Cellar Scribblings

[Jeff Wrangler]

I always assumed we talked exactly like newscasters (i.e., accentless) until I moved to New Orleans and people pointed out that I have an unusual way of pronouncing O's. Like, Minnesooohhhta instead of Minneseeuuta, which is the way West and East Coast residents would pronounce it, in my experience.

Hunh?    Who have you been talking to from "back here" who pronounces it like that? I've never heard anyone "back here" pronounce it any other way than with a long "o."  We don't draw out the "o," but we definitely pronounce it to rhyme with the "o" in "soda" or "Coke."

In fact, rather than pronouncing the "o" in a funny way, I know more people who would make the "t" sound like a "d," so that it comes out sounding like "Minnesoda." Actually, that "e" more often than not ends up sounding like an "a," so it comes out sounding like "Minnasoda."

[Jeff Wrangler]

Ok, and the Swedes don't sound like the Swedish Chef.



Oh, wait....they don't?    Ok...nevermind!

Euuuf-dah.

[serious crayons]

Hunh?    Who have you been talking to from "back here" who pronounces it like that? I've never heard anyone "back here" pronounce it any other way than with a long "o."  We don't draw out the "o," but we definitely pronounce it to rhyme with the "o" in "soda" or "Coke."

I'm not really spelling it right. The pronunciation eludes spelling.

The people I'm thinking of are primarily editors at East Coast publications and some Californians I've known. Some are probably graduates of fancy schools, which might make a difference.

They don't draw out the O. And it doesn't help to say they pronounce it with a long O -- that's just how they pronounce long O's.

But whereas a Minnesotan would pronounce it with a totally round mouth, the Easterners I'm thinking of say it as if they're putting a little bit of an E into the O, maybe pronouncing the O with slightly more pursed lips, almost putting a a little "eeewww" ino it.

In fact, rather than pronouncing the "o" in a funny way, I know more people who would make the "t" sound like a "d," so that it comes out sounding like "Minnesoda." Actually, that "e" more often than not ends up sounding like an "a," so it comes out sounding like "Minnasoda."

That's just when we have a cold!    Actually, no, I probably soften the T a little bit myself. I wouldn't say it with a really crisp, audible T. So it probably does sound a little like "soda."

[serious crayons]

I did a quick search for examples and found this:

Upper Midwestern English

This is the dialect that was made famous by the film “Fargo.” It is mostly heard in Minnesota, North Dakota and a few areas in Iowa. It is related to the Great Lakes dialect, although with some substantial differences.

Prominent Features:

    The vowel sound in goat is often a strong monopthong, becoming IPA go:t (i.e. “gawwwt”).
    The prosody (musicality) of the dialect is often influenced by the various Germanic languages that were spoken in the region well into the Twentieth-Century.
    Most other features are fairly similar to Great Lakes English, with some difference depending on the specific region.

Accent Samples:

former Gov. Jesse Ventura:
[youtube=425,350]

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The YouTube clip is 10 minutes long, but you only have to listen to a minute or two to get the idea. Jesse's accent maybe is a little more extreme than most (I don't think I talk like that, for example), but it's not to Fargo proportions.

Maybe the part about "goat" having a strong monophthong gets at it. The Coastal version I'm thinking of maybe has a very faint subtle dipthong.

[Jeff Wrangler]

The people I'm thinking of are primarily editors at East Coast publications and some Californians I've known. Some are probably graduates of fancy schools, which might make a difference.

Could be.

But whereas a Minnesotan would pronounce it with a totally round mouth, the Easterners I'm thinking of say it as if they're putting a little bit of an E into the O, maybe pronouncing the O with slightly more pursed lips, almost putting a a little "eeewww" into it.

Well, I think perhaps I'm beginning to get at what you're saying, but when I try to pronounce it "with a totally round mouth" it comes out sounding like what I would say has a bit of an "aw" in it, like Inger Stevens in the Sixties sitcom version of The Farmer's Daughter (I've never seen the Loretta Young movie). (According to Wikipedia, Stevens was born in Stockholm.)

But I'm not getting the "eeewww." I've never heard anybody anywhere say "Minnesewta."

Accents can vary so much. I once heard a docent in Colonial Williamsburg pronounce "house" as "hoose." I later heard someone say that pronunciation was the way they say it in Charles City County, Virginia, which is on the James River between Williamsburg and Richmond.

In GWTW, where there is talk of Scarlett going to stay with her Robillard kin in Charleston, MM writes that in Lowland South Carolina they pronounce "house" as "hoose."

[CellarDweller]

Hiya Bettermost Friends!

Got to work on the earlier side, due to the rain that hitting the area.  Weather  here is supposed to be crazy the next few days!!!

Hope everyone else is doing well!!!

[serious crayons]

Accents can vary so much.

I know! There are at least three different accents in Minnesota alone, two or three in New Orleans.

In trying to figure out the oo ew thing yesterday I looked up Amy Wallace on YouTube. She does great those tutorials of different accents. She's really good, but when it comes to the U.S. my suspicion is she doesn't break it down much further than maybe Southern, Western, probably a few different upper East Coast ones, Chicago and then Midwest in general.

Unfortunately, the videoI found wasn't even that nuanced. I think it was more like, "how to speak American" for non-American English speakers -- so basically newscasterspeak. Hugh Laurie might have found it useful preparing to play House.

She's the first one I ever heard talk about the Mid-Atlantic accent, which I had noticed in old movies and Twilight-Zone-era TV shows, but never in real life.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I know! There are at least three different accents in Minnesota alone, two or three in New Orleans.

In trying to figure out the oo ew thing yesterday I looked up Amy Wallace on YouTube. She does great those tutorials of different accents. She's really good, but when it comes to the U.S. my suspicion is she doesn't break it down much further than maybe Southern, Western, probably a few different upper East Coast ones, Chicago and then Midwest in general.

Unfortunately, the video I found wasn't even that nuanced. I think it was more like, "how to speak American" for non-American English speakers -- so basically newscasterspeak. Hugh Laurie might have found it useful preparing to play House.

She's the first one I ever heard talk about the Mid-Atlantic accent, which I had noticed in old movies and Twilight-Zone-era TV shows, but never in real life.

One of my favorite TV hunks is the Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin (currently plays Steve McGarrett in the reboot of Hawaii Five-O). I've seen him in three different series, plus some guest roles, and in all of them I think he sounds like a thug from Chicago--not that I know any thugs from Chicago. 

Currently I'm watching the series Mercy Street on PBS (about a Union Army hospital in an appropriated hotel in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1862). I've seen one writer remark that the Southern accents seem to vary even within one family--the Greens, who own the hotel that has been taken over for the hospital. I noticed that myself. I checked IMDb, and the series does have a "dialect coach," but it still seems to me that one of the daughters in the family is laying on the accent with a trowel, like a stereotypical Southern Belle, and I've wondered if any of the accents in the family are correct for Northern Virginia. Then, in this past Sunday's episode, two of the regular characters encountered a family of Quakers. If memory serves, the Quakers didn't have any Southern accent at all--yet they were Virginians!

And I'm glad I don't speak like a native Philadelphian. ... The natives around here seem to put a very nasal "a" before an "o" or an "ou," so that, for example, "house" comes out sounding like "haouse." Sounds awful. ...

[CellarDweller]

accents are funny!

I've been told numerous times that I have a Pennsylvania accent (even though I don't spend much time there, my grandparents and parents were from Pa. originally).

[serious crayons]

OK, I have another idea to explain the O thing.

How might an American pronounce "eau" as in eau de toilette? Or how do you think of, say, Julie Andrews pronouncing O?

Take those pronunciations, dial them back a bit, and then compare them to how the giant in Jack and the Bean Stalk would say "Fo" as in "Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum!"

That's a little bit like the difference between a Coastal O and a Minnesota O.

Believe me, I was completely unaware of this myself, until a friend in New Orleans told me that a coworker was marveling over my accent (which again, seriously, is not particularly strong!). "Did you get how she says 'Minnesoooohhhhhta?" was the comment. That's when I started to notice there was another way to pronounce that vowel.