The Accent Meme

[velessa]

Stolen from blitzen_

Record aloud the following:

* Your name and/or username
* Where you're from
* The following words: Aunt, Roof, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting Image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught, Orange, Coffee, Direction, Naturally, Aluminum, and Herbs
* What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
* What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
* What do you call gym shoes?
* What do you say to address a group of people?
* What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
* What do you call your grandparents?
* What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
* What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
* What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Comments

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Heh, I've deliberately changed some of these since moving out here, in order to avoid mockery! I think this list should be expanded, though; it's a little heavy on questions that are meant to elicit southern features, and there aren't many for northern or midwestern ones... But I wonder what they're trying to get at with "both." I don't know what dialect does that differently.

Cute cat!

By the way, where are your parents from? "Tennis shoes" isn't standard out here. ;) It's one of the things I stopped saying.

"Address a group of people" is a somewhat confusing attempt to find out how you refer in the second person to a group of people: you guys, y'all, you'ns, etc. (I think).

The rain-in-the-sun thing has a bunch of names like sunshower, fox's wedding, "the devil's beating his wife," etc. But everyone I know who knows the more colorful words learned them from a book or as trivia and uses them really self-consciously.

We speak pretty similarly :)

[velessa.livejournal.com]

My parents are from here, essentially; my dad is from Hayward, and my mom is from Fresno. I say tennis shoes or sneakers, that's all I've ever heard...if that's not standard, what is? I grew up here, and another Bay Area girl who did this said tennis shoes as well.

I might have heard sun shower before, but definitely none of those others! lol

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Sneakers is considered standard, but I can't find the map about this anymore :p (and no one has bought me the Dictionary of American Regional English yet!).

Anyway, everyone understands tennis shoes, so it doesn't matter in the least.

[velessa.livejournal.com]

I've never really noticed if I use one more than the other since I use them both...I suppose it must be tennis shoes since that came to me first when I was answering this.

[velessa.livejournal.com]

By the way, which ones were different for you that you changed after coming from...Arkansas? Is that where you're from?

[bluepony0628.livejournal.com]

Hahaha Californians unite! Rain when the sun is shining are called sun showers and it'san east coast thing because the first time I experienced I was all like WTF is this! It's summer, it's HOT, there are NO clouds in the sky and it's RAINING. My mind was blown!!

[velessa.livejournal.com]

No clouds? Where does the rain come from, then? I thought they meant when it's raining but bright and sunny interspersed with the clouds, you know, when you get rainbows. It happens here, but there are still clouds!

[sidekicknomore.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to do this later once I've finished dying my hair.

Also, glad to hear soda. In ohio they call it Pop and I get looked at funny when I call it soda.

[http://users.livejournal.com/blitzen_/]

okay so after listening to a bunch of these one after the other i can definitely sense a difference in your accent compared to the michigan people.

and SO COOL. love that you did a video!

i've noticed no one has pronounced 'route' as 'rowt' which i noticed when i was in kansas. and where would you be from if you said Ruin as Rune?

[velessa.livejournal.com]

Heh, well I have a microphone somewhere but didn't feel like trying to find it, and my camera is always handy.

One person I listened to said "rowt," but I don't remember who it was...

Ruin as rune? Not sure I've ever heard anyone say it like that.

[toshirodragon.livejournal.com]

Toilet papering ot TPing
Pop or occasionally soda pop and I have an older male friend who says soda water (I call it soda)
Sneakers tennies was used a lot when I was much younger but you don't hear it much now
Everyone pipe down! XD I picked up y'all from my Southern cousins tho
Daddy Long legs... I use Harvestman to confound people
Gramma and grandpa tho I called my Mother's mum Gran forever
Shopping Cart
Weird.. dunno if we HAVE a term for it here
the remote..or sometimes I hear clicker

Ruin as rune yep and tourist as turist Fetch is a swear word when used in a sporting event and towel is taal
oh and crayon is cren... I didn't even know there was a different way to say that until high school

[skyhuntress.livejournal.com]

haha, video is definitely neat! and yes, I can tell your accent :P
I have to figure out how to do this on my computer too!

[velessa.livejournal.com]

Heh, do I sound Californian? I should since I've lived here my whole life!

[hungry-worm.livejournal.com]

Kittyyyyyy!

I'm totally baffled by Aluminum, huh. We never used that one in school and I can't remember ever using it in context with anyone - we even said tin foil instead of aluminium foil (and now I wonder if that's even the same...!). XD