NationStates Jolt Archive

I've always wanted to know, but it is hard for me to tell because I have a midwestern accent myself. Is a midwestern accent as obvious as a southern accent?

Come on people.....

I have a mid-western accent myself, mixed wid a up nort accent der, too. Not da nose kind from Fargo, da Turdy-point buck kind.

Overall, we talk pretty fast, keeping mouths as small as possible. Also, we pronounce 'r's as opposed to going 'ahh'.

Still, we're pretty neutral. Newscasters speak like we do.

Yeah, I've heard that there really isn't a "midwestern" accent, but you can tell when someone's from the midwest because their speech pattern is particularly flat.

Midwest accent is basically the lack of an accent. I remember being in NY a couple years back, went into a fast food place and asked what kind of pop they had to drink. They didn't know what I was talking about until I adjusted for regional differences and asked again, substituting soda for pop.

Midwest accent is basically the lack of an accent. I remember being in NY a couple years back, went into a fast food place and asked what kind of pop they had to drink. They didn't know what I was talking about until I adjusted for regional differences and asked again, substituting soda for pop.

Aint it called soda-pop?

Aint it called soda-pop?

Not necessarily … depends on where you are from … out east I also hear it referred to as “Coke” even when it is Pepsi lol

But your right we tend to not have any particular accent (except maybe a bit of Norwegian/Germanic hint there. Its leaving us slowly … you notice it generation to generation. Like I can tell my parents have a heavier accent then I do … and their parents before them

tom brokaw

we hear it so much that it doesnt seem like an accent even if its very different from the way we speak ( in the us)

Here's a very oversimplified map of accents in the u.s.

http://www.evolpub.com/Americandialects/AmDialMap.html

Of course, if you actually listen to U.S. accents they vary wildly even within those major areas-- there is a stereotypical New England accent, for example, but a Maine accent and a Rhode Island accent are really quite different.


Noone thinks they have an accent -- but we all do!

I researched it a little bit and apparently midwesterners don't have much of an accent to the rest of the United States. I have heard that we pronounce our "a's" kind of nasally before (in Nebraska). One website said that we pronounce "not" like "naht" and "opportunity" like "ahperrtunity".

...and in NYC it's soda, but in Buffalo, it's pop. Depends on where you are in New York!

Midwest accent is basically the lack of an accent. I remember being in NY a couple years back, went into a fast food place and asked what kind of pop they had to drink. They didn't know what I was talking about until I adjusted for regional differences and asked again, substituting soda for pop.

A teacher told me one time that if you went to a different region of the United States and asked for a pop, you would probably get a punch in the nose instead of a can of soda.

...and in NYC it's soda, but in Buffalo, it's pop. Depends on where you are in New York!

Sounds right, I was just outside NYC at the time. My cousins in the south are like that, where everything is a "coke".

Used to tell me when I'd visit "Help yourself to a 'coke' in the fridge" only to find the fridge full of Pepsi.

Problem with visiting my southern cousins, i'd start to pick up their accent. Came back home a couple times and caught myself saying y'all. Made me want to bang my head into a wall.

I find it weird that multiple people have told me I specifically have a Nebraskan accent. It's weird that they can pinpoint it to an exact state (and it just so happens that I have lived in Nebraska...)

I find it weird that multiple people have told me I specifically have a Nebraskan accent. It's weird that they can pinpoint it to an exact state (and it just so happens that I have lived in Nebraska...)

How do they say you talk?

I've always wanted to know, but it is hard for me to tell because I have a midwestern accent myself. Is a midwestern accent as obvious as a southern accent?

Meh ... just listen to Garrison Keillor.

How do they say you talk?
Like a Nebraskan.

Or to be more specific: Not quite like a Minniesotan (note the spelling), but definitely not like an Arkansan. Of course, nowadays the accent of the general public in Arkansas is moving north.

I used to have a northern accent (I can't really tell how a South Maine accent sounds, because it sounds neutral to me), but since I've been living in Florida for a while I picked it up.

In the Deep South, it's very distinctive. Floridians sound much different from Georgians, and you can tell Missisippians and Alabamans apart. Lousianian Accents I literally cannot understand as English, so that's also distinctive.

What does Wyoming's accent sound like? Do the mountain states even have enough people to formulate a dialect, or is it just borrowed from more densely populated areas?

Lousianian Accents I literally cannot understand as English, so that's also distinctive.
Most of Lousiana and Arkansas sound about the same, however I think the unintelligible accent you're talking about is what is known as "Bayou Swampspeak," and yes, it is an entirely different language.

To be honest, at least those in Illinois and Indiana - all the guys I talk to sound so fucking gay. It really confuses me, because unless he's really big and butch with some real real real deep voice.. usually the guys just sound gay :x Like I said, it confuses me :p

To be honest, at least those in Illinois and Indiana - all the guys I talk to sound so fucking gay. It really confuses me, because unless he's really big and butch with some real real real deep voice.. usually the guys just sound gay :x Like I said, it confuses me :p
My male relatives live in Illinois, and they do not sound gay. I also know plenty of gay men who have real deep voices...and believe me, not all big and butch guys are straight!

All the big butch gay guys want to tie me up and do.. strange.. things to me. :X

Most of Lousiana and Arkansas sound about the same, however I think the unintelligible accent you're talking about is what is known as "Bayou Swampspeak," and yes, it is an entirely different language.
I once heard this directed at me on the beach-
Let my try to get it phonetically...

I'alnunymads Loglan
Yalnoonumads English, roughly.

If it sounds anything like that, whatever they meant, yes.

Midwesteners are the only people that speak English correctly. It's everyone ELSE that has accents.

RogaRugosa's link is hopelessly incorrect as far as my region goes. I am in Detroit, falling into the 'Great Lakes Region' and that essay was totally wrong in how people all over the midwest speak.

I generally find that we here in the midwest pronounce everything exactly as it sould be, and say everything as it sould be said, saying 'soda' instead of 'pop' for shame.

Midwesteners are the only people that speak English correctly. It's everyone ELSE that has accents.

Actually midwesterners speak what is called "standard english" which means not that we speak it perfectly, but midwesterners have little or no accent to other Americans and can be generally understood by everyone. The media and celebrities often try to use a midwestern accent because it seems the most normal and is easily understood by all English-speaking people.

I went off to basic training, And from what I figured out, calling Soda-pop Pop is a Great Lakes thing, not really mid-western, that would explain Buffalo as well.

Well, how do you explain Milwaukee...they say "Soda"...that's where I picked it up, even though I now live on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where everyone say's "Pop"!!!


Anyway...I can't help you...I speak with the midwestern accent, too. However, two observation's made by a friend of mine from out east:

1) We speak slowly. Plain and simple...we are laid back in our speech.

--and--

2) We tend to raise the end's of our sentences from time to time, even when they aren't a question! Wierd, huh?


Yeah...

Aint it called soda-pop?

Not in NY. You ask for soda there (which gets you club soda or seltzer everywhere else). ;)

We also call them sandwiches, not sammiches.

And if someone asks you if you want chicken parmazhan, you'll recognize the spelling as chicken parmagiana....

And Manicotti is pronounced "man-ih-go"

;)

I've always wanted to know, but it is hard for me to tell because I have a midwestern accent myself. Is a midwestern accent as obvious as a southern accent?
THere is no midwestern accent, people just say that because hte midwestern way of talking is generally accepted as closest to the dictionary defined pronunciation.