Hey everyone, thanks for the music suggestions, I picked up enough new music today to hold me over for awhile. I also found a lot of new bands I like, that’s super awesome.
Thanks to Heather and Dr. Internets, I figured out that I’m having a gall bladder attack. Fun for all! I thought I was having an ulcer or something, haha. I just need to stay away from the greasy food and I’ll be okay.
So, last night I was talking to one of my LJ friends in an IM and she was talking about how on extreme makeover some chick had been burned or something when she was a kid, and she (my friends words) “was from the mountains in East TN so she had a real bad hick accent” and lo and behold, extreme makeover managed to fix that “real bad hick accent”. I can’t even begin to express how sad that makes me feel.
Welcome to the homogenization of America, where a southern accent is unacceptable, so we need extreme makeover to “fix” it. Ugh. Ick. Bleh. It irks me on 2 levels:
1. I doubt they’d be trying to “fix” someone’s heavy Brooklyn accent, because people assume southern accent = stupid.
2. What the hell is wrong with having a regional accent?
I love accents. I think they sound so cool. I come from Indiana and so I have the flat no-accent accent. I always wished I had an accent, but I don’t. I sound like all the TV newscasters and everyone in movies. Bleh.
I’m trying to roll this up into a nice, neat point, but I can’t get there. Suffice to say, “fixing” her accent pissed me off. Grr.
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July 4, 2007 at 6:36 am
I have only one regret in my life. When I was a senior in high school, I rid myself of my southern accent. I thought it would make me seem more intelligent.
I wish I could time travel,and smack my young self, and let him know just what it was he was throwing away.
July 4, 2007 at 10:19 am
Yeah, that pisses me off, too. I also hate hearing my friends who do have accents disparage their accents for the way they think they’re perceived. I mean, maybe it’s true and that is the majority view, but I love ‘em and feel bland here in the South with my Midwest Standard accent (with just a bit of Chicago mixed in here and there). Wish I had something more colorful!
July 4, 2007 at 12:11 pm
How degrading to “fix” a southern accent! Part of the charm of living in the South is the lilting pattern of speech and an occasional “bless your heart”.
I am from the South. Texan by by birth but in Tennessee since ‘79. I find my accent charming. It’s not as cool as my husband’s though… You’ve just gotta here him try and do a Southern accent… When you hear him say “howdy y’all” you will laugh.
July 5, 2007 at 6:34 am
I’ve lost ALOT of my accent over the years. Moving away, and living amongst people from all over the country will do that to ya. It’s funny how you pick up other’s accents as your own. I watched a video of myself at 15…and omg, I had a very thick accent.
July 5, 2007 at 8:18 am
Well, ‘fixing’ the southern accent is hardly new. I lived in Greenville, SC for 10 years (been in Nashville since 2000) and Greenville Tech offered a course called “Controlling Your Southern Accent” ! Their take on it was that to relate in the business world you had to control your accent so you could be understood by people anywhere - and they even acknowledged the erroneous perception that the accent meant ‘uneducated’. !
I was born and raised in NY - - yeah.. a Yankee, but I’ve lived in the South for 17 years. There are some difficulties, with any accent, in understanding the ‘locals’. Most NY’ers have no clue what a ‘hose pipe’ is.. especially when it’s pronounced like ‘hose pop’.. lol. Yes, I’ve picked up some southern accent, how can you not when you’re immersed in it 24/7 for 17 years ?? People up in NY say I have an accent.. lol.. and people here say ‘you’re not from around here are you ?’. I’ve known a few people from up north who staunchly refuse to absorb any local speech patterns- until you catch them saying Y’all.
The sad perception that southern accent = stupid, or less educated, is ludicrous in this day and age where few people stay in their hometowns their entire lives.
I have a fundamental problem with these makeover shows — every woman comes out of there looking some a barbie doll - how many women do YOU know can grow 18 inches of lush locks in just 4 months ??? They do help people, but I think they go a bit too far in that regard.
July 5, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Ivy, you’re wrong: Brooklyn accents have been ‘fixed’ out of existence. There is still a Bronx accent, but most Bronxites don’t have it any more. And the Queens accent? Still exists, but has moved so close to standard spoken English as not to matter. In my parents’ day, NYC public schools required students to take speech classes if their accents were too noticeable. It isn’t required any more, but the students still line up for elective classes, since having any NYC sort of accent is assumed to make a person less employable. (Keep in mind that so far as I know, NYC is the only place in the US to have lost a federal anti-discrimination suit filed by Italian-Americans — the prejudice is real).