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The article mentions "It turns out you don’t want to sound southern, either. Although pretty imprecisely estimated, it is almost as bad for your wages to sound
by blackhole 14y ago
The article mentions "It turns out you don’t want to sound southern, either. Although pretty imprecisely estimated, it is almost as bad for your wages to sound southern as it is to sound black, even controlling for whether you live in the south."
- gamegoblin 14y agoSounding southern though is (at least for me, living in Arkansas) very different from sounding "redneck". There are many southerners who speak with a rather sophisticated gentility, then there are those who speak with a quaint but kind country accent (many farmers). Or just those southerners who use southern words, such as "y'all" and "coke" (as a catch-all term for soda). The redneck accent I speak of his found in rural places, not just in the south. Often condescendingly referred to as "trailer trash" or "white trash". But I suppose that the distinction is pretty arbitrary and not very well defined.
- tokenadult 14y agoSounding southern though is (at least for me, living in Arkansas) very different from sounding "redneck". The problem of many speakers of southern dialects of English in much of the United States is that speakers of broadcast varieties of General American English tend to lump all "southern accents" in a category that includes the redneck accents and the plantation-owner-descendant accents without further distinction. And that is why, as the article reports, there is an employment opportunity disadvantage (on average, other things being equal) to sounding like any kind of southerner. (I have been to all fifty states, having traveled to many states as a Chinese-English interpreter on contract for International Visitors Program of the United States Department of State. I can remember one case of a very upper-crust Mississipian, who was then living in Alabama, having an English accent that to my Midwestern ear was quite nonstandard, even though I was aware that in the south it would be taken to be the accent of an educated person from prosperous family.)
- gamegoblin 14y agoAh, I see what you mean. I don't often travel around the US nor do I talk about southern accents to many other non-southern Americans (as I do not have a southern accent, I speak with a more accentless midwestern style), so I am unaware of such a perception. I find many southern accents to be rather endearing, but what is known here as a redneck accent is rather hard on my ears.
- Snoptic 14y agoEveryone thinks their native accent is "accentless"
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- moultano 14y agoIn this case, that isn't what he's referring to. The midwestern accent is the one that national newscasters are taught.
- codewright 14y agoYeah, what moultano said. Except for one derivation in the more rural parts, my state has the accent that most American newscasters will learn or imitate. So for better or worse, I have neutral American English. Pretty good being on top.
- rdouble 14y agoNorthern redneck accents are actually a lot different than southern redneck accents. I'm from rural Minnesota and "redneck" people there really do sound like the movie Fargo, and not like Honey Boo Boo.
- gamegoblin 14y agoOh, really? I haven't ventured that far north, but I've found that most of the redneck accents between Florida and South Dakota to be rather similar. I would imagine it might be a bit different near the Canadian border. Good to know! I think that the most non-standard redneck accents I have heard are those in Vermont. It's a strange mix of hippie and redneck.
- rdouble 14y agoI've noticed that rural people in the west, like Utah and Wyoming often have hints of a southern-y redneck accent. Same with Indiana. I assumed it was due to the popularity of country music and all the "redneck" shows on television. Sort of like how media in the UK spread the MLE/jafaican dialect all around so that it's sort of the default youth dialect regardless of ethnicity.
- Snoptic 14y agoWhat the heck is "Minnesota redneck"? Redneck isn't the same as rural.
- gamegoblin 14y agoI think that the definition of the word redneck varies from region to region. The original meaning of redneck referred to poor, uneducated farmers (not limited to the south). It depends on the speaker and the context if they mean southern, "Larry the Cable Guy" rednecks, or white trash (located anywhere), or even the original meaning of those who work outdoors and sunburn the back of their necks.
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- geoka9 14y agoOr just those southerners who use southern words, such as "y'all" and "coke" (as a catch-all term for soda). And then there are southerners who use "soda" as a catch-all term for pop :)