weirdest thing they do on America television is they'll put on these ultra exaggerated southern accents everytime they want you think the speaker is stupid, like who planned this for you, like do you not understand how cool those accents are
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Yup. I long since learned to code switch out of my rural Texas accent if I want to be taken seriously. Many people won’t even bother to listen to what I’m saying otherwise.
I sometimes over embellish my Tennessee accent when I’m dealing with people so I appear folksy. That way when I want to be a dick I speed it up. I like for people to know when a conversation is turning into a cross examination.
This kinda shit makes me insanely angry bc my Texas accent is dialed back in order to be taken seriously just like that KY person said they have to, and I live in MA now and it's still/especially true. I run across folks who think East TX is a DESERT like SIR WE GET HURRICANES.
One of my favorite things about the tv show Justified is how Raylan and Boyd both had thick southern accents and were a) the smartest people on the show and b) constantly underestimated by non-southerners.
Surely there are accents in India that are believed to correlate with "stupid, uneducated person"? I bet every culture with a large enough geographic range has a "stupid hick" stereotype accent.
Which brings to mind an interesting question... what accent would you choose to signal the stupids?
I feel like there's a good handful of American accents that most non-US English speakers could pick out. All of them are capable of sounding quite moronic in the right hands.
I actively spent several years changing my "accent" to be more neutral and less Southern because I was tired of people treating me like I was unintelligent. Just like - baseline people assumed I was unable to READ because of my accent.
ngl once stood eavesdropping on a lady yelling at her son about being bad at directions at a kansas city crosswalk for so long I missed two lights because of that accent
It's interesting how that vowel migrates across the state. For instance, it wasn't until I lived in western PA that I found out there is a w in hockey.
As a Southern person it's infuriating, as every state (and every region within that state) speaks in a slightly different accent. Texas is different from Georgia, Virginia is different from Tennessee. But they go Foghorn Leghorn as an abbreviation for stupid. Gomer Pyle has a lot to answer for.
“Racism is a worldwide problem, and it's been like that since the beginning of recorded history and it ain't just white and black, but thanks to George Wallace, it's always a little more conveinent to play it with a Southern accent.”
- the Drive-By Truckers, “The Three Great Alabama Icons”
One of my favorite internet things is people doing Shakespeare in a southern accent. (I read somewhere that it’s linguistically closer to how UK English would have sounded then?)
I also miss the wild variety of accents New Orleans had to offer when I lived there.
The sayings were also delightful. My grandma was born In Kentucky. One time I was telling her about something my son was doing and she said, “his eyes must have bulged out like a stomped on frog.”
What a horrifyingly evocative way to state that. I was delighted.
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And I had basically dialed up my accent on accident bc the goal was to sound welcoming lol
I feel like there's a good handful of American accents that most non-US English speakers could pick out. All of them are capable of sounding quite moronic in the right hands.
So I learned some French, Spanish, and Latin. XD
*though I suspect they're hard to do well
**it's even hard to fight this conception in real life, not just tv
The one part of the Philly accent that still makes me twitch (I've been here 16 years) is how they say "on" like "awn."
- the Drive-By Truckers, “The Three Great Alabama Icons”
I also miss the wild variety of accents New Orleans had to offer when I lived there.
What a horrifyingly evocative way to state that. I was delighted.
Thanks for thinking it's a cool accent.