Tag Archives: southern twang

Even My Husband Speaks “Southern”

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I’m still laughing today!

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All my married life my husband has teased me about my “southern twang.”  There are many words that I clearly do not say correctly – that is – if your standard is the “General American” accent.

Brendan Houdek, a Speech Coaching Associate at New York Speech Coaching and the Head of New York Speech Pathology describes this manner of speaking as:

“this term is typical when referring to a dialect that is clearly American, but has none of the distinctive features that categorize a particular region, ethnic group, or  socioeconomic status. Upon hearing someone speak with this particular dialect, it would be difficult to determine where he or she is from, other than being from the United States of America.”

Although I was born in Illinois (southern Illinois) all my life people have consistently asked me what part of the south I am from.  They usually guess Tennessee or Kentucky.

When I purchased a smart phone and began using the app that allows me to speak my text, it was hilarious some of the ways the app interpreted what I was saying.  One text  repeated a phrase I said – but the phrase came out totally different from what I said and was using what I would call “bad language.”  My youngest daughter who received the text, knowing how much I frown on “bad language,” had to forward it to her siblings with a note that basically told them:

If you get a text from Mom and she is swearing at you, she has not had a stroke or become senile, she is just using voice translation for her text.

They all had a good laugh at my expense.

Following up on that I recently discovered that much of the way I speak can be traced all the way back to my Scot-Iris ancestry.

Check out my story:

Smart Phones and Southern Twang

So, for years my husband has had fun laughing at my accent.  He always has this big grin on his face when people ask me where I was born and comment on my accent.

But this weekend it was my turn to laugh.

We ventured out on a road trip to a nearby town and checked out the art galleries and antique stores.

Entering one store, I quickly found a collection of old books.  I’m a book lover and my attention was all on the books.  My husband, who never meets a stranger, struck up a conversation with the owner of the store.  I had not said a single word when I heard the owner ask my husband where his home was.  Telling her he was originally from Illinois, her response made me laugh.

“It must be southern Illinois.”

She indicated she heard a southern twang in his voice.  He was speechless as he had never been told that he had an accent.

After all these years – I’m laughing at him.

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Smart Phones and Southern Twang

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I was born in southern Illinois but much of my adult life has been spent in northern Illinois.  Everywhere I have gone people ask me where in the South I was born.  Most guess Tennessee, Kentucky or even Mississippi.  Often I have been told that I have a “southern twang” – whatever that means.

My husband and son-in-law tease me about many words that I pronounce wrong – at least according to them.  My husband has tried to get me to said the word as he says it.  When I listen to others I can tell the difference, but try as I do, I cannot pronounce it as they do.

While we were missionaries in the Philippines several asked us why my husband and I “talk different.”  They recognized my speech pattern was not the same as his.

With my recent purchase of a smart phone I now can just speak my test messages instead of typing them out.  The result has been so funny.   Alexis – or whoever she is – does not understand my speech.  Some of the texts she has sent have made me laugh.

Some words she doesn’t get

  • I say “said” – she hears “set”
  • I say “wash” – she hears “warsh”
  • I say wrestling – she hears “rassling”
  • I don’t dare say “oil” or any word with “oi” in it because who knows what she will think I am saying.

Not really being from the south (although southern Illinois is very close to Kentucky and if you look on a map it is as far south as Virginia), I just assumed living that close to the south my ancestors may have been southerners and that speech pattern was passed on to my parents and now to me.  There must have been some southerners in our background because the first secular song I remember singing was “I Wish I Was in Dixie.”

Recently doing more research into my ancestry I found most of our ancestors were from Scotland and Ireland.

Further research into my speech pattern gave me some interesting facts.  The linguist Barbara Johnstone at Carnegie Mellon University has determined that many of the words I mispronounce can be found in the regions of the country that were settled by Scots-Irish Protestants who came to America from Ireland and Scotland for greater religious freedom in the 1700’s.

Since most of those immigrants settled in the Tennessee /Kentucky area and the Appalachian mountains that would explain the “southern twang” people hear.

Anyway, it is going to make for some fun texts as I speak and Alexis tries to understand my dialect.

So – if you get a text from me that does not make sense, try to imagine how a Scots-Irish southerner transplanted to the north would say it.