Accents

 Blimey! I remember reading once that there are people in England who could pretty much pinpoint the block that you live on, just by listening to you talk. I thought was a little fantastical. Watching my new favourite (<--- I'm learning British speak) show, the one with the starkers people in the coloured pods, I've learned the Brits are very interested in their own people's accents. As with anything involving humans, there's a bit of prejudice in play. Like here only we're much bigger. What do we have for accents? You have your southerners, New Yorkers, Chicagoans, "Yinzers" in Pittsburgh- and that's pretty much it. I don't think even most southerners can tell where each other are from, in a simple conversation. I lived in Tennessee and I wasn't aware of any distinct accent's native to Tennessee, or any tells from surrounding hillbilly states. Beyond country mouse and city mouse in the south, I don't think that there are any official accents, state by state. It's all about education level. In the UK it might go beyond education though. I may consider myself a cunninglinguist, (story for another day) but that doesn't make me an etymologist of linguistics.

People like to tease Canadians for saying "oot" and "aboot" for "out and about", as well as ending many statements with "eh", with or without a question mark. One Canadian gal (I think on Bluesky) ripped me a new one for making fun of those tendencies. She insisted that NO ONE in Canada talks like that and that I was an asshole for perpetuating that 'myth'. Well, I don't know aboot that, eh, but I know she was very upset. I might have caught her on a bad day. Maybe her dogsled broke down- I dunno. I think it resulted in a mutual blockage. No idea who she was. I generally forget these people I soon as the banhammer hits. But I didn't pull these cankuckleheadisms out of my keister. They've been oot there for a bit. I'm sure that somewhere in the Great, White North, some people talk like that. Just not her fancy bottom, eh? 

I like the accents here and there; however, they came to be. The world is not as homogenized as folks may think it is or want it to be. Yinz know what I'm talkin' aboot? Eh.