Yeah it seems like the hillbilly talk is unavoidable in any gas station or Frisch's in Ohio.  I'm baffled that these accents are now in their third or fourth generation since moving up here from Kentucky and West Virginia.  Not only that but the smoking, chewing tobacco, trucks, etc.  The whole culture is still going strong in places like Hamilton and Middletown. 

It may have something to do with the educated young small town kids all moving to Columbus because there's no work in the small towns anymore. The older educated remain in the towns, but the only young people who stay are the ones from the Hillbilly Elegy book. Sad but true.

it seems that they have failed to assimilate.

It may have something to do with the educated young small town kids all moving to Columbus because there's no work in the small towns anymore. The older educated remain in the towns, but the only young people who stay are the ones from the Hillbilly Elegy book. Sad but true.

 

Yes and no. I personally moved out of there when I was very young, so I don't really have any accent at all. But it seems like the high school age group just has a hell of an accent. Some are super thick, almost Pittsburghese, others just have a slight Appalachian twang to it. But my point is, even the smart educated people in the younger generation have it whereas most of the older people only slightly have it (though some have thick accents for sure). But, oddly enough, I notice that 10 minutes away in Steubenville and Wintersville, very few young people have the accent.... I guess it just has to do with it being a "bigger" town. But then again, Wheeling, the biggest town in the area, has a very thick accent.

^ Definitely hard to communicate sounds through text, especially since a direct consequence of what we're discussing here is that the same spellings can have different sounds to different people! This is why linguists have their own very complicated alphabet, but who's got time for that?

 

Since someone mentioned above to listen to the UrbanCincy podcast to hear Jake and Randy, I found one with you in it.

 

At 7:20 you say 'pond'. It sounds like the "ah" sound I am talking about. Relatedly, at 3:32 you say 'about', and I don't hear the U (w sound) that I perceive in my own pronunciation of the word.

 

Indeed!

where does warsh for wash come from?  I associate it with appalachia but I've heard it around Cleveland a lot.

  I think you get the R in wash from non native Clevelanders, by way of W. Virginia or PA, from those that migrated here for work in the auto industry or steel mills.  My Father being from Western PA, moved here for work reasons when he was 18.  He still pronounces things "strange" to me.  Warsh, fire (sounds like far) and other things. 

  My take on this subject is that Ohio has three different regions of speech, North, Central and South.  Being from Cleveland, I can hear the Columbus accent and definitely the Cincy accent (which in no way sounds like NYC!).  I have friends from Cbus that think Clevelanders sound like they are from NJ.  This actually can be true since NJ has Northern, Central and Southern differences, with the Central Jersey sounding less NYC and less Philly.  Even within the Cleveland area, you can tell a Cleveland/inner ring accent compared to the outer ring areas. 

I variously hear both warsh and wersh.  People from Cleveland say "melk" instead of milk.  I mean, what the hell is that?

^ A lot of people in cleveland have melk for breakfast with their aygs

^I think melk is more of the upper midwest accent overall

I variously hear both warsh and wersh.  People from Cleveland say "melk" instead of milk.  I mean, what the hell is that?

 

Because we're sophisticated...

Clevelanders sound more Fargo to me than they do NJ. Which makes sense since the Fargo accent is another Great Lakes accent.

Fargo is not a Great Lake accent, not even close enough, too rural.

Clevelanders sound more Fargo to me than they do NJ. Which makes sense since the Fargo accent is another Great Lakes accent.

 

Fargo is not a Great Lake accent, not even close enough, too rural.

 

But there is a truth to it sounding more like Fargo than New Jersey.  I don't hear any sort of NJ/NY accent anywhere in Ohio.  Fargo has the Upper Midwest accent which is a slightly more exaggerated version of the Great Lakes accent.  Chicago vs. Minnesota would be the same type of thing as Cleveland vs. Fargo accent.

Fargo is not a Great Lake accent, not even close enough, too rural.

 

You could argue it's too far from the Great Lakes, but too rural? There are tons of rural areas along the lakes with the doon'tcha knoow family of eeaccents.

Yeah, it's rare these days for rural vs. urban accents to exist with the expansion of television media.

When I saw this commercial on TV I heard Cleveland. I never heard of the guy but googled the name and confirmed. The pronunciation of "Pompano Beach" is a dead giveaway. 

 

Incredibly Cleveland... It's always the car dealers.

When I saw this commercial on TV I heard Cleveland. I never heard of the guy but googled the name and confirmed. The pronunciation of "Pompano Beach" is a dead giveaway. 

 

 

Guess when you're selling Nissan, you can't use the "American... and proouuud of it" tagline his dad uses.

 

Every time I see a Serpentini ad I start selling cars in a Cobra Commander voice

For the Clevelander's here, let's take it a step further.  The pronunciation of the street that runs by Progressive field.  Carnegie Ave.  It drives me nuts when I here it pronounced "car NEY gee" instead of "CAR nuh gee", but it seems most people around here say the first way.

You are correct that Clevelanders say it that way, most specifically when referring to Carnegie Avenue. I have no idea the accuracy of this statement, but one time years ago in the Plain Dealer I read that it was Clevelanders who are pronouncing the Andrew Carnegie's name correctly and everyone else is botching it... Anybody know?

Just for the record, I'm free of any Cleveland area accent, if I do say so myself. I'm old, so I grew up in the period mentioned in this quote. the vowel shift apparently didn't start appearing until the late 1960's, when much of my public school education was completed. As this article points out, and as a high school English teacher I had noted, that those from NE Ohio spoke standard American English

 

The Origins and Evolution of the Cleveland Accent (Yes, You Have an Accent, Cleveland)

 

https://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/the-origins-and-evolution-of-the-cleveland-accent-yes-you-have-an-accent-cleveland/Content?oid=4949852

 

"Edward McClelland, who has written extensively about language and the Midwest, recently completed a book called How to Speak Midwestern. He believes the notion that this part of the country speaks some unicorn version of English that is devoid of any distinct sound goes back to a time when the Cleveland area was, in fact, considered the broadcast industry standard."

 

"For a period of time in the middle part of the 20th century, what was considered a neutral accent was based in the Cleveland area," McClelland says. "This is ironic because now the [vowel] shift has made Cleveland speech more distinct from the rest of the nation."

You are correct that Clevelanders say it that way, most specifically when referring to Carnegie Avenue. I have no idea the accuracy of this statement, but one time years ago in the Plain Dealer I read that it was Clevelanders who are pronouncing the Andrew Carnegie's name correctly and everyone else is botching it... Anybody know?

 

Wow I never knew that but you’re right (according to The NY Times via the Carnegie Corporation). I always said it that way because Tom Hamilton did ?

 

www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/nyregion/fyi-019240.html

Well I just know that Andrew Carnegie was the steel monopoly. I don't say Carnugee, rather I say Carnigee, the right way to pronounce his name in history. Such an American name for someone of the Scotts.

When I was in Cleveland, I heard CAR-nuh-ghee more than anything. I'm from Columbus and say Car-NAY-ghee.

 

I think most people in the U.S. would say CAR-nuh-ghee. I hear people say it like that referring to Carnegie Hall or Carnegie-Mellon.

I heard a woman say "melk" today.  I interrupted her and asked if she was from Cleveland.  She said no but her parents are from Sandusky. 

I get that alot...

"Melk"...

Are you from Cleveland?

such a fateful word...

Melk is also drank and spoken of fondly in NY/NJ.

 

Oh - my gf from Sarasota, FLOOR-idduh always makes fun of the incorrect way I say FLARR-uddah. Then I saw this last week, and feel almost vindicated. 

 

Check out the accents!

 

I grew up in the Cleveland area and one of my high school buddies does say "melk." The rest of us all tease him about it though. So it's a Cleveland thing but still weird enough that other Clevelanders think it's weird?

People with the pin-pen merger say "melk"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_high_front_vowels#Pin%E2%80%93pen_merger

Yes, I get teased about this all the time by my fiance and her family here in Cincy.  I am from Cedar Rapids, IA.  We weren't at my cousins wedding two weekends ago and we did a test and everyone in my immediate family says "melk", but we definitely don't say the name Ben as "Bin", which is common in the south especially the Texas / Oklahoma accent types but also I guess in other areas of the south.

^^ What's up with the little dot of purple in the CA Central Valley?

The Inland Empire is basically Arkanas

The Inland Empire is basically Arkanas

 

The Inland Empire is basically Arkanas

 

Sounds like a joke, but yeah, Dust Bowl migration explains it.

Also, people in Tennessee, and possibly elsewhere, are fond of calling pens "ink pens".  Or even "ANKpins".

 

The Inland Empire is basically Arkanas

 

That dot isn't the IE, though. Guess that's probably like Bakersfield, but the Central Valley is pretty Hispanic outside of some of the larger towns like Fresno and Bakersfield. The IE isn't really the same vibe at all. It's pretty Hispanic and there's a decent (for CA) black population in places like San Bernardino these days, too. It seems to be the preferred spot for people being priced out of South LA, and there's quite a bit of crime and 'urban' issues out there instead of a bunch of country folk like what it used to be a couple decades ago. I was reading the comments on some article about San Bernardino just yesterday, and they largely consisted of white people complaining about Mexicans taking over, and Mexicans complaining about white meth heads lol.

The Inland Empire is basically Arkanas

 

That dot isn't the IE, though. Guess that's probably like Bakersfield, but the Central Valley is pretty Hispanic outside of some of the larger towns like Fresno and Bakersfield.

 

My guess as well. Anyone here ever heard of Bakersfield country music?

The Inland Empire is basically Arkanas

 

That dot isn't the IE, though. Guess that's probably like Bakersfield, but the Central Valley is pretty Hispanic outside of some of the larger towns like Fresno and Bakersfield.

 

My guess as well. Anyone here ever heard of Bakersfield country music?

 

 

Um, of course.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakersfield_sound

 

The Inland Empire is basically Arkanas

 

That dot isn't the IE, though. Guess that's probably like Bakersfield, but the Central Valley is pretty Hispanic outside of some of the larger towns like Fresno and Bakersfield.

 

My guess as well. Anyone here ever heard of Bakersfield country music?

 

 

Um, of course.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakersfield_sound

 

 

Always worth mentioning that one torchbearer of the genre is Ohio's own Dwight Yoakam. Who if the map is to be believed, does not say "Melk."

As I recall the one and only time I ever heard anyone in Ohio say "melk" was a friend in Columbus (an OSU Law School graduate, no less) who was from Columbus. Although she was born and raised in Columbus, her father was from Cleveland. Don't know if that means anything ::)

somebody should open a restaurant called Melk

This guy probably has one of the thicker Cleveland/Northern Cities accents I've heard in a while:

 

At 0:26 listen to how he says, "Then we're going to chill our cup."  :D

 

At 0:26 listen to how he says, "Then we're going to chill our cup."  :D

“Coupe” is a type of cocktail glass

This guy probably has one of the thicker Cleveland/Northern Cities accents I've heard in a while:

 

 

Hey, now I know how to make a Jeeyapaneez Cacktail!

notice how much he uses is nasals to pronounce things like house, downtown, and tremont

notice how much he uses is nasals to pronounce things like house, downtown, and tremont

 

It's weird to me that this accent isn't an east side or west side accent, as isolated as the two sides are. You hear this everywhere. Some people are more subtle than others but it's prevalent on both sides of town.

 

I don't think I have much of a northern accent (I have been told). Sometimes words slip in though. Last time I was in eastern new york I mentioned Al-bany, the city, and two locals to that area just looked at me. I repeated All-bany, they then continued the conversation, haha.

 

 

I can say I have never heard Albany with an Al, always heard it with an All...even here with the Cleveland accent...  :)