[Ads-l] Conversation about accents with Valerie Fridland

[Jonathan Lighter]

I'll defer to my old friend Guy, whose argument may have been somewhat
misinterpreted. I/E is hardly the essence of any Southern accent, though
many people find it very noticeable.

JL

On Mon, Apr 6, 2026 at 12:23 AM Bill Mullins <amcombill at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >   And again, what is *the* Southern accent ?  The average person can
> hear at
> >   least two, not to mention the Southern-based BEV accent(s).
>
> My late father worked at Kroger grocery stores in Middle Tennessee,
> Central Kentucky, and Northern Alabama in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
>
> While working in Nashville, he claimed he could often recognize what
> neighborhood in Nashville a customer was from via their speech patterns
> (accents?)
>
> I'm sure someone who knew what they were doing could pick out a dozen or
> more Southern accents.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org