I went to dinner with a friend the other night, and after I placed my order, the waiter asked, "Where are you from?" I get that question a lot. The first two days of classes this fall had me answering that question at least five times from students (five classes, five times). I always tell them a little bit about myself on the first day, but that's the one detail they have to know first. Sometimes, I don't even get through the discussion of the course requirements before someone raises a hand to ask.
Whenever I'm introduced to someone new, the subject comes up. New faculty, new staff members, new managers, a friend of a friend--you name it. And sometimes salespeople can't help but ask. I don't usually talk that much when I'm buying a pair of jeans, but even those few words are often enough to "arouse suspicion." I suppose there is still something unusual or "exotic" about people with regional dialects. Everyone tries to guess your birthplace--most of them incorrectly thinking Texas--as if to clearly indicate to you that you're an outsider. You're definitely not native to California.
I realize that I have a strong accent. I was raised in Mississippi, after all, and lived there the first 27 years of my life. I never tried, after moving here, to get rid of the accent. I know several people who have, thinking that they have to sound like they are from "nowhere" in order to fit in better. I always assumed I wouldn't fit in for one reason or another, so why not let it be for the accent instead of something else? (And, yes, I know that people think those of us with Southern accents are stupid. As comedian Jeff Foxworthy says, most folks want to deduct 100 IQ points when a Southerner opens his/her mouth. I just don't care; I seem to prefer being underestimated these days.)
I do think it has lessened or "flattened out" a bit over the years. However, if I talk to my friend B on the phone for one of our marathon sessions, it comes back pretty strongly. And you probably don't want to be the first person to talk to me after I've returned from a visit with my family. You'd need someone to translate or perhaps subtitles in order to keep track of the conversation.
There are still times I forget that I come from the South. I do think of myself as a Los Angeleno, having spent the last 18 years of my life in or near this city. I live here, I have friends here, I shop here, I eat here, I go to the movies here, I read the Los Angeles Times (though not for much longer, perhaps), and I think of it as my home. I don't have a particular desire to move back to Mississippi or Alabama, and if you asked my family, they'd tell you that I don't even like to visit. Still, whenever I start to imagine myself as having fully become a part of California, someone reminds me that isn't the case.
The question itself always reminds me of the old joke about two freshmen who meet at their university's orientation session for incoming students. One goes up to the other and introduces himself and asks, "Where are you from?" The other student, obviously taken aback, replies, "I'm from a part of the country where we don't end sentences with prepositions." The first student quickly apologizes: "I'm so sorry. Where are you from, asshole?"
1 comment:
That joke manages to be funny in print. Nice.
I'm so-so at correctly identifying accents. I can usually tell Scottish from Irish from English -- but I can't differentiate well within England's various regions. I can often tell Aussie from New Zealander, but it's harder to identify South African. Kenyan is different than Ethiopian, and neither sound anything like Ghanian. All Scandinavian accents sound alike to me -- as well as South and Central American -- although some of those old French and Dutch colonies have people with very different and rarely heard accents.
I think part of the fun is trying to guess. I can pretty much tell a Southern accent from a Midwestern one, at this point -- although Missouri is as neutral as ever (mostly Southern). I still can't tell if Chicago carries an accent.
In Australia everyone said that they loved our American accents, and my Norwegian cousins always claimed that English was the prettiest language and nicest to speak.
I find that much to my chagrin I pick up dialect rather quickly, and that my mouth and my brain wants to speak like the person speaking to me. It's horrible and I try all kinds of things to keep from doing it. Southern takes a lot of work. It's almost as difficult as Londoner.
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