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There are low class people in the suburbs, and there are southern accents all over the northshore. Immediate New Orleans is city limits only and people outside of that do have southern accents, less so on the eastbank of the southshore (Kenner and Metairie).
Standard American accent?
I know several people from Slidell Louisiana who have absolutely no traceable southern accent. Slidell is right outside of New Orleans by maybe 15-20 miles at most.
I know several people from Slidell Louisiana who have absolutely no traceable southern accent. Slidell is right outside of New Orleans by maybe 15-20 miles at most.
Are Northern Virginia and South Florida excluded from the discussion?
I know several people from Slidell Louisiana who have absolutely no traceable southern accent. Slidell is right outside of New Orleans by maybe 15-20 miles at most.
And I know people from all over the northshore who have southern accents.
The posters suggesting Dallas, Houston, Austin, et al. have clearly never lived in South Florida.
I lived in Boca Raton, FL for 12 years, and I can count on one or maybe two hands how many times I heard a white non-Hispanic local speak with a Southern accent. Most, if not all, of these people were transplants from other Southern states.
The most common accent you hear in South Florida is a New York accent, as most of the white people and--believe it or not--many of the Hispanic and black people living in South Florida are originally from New York or New Jersey. In fact, there are so many transplants from NY/NJ in South Florida that kids who were born and raised there--who have never lived anywhere else, mind you--speak with a hybrid NY-General American accent! For example, kids might say "cauwffee," but still pronounce "Florida" and "orange" the General American way whereas their parents would pronounce those words as "cauffee," "Flahrida," and "ahrange." Bizarre, to say the least.
In Dallas, Houston, Austin, and the rest of Texas, you hear Southern accents all of the time--well, at least I did. The only city in Texas in which you don't hear Southern accents is El Paso. Never been to the RGV, so can't speak for that area. FWIW, I classify the Texas accent as Southern.
Last edited by 8to32characters; 06-15-2014 at 11:23 PM..
Like Florida, northern West Virginia has had a lot of incomers, basically since the 1850s when the B&O laid tracks from Baltimore to Wheeling and Parkersburg. The Telsur Project draws the line of southern dialect diagonally across northern WV at Clarksburg, Harrison County, but you can still find some southern-lite accents above the line.
Don Knotts, who grew up in Monongalia County, said that when he started in show business he had to take elocution lessons to get rid of his accent. Perhaps if he knew he would end up in a show like "Mayberry" he might have changed his mind.
Randy Moss is a good example of a south central WV accent. The MTV show "Buckwild" also had a lot of south central accents.
Northern VA (and I mean the suburbs of DC) is Mid-Atlantic. This area isn't that dissimilar from areas you'd find in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and even New Jersey dare I say. So you're not going to find a ton of southern accents in this region. However, the rest of VA is southern. Trying to think of other areas, I imagine Florida south of Orlando would be another. You're obviously not going to find a ton of southern accents around Miami. Possibly the major urban areas of Texas that would be transplant saturated and not too southern at all in general, looking at Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. A few other southern areas that would be popular with transplants would be the Atlanta metro, The Triangle region of NC (Cary, I'm looking at you!), Richmond and the Hampton Roads regions in VA, and possibly Nashville. However, these areas are definitely not devoid of the southern accent, just possibly a little diluted. For example, I've heard that the southern accent is dying out among younger generations in the Atlanta metro along with the Triangle in NC. Damn Yankees! All jokes aside, both of these areas are attracting growth and people from around the world, but you'll definitely hear plenty of southern accents if you go 10 miles or so outside of these metros.
Like Florida, northern West Virginia has had a lot of incomers, basically since the 1850s when the B&O laid tracks from Baltimore to Wheeling and Parkersburg. The Telsur Project draws the line of southern dialect diagonally across northern WV at Clarksburg, Harrison County, but you can still find some southern-lite accents above the line.
Don Knotts, who grew up in Monongalia County, said that when he started in show business he had to take elocution lessons to get rid of his accent. Perhaps if he knew he would end up in a show like "Mayberry" he might have changed his mind.
Randy Moss is a good example of a south central WV accent. The MTV show "Buckwild" also had a lot of south central accents.
LOL! That last girl is as southern as they come! I've found many people in the mountains of Applachia have even thicker accents than in the flat lands of Alabama and Mississippi.
But even in the areas listed above they are fairly common.
Growing up in San Antonio I always thought I didn’t have any southern accent. I have relatives in Savannah and I knew I didn’t sound like them. But when my Illinois relatives would hear the yall and they would jump in it and say there’s that Texas accent. Everybody uses yall, Hispanic, black and white, you don’t notice how common it is here until someone points it out. A co-worker from Boston noted one time why do people down here add syllables to words that don’t belong, I had no idea what she was talking about. Her examples were its pronounced the-atre not the-ate-atre and its ath-lete not ath-a-lete. She added it’s not as if it’s spoken with a strong southern twang, and its spoken quickly you locals just don’t notice it. A Canadian friend stayed here for two weeks a said he couldn’t identify any particular words that I just spoke with a slight drawl, not sure what that implies. I could definitely hear his accent any word with an “ou’ out, about, house etc.
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