<p>Thanks!! You still have me laughing.</p>
<p>Regarding the Brits, I can understand them. It’s the spelling variations that get me. I knew of some, but when I went there it hit me hard. And, of course, I don’t have the link, but there is one town in England that last year did away with all apostropes on the street signs, saying they were all too confusing.</p>
<p>Kei-o-lei & ctyankee: Drawer story - D has a friend who will be attending Harvard in the fall. They were working on a project together, and he spelled drawer as “droor.” She told him she was gonna tell Harvard on him.</p>
<p>I had a roommate from Brockton, Mass. If he saw 2 pairs of dress shoes and one pair of Nike athletic footwear on the floor, he would say there were only 2 pairs of “shoes” there. The Nikes would be “sneakahs”…a category of footwear with no overlap with “shoes.” Is that a widespread interpretation of these terms in the Boston area?</p>
<p>Hmmm. I think, yes, sneakers are separate from shoes. If my kids are messy I will tell them to pick up their shoes and sneakahs.</p>
<p>" I will tell them to pick up their shoes and sneakahs."</p>
<p>I think dozens of keyboards across the country just got splattered with spit-takes.</p>
<p>Wow this is prolly why Virginians keep asking me to repeat what I say so many times.</p>
<p>Yes, shoes and sneakers are separate, though that’s fairly universal – right?</p>
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<p>Not around here. It’s really only a loosely used term anyway.</p>
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<p>dmd77: I love that website of all the different British dialects. I’m a huge anglophile and pretty interested in linguistics, so thank you SO much for exposing me to that!</p>
<p>Oh, and as long as I’m here I may as well add:
Not on the West Coast! Here a sneaker is a subset of shoe–equivalent to a tennis shoe. AKA tennashew.</p>
<p>Regarding Boston accents: when I was in about 3rd grade our class went on a trip to some state legislative/judicial buildings (this was in Washington state). At one point we were going to see or do a reenactment of some trial. The woman who was leading our reenactment started explaining the background of the story–there was an “ahmahd cah.” The parent chaperones and all the kids tried to figure out what the heck she was saying and she just kept helplessly repeating herself, until finally one of the adults realized she meant to say “armored car.” As third graders, we didn’t even know what those were!</p>
<p>See “customer reviews” section here re shoes/sneakahs: [DC</a> Rob Dyrdek at Zappos.com](<a href=“Dc rob dyrdek white print dc + FREE SHIPPING | Zappos.com”>Dc rob dyrdek white print + FREE SHIPPING | Zappos.com)</p>
<p>I remember Candlepins for Cash! </p>
<p>Do you remember the talent show called “Star of the Day”? You know, “Star of the day, who will it be. Your vote may hold the key. It’s up to you. Tell us who. Will be star of the day!” I think it was on channel 4. One of my most guarded secrets is that I performed on that show. Shhhh…Don’t tell anyone!</p>
<p>OMG ! My sisters and I were just laughing about that show ( though it wasn’t called
" Star of the Day " , it was called " Community Auditions " ) Star of the day was the song , sung by all of the performers at the end of the show ;)</p>
<p>I grew up on the Cape and worked in tourist type businesses as a teen…never understood why people were always commenting on my " accent " when everyone I knew sounded just like me.</p>
<p>I find the people in the Worcester area have one of the most prominant accent in the state…and RI ? ouch, what an accent</p>
<p>Oh, and not only do I remember Candlepins for Cash, Community auditions, but also Major Mudd , Jabberwocky and of course Zoom</p>
<p>lje62, didn’t you notice that none of the people in movies and on TV talked even remotely like you?</p>
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<p>Not was, but is. It’s baaack . . . on WBZ TV. Without Dave Maynard, though, it’s just not the same.</p>
<p>My young adult children seem to be settling into their post-college lives in Rhode Island, Brooklyn NY and Southern California. I just began to imagine the accents of any possible future grandchildren! Oh noes!</p>
<p>I love this thread-
I was born in No. CA., lived in PA when I was 10ish for a couple of years, then came back to So CA. When I moved to PA the kids made fun of how I said “water” (they pronounced it "wadah). A teacher even pulled out the dictionary to convince me I pronounced it incorrectly. When we came back to So. CA. I remember making my friend’s cousin from New Jersey repeat “hot dog” over and over so we could laugh (hawt dawg). I think Californians are perceived as having no accent because there is such a melting pot of accents here that we end up all sounding the same. One thing that does seem to be prevalent (and drives me crazy) is that a lot of people here go up at the end of sentences, as if every sentence is a question- I think it’s a remnant of the “valley girl” dialect (remember Moon Zappa?)</p>
<p>Also, when my daughter went to school in No. CA she said everyone there uses the term 'hella", as in "he makes hella money (a lot of). She worked with young children and they used it as much as everyone else. Drove her crazy and fortunately it has not been picked up here. </p>
<p>I agree that accents make life interesting and it is fun to try to guess where people are from based on their accents.</p>
<p>Anybody from Boston remember playing with your TV antenna so you could pick up the signal from that one channel in New Hampshire? That channel in New Hampshire must have had an annual buget of about $150,000. But when you’ve only got about 5 or 6 other channels to choose from, some of those pathetic shows were quite watchable.</p>
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<p>What was the verdict after consulting the dictionary? My dictionary even comes with a pronunciation feature, and it is definitely not saying “wadah.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/water[/url]”>http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/water</a></p>
<p>I was only about 9 or 10 so I don’t remember anything about how the teacher justified the pronunciation. I just remember being very intimidated and that I wasn’t supposed to contradict a teacher (this was the 60’s). At that time there were very few transplants from California into a small Penn. town- I think we were novelties. Kids kept asking if I knew any movie stars, and I didn’t understand why I would.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, my youngest daughter will be starting at Penn State in the fall. She loved it there when she visited and is looking forward to it. Her future roommate has already commented about how fast my D talks- she does and that is definitely a Ca. thing.</p>