The Southern aspect of the Pittsburgh accent (winter, working)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

The first time I heard a Chicago accent I was surpsied at how odd they were. I always thought of accents as getting rather neutral once you get west of Pittsburgh.

The midwest has some pretty strong accents.

[bradjl2009]

Originally Posted by Gnutella

There seems to be a group of people who think that any accent that's not New England, New York or Northern Cities Vowel Shift is automatically "Southern," which is stupid as hell because, as I said earlier, people where I live now, who have actual Southern accents, know that I didn't grow up here simply by hearing me talk.

Just go to southern West Virginia or Virginia even and you can tell we sound nothing like people from that area.

Originally Posted by Katiana

The midwest has some pretty strong accents.

I always assumed most of the Midwest (with the exception of the most northern parts) it didn't have the accent differences like in the Northeast.

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

Just go to southern West Virginia or Virginia even and you can tell we sound nothing like people from that area.

That's not even remotely what he was saying. The point was that accents evolve slowly over geographic and cultural boundaries and can't be effectively broken down into false dichotomies like "northern and southern." Yes, the Pittsburgh accent is very different from the deeper Appalachian accents, but those Appalachian accents are also different from Deep Southern accents.

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

I always assumed most of the Midwest (with the exception of the most northern parts) it didn't have the accent differences like in the Northeast.

I think most of the "lower midwest" has the General American accent, which is basically the Philly/Baltimore Mid-Atlantic accent with the vowel sounds mostly evened out and the pace slowed down.

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by Katiana

^^And "hon" is a southern thing. Baltimore is a southern city. (Let the brickbats start flying!)

No, no, hon, Bawlmer is a Mid-Atlantic city.... although it certainly has Tidewater, Appalachian, and Deep Southern influences as well.... Bawlmer maybe even weirder than Pittsburgh.

[srsmn]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

In what the company called “a surprise upset,” 57 percent of people in the U.S. say “cue-pon.”
That pronunciation was favored in 36 states, including most of the South, Midwest and Northwest. The top five states that skewed most heavily toward the pronunciation were New Mexico, Idaho, Missouri, South Dakota and North Dakota.




A Nation Divided on How to Say the Word "Coupon" - Tricia Duryee - Commerce - AllThingsD




EDIT--to be fair, when I spend time in the South, they think I sound like I'm from the North. They don't want us either.

It'd be interesting to see that map broken down by county or zip code, even...

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by JimboPGH

That's not even remotely what he was saying. The point was that accents evolve slowly over geographic and cultural boundaries and can't be effectively broken down into false dichotomies like "northern and southern." Yes, the Pittsburgh accent is very different from the deeper Appalachian accents, but those Appalachian accents are also different from Deep Southern accents.



I think most of the "lower midwest" has the General American accent, which is basically the Philly/Baltimore Mid-Atlantic accent with the vowel sounds mostly evened out and the pace slowed down.

You'd be thinking wrong. I've lived in the "lower midwest", my husband is from the "lower midwest" and lower midwesterers in no way shape or form sound like people from Philly or Balmer. The midwesterners say "Mary, marry and merry" the same way, or with a slight differentiation for "merry", more like "meh-ry", but def Mary and marry the same. "Carry" also rhymes with "Mary" in those areas. Some words are accented on the first syllable rather than the second, for ex, midwesterners are more likely to say "IN-surance". They never say "cwooff-ee" for coffee. They don't slur words; they pronounce ever-y syl-a-ble of every-y word. For ex, they don't say "genrally", they say "gen-er-ally", etc.

Originally Posted by JimboPGH

No, no, hon, Bawlmer is a Mid-Atlantic city.... although it certainly has Tidewater, Appalachian, and Deep Southern influences as well.... Bawlmer maybe even weirder than Pittsburgh.

That's the subject of us much argument as Pittsburgh being eastern or midwestern. There's a lot more evidence for Baltimore being southern than Pittsburgh being midwestern. See this thread: //www.city-data.com/forum/gener...theastern.html

[JimboPGH]

Originally Posted by Katiana

You'd be thinking wrong. I've lived in the "lower midwest", my husband is from the "lower midwest" and lower midwesterers in no way shape or form sound like people from Philly or Balmer. The midwesterners say "Mary, marry and merry" the same way, or with a slight differentiation for "merry", more like "meh-ry", but def Mary and marry the same. "Carry" also rhymes with "Mary" in those areas. Some words are accented on the first syllable rather than the second, for ex, midwesterners are more likely to say "IN-surance". They never say "cwooff-ee" for coffee. They don't slur words; they pronounce ever-y syl-a-ble of every-y word. For ex, they don't say "genrally", they say "gen-er-ally", etc.

I didn't mean to imply that the accents were the same, but the Lower Midwest (i.e. the parts of the Midwest not near the Great Lakes... I really hate the term "Midwest" because it's a gross oversimplification of American regionalism, but for the sake of simplicity...) seems to have the General American accent, which evolved from the Mid-Atlantic accent.

The differences, as you stated, are the slower pace, the decrease in diphthongs, the cot-caught merger, and the lack of flat "a's" and "o's."*

*The flat "o's" are the biggest give away for pretty much everyone I know from everywhere in PA, Maryland, and northern West Virginia. If I slow down and really enunciate, I can totally pull off a broadcaster voice EXCEPT for those pesky flat o's: I simply can't say "I drove through the snow to a Sunoco in the Pocono's" in a way that doesn't sound funny to anyone who's not from the Mid-Atlantic or the Pittsburgh Tri-State.

[jay5835]

It's not "southern," just regular Pittsburgh...

I just got a phone call about an over-the-phone town hall meeting from someone running for office. I wrote down what I heard, "Jake Austin," but there is no candidate for office in PA by that name. Turned out it was Jay Costa.

[gladhands]

Originally Posted by steindle

Haven't closely read this thread, but two aspects of "Pittsburghese" that have always struck me as derivative of a Southern accent:
- Pronunciation of radiator: RADD-ee-ay-tor instead of ray-dee-ay-tor. I think there are more examples of this with similar words, but I can't think of any. Oh: "greezy" instead of "greasy."
- Stressing the first syllables of certain words: e.g., I often hear people in Pittsburgh say "UM-brella" and "DE-troit." That is primarily a Southern phenomenon, I think.

The radiator thing makes my skin crawl. It’s not even a matter of accent. They’re just saying the word incorrectly. They don’t say “radd-ius” or “radd-iate”.

[Rust Belt Kid]

I always have to catch myself, because for some reason my natural inclination is to say RADD-iator.

Does anyone have any insight into this: My mom is the quintessential yinzer. Whenever she says the word "robot" she has always pronounced it ROW-BUTT, and it has always driven me crazy. I always just chalked it up to her being strange. Then I started working at a hospital, and noticed that almost every 50+ year old yinzer also pronounces it ROW-BUTT. Is this a Pittsburghese thing or just a weird generational thing?