Yesterday, I met a lady here in Southern California. We did the whole introduction thing: hi, I'm Mary Kathryn.
Hi, I'm (insert name). Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too. Where are you from?
Just on the other side of 215 (what is that?).
Where are you from? Georgia.
Georgia! What are you doing here? and so on and so forth. Well we were talking for about 3 minutes before the lady says,
How long have you been in Georgia? I think that's an odd question so early in the game, but whatever. I respond...my whole life. She says,
Where's your sweet Georgia accent? Immediately I wanted to cry (and clearly haven't stopped thinking about it since).
Where did my accent go?? Did I leave it in Missouri or was it Wisconsin or perhaps Washington? It's time to put a call into brother #2.
If found please mail to....oh just shoot me an e-mail.
Oh no! That's terrible! I get offended too when people say "oh, I can hear a little accent somewhere in there." But then I go home for break and it's all fixed! Love you!
ReplyDeleteOk, I have several problems here:
ReplyDelete1. Has this woman ever lived in GA and truly experienced a southern accent? Probably not, so her assessment of your accent is irrelevant.
2. What is her expectation of a GA accent? This goes back to item 1, but also, if her image of a GA accent is from popular culture (movies and such) it doesn't matter if she expects Larry the Cable Guy, an antebellum plantation lady from a Civil War (poor term, but another time), or a southern colonist from something like 'The Patriot.' She'd be wrong on all three accounts since none of them exemplify the real current GA accent.
3. 3 minutes is not long enough to determine someone's real accent. Mine largely only comes out when I'm being very polite or I'm upset. Probably b/c it's weak in the first place, but still.
Just sayin'.
hahaha I'm the exact opposite...I love when people tell me they can't hear an accent. Gotta hold on to my Midwestern pride. Don't worry, you can talk Southern all you want when you come to visit!!! :)
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