Worst American Accent

[CL82]

Yup, this.
The enchilada is Camden/Cherry Hill NJ which is the worst of Philly and the worst of jersey combined. Boston girls accents are sexy by comparison.

A NJ/Metro philly girl is the only person on earth who can make the word YO! into 3-4 syllables.

That’s more Philly, they pronounce Acme as Ack-a-me.

 

[temery]

My grandmother said it like that. She also said "yeah" like "ai-yah." It was mystifying to me.

'Your grandmother was probably Canadian.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

'Your grandmother was probably Canadian.

She absolutely was not.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

I'm fine with most accents but can't stand the mostly NJ but generally NE as a whole Italian-American thing of chopping off the last vowel of any Italian word and pulling out their thickest Italian-like accent to pronounce it in the context of a normal English conversation. The confidence in which most of them say it and derision for those that don't pronounce it that way is especially grating in that it's almost always not the way actual Italians pronounce the words. Mozzarella, Prosciutto, Manicotti, etc.

 

[superjohn]

I'm fine with most accents but can't stand the mostly NJ but generally NE as a whole Italian-American thing of chopping off the last vowel of any Italian word and pulling out their thickest Italian-like accent to pronounce it in the context of a normal English conversation. The confidence in which most of them say it and derision for those that don't pronounce it that way is especially grating in that it's almost always not the way actual Italians pronounce the words. Mozzarella, Prosciutto, Manicotti, etc.

 

[Sonofabeach]

My Wife is Jamaican... It's not American, but she is now and I find it very hard to understand her when she talks fast. lol forget about talking to her mother who is still in Jamaica. most of the time I just say yes dear so far so good

PS. if I don't reply to your reply that's probably because it didn't work this time.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

Minnesota/Wisconsin dontcha know.

What's interesting to me is when that midwest accent moves westward to North Dakota, it's not hard to listen to.

When I first went to Fargo, I was shocked how little of an accent I discerned. Even my in-laws and my wife were born about an hour from Grand Forks in a town of ~900 people, and while the in-laws have some accent, it's way softer than what I've heard from Wisconsin and some parts of Minnesota.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

I'm fine with most accents but can't stand the mostly NJ but generally NE as a whole Italian-American thing of chopping off the last vowel of any Italian word and pulling out their thickest Italian-like accent to pronounce it in the context of a normal English conversation.

Quit insulting my mother

 

[LIuconn]

My vote is for Minnesota

 

[temery]

She absolutely was not.

Funny. My grandmother was from L'Ange Gardien, Quebec. That's exactly what she'd say when asked if she was from Canada.

 

[Chin Diesel]

A bit of a mirror image but when I work with foreigners, almost all either European or Asian and ask them to do their American accent or speak like they think Americans speak, it always comes down to hip hop rap type talk, New Yorker street vendor talk, John Wayne western or Jeff Spicoli west coast surfer dude.

 

[CL82]

You need a comma in there. Otherwise it reads like “when I was in Chicago after leaving Rhode Island women…”

When I first read that I thought “oh man there has to be a story there!”

 

[August_West]

I'm fine with most accents but can't stand the mostly NJ but generally NE as a whole Italian-American thing of chopping off the last vowel of any Italian word and pulling out their thickest Italian-like accent to pronounce it in the context of a normal English conversation. The confidence in which most of them say it and derision for those that don't pronounce it that way is especially grating in that it's almost always not the way actual Italians pronounce the words. Mozzarella, Prosciutto, Manicotti, etc.

whatsa matta? you dont like winning cash at the casine?

 

[storrsroars]

Pittsburgh with the dialect for "yinz" and a few others is neat to me. You think a person is talking normal and they throw 12-6 curveball buckling your knees with some of their words.

I've been here 20 years now and rarely ever hear "yinz" in conversation, except used ironically or for comic effect. Most Pittsburghese will likely die off over the next decade or two when all those old Sou'siders pass on. The words and dialect that do still survive are things like "dahntahn", "Stillers", "slippy" instead of slippery, "buggy" for a shopping cart, "gum band" for rubber band, and shortening "the car needs to be washed/needs washing" into "the car needs warshed."

My vote is for Minnesota

You mean MinneSOta.

I don't find it a terrible accent, but the one thing that always bugged me was pronouncing "bag" as "beg".

The confidence in which most of them say it and derision for those that don't pronounce it that way is especially grating in that it's almost always not the way actual Italians pronounce the words. Mozzarella, Prosciutto, Manicotti, etc.

My mother was Lithuanian, but had a lot of Italian friends, including my godmother. Not only would mom drop the ending vowel, she'd come up with entirely new consonants at times. Like manicotti becoming "mannagawk", or va fa Napoli becoming "bah fanabla".

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

I've been here 20 years now and rarely ever hear "yinz" in conversation, except used ironically or for comic effect. Most Pittsburghese will likely die off over the next decade or two when all those old Sou'siders pass on. The words and dialect that do still survive are things like "dahntahn", "Stillers", "slippy" instead of slippery, "buggy" for a shopping cart, "gum band" for rubber band, and shortening "the car needs to be washed/needs washing" into "the car needs warshed."

There was a kid on my hall freshman year from Pittsburg and, being a relatively sheltered kid from Albany, his accent - big time yinzer - absolutely blew my mind.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

Please elaborate for my own entertainment (Darien is my least favorite rich town by a mile).

Fun fact, the female police Sargent there is a Husky softball alum.

 

[Rocktheworld]

I like the Boston and Rhode Island accents because it’s fun to make fun of; although I can’t agree more with @superjohn lmao

Deep South accents are just gross, like they take pleasure in butchering human verbal communication

 

[uconnfan68]

When I was a little kid I thought we had intercepted a mafia conversation on our answering machine. The entire conversation had the thickest accents I've ever heard and all they were talking about was cutting snitches balls off and whacking people. I told my mom there's a conversation with two mob guys talking about killing people on our answering machine. I played it for her and my mom said, "Oh that's just your dad talking to his brother."

My dad always had a strong Jersey City accent but it went to another level when he was with his brother.

Your family was in the mob?

 

[Chin Diesel]

After processing all this stuff, here I go

New England with the Mayan for mine.

The Appalachian of Western Virginia, North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. WTF is all that?

Mississippi Delta

MinnesSOtah and Wisconsin. Check out Charlie Berens videos and You Betcha. They are spot on.

New Orleans with both the Cajun and Acadian dialects. One city and two distinct dialects which are equally unintelligible.

South Jersey and Philly. Pick your dividing line and where the finger nails screech on the chalk board.

After processing all this, I think the Philly and South Jersey is the worst, Appalachian mountain creetins second and New England pahk the cah is third.

 

[Pgh2Storrs]

I've been here 20 years now and rarely ever hear "yinz" in conversation, except used ironically or for comic effect. Most Pittsburghese will likely die off over the next decade or two when all those old Sou'siders pass on. The words and dialect that do still survive are things like "dahntahn", "Stillers", "slippy" instead of slippery, "buggy" for a shopping cart, "gum band" for rubber band, and shortening "the car needs to be washed/needs washing" into "the car needs warshed."


You mean MinneSOta.

I don't find it a terrible accent, but the one thing that always bugged me was pronouncing "bag" as "beg".


My mother was Lithuanian, but had a lot of Italian friends, including my godmother. Not only would mom drop the ending vowel, she'd come up with entirely new consonants at times. Like manicotti becoming "mannagawk", or va fa Napoli becoming "bah fanabla".

Yeah, no one uses Yinz unless it’s intentional/ironic.

Your only omissions were “aht” for out (“Did you take aht the trash?”) and skipping the word “to” when stating you’re going somewhere (“We’re going dahn the Buccos game” or “We go up camp on the weekends”)

 

[mussels]

For those with a subscription, the Times posted and interesting dialect quiz that could predict where you are from based on answers to 20 questions. In addition to asking how you pronounce certain words, they asked how you might refer to something (is it a traffic circle, rotary, etc)

After you answer each question it gives you a heat map of what part of the country uses that phrase or pronunciation, and then at the end it compiles your answers and tells you where you are from. Interestingly, some terms are pretty general (for instance apparently everyone west of the Mississippi as well as upper New England pronounces cot and caught the same. I don't, so it surprised me.), and others are very localized (if you grew up eating grinders as opposed to subs or hoagies most of you know the small region where that occurs)

 

[storrsroars]

For those with a subscription, the Times posted and interesting dialect quiz that could predict where you are from based on answers to 20 questions. In addition to asking how you pronounce certain words, they asked how you might refer to something (is it a traffic circle, rotary, etc)

After you answer each question it gives you a heat map of what part of the country uses that phrase or pronunciation, and then at the end it compiles your answers and tells you where you are from. Interestingly, some terms are pretty general (for instance apparently everyone west of the Mississippi as well as upper New England pronounces cot and caught the same. I don't, so it surprised me.), and others are very localized (if you grew up eating grinders as opposed to subs or hoagies most of you know the small region where that occurs)
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Glad to see spending the last third of my life in Pittsburgh hasn't changed my speech. While I grew up in Stamford, my dad's side was from Yonkers, and that's my closest match, followed by Newark/Paterson and Baltimore, which I find odd.

 

[8893]

For those with a subscription, the Times posted and interesting dialect quiz that could predict where you are from based on answers to 20 questions. In addition to asking how you pronounce certain words, they asked how you might refer to something (is it a traffic circle, rotary, etc)

After you answer each question it gives you a heat map of what part of the country uses that phrase or pronunciation, and then at the end it compiles your answers and tells you where you are from. Interestingly, some terms are pretty general (for instance apparently everyone west of the Mississippi as well as upper New England pronounces cot and caught the same. I don't, so it surprised me.), and others are very localized (if you grew up eating grinders as opposed to subs or hoagies most of you know the small region where that occurs)
View attachment 78884

Lol. I’ll bet it zooms in on my street!

 

[mussels]

Lol. I’ll bet it zooms in on my street!

Grew up a few miles from Rutgers - so yeah

 

[Thirty Three]

My wife watches a lot of Discovery+ home renovation shows and two shows on their current location take place in Chicago.

While some of these shows I enjoy to watch, and at worst, tolerate, she’s been binging a show called Finding Gold. The show’s couple have an awful Chicago accent, the nasally tone I’m used to but with an aggressive grating high frequency that I find straight up repulsive. Almost sounds like a perpetual head cold.

Our great nation is filled with a variety of accents: which can’t you stand the most?

1) Long Island
2) Boston
3) Chicago