Reba's Oklahoma accent is easy to imitate.
Ahm a survivah ;)
Ahm a survivah ;)
Why is the American accent so easy to imitate?
ALLY: "I grew up in northern Michigan (if you want to talk about northerners!), and to us, Ohio sounds Southern. And in general I've found that we like Southern accents (I made an experiment once while waiting tables: elongate those vowels, soften the consonants, slow down a bit...people smile more), we think they're warm and friendly."
Ally, I wish more people had felt that way about Southern accents when I came West in 1982—my residence here would have been made immeasurably more pleasant. The people who didn't like the accent were often downright cruel with their tongue.
As for your first point: I only once met a man from Northern Michigan, and I can tell you that his accent was markedly different from Detroit accents. It was sometimes difficult to understand what he was saying, because I think there's both Yooper and Canadian influences in Northern Michigan speech...
Ally, I wish more people had felt that way about Southern accents when I came West in 1982—my residence here would have been made immeasurably more pleasant. The people who didn't like the accent were often downright cruel with their tongue.
As for your first point: I only once met a man from Northern Michigan, and I can tell you that his accent was markedly different from Detroit accents. It was sometimes difficult to understand what he was saying, because I think there's both Yooper and Canadian influences in Northern Michigan speech...
I have to basically agree with what Ally said above. We here in Wisconsin effectively see the South as beginning not that far south of Chicago...
To us, the South is so far away, it might as well be in a different country. Although we refer to *any* place geographically south of us as "down south"--which includes almost all of the rest of the country. My cousin just moved way down south to Portland. Lol.
To us Minnesotans any non-western dialect south of the Northern dialect zone sound "southern". Folks from Kansas and southern Ohio sound "Southern" to me.