What Accent Do You Have?

[Cindi Hammons]

What American Accent Do You Have? Quiz (http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have)

My results:

Your Result: The Midland
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.

Are you kidding? :eek: Did they say Southern Ohio? Man, they nailed that one!

[Barb Bouldrey]

NOT Missouri for Midland....LOL

You have not lived in all four areas of Missouri to see the different accents. OH MY!!!

Southeast Missouri is SOUTH....slow drawl, drop the plural endings, vowel sounds are sounded differently.

I have lived here 6 YEAR. I live 2 MILE from the church. I took a FLAT(flight) in my airplane. Hat has 2 syllables.

When we moved to Bernie, MO in 1978, the people sat and smiled at John the entire time he preached. After 3 weeks, the pianist said to him, as she left, "You probably wonder why we are smiling at you. We like your NORTHERN accent."

Accent?????? We were not the ones with the accent. LOL

When I was teaching 2nd grade at Bernie I put "heal" and "heel" on the blackboard and asked who could tell me the difference. One little girl explained:
"Heal is when you go to the doctor and he heals you."
Heel is when you go down the road and over the heel."

This is southern Missouri. LOL

St. Louis and north have a different accent. The foothills of the Ozarks near Lake of the Ozarks and south is a different accent than here.

Barb, who was raised in NORTHERN Ohio.

[Vivian Cornwell]

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Midland
My Results:
"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.

Well I took the quiz, but I am not from any of those places, not even southern Ohio. Cindi, you aren't from southern Ohio either, but you have lived there a long time.

[Marsha Gupton]

do you even have to ask??? haha

The South

That's a southern accent you have there. You may love it, you may hate it. You may swear you don't have it, but whatever the case, we can hear it.

[Jen Blackburn]

that bag rhyming with vague thing gets me every time :D

Your Result: The Inland North

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

[Jerry Frank]

Surprisingly accurate. Though the test is for U.S. residents, I took it anyway to see what it came up with.

""North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot."

Since I am Canadian, I guess I should sound like one. :-)

Jerry

[Laurie Florence]

I have the same accent that Jerry Frank was talking about - the one that sounds Canadian. Of course, I am Canadian as well, so it makes sense.

[Billy Cox]

I already knew that I don't have a distinct accent.

[Mamie White]

I have that good "Ole Southern" East Texas accent. At work sometimes I have to call up North and the people want to keep me on the phone. I
thought they liked me found out they wanted to hear me talk.

Some people think I talk to Southern even to be from East Texas but they are stuck with me. :fav18

I answered the crisis hot line at work one day and a man realized he had the wrong number. He was from New York. He said, "I am not in crisis but I sure wish I was, so I could listen to that southern talk a while longer."

Mamie

[Jim Franklin]

I used to live in Fargo but I did not know there was something to see called "Fargo." I remember the Scandinavian and German accents in that area and one of my college roommates was from Minnesota and he now lives here in the Boise (home of the Fiesta Bowl Champions) area and when we get together I still hear his Scandinavian accent.

[LoraineStanton]

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop" - well of course!!!:fav17 :fav17 :fav17

[Brad Mercer]

Yuck! Blast! Blast!!!

It said I have a "Midland" accent instead of a Southern accent. Blast! I am fiercely proud of being a Southerner and I hate the ridiculous notion that one accent is not really an accent (unless the alleged unaccented English is the accent of the royal family of England). I didn't mean to lose my Southern accent and acquire a midwestern accent!

That might help explain, though, why my kids, born and raised in Texas, keep being asked by Australians if they're from Canada. ;-)

On the other hand, we play a game in long road trips in the car where one person says: "I'm thinking of a word that rhymes with ________." Let's say he fills in the blank with "toes." Then everyone else in the car has to think of words that rhyme with toes, but instead of saying: "Are you thinking of the word 'rose'?" they have to say a definition of the word, like: "Are you thinking of a romantic red flower?" Then the originator has to guess what word they're defining and say yes or no, I'm thinking or I'm not thinking of the word 'rose'. The originator wins by stumping everyone. He or she loses either by someone successfully guessing their word, or by stumping them with a good, clear definition when they can't think of the word being defined.

We find it nearly impossible to play that game with a mixture of Texans and Aussies in the car because so many words rhyme for one group but not for the other group.

Brad

[Marg Shurtliff]

"North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.


The last 3 words say it all !! lol !!

[Cathy Boulos]

my accent is from Maine:):fav18 Some have a hard time understanding me.
Cathy:basic01

[BobHunt]

Its not Ohio is like "ohia".

[Cindi Hammons]

Sorry Bob, around here we don't say "Ohia." We say O-HI-O!

Go Buckeyes!

[Barb Bouldrey]

You Tell Him, Cindi

[Sue Pyles]

I have been told that my accent was just plain "Redneck".
I guess it comes from living accross the river from Ky.
I personally don't think I have an accent.

[Barb Bouldrey]

That silly quiz says I am from Philadelphia!
Never been there.

LOL

Barb

[Sue Pyles]

Actualy the quiz said I was from the Northeast. :rolleyes: I think that is only because I taught Phonics for so many years.

[David Cash]

I'm delighted. I have a Western accent.

It follows. I was born in Alaska and raised until I almost fourteen in North Dakota, western South Dakota, and western Nebraska. They're really midwest, but the cowboy culture kind of covers at least Western South Dakota, and you feel western out there.

Actually, the quiz was tricky for me. My teacher father was very interested in proper pronunciation. For instance, I know the difference between Mary, merry, and marry. I tried to go to my instinct before he drilled it into me as a small kid and said they sounded the same. It was that way on a number of the questions. So maybe the test wasn't real accurate in my case. I know I can still hear the "Wisconsin accent" in some people's voices, especially women's.

But there is one point I'm stubborn about. Both my grandfathers were from Missouri before they moved West. There's a touch of that and my maternal grandmother's West Virginia accent still hanging around in my speech. I pronounce my last name Caish with sort of an eye sound. (Not totally, but it leans that way.) It can drive some people crazy because it should be pronounced Cash (rhymes with ash). I don't care what they say. My way is the way Cashes say their last name, at least in my branch of the family. (Except of course for the snobs :basic05 :basic03)

Fun quiz! Thanks for the link.

David Cash

[Bob Evans]

It's a tadd amusing to me that this was determined by a written test.

It also said I had a good voice for radio. When I first started doing my radio show my kids said I have the looks for radio.

[Gary Swartzlander]

Inland North. Can someone get me a pop?

[Brad Mercer]

It's a tadd amusing to me that this was determined by a written test.

Roland, an Australian, took the test recognizing that it specified that it was for Americans, just for the entertainment value. It said he had a northeastern accent. He and I compared answers and noted that we answered identically on several questions in which we said the given words sounded identically. That represented a limitation of the test because, although we each agreed that the two words are pronounced identically to each other, he pronounces them one way and I pronounce them in a completely different way.

Brad

[Cindi Hammons]

I personally don't think I have an accent.

Oh! Oh my! (Picking myself up off the floor! :eek: Having a hard time breathing!!)

Umm...did you say, you don't think you have an accent? :rolleyes: Pssst...Sue, we need to talk!

[Cindi Hammons]

Just because you know how is it supposed to sound, doesn't mean you really say it that way! (4 fingers pointing back at me, as well.)

[John Kennedy]

I always thought some of my relatives from around the Charleston, WV, area had accents with an almost 'Cockney' lilt. I attribute most of that to their Scots-Irish ancestry (sp?).
Having become an Irish music fan ( I go to about 3 or 4 Irish/Celtic music festivals each year) the country/Scots-Irish connnection is really easy to see.
Born in West Virginia, lived in GA, TN, SD, UT, TX, OK, CA I'm not sure how I'd classify my accent (although my wife maintains that when we travel in the South, the Redneck tends to come to the fore.)
We recently ate in a 'soul food'/BBQ restaurant in Riverside, CA. I had gone back up the counter to get some dessert and noticed they had sweet potato pie. When I ordered a slice, the Black proprietor asked if I knew what sweet potato pie was. I replied, "Why don't you listen to me talk for a minute or two and then make up your mind." We both had a good laugh out of that.

[Larry Wilson]

Midland. Raised on the west coast, lived last 20 years in New England, in between several foreign countries, and a half-dozen states -- give or take. But, midland encompasses a huge area. In fact, I've heard that if one lives in Ohio, one is withing a day's drive of 50% of the U.S. population. Mid.

[Wilson L. Deaton]

that bag rhyming with vague thing gets me every time :D

Your Result: The Inland North

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

I scored with you on this one. Surprise!

Wilson

[Hans Deventer]

What American accent do you have?

Your Result: The Inland North

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

[Dennis M. Scott]

When I was a student at ENC, at a party I met a linguist from Harvard. We had never met before, and I introduced myself by saying, "I'm Dennis Scott." He smiled and said, "What part of Southeastern Ohio are you from?"

A good friend at the same party engaged in conversation with a woman who was a Boston Brahman. My friend told her he was from Ohio. She responded by saying, "How quaint. Around here we pronounce that Iowa."

On a completely different note, one time I was having my eyes checked by a specialist, and following the exam he said, "You lived within six miles of the Ohio River, between Huntington and Wheeling, West Virginia." He did not identify my accent. I lived in Southeastern Ohio about a hundred yards from the river, and was on the river probably 300 days a year, swimming, boating, fishing, trapping, etc.

[Mark Doble]

What American Accent Do You Have? Quiz (http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have)

My results:

Your Result: The Midland
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.

Are you kidding? :eek: Did they say Southern Ohio? Man, they nailed that one!

EH? Canadian! :basic05

[Cindi Hammons]

That's pretty creepy if you ask me.

[Dennis M. Scott]

Midland, which is not a surprise.

But I took a few state tests, and they think I'm a native New Hampshire guy. I only got 50% of Ohio, but 92% in Massachusetts. I'm going to have to work on dumping some of that one. Perhaps I'll stop watching Boston TV.

[Anne and Dwayne Hood]

Now, tell me where I can find the test so I can take it. Barb, what do you think I sound like? If you say, down south, I will tell you that you should hear my three sisters talk. My speech is too fast to be like a long southern drawl.

[Dennis M. Scott]

The very first line of Cinidi's initial post in this thread is a link to the test.

[Sharon Isley]

I've always said I don't have an accent, but somehow people always know I'm not from around here...

Your Result: The Inland North

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

Why yes, I AM from Chicago. How could you tell? Oh yeah...because I pronounce words the right way!!!

[Charlene Clevenger]

I was born and raised in California, but I guess I've lived in the midwest too long. They're right on the money. I live in Indiana now, but I used to live in Wisconsin and I say pop. I don't have a Chicago accent, though. I had a friend at Olivet who asked me to hand her the "flag" pronounce to rhyme with vague. I had no idea what she was talking about. :)

Your Result: The Inland North

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

[Mamie White]

Yeaa! You are right about "pop". When my girls were teenagers, a friend came home with them from school. I cann't remember where she was from.
But one day she said, "I don't understand people in Texas, they say,"Let's go get a coke." Then everyone goes in and gets Dr. Pepper, 7Up, Pepsi, etc. and nobody get a coke.

Mamie

[Joanne Vergin]

I took this awahile ago. I am borderline Northern.
Joanne Vergin, Michigan

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I was worried for a minute there, but I came just a hair above the dreaded Midland with a Southern accent. If I understand the graphs, I am just a tick above Midland. Whew, that was a close one!

[Charlene Clevenger]

BTW, I couldn't have answered the questions without my husband there to listen to me. Many times I couldn't tell if there was a difference in words or not.

[Paul Whitaker]

I read recently that our mouths are not fully formed when we are born. They are formed during the first several years of life. They suggested that is how we end up with the accents related to our first years of life.

[Anne and Dwayne Hood]

South, but I talk very much differently than my siters do. they speak with more of a drawl, and I speak fast. Also, there were two things that I disagreed with, but I had to choose something different from the way I say the words.

[Carol Kane]

Inland north, I am so disappointed, yes I call pop, pop is there another word for it:basic03 I live in South west Ohio. Cindy, I thought it was OH-IO????:basic07 Seriously I can imitate a southerner, a West Virginian, a Pennsylvanian after 25 years of marriage to someone who spent a lot of time in Illinois and M "(the word Ohioans do not speak) I must sound like someone from up around there:eek: .

[Jim Franklin]

I failed to mention that my results were "West." I remember having a 4th grade student back in the 1963-64 school year who had moved to Washington state from Texas. When he came to the word "boil" he said "bile" so I asked him how he pronounced "oil" and he said "ile" This was confirmed a few years later after I took a faculty position at BNC and attended a national convention of the Association of American Geographers in Houston and had the privilege of attending a professional football game in the Astrodome and heard those Texans yell "Come on Ilers."

[Tina Daling]

What accent??!!

The test results showed "The West" but I live in Nova Scotia on the East coast but born in the Netherlands.

Just last year someone told me that I have a Dutch accent which is very amusing since I was barely talking when we immigrated and have been a Canadian for 50 some years.

However, I grew up in Ontario and that may explain the western accent.

I remember many years ago, my pastor's wife who was from Michigan asked me for 'the box' but to me it sounded like 'the bucks' - I thought it was a stick-up and was ready to hand over all my money.

Tina

[Jerry Frank]

One of the oddest accents I ever heard was a Dutch fellow who had been living in Kentucky for some twenty years or so. It was the strangest mix of Dutch, hillbilly, and southern twang that I have ever heard.

Jerry