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Has anyone heard the pronunciation of Service Berries as "Sarvice Berries"? Our family always pronounced them that way. I did not know whether it was strictly the influence of our great grandfather who served in the "Sarvice" in the south during the Civil war or if other folks also say it that way in the North Idaho "Mou-ans". Yes I am guilty of saying it that way. Or even more clipped as: mou[gutteral stop]ns.
Has anyone heard the pronunciation of Service Berries as "Sarvice Berries"? Our family always pronounced them that way. I did not know whether it was strictly the influence of our great grandfather who served in the "Sarvice" in the south during the Civil war or if other folks also say it that way in the North Idaho "Mou-ans". Yes I am guilty of saying it that way. Or even more clipped as: mou[gutteral stop]ns.
I hear far more city people using the glottal stop for a T than Idahoans. I think those of us who don't enunciate the T just skip it altogether. Most of the folks do pronounce the T in mountains, though. It's much more common to hear words like get pronounced git, creek pronounced crick, and caramel pronounced carmul.
Most of our accent is typical western speech, which tends to drop the R, the G as a last letter in a word, and a general softening of all the hard stops in English.
I remember that season of The Apprentice. It is the only one I actually took the time to watch, because of the guy from Boise. I remember the first time he opened his mouth to start talking, my first though was "what the hell is up with his accent?" Then I actually got a little pissed off because it seemed so fake and not anything like what a native Boisean sounds like. The only people I have met who speak like that come from the South, only there accents actually sound real. I really think he was just hamming up the whole country boy thing for the show.
I'm a third generation Idahoan on both sides. My dad's family comes from Power County, which is farm country in East Idaho. There are a lot of people of German/Scandinavian decent out there. My dad always says "You Betcha" as does most of his family and a lot of people I met while growing up and visiting there. Part of the prevalence of the Upper Mid-West accent in my experience probably has to do with the fact that my dad's family is Lutheran, so many of the people I knew from there are also Lutherans.
I also read a short essay, which was part of an anthology of Chanukah stories, by a Jew from NYC, called The Only Dreidel In Idaho, in which the author talked about spending every Chanukah in Sun Valley, Idaho throughout her childhood. She starts out the story mentioning how nice everyone was, and how they were blond hair, blue eyed and always said, "Yeah sure, you betcha" and "Don'tcha know?" That was what one person from a NYC/Jewish background's impression
So the only accent I've noticed in Idahoans is a slight Upper Mid-West accent. But mostly I just hear we have a neutral accent, that isn't really distinguishable.
Not an accent thing but a phrase thing: "no worries" and "right on". We've been in CDA a little over a month, came from San Antonio, TX, and my husband and I have noticed that these two phrases are used frequently. I really haven't noticed an "Idahoan accent" but then maybe that's because everyone we've met seems to be from somewhere else!
I grew up in Idaho speaking American-English. When I began noticing people from other places spoke differently I wondered what accent we spoke with, if any, to people in other American-English speaking places. The only other people who speak the same way we do in Boise (South-western), Idaho are nationally syndicated news anchors, talk show hosts, and weather men; like Brian Williams, Kelly Ripa, & Al Roker. So maybe Idahoans speak with a broadcast news accent? Some of the tells that someone may be from Idaho are: 1) When someone asks for a 'pop', meaning soda or coke. 2) When someone begins a quote with 'goes', meaning 'said' (example: Then she goes, "I told them I'm an Idahoan".) 3) When someone asks for the remote to change the channel on the television and the garage door opener while in the car. People in northern Idaho use fewer words and have better diction when speaking. You'll know you're in eastern Idaho, land of the Gary Larsen Far Side Comic Strip Character's, if the locals are wearing horn-rimmed glasses and sound like they are moo-ing (while the cattle in the fields stand upright on their hind legs, sipping coffee and engaging each other in small talk about the weather and each others health). Just kidding eastern Idaho.. So there are Idahoans who speak with accents, but those who speak the typical news broadcaster American-English hear in Idaho are told we speak different opposed to with an accent.
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