I’m a proud Southerner. Y’all know that. I’m proud to have grown up in rural southwest Georgia, proud to have grown up around peanut fields and cow pastures rather than skyscrapers and traffic.
And I’m proud of my accent. I say “y’all” and I make no apologies. I tend to drop the “g”s from a lot of words. I say “I’m fixin’ to” do something instead of saying “I’m preparing to” do something.”
And I’m not alone in my love of the Southern accent. A dating website, cupid.com, has conducted a poll that shows the most attractive accent is the Southern accent. And it wasn’t close. More than 36 percent of respondents prefer the Southern accent over several others.
The second most attractive accent was the New York accent, which I’m guessing is only because “fingernails across a chalkboard” wasn’t an option.
I would have figured the New England accent or Western accent would have been more popular than the one from New York, which has never sounded attractive to me.
“Hey, youse wanna go wid me to get some cawfee.”
Whatever. The New York accent was preferred by just 16 percent of folks. If the Southern accent vs. the New York accent were a football game, it would be Alabama vs. New Mexico State.
It should come as no surprise to us Southerners that people like our accents. From the Southern language comes great sayings and colloquialisms such as, “He’s about as useless as a screen door on a submarine” and “She’s as dumb as a box of rocks.”
My great aunt Cecile had a great line she used when something confounded her. She’d say, “That makes about as much sense as teaching poetry to a possum.” I’ve always liked that one.
As naturally as the Southern accent comes to those of us blessed to have been born here, it must really be difficult to imitate, as least among the Hollywood types. Gregory Peck got it right in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and so did Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman in “Driving Miss Daisy.”
But that’s about it.
People who aren’t from the South love to mock the Southern accent. You can tell by the way they use the word “y’all” – and especially if they say, “you all,” which no self-respecting Southern has ever said. Ever.
I’ve been over this before, but it obviously is worthy of a reprise, especially if there are New Jersey Americans reading today. We say “you” when talking to one person and “y’all” when talking to two or more. If the number of people is really large, we get all crazy and say “all y’all,” which might seem a tad over the top, but it gets the point across and isn’t that the point of communication, after all?
If I were talking only to my friend Kurtz, I would never say, for example, “Do y’all want to go get a drink?” But every single actor who attempts to feign a Southern accent will say it that way, which makes me want to throw a shoe at the movie screen.
I can only hope that the people who say they prefer the Southern accent were talking about an authentic one, not one of the phony movie star ones.
I’m just proud to say to speak the preferred accent, and I look forward to it helping me with women.
Now I’d appreciate it if one of y’all would introduce me to Sandra Bullock.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2021/5/1006665/no-surprise-southern-accent-is-the-best