Accents, y'all!

My friend Andy and I were talking about accents the other night. It is interesting that some of us pick up accents very quickly. You don’t even have to go very far. The African-American and Amish subcultures have their own way of speaking that is very different from mine. Actually, should we call their way of speaking an accent, a subaccent or what?

Even though many Midwesterners don’t think they have an accent, I disagree. For example, words like “thinking” become “thinkin’” and words often get slurred together. Yes, if you work on your diction like I have for radio and public address announcing, the Midland accent (thanks to Deb’s blog for that one) is a great one for radio and television. Whereas the sound of our language may not be as intriguing as the Southerners, New Englanders or even “Da Upers (Upper Peninsula of Michigan),” I know I hear myself and others saying some funny things. When I’m preparing for a trip, I might say, “I gotta go get around.” What does that mean? Also, if I finish the orange juice, I might remark, “It’s all.” It’s all what, all gone?
So, you see, language is a funny thing. It never stays stagnant and most languages are constantly incorporating words from other languages into their own. For instance, police is policia in Spanish, polis in Turkish and policija in one of the Eastern European nations. And here in the United States, we often talk of Feliz Navidad as if it’s just as American as Merry Christmas. I almost like the idea of Feliz Navidad (Happy Nativity) better anyway. So, in keeping with the mezcla of languages, Feliz Navidad a todos este año!