Wednesday, March 26, 2008

My American Accent

Thomas MacEntee started this! He took a test at http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have.

When I got home today, I clicked on the link and took the test.

I have a Midland American accent (about 90% on the scale shown). The site says:

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

The site indicates that about 75% of people in the West have this accent - and even the Northeast has it with about 35% of the people. The other regions are in between those extremes.

That's strange... I was born in San Diego, my father and 3/4 of his ancestors were colonial Massachusetts English stock, the other 1/4 was Wiltshire English stock. My mother's father was from western Pennsylvania German stock, and my mother's mother was from northern New Jersey German stock and Ontario-New Jersey colonial English stock.

Each child learns to speak in his first four years or so based on his parents and other close family members and friends. My father came to San Diego in 1940, went into the Navy when I was less than a year old and didn't come back until I was over age 2. I was taken care of by my mother and her parents. Now it makes sense, doesn't it? My father had a New England accent, but not as noticeable as his siblings and parents.

What American accent do you have? Go take the test and blog about it or tell me in Comments here.

2 comments:

Lori Thornton said...

I've taken tests like that numerous times, and I always come out Midwest. This time, I came out "Midland" which is the same difference.

SCHELLY TALALAY DARDASHTI said...

Hi, Randy,
That was fun.
An accurate Northeast accent as a New York native.
Two other questions that might have been asked in some way: What do you call the round orange-colored fruit? is it "R-ange" or "aw-range". How do you say mirror? "mir-ror," "mir-rer or simply "mir" ?

Schelly Talalay Dardashti