Downton Abbey

[JackFavell]

My aunt from Iowa (who lived most of her life in Wisconsin) pronounced 'wash' WARSH, to our great amusement. Of course, if you're really from Wisconsin, you say "M'waukee, 'sconsin." or sometimes Wesconsin. And here in CT., AUNT is pronounced ONT, not ANT.

My parents always tried to train me not to have any dialect or accent. Once when I was a kid, right after I left Oklahoma for Illinois, I was back visiting in Okla. and a friend of mine told me I had an accent (pronounced ax-ay-ent). I asked her what possible accent I could have, thinking I was completely free of any vocal inflection and that she, on the other hand had a very 'Okie' dialect. She said, "you say, 'Chicago' (pronounced Shih-kagg-o) instead of 'Chicago'(Shih-kogg-o)." . I guess it's all in the eye or ear of the beholder.

[movieman1957]

Baltimore accents have to rank up there with the worst. I spent time avoiding one and worked on my children to avoid them having one.

As far as the British shows more often then not I am able to understand the main characters but get into some of the secondary and especially the more rural ones it becomes more difficult to understand.

[JackFavell]

David you are right, the smushing up of the first syllable is probably closer than what I wrote. I was mainly trying to get that short A sound for the middle syllable, with the A sounding like cat or bag.

Chris, I bet the Baltimore accent ties with a Rhode Island accent. If you click on track 5 at the link below, you can hear how the Rhode Islanders near here speak. It's the closest track out of the ones listed. You may have had some experience with this when you were up here.

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/sampler/RIaudio.html

[knitwit45]

Jacks, I had Netflix streaming before, and had to cancel because of the low sound levels. This time, even though the levels are low, I found using earphones makes the sound quite good. Love watching Foyle and his thought processes are almost verbal...

[feaito]

Like feaito, I've heard upper-crust Brits pronounce "girl" as "gehl."

Yes, that's the exact sound..thanks Kingrat.

[mrsl]

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Jack and Kingrat:

Born and bred in Chi-town, I always heard two versions of the pronunciation:
Shi caw go
Shi caa go

(definitely three syllables)

I used to use the former, but somewhere along the way I changed to the second.

My ears don't pick up accents inside the U.S. too often except the usual Southern ones, Minnesota, and Maine, and of course Texas/Oklahoma. But European like British, Irish and French are like gongs going off.
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[ChiO]

Mrsl wrote:
Born and bred in Chi-town, I always heard two versions of the pronunciation:
Shi caw go
Shi caa go

(definitely three syllables)

I think there's a third -- Sha-CAH-gah. That's more a Sowt Side white et-nick pronunciation (translation: 3rd-generation Bridgeport Irish), but it seems to be fading away. Used to hear it a lot at Comiskey Park.

We talk gooder (or, is it weller?) at Wrigley Field on da Nort Side.

[mrsl]

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It's weird how things don't occur to you until someone or something sparks that little electric light bulb in your head.

Chio: I never heard the sound of the city ending in an 'ah' sound. But all of this discussion does make me take note of how irritated I get when people sound out the 's' at the end of Illinois. But that's the darned French influence poking it's head out. I guess Illinois was named when the French controlled the midwest area of the states, but then, Chicago was named after an American Indian chief of the Potawatomi tribe. At least that's what I remember learning in 2nd or 3rd grade.
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[JackFavell]

In my 3rd grade class, in Illinois, my teacher was Mrs. DuBois - pronounced Doo-Boyce. A boy in my class was named Michael Dupuis - pronounced Doo-Pree.

Later, in high school, a nearby town called Bourbonnais legally changed its pronunciation from the rather embarrassing Boor-bone-us to the more french sounding Boor-bonne-ay. I didn't even know you could change your pronunciation by law!

[feaito]

I didn't even know you could change your pronunciation by law!

That's hilarious.

[ChiO]

And in Chicago, there is the very fashionable Goethe Street, pronounced GO-thee. On the far North Side, there's Devon Avenue, pronounced Da-VON. And, once in northern Indiana, while on business, I drove around for ages looking for the town of Galveston. Stopped twice to asked for directions and was met with shrugs. Third stop: "Oh, do you mean Gal-VEST-on?"

Hoosierland also has the towns of BRAY-zil (Brazil) (Jimmy Hoffa's hometown) and PEE-roo (Peru) (Cole Porter's hometown).

[charliechaplinfan]

Only in America

We have Buckets that are pronounced Bookay (Bouquet)

I do think you tried to help us sort out our spelling but I've never been able to get my head around the math. It's MATHS How can you learn a subject when it's name is wrong?

[knitwit45]

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