How do I sound?

[purplebunny]

I am a native San Franciscan; both my parents were born and raised here as well.  Actually, my great grandmother lived through the 1906 earthquake. 

Anyhow, all my family members say "warsh" instead of "wahsh".  My dad always talks about his high school as "Warshington" instead of Washington.

Do any of you fellow Californians pronounce it like this?  Or is my family strange?

I'm in Western Canada, and I can definitely vouch for the "warsh".  You start hearing it as soon as you cross the border into Warshington state, and it seems to be pronounced that way through Oregon as well.  It's been too long since I've been in California though, I really can't remember.

My hubby says that anyone from Washington who pronounces it as WaRshington is originally from California. His grandfather certainly does... as does my dad's cousin.

[IndianInlaw]

I knew people in Iowa who said "warsh".  Don't know if they were natives though.

[mumma to KMC]

I knew people in Iowa who said "warsh".  Don't know if they were natives though.

People in Ohio and Indiana say "warsh" too. I grew up in Michigan and well we have our own very special accent, well refined and nice to listen too. Okay we all sound like Tom Brokaw.

[Suze]

born and bred in Ohio (parents too) and there has always been an R in wash,  Maybe it is a midwest thing and "migrated"  into California.

Oh and a 2 liter of Coke is POP not SODA.

I wonder if it is because this area is of German decent.  German being a guttural and harsh language.  Not soft like french.  (to my ears anyway, I don't speak either one of them.) and as our ancestors learned English "extra consonants crept in.

and when I say our ancestors, for me it is not very far back my great grandparents came to the US as young adults met and married over here.  My mother told me that my grandparents on Dad's side of the family learned English later in life - only German was spoken at home.

I had an uncle who knew no English when he started school. (circa 1930 or so)

[hkkatie]

I have lived in the greater Seattle area nearly my whole life, and I only knew a few people who said "warsh". It drove me absolutely nuts. I think that the whole west coast pretty much has the same accent, but I have no idea how to describe it because... hahaha... i don't think i have an accent! 

[Romes7329]

drzim, that is strange... straight New England accent it sounds like

We warsh before we get our soader.

I grew up in New England (and still live here), Boston to be exact.  I have never heard anyone who is a native of the area say "warsh" and "soader".

It's actually quite the opposite.  It's "wahsh" and "sodah"....

[Bijou]

*grin* everyone thinks they have no accent.

I guess the California accents tend to be broad and flat, but focus more on inflection than vowel pronunciation (unlike say Southern or New England accents) and have a medium cadence... does that make any sense? I'm a better mimic than analyst

I'm still confused...can you do a phonetic sentence?

I can try, though most of what sounds different to me in CA is cadence and inflection. It also depends on where in California... people native to Orange County and San Diego have different speech pattersn than those in the San Fernando Valley, and the northen bits of the state are different again... there's also differences in race and class. My Hispanic partner speaks differently than my Asian coworker, despite both of them being born and raised in California by American parents.

but in terms of crass generalizations:

Take "We took a nice drive in the car"

In eastern Massachussets up through northern Maine you'd hear "We took uh nice drive in th cah" with emphasis on the workd car.

In the south you'd get "We took a nahce drahve in the cahr" with emphasis most likely on nice and longer pauses between the words.

In California (at least the southern bit, I haven't spent much time up north) you'd get maybe "We took a neyece drive in the car?" or "We tuk a neyece dreyeve in the car."

does that make any sense?

I have to think about it.  Did I tell you that we, in our neck of the woods, are dense (just kidding). 
Thinking about how I say things though, I find that:
I tooka nice drive in th' car.  (ugh.  I have to change that!)
We leave off g's a lot (in 'ing')...such as, "I'm goin' to the store"
Sometimes I say creek and sometimes I say crick, depending on how my family said it and it can differ even if the creeks/cricks are located within ten feet of one another.  And there might be Wild Crick and Cedar Creek said by the same person.
My ex husband was born in Minnesota and his family moved out to CA when he was four.  They all had Minnesota accents and so did he.  I recognize a Minnesota accent right away, but if someone is from Canada I don't know it until they say an 'out' word, like 'about'.  that was how I found out Alex Trebek was from Canada.  Otherwise they sound like they're from California.

[Clara Bow]

I don't think I have an accent either, but hubby says that sometimes he feels like he's living in the middle of Smokey and the Bandit. Yankees....he should talk, his family's from Michigan, you wanna talk about accent?? LOL!
Edited to add: I'm from Jawja by the way, the part that didn't burn....LOL

[kareng57]

*grin* everyone thinks they have no accent.

I guess the California accents tend to be broad and flat, but focus more on inflection than vowel pronunciation (unlike say Southern or New England accents) and have a medium cadence... does that make any sense? I'm a better mimic than analyst

I'm still confused...can you do a phonetic sentence?

I can try, though most of what sounds different to me in CA is cadence and inflection. It also depends on where in California... people native to Orange County and San Diego have different speech pattersn than those in the San Fernando Valley, and the northen bits of the state are different again... there's also differences in race and class. My Hispanic partner speaks differently than my Asian coworker, despite both of them being born and raised in California by American parents.

but in terms of crass generalizations:

Take "We took a nice drive in the car"

In eastern Massachussets up through northern Maine you'd hear "We took uh nice drive in th cah" with emphasis on the workd car.

In the south you'd get "We took a nahce drahve in the cahr" with emphasis most likely on nice and longer pauses between the words.

In California (at least the southern bit, I haven't spent much time up north) you'd get maybe "We took a neyece drive in the car?" or "We tuk a neyece dreyeve in the car."

does that make any sense?

I have to think about it.  Did I tell you that we, in our neck of the woods, are dense (just kidding). 
Thinking about how I say things though, I find that:
I tooka nice drive in th' car.  (ugh.  I have to change that!)
We leave off g's a lot (in 'ing')...such as, "I'm goin' to the store"
Sometimes I say creek and sometimes I say crick, depending on how my family said it and it can differ even if the creeks/cricks are located within ten feet of one another.  And there might be Wild Crick and Cedar Creek said by the same person.
My ex husband was born in Minnesota and his family moved out to CA when he was four.  They all had Minnesota accents and so did he.  I recognize a Minnesota accent right away, but if someone is from Canada I don't know it until they say an 'out' word, like 'about'.  that was how I found out Alex Trebek was from Canada.  Otherwise they sound like they're from California.

Late reply - but a couple of years ago, my company (a US/Canadian company) acquired another company that was based in Minnesota and Wisconsin, so suddenly I had customers from this area (most of my work is by phone).  For some reason, I was expecting some kind of Midwest "twang"  but was surprised about how, well, "normal" they sounded.  Somehow a customer in Grand Rapids and I ended up talking about this and she said that people in their area are often told that they "sound Canadian"!

For the poster who was asking - I do hear the "warsh" in most of western Washington and Oregon - I'll admit that I haven't spend that much time in the eastern parts of these states.  I'm not saying that it's that blatant, but you do hear it.  Then again, I really don't understand the "about" that Americans are always kidding Canadians "about".  Hey, *we're* the ones pronouncing it correctly!  Got a problem with it?  Huh?   (g)

[Sandi Papaya]

Where in Northern CA?  DH is from some tiny little place up in the mountains, not far from Bodie, IIRC (he's a Native Son of the Golden West or something like that)

Ah, yes, that's quite a way from me. I've lived my entire life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

yeah, that's way out there. Bay Area native here too...and there are slight differences between the Northern and Southern California dialect, but they're slight. Also slight differences in inflection, intonations, etc. Southern California girls tend to be uptalkers - every statement seems to end in a question mark. Southern California boys tend to be downtalkers and extend vowels, like Southern California's trademark, laidback, "Duuude," rather than NorCal's more clipped, "Dude." I found that when I moved from the Bay Area to SoCal, my intonations and inflections shifted south with me. When I moved back to the Bay Area, my Bay Area "voice" came back with me and I started using words like "hella" again, which would get me blank stares when I lived down south, although it's become a more widespread expression (ie, "That's hella (hell of) cool," instead of "wow, that's really cool!") nationwide as I've heard people in other regions using it. I want my word back!

Despite not being born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, though, I can sound pretty Valley when I want, which isn't often unless I'm flirting with a guy from out of state (and sometimes with Bay Area natives like my Paulie). They find it hysterical - and so do I.

oh, and as for the flat, accentless, affectless "news anchor" speech pattern? There's a name for that - Broadcast English.

And my Seattle-born-and-bred friend says "WaRshington," whereas California-native I say, "Washington." So who's the native Washingtonian now? He also calls soda "pop." It's "soda," dang it!

[Cyndi]

Well I'm born and raised in Southern California and I have a recording of me posting a phone post on GreatestJournal. I have weird vocal inflections(I must drive people nuts when I talk), but I'm pretty sure I pronounce things like a native Californian. You'll have to turn up your volume to hear it. I was talking about my plans for Holy Week last year.

I once knew a family where they all said "warsh", but my family says "wash".

I also get a huge kick in the English dubbed movies where they call Godzilla "Gawdziller". Hehe speaking of monster movies, I  once phone posted myself singing the Mothra song for one of my online pals that adores Mothra. He joked with me that I should go out and make sure she wasn't really out there on a false alarm. *giggles*

[Clearbrite]

Im Australian..and having spoken to MsMoonBunny on the phone just before Christmas...YES,you sure do have an accent! Even heavier then what is spoken in TV shows where even as an Aussie i can hardly hear an accent.

In real life..there is a very really accent!*L*

Which i love by the way.

Having grown up with 'everything'American,you can tell that there are various accents throughout America(which boggles the mind sometimes..i have always wondered why this is?And how it got to be that way..being one country and all..)

I can hear the differences in accent from the South,or from NY,california etc

But i think its just heard to hear when its your own way of talking and everyone else also sounds the same.
Sort of like "What?Me?Have an accent??Nope..i talk like everyone else around here.."*L*

People on this wonderful board are more then welcome to call me..then they WILL notice how much of an accent they DO have!*LMAO*





Clare
From the otherside of the Pacific

:0)

[HogwartsAlum]

I knew people in Iowa who said "warsh".  Don't know if they were natives though.

People in Ohio and Indiana say "warsh" too. I grew up in Michigan and well we have our own very special accent, well refined and nice to listen too. Okay we all sound like Tom Brokaw.

My dad's from Texas and he says "warsh."  He also says "rinch" for rinse and "Time tuh change that light bub, I reckon."

[hobish]

*grin* everyone thinks they have no accent.

According to my speech & diction class a few years ago the southern mid-west has the least identifiable accent in the US. The one characteristic that stands out is the pronunciation of the days of the week. Monday would be pronounced Mondee, etc. This was in the early 90's & our teacher said that a lot of national broadcasters would be sent to/go to school in that area of the US to get rid of whatever accent they had.

I am from South Jersey. I know i have an accent (softened from voice & diction classes & paying attention to how i speak), but it doesn't sound at all like NJ people on TV. I hope. 

added: The best way to identify a south Jersey accent is they'll ask you for a glass of "wooder" (water)

[kareng57]

Where in Northern CA?  DH is from some tiny little place up in the mountains, not far from Bodie, IIRC (he's a Native Son of the Golden West or something like that)

Ah, yes, that's quite a way from me. I've lived my entire life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

yeah, that's way out there. Bay Area native here too...and there are slight differences between the Northern and Southern California dialect, but they're slight. Also slight differences in inflection, intonations, etc. Southern California girls tend to be uptalkers - every statement seems to end in a question mark. Southern California boys tend to be downtalkers and extend vowels, like Southern California's trademark, laidback, "Duuude," rather than NorCal's more clipped, "Dude." I found that when I moved from the Bay Area to SoCal, my intonations and inflections shifted south with me. When I moved back to the Bay Area, my Bay Area "voice" came back with me and I started using words like "hella" again, which would get me blank stares when I lived down south, although it's become a more widespread expression (ie, "That's hella (hell of) cool," instead of "wow, that's really cool!") nationwide as I've heard people in other regions using it. I want my word back!

Despite not being born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, though, I can sound pretty Valley when I want, which isn't often unless I'm flirting with a guy from out of state (and sometimes with Bay Area natives like my Paulie). They find it hysterical - and so do I.

oh, and as for the flat, accentless, affectless "news anchor" speech pattern? There's a name for that - Broadcast English.

And my Seattle-born-and-bred friend says "WaRshington," whereas California-native I say, "Washington." So who's the native Washingtonian now? He also calls soda "pop." It's "soda," dang it!

Broadcast English? - I thought that was "Canadian"!  Lots of US news-anchorpeople have been imported from Canada, one reason is because of the bland, non-identifiable accent.  About the only spot in Canada where you really hear a regional accent is in Newfoundland.  You do hear a bit of it in the other Maritime provinces (Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) but it's more of the "maritime lilt" there.  It's true that some other Canadians claim to be able to pick up regional-accents, but they're pretty subtle.  I was once asked if I was from Ottawa (I've lived on the West Coast all my life) - the person asking thought I had an Ottawa-accent.  Well, I did spend three days there about 25 years ago...