Most recognizable accent?

[GaryV]

Classic 'Yoopertalk' is pretty distinctive

Yah, you betcha.

[webny99]

What exactly is a St. Louis accent?

It's more like "Traffic on Hi-Way Farty-Far is backed up to Kingshigh-way." "Make sure th'terlet don't back up, and before ye leave, WARSH yer hands!" It's like a mix of Chicago, generic upper Midwest, and the south engaged in menage-trois and the STL accent is the result.

It's when you drive home on Highway Farty, then warsh your hands in the zink cause they're greezy.

As described in both of these quotes, that sounds way more Southern than Midwestern. A Chicago accent has way more in common with Detroit IMO.

Meanwhile, I've heard a similar accent to this in southern Ohio/Kentucky, so maybe it's more specific to the southern portions of the Rust Belt, in which I'd include St. Louis.

[Scott5114]

As described in both of these quotes, that sounds way more Southern than Midwestern. A Chicago accent has way more in common with Detroit IMO.

It's not. There's not a southern drawl to it, there's just...odd pronunciations of certain words. Another one is "fire" sounding like "far".

If I were to transcribe a southern Oklahoma/Texas accent, which does have the drawl, I'd get "wawsh", not "warsh". ("Warsh" makes it as far west as Kansas City with some speakers, but it drops off as you go south.)

[JayhawkCO]

There used to be a Colorado accent of sorts before the mass influx of folks from other states. One word I remember being pronounced particularly weird was "smooth" which was pronounced "smyooth".  Now it just sounds Midwestern to me.

[jp the roadgeek]

I've always liked Philly's accent. Growing up traveling down that way, it's very unique. For example, water is pronounced "wooder"  sandwiches are called "hoagies"  , and you go "down the shore" .

Sandwiches; those with 2 slices of bread, are still sandwiches. Hoagies are termed subs in other parts of the country.

The Philly accent tends to make T's silent or modified, especially in the middle of the word.

I meant sub sandwiches yes. And I've heard plenty of people there pronounce salty as "saldy" .

But call a sub sandwich a "grinder" or "grindah" anywhere but New England and you'll be looked at like you have 3 heads.

Most of CT doesn't have much of an accent, except for the elimination of the glottal stop.  Think "hard hit-in New Bri-tain" where the "t" is hardly pronounced.  This same accent carries up into Western MA (pretty much west of Sturbridge).  But get out east of the Connecticut River closer to RI and you have the "Swamp Yankee" accent, where the RI influence (which itself, is almost a modified Brooklyn accent) starts to come into play. 

[Rothman]

I've always liked Philly's accent. Growing up traveling down that way, it's very unique. For example, water is pronounced "wooder"  sandwiches are called "hoagies"  , and you go "down the shore" .

Sandwiches; those with 2 slices of bread, are still sandwiches. Hoagies are termed subs in other parts of the country.

The Philly accent tends to make T's silent or modified, especially in the middle of the word.

I meant sub sandwiches yes. And I've heard plenty of people there pronounce salty as "saldy" .

But call a sub sandwich a "grinder" or "grindah" anywhere but New England and you'll be looked at like you have 3 heads.

Most of CT doesn't have much of an accent, except for the elimination of the glottal stop.  Think "hard hit-in New Bri-tain" where the "t" is hardly pronounced.  This same accent carries up into Western MA (pretty much west of Sturbridge).  But get out east of the Connecticut River closer to RI and you have the "Swamp Yankee" accent, where the RI influence (which itself, is almost a modified Brooklyn accent) starts to come into play.

Heh.  We had grinders at school when I was growing up.

[Takumi]

The southside Virginia accent sticks out among the various southern accents. The pronunciation of the "or"  sound especially. Watch any interview with Elliott Sadler to hear it.

[Flint1979]

I've been around Detroit all my life and haven't ever heard of a Detroit accent. Typically it seems like people from Michigan usually talk like the rest of the Midwest. I've been told I have more of a Chicago accent than anything. One time I was sitting at a bar in Chicago (the bar is now closed) and a guy from Milwaukee was sitting next to me and another guy from Detroit was sitting next to him I think they were together but anyway they started talking about Chicago accents and I said what's a Chicago accent I've never heard of one before and the guy from Milwaukee says, you have one. I pronounce the word sausage just like a straight Southsider.

[webny99]

I've been around Detroit all my life and haven't ever heard of a Detroit accent. Typically it seems like people from Michigan usually talk like the rest of the Midwest. I've been told I have more of a Chicago accent than anything. One time I was sitting at a bar in Chicago (the bar is now closed) and a guy from Milwaukee was sitting next to me and another guy from Detroit was sitting next to him I think they were together but anyway they started talking about Chicago accents and I said what's a Chicago accent I've never heard of one before and the guy from Milwaukee says, you have one. I pronounce the word sausage just like a straight Southsider.

It's not specific to Detroit - I think the technical term would be Inland Northern. You sometimes hear it here too, but it's usually pretty mild. It's much stronger west of Cleveland, and especially in the Detroit and Chicago areas.

[hotdogPi]

Since nobody's said it yet: Tilde. More recognizable than the acute, grave, circumflex, macron, and many others.

[JayhawkCO]

I pronounce the word sausage just like a straight Southsider.

I like syahsidges.

[JayhawkCO]

Since nobody's said it yet: Tilde. More recognizable than the acute, grave, circumflex, macron, and many others.

But umlaut is way more punk rock.

[skluth]

Classic 'Yoopertalk' is pretty distinctive

Yah, you betcha.

Much of that accent extended down to Green Bay when I was a kid. I remember hearing my dad say things like "put da dishes in da zinc" when I was growing up. My friends often ended sentences with "you know, eh". People in Green Bay back in the 60s sounded much like Ontario hockey players (or Sarah Palin) today. My nieces who grew up on Green Bay don't talk that way. It's a fairly recent thing that it's now limited to the UP.

[Scott5114]

Since nobody's said it yet: Tilde. More recognizable than the acute, grave, circumflex, macron, and many others.

I think the Norwegian/Swedish/Danish ring is more recognizåble.

[JayhawkCO]

Classic 'Yoopertalk' is pretty distinctive

Yah, you betcha.

Much of that accent extended down to Green Bay when I was a kid. I remember hearing my dad say things like "put da dishes in da zinc" when I was growing up. My friends often ended sentences with "you know, eh". People in Green Bay back in the 60s sounded much like Ontario hockey players (or Sarah Palin) today. My nieces who grew up on Green Bay don't talk that way. It's a fairly recent thing that it's now limited to the UP.

Plenty of it in northern Minnesota too.

[Flint1979]

I've been around Detroit all my life and haven't ever heard of a Detroit accent. Typically it seems like people from Michigan usually talk like the rest of the Midwest. I've been told I have more of a Chicago accent than anything. One time I was sitting at a bar in Chicago (the bar is now closed) and a guy from Milwaukee was sitting next to me and another guy from Detroit was sitting next to him I think they were together but anyway they started talking about Chicago accents and I said what's a Chicago accent I've never heard of one before and the guy from Milwaukee says, you have one. I pronounce the word sausage just like a straight Southsider.

It's not specific to Detroit - I think the technical term would be Inland Northern. You sometimes hear it here too, but it's usually pretty mild. It's much stronger west of Cleveland, and especially in the Detroit and Chicago areas.

Wow I clicked that wikipedia link and they have a map with red dots and Saginaw is one of those red dots and so is Rochester so we both have the red dots in our cities. The red dots are cities identified within the Inland North dialect region. I can tell a New York, Boston or Southern accent pretty easily though.

[Flint1979]

I've always liked Philly's accent. Growing up traveling down that way, it's very unique. For example, water is pronounced "wooder"  sandwiches are called "hoagies"  , and you go "down the shore" .

Sandwiches; those with 2 slices of bread, are still sandwiches. Hoagies are termed subs in other parts of the country.

The Philly accent tends to make T's silent or modified, especially in the middle of the word.

I meant sub sandwiches yes. And I've heard plenty of people there pronounce salty as "saldy" .

But call a sub sandwich a "grinder" or "grindah" anywhere but New England and you'll be looked at like you have 3 heads.

Most of CT doesn't have much of an accent, except for the elimination of the glottal stop.  Think "hard hit-in New Bri-tain" where the "t" is hardly pronounced.  This same accent carries up into Western MA (pretty much west of Sturbridge).  But get out east of the Connecticut River closer to RI and you have the "Swamp Yankee" accent, where the RI influence (which itself, is almost a modified Brooklyn accent) starts to come into play.

I've heard of the term grinder here in Michigan. There is a place called Mancino's it's a chain with probably 45 or so locations in Michigan. They also have locations in the other states in the region, I've seen them in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin before. https://www.mancinospizzaandgrinders.com/

[Flint1979]

Whenever I say the word, "the" I say it like "da" instead of the. This has been said to be a Chicago thing as well.

[GaryV]

As in, "Da Bears".

[Flint1979]

As in, "Da Bears".

Yeah that's probably one of the most popular ones.

[Scott5114]

Whenever I say the word, "the" I say it like "da" instead of the. This has been said to be a Chicago thing as well.

Interestingly, that's not all that off from how it's said around here, although here it's more "thuh" than "da". You pretty much never hear "the" with a long E sound.

[hotdogPi]

You pretty much never hear "the" with a long E sound.

Around here, the long E is only present if followed by a vowel sound, or sometimes if there's a long pause after it. It's universal enough here that my choir director decided one way or the other (forget which way) how to pronounce the word "the" in a specific situation where the next sound was another long E, as if we were already aware of the consonant/vowel rule in general.

[Scott5114]

You pretty much never hear "the" with a long E sound.

Around here, the long E is only present if followed by a vowel sound, or sometimes if there's a long pause after it. It's universal enough here that my choir director decided one way or the other (forget which way) how to pronounce the word "the" in a specific situation where the next sound was another long E, as if we were already aware of the consonant/vowel rule in general.

Yeah, here, there's not even that. If I bought some fruit for a trip to the beach, I could eat thuh apple next to thuh ocean, then maybe hit up thuh ice cream truck before returning home on thuh Interstate.

[JayhawkCO]

You pretty much never hear "the" with a long E sound.

Around here, the long E is only present if followed by a vowel sound, or sometimes if there's a long pause after it. It's universal enough here that my choir director decided one way or the other (forget which way) how to pronounce the word "the" in a specific situation where the next sound was another long E, as if we were already aware of the consonant/vowel rule in general.

Yeah, here, there's not even that. If I bought some fruit for a trip to the beach, I could eat thuh apple next to thuh ocean, then maybe hit up thuh ice cream truck before returning home on thuh Interstate.

I think that's far more common in the U.S. than ever saying thee unless you're using it for emphasis.

[webny99]

I don't know, I feel like I use "thee" when the following word starts with a vowel quite a bit. Now I'll have to make sure to notice, but "thuh" sounds really odd in some cases, especially if the following word starts with u.