Accents Impersonated
 

What really annoys/amuses me is whenever a commercial features someone who is supposed to be of Italian descent, the person always sounds like they're straight off the set of The Sopranos!

The Olive Garden commercials, a few of the spaghetti sauce commercials (THIS Italian turns up her nose at canned spaghetti sauce), one for some kind of tortellini and 4C Parmesan cheese come immediately to mind.

Not every Italian person lives in New York or New Jersey for Pete's sake!!!

Impersonating dialects (Accents mean something else) is perfectly fine. I practice it a lot. It comes in handy.

Also, when ever I hang out with a group of people, I end up sounding like them, even if just hang out for a little bit. I can't really help it.

Since I work with languages, bad accents drive me insane--especially bad Southern ones. Vivien Leigh was a great actress but her "Scarlett" accent was the kind that Southerners abhor.

About 20 years ago, Disney made a super movie set in Louisiana called "Child Of Glass". LOVED the movie. HATED the fake accents.

it bothers me not when someone tries to do the accent, but when someone makes fun of the accent.

ie- I'm from New Jersey. Everyone thinks is is hysterical to say "ahh, Joisey." DAMN IT-NO!!!!!!!:mad: Everyone here says Jersey (JERZEE) the only people who ever say joisey are people from out of the tri-state area who think that is the way people talk. its not. kinda along the same lines when i say things like 'coffee, water, dog, etc' and people feel the need to try and correct my accent. its my accent, leave it alone. *yours* is not the right way to say it; in fact there is no way to say it. just leave it alone.

Yeah, that really bothers me - I'm half Italian, but a big part of my Dad's family is 100% (including my Nonnie), and it does bother me a bit when I see those commercials.

I am guilty of impersonating the Boston accent a bit though...I've even picked up a bit of it when I say some words. Could be a New England thing though.

I seriously hate impersonations of the Boston accent.
It is probably the most annoying thing that continues to happen to me. It is an instant conversation killer.

Or, when I tell people that I am from Boston and they use a horrible Boston "accent" to ask me where my accent is? Geesh...

The fake Southern and fake New York accents just sound STOOPID.

I always thought the "Olive Garden Italian" accents sucked. After all, how many first generation Italian-American families would celebrate a special event by going to Olive Garden? Or use Ragu? :rolleyes: After living in Italy, I was convinced that they are the stupidest fake accents I've ever heard.

Haha....I say the same thing. A REAL Italian family wouldn't celebrate by going to get some fake Italian food at Olive Garden. I don't mind the restaurant, but it's not real Italian.

This is to fun!!:)

Unfortunatally, I seem to have the abilitatly to go somewhere and pick up the inflection of the area of which I am in.

While I cannot speak fluently, I can get to certan frazes(sic) and speak like a native! Good or bad:confused:

Or is it just human nature?????;)

By The Way KS,

Whar Do Yaa Paaak Yaaa Caaar??? :D

I have a THICK (and by that I mean "wicked thick") New England/Boston accent. It's crazy...but because I'm an actress I can and do know how to drop it. I can also pick up/mimic accents (dialects) for stage purposes pretty well. (I make a MEAN swede! lol)
The only thing that annoys me is the phrase "Park the car in Harvard Yard." First of all, you can't park a car there. Second of all, when people say it to tease they say "Paaaaaak tha caaaaaa in Haaaaaavid Yaaaaaaad," when in all actuality, we say "Pahk the cah in Hahvid Yahd." That is... if we're not saying "Shut the f-up mother f-er. I care more about the price of butter in Russia than I do about where you park your car."

I hate fake British accents. I'm not British but my mother is, and I can spot and fake accent a mile a way, and usually they are so awful that it's like nails on a chalk board. I love English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh accents, so when some one butchers it I am so put off.
I also hate when people try to fake a Canadian accent. We don't all sound the same, and we certainly don't all have a Newfoundland accent. I love a Newfoundland accent, but that's not a Canadian accent.

I think people mock other accents because most people think that they don't have one. Most people can't hear their own.

I work with a school full of people who say "bubblah" and "Yogit" (that's bubbler - aka a water fountain and yogurt...those are probably my two least favorite words up here).

Nobody in the entire building can say my name right either...except for this lady from PA.

My question is this: If someone's accent keeps them from being able to pronounce certain letters or sound combos correctly, then how are kids ever diagnosed with speech problems? I am not a speech pathologist, so I do not have a clue.

Good question. I don't think you can tell in this case and similar cases.

I could've sworn that I was MISdiagnosed with speech problems when I was little. I was raised in the midwest, partially by my grandparents, who had an extremely strong southern accent. So, I talked like them. I think the school mistaked my acccent and dialect as a speech defect. As soon as I adjusted my speaking to the majority, I was told that I no longer needed speech therapy. :rolleyes:

Hmmm...I never really understood it to be honest..I've lived in IN for ten years now (boooooo!! :() and I STILL get told I have an accent ... Not heavy or real pronunced, but I guess certain words just come out different. I'm originally from Upstate NY so it's not like I ever had some crazy thick accent going on. I do, however, firmly believe that there are New England ways of saying things. ;) I guess that's where I get it.

Yes, it DOES happen! I was in speech therapy for over 7 years!! I just had a stronger accent than everyone else did. I had a much harder time with my "r's"and whatnot. Later they finally realized that I really didn't have a speech problem, just I pronounced words much differently than they did. *shrugs*

On the actual subject, I depise when people mock southern accents or any accent for that matter. :mad:

You do say Pop instead of Soda. ;)

The Upstate NY dialect sounds like a strange combination of New England and Southern. There is almost a drawl in some places.

I do a good New York City accent although I don't have one in real life.

PM Mama is right about the Italian Americans that I know. They start to make their sauce by growing the tomatoes in their gardens and then canning them. They laugh at me when I use canned sauce.

No I don't, I say soda :p

My friends and I got in a heated debate on proper american english. Is there such a thing as proper american english??? Almost every part of the country has their own dialect. In some professions do you think having a stong accent impairs your job? I have a friend that had to drop her accent when she got a job at a major accounting firm. Is this right? I think its like changing your identity.

ugh...i HATE when people try to imitate NY accents. especially when they say "nooo yawk".

don't they realize how stupid they sound?

even people on here write it thinking they're being clever, and it makes my blood boil.

most people don't speak like that.

and if you HAVE lived here and say it like that after you leave, you have other issues...

From the Accents thread...

Allow me to quote myself:

http://www.greekchat.net/gcforums/sh...%2A#post104640

Paging Carnation!
 

I hope Carnation sees this one! She is a Linguistics Guru!!

well said :cool:

CutiePie2000: all people are born with the ability to make the sounds of all languages and can do so until about age 15, when the upper palate hardens. Then it's next to impossible to pick up a foreign accent.

Sometimes what a parent wants to eliminate with speech therapy depends on the parent's language. One of my Belgian ESOL students told me that when her son was little, she paid a lot to have a speech therapist get rid of his "th" lisp because their language has no "th", just a "d". Then they moved to America when he was a teenager and he couldn't make a "th" in English!

Some accents are harder to eliminate than others....Vietnamese people, for instance, have a hard time toning down the nasality of their language and some Asians really do have a hard time with substituting "l" for "r".

I absolutely hate the "OOOt in a BOOOT". Like CutiePie said that may be what some Canadians sound like, but not all.

I agree! :D

this kinda relates
 

TOP TEN WORST MOVIE ACCENTS
1. Sean Connery in The Untouchables (1987)
2. Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins (1964)
3. Brad Pitt in Seven Year in Tibet (1997)
4. Charlton Heston in A Touch of Evil (1958)
5. Heather Graham in From Hell (2001)
6. Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
7. Julia Roberts in Mary Reilly (1996)
8. Laurence Olivier in The Jazz Singer (1980)
9. Pete Postlethwaite in The Usual Suspects (1995)
10. Meryl Streep in Out of Africa (1985)
Source: Empire magazine

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_795416.html?menu=

Re: this kinda relates
 

The thing with Sean Connery is that he NEVER does an accent. it does not matter the role he is playing he has never tried to put on an accent. You will always hear his Scottish accent.

Re: this kinda relates
 

They forgot one....Marisa Tomei in "The Perez Family." I watched that movie to write a paper in school. Don't even get me started on people who are not Latino that use fake Latino accents.

I worked with this non-Latina when I was a teenager who tried to dress and speak like a gangmember, complete with all the "orale ese" and "ju know"s and the whole nine. Finally I asked her what her background was, and she asked why. I said, "because you have a really strong Spanish accent." :D

I know most Latinos are embarrased by gangmembers, so I have no idea why someone of another background would want to emulate them, fake accent and all. :confused:

Re: Re: this kinda relates
 

Now THIS is the absolute worst as far as accents go, and I've unfortunately come acrosss it more than once

You hear someone talking with the most AWFUL stereotypical accent. You think, "oh jeez, what is UP with this person, don't they know how stupid they sound, noone actually talks like that in real life..."

And that's when you realize --- the HORROR!

That dreadful charicature of speech is how they actually talk.

Here's an article that I thought was interesting, about racial miscasting in Hollywood (the mention of Marisa Tomei reminded me of it):

http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/arch...iscasting.html

No doubt many, many of the movies there include horrible accents. And how could we forget Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's?


As for my accent -- it's pretty much generic Midwestern. It's annoying when people claim that Wisconsinites (and Minnesotans, for that matter) all have Fargo accents, because almost none of us do. Only those who live very very far north in Wisconsin and Minnesota (when I say north, I mean pretty much along the Canadian border) and in the U.P. of Michigan speak like that . . . the rest of us speak perfectly normally.

I'm sure all of us think it's stupid when people make broad generalizations regarding accents. Even I can tell that a Texas accent sounds nothing like a Georgia one . . . everybody else should be able to figure that out too.

I've noticed that most national commericals and generic TV Shows (ones that don't have a spesific location - AKA Simpsons) use the midwestern accent and I've been told that it's because it's the easiest to understand.

I have a question for carnation- what about people who grow up speaking several languages... what happens to their hard palate? I'm just curious...I'm an opera singer and so the hard palate is very importaint to me, and opera is in many different languages, so I have to sing in forgien languages/accents...

When I was younger there was a commercial for Ham that used a West Indian accent.

Something about sugarcane or whatever.

That commercial damn near drove me to throw my tv out the window. All I know is that the actor better never find himself stranded in the upper BX, or there are a LOT of folk from JA willing to give him a taste of the islands "mon".

I am used to it at this point. Every little teen from the suburbs bought Bob Marley's Legend album and thinks they know all about the "spirit of Jamaica". Love when they ask me if "we" all smoke weed. :rolleyes:

I don't have one accent in partiular. In general I speak the King's English. When I am with my friends I speak however I feel comfortable speaking, and that might involve using the word "like"excessively, or it might involve me saying "nah son", or it might involve me saying "that is UNacceptable". Whatever I feel like at the moment.

I don't even TRY to speak patois outside of my home and my parents are from JA. I can understand it, but as a true Yankee you won't find me doing it unless I am with my family. If people want to sound retarded doing bad West Indian accents I really can't stop them. I just don't get their point. You've never even seen JA on a map. Why must you try? If that is one's idea of humor then they have issues

There's a teacher at my school like that. She's from Oklahoma but she talks with this fake-ass Miss Cleo accent. No one from her family talks like her. It is soooo annoying.:mad:

See I couldn't really ever be bothered by Miss Cleo because it was soooo fake. She was a tv psychic. Come on. Even people in the Mid-West who've never seen a picture of a West Indian (other than Bob Marley) knew her accent was fake.

I am just convinced that people can't hear themselves. No one who could hear their own words would do it.

I wish this teacher could hear how she sounds. Honestly, I just cringe when she comes in the library to ask something. She must think Miss Cleo is real.;)

I heard this song by DJ Jumbo called Coco Jumbo. These are the lyrics:

ya ya ye coco jumbo
ya ya ye

ya ya ye coco jumbo
ya ya ye

put me up
put me down
put my feet back on the ground
put up take my heart and makes
me happy

put me up
put me down
put my feet back on the ground
put up steal my heart and makes
me happy

-Rudey
--All Jamaican people talk like this and you know it.