San Francisco Accent... (Santa Rosa: neighborhood, public schools, live in)

[NorthernCalifornia]

Originally Posted by aswedc

as an east coast native, I think the differences in language consist entirely of one word - "hella". I find it kinda funny that everything else is pretty much exactly the same.

You are correct. California accents can be defined by three words: hella, totally and ya'll. If you can say hella in normal speech and not sound like an idiot you're from Northern California zone. If you can say totally in its shortened form (totlly) without making the "t" into a "d" you're form Southern California. If you can say ya'll without sounding Southern you've spent time in the more rural third of the state.

The rest of ya'll are totally, hella wrong about there being no accent.

The key thing is that the California accent is local. The "eastern" accent people are describing is how we talk to anyone not from our hometown areas. It's kind of a universal accent used in business and sober social settings that denotes a formality that is not typically used when you're really comfortable with someone. I presume it's a natural response to people thinking you're an idiot who doesn't know how to speak english correctly when they hear you talking with your friends and have no ****ing clue what you're saying.

This kind of speech pattern is very American and as we all know America gets most of its good stuff from California about 10 years after we've all gotten used to it.

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by rah

C'mon your underutilizing the word!

I think you mean:

"You're hella stereotyping us hella much... we hella don't say that hella often, dude."

That's more like it. Most diverse word in the English language.

LOL... you're hella right, that's a hella easy word to hella put into any hella short sentence. It's almost as versatile as the F-word!

Btw, as I was typing that, I actually said HELLA about 3 times to my roommate - totally not on purpose, either.

[Cali4life80]

Originally Posted by Don Vito

Which accent? you got your drunk bum slurring his speach
you got your thug speaking ebonics
dude serving your taco habla espanol
the bus driver has thick mandrin chinese accent
and the guy on acid is screaming incoherencies

Yup, thats the beautiful S.F. Never a dull moment. *sigh* I miss it so much

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by Cali4life80

Yup, thats the beautiful S.F. Never a dull moment. *sigh* I miss it so much

Totally... that's what I like most about this city! I love the variety of people you see here - bums, thugs, dude on acid and all.

[FunForYou]

Originally Posted by NorthernCalifornia

You are correct. California accents can be defined by three words: hella, totally and ya'll. If you can say hella in normal speech and not sound like an idiot you're from Northern California zone. If you can say totally in its shortened form (totlly) without making the "t" into a "d" you're form Southern California. If you can say ya'll without sounding Southern you've spent time in the more rural third of the state.

The rest of ya'll are totally, hella wrong about there being no accent.

The key thing is that the California accent is local. The "eastern" accent people are describing is how we talk to anyone not from our hometown areas. It's kind of a universal accent used in business and sober social settings that denotes a formality that is not typically used when you're really comfortable with someone. I presume it's a natural response to people thinking you're an idiot who doesn't know how to speak english correctly when they hear you talking with your friends and have no ****ing clue what you're saying.

This kind of speech pattern is very American and as we all know America gets most of its good stuff from California about 10 years after we've all gotten used to it.

It's like ebonics. San Leandro they like to change the word "For real?" into FRREALZ?
Proper Norcal peeps sound east coasterly is not something i've ever heard. Chicago -now there is an accent. Boston? Brooklyn? But SF? nah.

[Alisande]

Originally Posted by NorthernCalifornia

You are correct. California accents can be defined by three words: hella, totally and ya'll. If you can say hella in normal speech and not sound like an idiot you're from Northern California zone. If you can say totally in its shortened form (totlly) without making the "t" into a "d" you're form Southern California. If you can say ya'll without sounding Southern you've spent time in the more rural third of the state.

The rest of ya'll are totally, hella wrong about there being no accent.

The key thing is that the California accent is local. The "eastern" accent people are describing is how we talk to anyone not from our hometown areas. It's kind of a universal accent used in business and sober social settings that denotes a formality that is not typically used when you're really comfortable with someone. I presume it's a natural response to people thinking you're an idiot who doesn't know how to speak english correctly when they hear you talking with your friends and have no ****ing clue what you're saying.

This kind of speech pattern is very American and as we all know America gets most of its good stuff from California about 10 years after we've all gotten used to it.

I just came back from the east coast last week. I was approached by numerous people that instantly picked me out as californian. I think it's a pattern of speech more than lingo. I don't use hella or ya'll. I do say "like" and "totally" a lot. Trying to break that habit but hey it did get me a few discounts in the shops I was at.

[krudmonk]

Originally Posted by NorthernCalifornia

ya'll

Are you kidding?

[keen cat]

Originally Posted by jzt83

My cousin was born and raised in the East Bay and has a definite accent that sounds east coastish.

This is interesting. When I first moved out to the Bay Area (East Bay), I've noticed that as well. I thought some people sounded kinda East Coastish. But to my knowledge they were born and raised in the Bay Area.

[HIGH!Lonesome]

I've lived here for over twenty years and I'v never heard of any such thing as a San Francisco accent, San Francisco has always changed and is constantly changing with so much things happening, I doubt theres really ever anytime for people to put together
an accent of their own, as it is, it's rare to run into a native born San Franciscan in the city seems most have moved out to the suburbs now finding a SF accent? where do we start?

And further more alot of Californians are from all over the country and countries so people here tend to pick up where others left off or create something of their own, mostly young people in social groups or kids in gangs tend to have their own forms of pronunciation, but as far as people been established here for over fifty years or more, the accent is more relative to ones own culture and not one that would represent an entire population of a city.

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by Alisande

I just came back from the east coast last week. I was approached by numerous people that instantly picked me out as californian. I think it's a pattern of speech more than lingo. I don't use hella or ya'll. I do say "like" and "totally" a lot. Trying to break that habit but hey it did get me a few discounts in the shops I was at.

I totally like say totally and like hella way too much... totally.

My east coast relatives often make fun of me, until I throw back a "wicked awesome" or "cawfee" at them (they're mostly in MA & PA)... LOL.