Category: 2008

Gods, to listen to Palin, you’d swear you were watching Fargo, doncha know! I kept thinking that she had an upper Midwest accent, then I read that she was raised in Alaska. I didn’t think Alaskans sounded like that, so I investigated and she does have a Fargo accent!

The annoying accent is due to her family (from Idaho) moving to an area in Alaska that was populated by midwesterners during the Depression, so the accent came with them. It’s almost as annoying as that flat nasal Upper Peninsula (aka Yuper) accent of Michigan.

In any case, her strong accent puts me off – it’s so strong it seems fake! Of course, all very strong accents sound fake to me if they are used by a politician. Heh. Being from the South, I’ve grown up with annoying accents – yes, I find a strong Southern accent just as annoying as a strong Northern one – so accents are sort of a hobby of mine.

When I was messing around with the music business, doing recording and such, I got rid of much of my Southern accent, but it comes back easily. I like to try to teach Southern to my California friends – it’s so comical! For instance, the Southernism “stink eye” should absolutely be pronounced “stank ah” (it means a dirty look, for those who are Southern impaired). But just try to get a Californian to say “stank ah”. Ha! It’s really fun! It’s equally as fun with a Yankee, but Californians try harder to do it right. LOL

Heh,  having fun with accents should be everyone’s pastime. My mother is notorious for getting her knickers in a knot whenever someone makes fun of her accent (very strong East Tennessee), which I find stupid. When we had a steak house in St Joseph MO, my mother would be very defensive with the locals when they’d (good-naturedly) poke fun at her accent. Granted, my mother is always defensive about everything, but the appropriate response would be to make fun of their accent right back. It’s not like they don’t have one, oh yah. They are very nasal and flat – not as bad as Yupers or Minnesotans, but distinctive nonetheless. Very strong, long I’s.

Anyway, everyone on the planet has an accent. You can dampen it down like TV news anchors and movie actors do, but it’s still there. You know Julia Roberts gets just as Southern as the rest of us when she visits family in Georgia. I drop down into East Tennessee when I talk to my grandmother on the phone (she actually can’t understand me on the phone anymore unless I slow down and match her accent) or visit my family. Nick becomes Guido when he visits his family in Detroit.

The point is, accents can be annoying but they are a part of everyone. Drop yours, learn a new one, make fun of Yankees, make fun of Southerners. Let’s just not take it too seriously, doncha know!  :-)