know a woman who moved from northern Indiana whose husband took a job in Louisville, KY. They purposely seeked out an Indiana suburb to live in because they didn't want Kentucky plates on their cars and didn't want to be associated with Kentucky (they called it inbreed and hickish), except for work of course.

The funny thing is that she is one of the redneckiest people I've ever met and she was ragging on people from Kentucky.
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Old 03-24-2012, 12:34 AM
 
144 posts, read 269,037 times
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In the Atlanta metro area, you have a lot children of transplants. Many of the children were born in Georgia but never developed a southern accent, or a light one if that.

My younger cousins were born in northwest Georgia but moved to Cobb County when six months old and grew up there as well. They have very slight southern accents (an influence from their parents) but grew up around children from the midwest and northeast originally. When they visit relatives in Rome, GA, they have a hard time understanding the locals at times.
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Old 03-24-2012, 12:38 AM
 
Location: Georgia native in McKinney, TX
8,057 posts, read 12,777,348 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by memberX View Post
In the Atlanta metro area, you have a lot children of transplants. Many of the children were born in Georgia but never developed a southern accent, or a light one if that.

My younger cousins were born in northwest Georgia but moved to Cobb County when six months old and grew up there as well. They have very slight southern accents (an influence from their parents) but grew up around children from the midwest and northeast originally. When they visit relatives in Rome, GA, they have a hard time understanding the locals at times.
Exactly what my kids are like when we go visit the extended family in Meriwether County.
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Old 03-24-2012, 06:09 AM
Status: "I'm turquoise happy!" (set 20 days ago)
 
Location: The New England part of Ohio
23,864 posts, read 32,129,837 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
You mean northern cities that have a foreign automobile assembly plant? In my view, southern cities are having a very hard time staying southern. The country is a lot more homogenized in the past couple of generations. There isn't really any such thing as a southern city anymore. Southern congressmen don't even have an accent anymore, except Lindsay Graham.

In the 50s, people spoke with a very strong southern accent even in northern Missouri and southern Ohio.
To be fair, all Americans regions are becoming more homogenized, and regional accents are disappearing. There are complex reasons for this. One was the advent of television almost 70 years ago. Americans are hearing accent free newscasters, actors etc.

Upward mobility is another factor. Strong regional accents are not associated with education and social status.

Actually, I think the most durable of the dialects is the southern accent! In my life time, there have been four US presidents with at least moderate southern accents. Can anyone see the day when we will have a Prez with a heavy Brooklyn accent? It won't happen. The first reason is, that accent is literally disappearing. How about a Chicago accent or a Minnesota drawl?

For the past 25 years, middle class American children increasingly sound as though they are all from SoCal.
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Old 03-24-2012, 07:23 AM
 
12,998 posts, read 13,576,217 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by memberX View Post
In the Atlanta metro area, you have a lot children of transplants. Many of the children were born in Georgia but never developed a southern accent, or a light one if that.

My younger cousins were born in northwest Georgia but moved to Cobb County when six months old and grew up there as well. They have very slight southern accents (an influence from their parents) but grew up around children from the midwest and northeast originally. When they visit relatives in Rome, GA, they have a hard time understanding the locals at times.
A large majority of my neighbors have no discernible accent and hail from places like Ohio. My daughter, now 10, has been in the Atlanta area since she was 4.... she has no accent. For awhile she was drawing out her "a"s a little longer than her mom and I do ... so "dad" sounded like "dayad" but even that has tapered off. Atlanta and its surrounding suburbs feel pretty yankified to me.
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Old 03-24-2012, 08:40 AM
 
Location: Tippecanoe County, Indiana
26,372 posts, read 46,204,927 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sheena12 View Post
For the past 25 years, middle class American children increasingly sound as though they are all from SoCal.
That would be a western accent that has uptalk included. This has been discussed in other threads. The trend seems to be scattered around everywhere these days.
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Old 03-24-2012, 09:13 AM
 
2,399 posts, read 4,194,964 times
Reputation: 1301
Quote:
Originally Posted by memberX View Post
In the Atlanta metro area, you have a lot children of transplants. Many of the children were born in Georgia but never developed a southern accent, or a light one if that.

My younger cousins were born in northwest Georgia but moved to Cobb County when six months old and grew up there as well. They have very slight southern accents (an influence from their parents) but grew up around children from the midwest and northeast originally. When they visit relatives in Rome, GA, they have a hard time understanding the locals at times.
It's kind of amazing when you consider that Metro Atlanta backs up to the Rome area and are practically next door. Bartow County, where Cartersville is located, is part of metro Atlanta, and is right next to Floyd County which has Rome as its county seat. Yet, Bartow County still has a distinct southern flavor in the accents of most of the population. Not a thick drawl, but a modern southern accent. Cobb County, just to the southeast of Bartow, has a population that consists of transplants with no accent, children of transplants with either no accent or a light southern accent, children of natives with a light southern accent or no accent, young adult natives with a light southern accent, middle aged native adults with a moderate southern accent, and older senior adults with a thicker southern accent, many of them with a drawl. Most of the people in Cobb County who are natives of native parents only have a light southern accent if they are under forty years of age.
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Old 03-24-2012, 09:24 AM
 
2,399 posts, read 4,194,964 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WestCobb View Post
A large majority of my neighbors have no discernible accent and hail from places like Ohio. My daughter, now 10, has been in the Atlanta area since she was 4.... she has no accent. For awhile she was drawing out her "a"s a little longer than her mom and I do ... so "dad" sounded like "dayad" but even that has tapered off. Atlanta and its surrounding suburbs feel pretty yankified to me.
Well, I'd say that less than half of it feels yankified. There are some suburban areas that still are firmly in the hands of native southerners:

Bartow County
Paulding County
Coweta County
Newton County
Most of Cherokee County
Southern Cobb County and much of West Cobb County
Most of Fayette County (- Peachtree City)
Most of Henry County
Much of Forysth County
Rockdale County
Clayton County
West Fulton County
Most of South Fulton County

The "yankified" areas are:

-Northeast Cobb County
-North Fulton County
-NW Gwinnett County
-South Forsyth County
-West-Central Dekalb County
-Peachtree City
-Midtown & surrounding areas

However, to be real, they're really not "yankified", but more or less a smorgasbord to people from all over the United States, which includes native Georgians, native southerners from other southern states, northeasterners, and midwesterners. In these areas, the native southern population might be fifty percent.
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