<p>Do you believe a Southern accent has a negative connation? I mean a heavy, real southern drawl kinda accent. I kind of think so, but that probably all has to do with where I live.</p>
<p>I think it kind of does up here. I mean the really thick “the south will rise again!” accent. Not the slightly more “refined” sounding accent that I’d imagine someone like a governor or attorney would have.</p>
<p>I was in this arts and crafts store the other day and heard this girl telling what I figured to be her mother that, “I would love to play Scarlett O’Hara!” in this southern accent. Not the kind where she’s doing chewing tobacco and rocking on her front porch with a rifle in her hand to warn off “suspicious” looking folks, but the very “proper” accent where she’d have like a debutant ball and all that stupid crap. At first, I thought she was joking, but I kept hearing her talk on the phone or to her mom in the same accent and I think those don’t have negative connotation, but that deep woods Southern accent? Yeah, that might.</p>
<p>I was driving behind this massive, red neck inspired pick up truck with the Confederate flag on the back window and I think that might have a bigger negative connotation here than the accent. The entire cab-yellow truck was just so tacky and the flag did not help.</p>
<p>Well, I’m from SC, so in a lot of places here, it doesn’t.</p>
<p>It’s funny though, because USC is about 45% out of state, so you you’ve got a lot of people from Maryland and Jersey and Ohio and other places like that, and I’ve noticed they’ll be like “I love your southern accent” to some of my friends, who I don’t even think have a southern accent. So it really doesn’t carry a negative conotation here.</p>
<p>Scarlet O’Hara has an absolutely terrible southern accent that is not legitimate in any place. At least, that’s what I’ve always been told. But her accent isn’t anything that I’ve actually ever heard and sounds very fake to me. Of course that makes sense because the actress was English.</p>
<p>And… on top of that… you have many different types of southern accents. Even in South Carolina, you’ve got like the proper Charleston accent and the really deep south sounding midlands accent, and the kind of back country sounding upstate accent, and then you have variations on top of that. That’s just in South Carolina. So a Southern accent is a very vague term.</p>
<p>I have a southern accent and I’m Asian. Is that OK … lol?</p>
<p>The other day, I was channel flipping and came across The Duggars meet the Amish. After they chatted for awhile, an Amish woman asked Jim Bob “is English your second language?” I also have a friend who is from Europe and who innocently referred to the accent as “a Southern drool.” After we stopped laughing, we realized that he had misread the word “drawl” in English. We STILL refer to “The Southern Drool.”</p>
<p>Southern accents don’t bother me; sometimes, they’re charming. The only problem I have is when I can’t understand what’s being said.</p>
<p>For women, it’s beautiful when it’s like the “southern belle” kind of accent but when it’s all “hillbilly-ish”… NO. If the accent screams “redneck”, then major NO.</p>
<p>my sentiments have already been echoed in these first few posts</p>
<p>Why is there this negative connotation?</p>
<p>I know plenty of people who look/sound like total rednecks, but they’re actually fairly intelligent people who are well-off, because the know how to run a business well. If you were to meet them, you wouldn’t automatically think that about them at all.</p>
<p>Generally when I run into someone who sounds like a backwoods ignorant redneck, they are one.</p>
<p>e: But it also lies in their mannerisms and what not. Dude wearing a trucker cap driving a pickup with a “I got a shotgun for my wife, pretty good trade don’t you think?” bumper sticker + that accent = thinking he may be a bit dimwitted. Dude dressed like he’s about to go to the Kentucky Derby or something + that accent = whatever.</p>
<p>e: I do tend to find Southern accents on women pretty attractive.</p>
<p>Whether it’s right, wrong, or indifferent- southern accents automatically make people think you’re less intelligent than you are. There’s a reason that there are classes that teach people with a southern dialect how to speak more like they’re from the midwest area. </p>
<p>Everywhere has an accent, but since the south is generally seen as backward hillbillies, their accent receives a negative response. Even here in the north- if you’re from a rural place and you have a southern sounding accent, you are perceived to be less intelligent.</p>
<p>An accent that I really despise regardless of who’s speaking it…</p>
<p>The New Joizey accent</p>
<p>“The other day, I was channel flipping and came across The Duggars meet the Amish. After they chatted for awhile, an Amish woman asked Jim Bob “is English your second language?””</p>
<p>I loved that episode:)</p>
<p>Living in the South (Which I’ve lived in for 10 non-consecutive years), I’m not a big fan of a Southern accent. Some accents just have negative connotations that imply ignorance. I have to say that I lump the New Jersey accent in with the Southern one in terms of sounding ignorant.</p>
<p>Depends on the southern accent. The hillbilly accent that everyones been talking about is the one people first think of when they think of the south. It just implies ignorance. However, the refined southern belle accent is, in my opinion, extremely attractive and implies wealth and class.</p>
<p>I dunno, I love calling the Louisiana branch at work because their manager’s accent is amazing. I think if anything I’m inclined to think that people with southern accents are nicer and more polite, definitely not unintelligent. And, of course, I don’t actually seriously believe anything like that.</p>
<p>The Louisiana Cajun accent is not the same as the southern drawl. I find the Cajun accent kind of endearing but that’s just me.</p>
<p>At Cornell, there was discrimination against the occasional southern accent. If you happened to be white and from the deep south (i.e. not Virginia, Florida, or Texas), people would assume you were automatically a moron, which was unfortunate.</p>
<p>There is a negative connotation. It’s cool to have one, but expect for people to initially ask you if you’re from the South, and to think, “Oh, look at that redneck.” But people can think whatever. I think some pretty crazy stuff, but no one can hear it. Spongebob said it best: At least I’m safe inside my mind.</p>
<p>I have a Southern drawl (it’s oh so slight, my mom denies it, but I think I have it a little), and people just love to hear me say certain words. So if you’re smart and do what you do well, that’s all that matters.</p>
<p>@Caillebotte</p>
<p>Well I think anybody who goes to Cornell is a moron… obviously I’m kidding. But the point is, anybody can take anything about a person (skin color, accent, clothes, religion, sexual oriention, car they drive, where they live, where they go to school) and then say this, that, and the other about them. You don’t really know someone until you really know them. Are there negative connotations associated with a southern accent? Unfortunately. Should there be? No.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you’re arguing with me or not but I didn’t condone such behavior, just saying it happens.</p>
<p>To be honest, the Southern accent never bothered me. I wouldn’t be able to live in Joisy or near Hahvahd, though.</p>