it's not the way my mother talks, it's not the people that she mocks

[causeways]

So a hugely disproportionate number of my friends out here are from Southern California. Only a third of the kids at my school are native Californians, but within my group of friends it's like, basically all of them. And for whatever reason, the past few days have had the common theme of, "Let's tell me everything I am doing strangely (i.e. WRONG

Comments

[setissma]

It's I-whatever. I'd have called it the I-10, because you know! It's I-80! And stuff!

You know what bothers me? Like. People who say pop instead of soda. It's, as far as I can tell, ONLY a Michigan thing, but everyone in Michigan says pop, and because I'm originally from Florida and my dad/etc are from PA, they all say soda. Because soda is A NORMAL THING TO SAY. Pop is not. NOT.

Although I pronounce "coffee" the same way as the first portion of "caffeine" as opposed to cough-e, so I really cannot throw too many stones. Fucking midwest!

[balefully]

I definitely have friends from Ohio and Illinois who say "pop", so it's just an. Up-there sort of thing. I think.

[kashmir1]

WEIRD. I'm from PA and everyone I know says soda but if I go down to say, Pittsburgh, people call it pop which I think is COMPLETELY unnatural.

[deirdre_c]

OMG the "pop" thing around here is nutty. (Then again, where I'm from, any dark carbonated beverage is often referred to generically as a Coke. Pepsi, root beer, Dr. Pepper whatever = "you want a Coke?")

[balefully]

WHAT THE HELL. I DO NOT SAY PIN WHEN I MEAN PEN. That is not a Virginia thing!

I say carpool and HOV, actually. But I figured since most people don't even know what HOV lane MEANS, I should put that in solidarity. Ahaha.

[causeways]

But now we are right back to the NoVa =/= rest of VA argument. <3

Carpool lane doesn't sound wrong to me, but I always say HOV lane! notthequiettype and ciceronian_00 gave me such shit about that the other day. So I appreciate your solidarity. :D

[belyste]

I...cannot wrap my mind around pin and pen sounding the same. Then again, my friends from the East Coast will occasionally stop me and say, "Do you realize how many extra vowels you just put in the word 'boat'?" Also, whenever Jared says "Jensen" it totally sounds like "Jinsin" to me.

[causeways]

They can, though! Context makes it clear! We should make Jared do the pen-pin test, man. If he's pronouncing it Jinsin, he's totally right there with me on them being the same. (And uh, I totally pronounce Jensen's name with i's. I didn't realize that before. :()

[belyste]

Oh, I think it's cute, the way Jared says it, and given that they're both from Texas, that may be how Jensen says it, too. It's just not how I would say it, in my own weird accent.

[unamaga]

When I went to school in Rhode Island, I got made fun of pretty much constantly because I'd say "open that draw for me?" instead of drawer. I feel you.

[causeways]

<333

There was some test that we talked about in my linguistics class about New Yorkers and the percentage of 'r' they use being a marker of class, but I can't remember what the results were anymore. Fail, self.

[kashmir1]

I worked at Wendy's when I was about 19-20 and my manager was from the South and he would say 'pin' for 'pen' and 'nekkid' for 'naked' and we would make him just say them over and over again for our amusement. Um, I should add he was cute and young and we just liked to flirt with him. ;)

Also, I have weird PA-isms that I use that my friend Lee, who is from Alabama originally loves to tease me about. ('Crick' instead of 'creek,' 'read up' instead of 'straighten up') I also have a tendency to drop prepositional phrases. =/

[causeways]

Making someone say things because you think they are cute is totally acceptable, IMO. :D

I knew about crick for creek, but read up? Really? Cool! *is a total linguistics nerd*

[kashmir1]

HEE. Good. ;)

Mmhmm - I think it's considered Pennsylvania Dutch.

[causeways]

Ohhh that would make sense then. :D