I'll ask about it, J. Or check at home and try to remember to bring it to work.
― I would feel confident if I dated her because I am older than (Laurel), Thursday, 22 October 2009 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
btw most chicagoans don't speak with a "chicago" accent. accentless as in 95% of midwesterners sound like your typical CNN newscaster, hollywood actor, etc.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 16:50 (fourteen years ago) link
that is not actually true in mn
― how rad bandit (gbx), Thursday, 22 October 2009 16:53 (fourteen years ago) link
that's 4% right there.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 16:54 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah that's not true of 95% of northern ohioans, michigan people, or wisconsin, etc. people i have met either.
― harbl, Thursday, 22 October 2009 16:54 (fourteen years ago) link
95% accentless. 1% Chicago accent. 4% hockey accent.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 16:55 (fourteen years ago) link
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:50 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Could have fooled me on that. Unless they are transplants. Pretty much everybody I know has one.
― Bill Magill, Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:05 (fourteen years ago) link
Missouri is 100% midwest, no contest
definitely. If Kansas and Illinois are Midwest, but Missouri isn't, then is Missouri the extended middle finger of the south?
― husband of blood - because of the circumcision (Z S), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:07 (fourteen years ago) link
That's cause you socialize exclusively at the Pipefitters Union hall, Bill.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:09 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, even people who aren't running around talking about "da Bears" still say "Oh my Gaaaahd" and "Chicaaaahgo." I am mostly aware of this because of the extent to which I've started doing it myself, which kind of bums me out.
― she is writing about love (Jenny), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
i've heard buffalo lumped in as a midwestern city which is totally ??? except for the accent.
― harbl, Wednesday, October 21, 2009 9:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
this seems right to me + i grew up in buffalo and live here now. it's the rust belt imo.
― horseshoe, Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:15 (fourteen years ago) link
% of people in Chicago with "Chicago" accent=% of people in NYC with "New York" accent. I've come across thousands of people born and raised in the area and only a handful have had that thick "hey dere my friend whaddaya say we get some brats and watch da bears" accent. Wish it was more prevalent tbh, cause it's pretty hilarious.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:21 (fourteen years ago) link
It is totally hilarious.
― she is writing about love (Jenny), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:25 (fourteen years ago) link
lol
― ♪♫(●̲̲̅̅̅̅=̲̲̅̅̅̅●̲̅̅)♪♫ (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:26 (fourteen years ago) link
I listen the Steve Dahl Show podcasts, right, and he plays voicemails from listeners. I'd say 1 out of 20 have a Chicago accent. Which he of course then usually mocks, awesomely.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:28 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm probably don't pick up on the more subtle versions of the accent, though.
Hello there, my friend. What do you say we purchase some bratwursts, and then watch the Chicago Bears football game?
― iiiijjjj, Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:29 (fourteen years ago) link
Or, if you prefer, the Chicago Bulls basketball match. I believe they are competing against the Spurs of San Antonio this evening.
― iiiijjjj, Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:32 (fourteen years ago) link
yew tak funny, meh friend, but yea i could gofer sem saaaasages.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:33 (fourteen years ago) link
- The midwest is a feeling.
- Arguments about Missouri and the south are somewhat compelling to me, actually, because there is a difference -- there are certainly places west of it that have way more in common with the core midwest than it does. Places like Lincoln or Omaha or Lawrence KS are way more, umm, spiritually contiguous with the idea of the "midwest" than a lot of Missouri. Haha Missouri is the gateway, the crossroads.
- I don't count the Dakotas; apart from a few far-eastern spots like Fargo or Sioux Falls or whatever they're just different, much more part of that whole northern-Rockies group.
- I can go either way on how far people want to extend the idea out onto the plains. You sorta just pick it up from context, really, whether someone's "midwest" is more Great-Lakesy or more Great-Plainsy. The only thing that bugs me is east-coasters whose idea of "midwest" is totally undifferentiated and encompasses most of the country. Or -- and I'm sorry if this is anyone here -- people who toss out Iowa as this quintessential midwestern flat grain-filled flyover spot, because if you've spent any time whatsoever near the midwest you know very well that Iowa is not the "center" of anything. Like any notion of a cultural or geographic category that thinks Iowa is right in the middle of it is just flat wrong.
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:35 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, what most people consider the "Chicago accent" is largely a white working-class thing.
― M. Grissom/DeShields (jaymc), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:35 (fourteen years ago) link
I move that it be renamed the Berwyn accent.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:39 (fourteen years ago) link
so can we agree that the Idea of the Midwest needs to be first broken up into cultural, physical, etc. separate contingencies and then depicted with individual raster map overlays that can show the degree of Midwesternness at any particular coordinate, as opposed to vector maps with a hard-and-fast line-in-the-sand boundary that says "this is the Midwest, this is not?"
Modern Geography was invented at the University of Chicago in the sixties by the way. I learned that in a History of Geography class.
― iiiijjjj, Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:39 (fourteen years ago) link
we are all midwesterners now
― mookieproof, Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:42 (fourteen years ago) link
except me, coz i'm from pittsburgh
― mookieproof, Thursday, 22 October 2009 17:43 (fourteen years ago) link
I srsly think of western PA as being midwest.
― quincie, Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:00 (fourteen years ago) link
it's definitely in the graying-out zone
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:02 (fourteen years ago) link
i thought california was part of the midwest till i lived in LA, now i think the midwest is everything that isnt los angeles, new york, new jersey, or philadelphia
― Bobby Wo (max), Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:18 (fourteen years ago) link
nabisco no it is not, wtf
― how rad bandit (gbx), Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:25 (fourteen years ago) link
no ocean coastline? no mountains? wasn't in the confederacy? yup, that's midwest.
― cialis morissette (goole), Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:28 (fourteen years ago) link
is it boring? that's a better yardstick maybe
Like any notion of a cultural or geographic category that thinks Iowa is right in the middle of it is just flat wrong.
http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/terrestrial/amphibians/armi/images/armi_midwest_420-360.gif
Sure looks like Iowa is near the center of that area.
― hope this helps (Granny Dainger), Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:30 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah um, i was gonna say. i can't think of a more central Midwestern geographic category than Iowa. Alton IL? Maybe? Central Illinois?
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:35 (fourteen years ago) link
has anyone said NORTHERN CITIES VOWEL SHIFT yet?
northern cities vowel shiftlook it uplabovhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UoJ1-ZGb1w
― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:40 (fourteen years ago) link
Oooh, what is that from? I would watch that whole show. (PBS, I'm guessing, if that's Robert MacNeil.)
― M. Grissom/DeShields (jaymc), Thursday, 22 October 2009 18:53 (fourteen years ago) link
here is the average californian's map...new jersey and philadelphia don't make the cut
(california) -- ??????? midwest??????????? - (new york city!!!)
― iatee, Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:01 (fourteen years ago) link
It's called Do You Speak American?I use it in my classes when we do our pronunciation section to show the variety of dialects in the US.
― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Thanks!
Also:http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~chiang/images/newyorker1.png
― M. Grissom/DeShields (jaymc), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:04 (fourteen years ago) link
labov is a God
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:06 (fourteen years ago) link
I use it in my classes when we do our pronunciation section to show the variety of dialects in the US.
In elementary and high school is it required to speak without an accent? In my school it was strictly forbidding to speak in dialect. (Less strict in the second high school I attended, but it was still not allowed in class itself.)
― Nathalie (stevienixed), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:06 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm not sure, but I doubt it. Anyway, I teach ESL classes. Also it's impossible to speak without an accent.
― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:08 (fourteen years ago) link
(adult esl, i should clarify)
I went to school in the NW and we would get scolded for sounding "too Californian"
― Fox Force Five Punchline (sexyDancer), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:09 (fourteen years ago) link
If you're speaking with an accent, chances are your teacher is, too.
― M. Grissom/DeShields (jaymc), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Also it's impossible to speak without an accent.
Well, yeah, you'd need tons of speech classes, but if they overheard you speaking with a clear accent or dialect, you were reprimanded. Once two girls were allowed to come in front of the class and speak in Bruges dialect in our class. How exciting! Let's have a freakshow! (I am being sarcastic.)
Californian sounds niiiiice! I've been checking the Youtube american accents clips.The chigago dialect sounds.... very strange (to me).
― Nathalie (stevienixed), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:12 (fourteen years ago) link
xp that may be true, but i doubt it was an institutionalized rule to scold students for sounding different. could it have been an individual teacher's bias?
― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:12 (fourteen years ago) link
This is a pretty good example of the Chicago accent:http://web.ku.edu/~idea/northamerica/usa/illinois/illinois10.mp3
― M. Grissom/DeShields (jaymc), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:19 (fourteen years ago) link
xp yeah there is (or was) an anti-California bias in the NW, similar to the anti-NY bias in the Midwest.
― Fox Force Five Punchline (sexyDancer), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:30 (fourteen years ago) link
gbx if you consider Ohio to be in the Midwest (and I think that's a majority opinion here) then how is western PA not kinda near the fade zone?
― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Haha my mother has a poster in her kitchen that says "I don't CARE how they do it in New York."
― I would feel confident if I dated her because I am older than (Laurel), Thursday, 22 October 2009 19:35 (fourteen years ago) link