I've found that most people I meet from southern Ohio have a bit of a southern drawl or Appalachian accent.  Again, on more toned down scale.  People from Columbus have a flat affect from my experience.

I've found that most people I meet from southern Ohio have a bit of a southern drawl or Appalachian accent.  Again, on more toned down scale.  People from Columbus have a flat affect from my experience.

 

Generally, this.  Southern Ohioans CERTAINLY have a slight "drawl" and Northern Ohioans CERTAINLY have a slight "nasal" accent.  Central and western Ohioans (Lima, etc) generally have flat accents.  Then there's Appalachian accents you find in Southeast Ohio, Michigan ayyyyacents found in Northwest Ohio, and Pittsburghese found in Eastern Ohio.  This state is a hot mess.

^ I like your analysis.  I think Ohio is where many regions come together, so to speak. I know there was an article a while back about the 5 Ohios that I thought made a lot of sense.

It's not uniform anywhere. People from different parts of Cleveland speak very differently.  I can often tell what area someone is from, especially if they are from the south to southwest side if Greater Cleveland. Maybe not a distinction people from outside of Ohio can pick up on.

 

The weirdest accent in Ohio to my ears is Dayton. I don't know WTF that is.  Some type of really odd drawl.  Columbus and Cincy not so much, but still there. 

I have two friends that grew up on the same street in Parma, just outside of Cleveland.

 

One has a cat. The other has a keyyyyattttt.

does one eat eggs and the other eats aaaayyyygs?

does one eat eggs and the other eats aaaayyyygs?

 

I take it you're familiar with this aaayyyyaccent haha!

I've been down to the Lexington area in KY quite a bit lately for work, and I've noticed it is almost like I don't notice much of a southern accent at all living in Cincinnati now for 4! years.  It's almost like there isn't much difference from Cincinnati down to Lexington, though it depends I guess a bit.  We do business in southern KY and they have their own type of accent, I actually really like the one down in that area, KY definitely has it's own twang.

 

I was back in North Iowa recently and I forgot all about that accent up there, it was almost annoying me.  My mom had surgery and I was getting some extra bandages, etc. at the local store, and when I was checking out the lady goes "Oh garsh do you got a boo-boo!?"  I was like "No, my mom had surgery...", I wasn't in the best of moods, so maybe that explains it annoying me.

 

Funny how that works out though...

 

 

I've noticed some Ohioans in more rural parts of NEO who pronounce wash like warsh.  I'm not sure of the origin of that but perhaps it is Appalachian.

 

 

I was back in North Iowa recently and I forgot all about that accent up there, it was almost annoying me.  My mom had surgery and I was getting some extra bandages, etc. at the local store, and when I was checking out the lady goes "Oh garsh do you got a boo-boo!?"  I was like "No, my mom had surgery...", I wasn't in the best of moods, so maybe that explains it annoying me.

 

Funny how that works out though...

 

 

 

For some reason this makes me think of the Hair Bear Bunch

I've noticed some Ohioans in more rural parts of NEO who pronounce wash like warsh.  I'm not sure of the origin of that but perhaps it is Appalachian.

 

It is a part of the midland accent.... basically the areas directly west of D.C., including southern Ohio

I've heard it in Geauga County and Ashtabula County.  It must be family roots from southern Ohio or midland are I guess. Similar to AAVE having its roots in the south.

I've heard it in Geauga County and Ashtabula County.  It must be family roots from southern Ohio or midland are I guess. Similar to AAVE having its roots in the south.

 

Ashtabula and Geauga Counties aren't exactly that far from Appalachia...

^ true

I've noticed some Ohioans in more rural parts of NEO who pronounce wash like warsh.  I'm not sure of the origin of that but perhaps it is Appalachian.

 

I'm not sure what the origins are.  It is used all the time in North Iowa especially by the older folks.  I kind of wonder if it is an older German thing.  My mother's parents are both almost 100% German, and I also hear it from my gf's grandmother here in Cincinnati who is almost 100% German.

 

The other common thing you hear a lot up there is there long "ohhh" on everything like "Minnesohtah" or "Dakohtah".  The other thing that I actually think is awesome is the expression "Well isn't that for darn sure!"

 

In the movie Fargo they really took it to another level with the "Well yah darn tootin'...!" but I've never really ever heard anyone say that before, maybe only a few times.  I've heard a lot of Wisconsin people say something like "You're pulling my leg aren't ya Gary!?" but that's about as far out of the Fargo talk I've ever heard

I've noticed some Ohioans in more rural parts of NEO who pronounce wash like warsh.  I'm not sure of the origin of that but perhaps it is Appalachian.

 

I'm not sure what the origins are.  It is used all the time in North Iowa especially by the older folks.  I kind of wonder if it is an older German thing.  My mother's parents are both almost 100% German, and I also hear it from my gf's grandmother here in Cincinnati who is almost 100% German.

 

It's Scottish / Irish influence. Just think of how Scots and the Irish say "arse" with unnecessary rhoticity. It's part of the older Midland accent. My Great Grandma who just passed, used to say it all the time. Essentially it's used (although obviously almost extinct at this point) west of D.C.; Appalachia on through Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois; most of Missouri; and Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, much of Kansas and west Texas. It was very common and not exclusive to one region. I've read that it's even common in some parts of Canada where Scottish and Irish immigrants settled.

People in southern Ohio LOVE to say, "Up-Air" instead of up there. Most people would never even say 'up there' in any scenario which is why I think it stands out so much. When an appalacian person says 'up air' they're not even necessarily referring to the direction of 'up.' They're just referring to something over yonder.

I've noticed recently that I've started to use "worsh" and "innit"; I assume the first one comes from my old Pittsburgher roommate but I don't think "innit" is any sort of regional things around the Dayton area.

i thought innit comes from a British dialect

Warsh is one of those things that people say in many places, but everyone thinks it's local. Kind of like adding a possessive 's' to the names of stores like 'Kroger's' and 'Meijer's.'

 

Or calling fizzy drinks 'pop.' When I was a kid I remember being told only Clevelanders called it that when in reality it's a huge swath of the country.

I've noticed recently that I've started to use "worsh" and "innit"; I assume the first one comes from my old Pittsburgher roommate but I don't think "innit" is any sort of regional things around the Dayton area.

 

...did I miss what "innit" is?

^It's a contraction for "isn't it" but it's definitely a British thing and not an American thing so I have no clue why I started using it.

I was lost too. I've heard people say idnit but not innit. That's weird.

A lot of American Indian-English dialects use "innit", but I haven't heard it much in the Midwest.

 

There must be a term for contractions like this - they mostly seem to pop up because they require fewer mouth motions to produce the sound. Something about efficiency?

 

Isn't it --> Idnit --> Innit

very interesting wiki on the broad or general version of this topic.

 

i've heard tv news broadcaster english referred to as tiffin english because of supposedly the least accent in tiffin, ohio, but i can't find anything about that.

 

anyway, what I did find is what we think of as standard english is actually what john kenyon from medina, ohio said it was, his de facto white protestant anglo saxon northeast ohio english. however, kenyon apparently denied any real overall standard:

 

 

 

 

General American

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

General American (abbreviated as GA or GenAm) is the umbrella variety of American English—the continuum of accents[1]—commonly attributed to a majority of Americans and popularly perceived, among Americans, as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics.[2][3][4] The precise definition and usefulness of "General American" continues to be debated,[5][6][7] and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness.[5][8] Some scholars, despite controversy,[9] prefer the term Standard American English.[4][10][11]

 

Standard Canadian English is sometimes considered to fall under the phonological spectrum of General American,[11] especially rather than the United Kingdom's Received Pronunciation; in fact, spoken Canadian English aligns with General American in nearly every situation where British and American English differ.[12]

 

 

 

History and definition[edit]

The term "General American" was first disseminated by American English scholar George Philip Krapp, who, in 1925, described it as an American type of speech that was "Western" but "not local in character".[13] In 1930, American linguist John Samuel Kenyon, who largely popularized the term, considered it equivalent to the speech of "the North", or "Northern American",[13] but, in 1934, "Western and Midwestern".[14] Now, typically regarded as falling under the General American umbrella are the regional accents of the American West,[15][16] Western New England,[17] the American North Midland,[18] and arguably all of English-speaking Canada west of Quebec.[11] By 1982, according to British phonetician John C. Wells, two-thirds of the American population spoke with a General American accent.[4]

 

Once in the earlier 20th century, but no longer included since the 1960s, are the more recent regional dialects of the Mid-Atlantic United States,[19] the Inland Northern United States,[1] and Western Pennsylvania.[19] Accents that have never been included, even since the term's popularization in the 1930s, are the regional accents (especially the "r"-dropping ones) of Eastern New England, New York City, and the American South.[20] By the 2000s, American sociolinguist William Labov concluded that, if anything could be regarded as "General American", it would essentially be a convergence of those pronunciation features shared by Western American English, Midland American English, and (Standard) Canadian English.[15]

 

 

Disputed usage[edit]

 

English-language scholar William A. Kretzchmar, Jr. explains in a 2004 article that:

 

The term "General American" arose as a name for a presumed most common or "default" form of American English, especially to be distinguished from marked regional speech of New England or the South. "General American" has often been considered to be the relatively unmarked speech of "the Midwest", a vague designation for anywhere in the vast midsection of the country from Ohio west to Nebraska, and from the Canadian border as far south as Missouri or Kansas. No historical justification for this term exists, and neither do present circumstances support its use... t implies that there is some exemplary state of American English from which other varieties deviate. On the contrary, [it] can best be characterized as what is left over after speakers suppress the regional and social features that have risen to salience and become noticeable.[7]

 

Because of the privileging and prejudice possibly implied by calling one variety of American speech the "general" variety, Kretzchmar prefers the term Standard American English, claiming it is a more neutral term, describing a level of American English pronunciation "employed by educated speakers in formal settings", while still being variable within the U.S. from place to place, and even from speaker to speaker.[10] However, this term may also be problematic, since "Standard English may be taken to reflect conformance to a set of rules, but its meaning commonly gets bound up with social ideas about how one's character and education are displayed in one's speech".[10] The term Standard North American English, in an effort to incorporate Canadian speakers under the accent continuum, has also been very recently suggested by sociolinguist Charles Boberg.[11]

 

Modern language scholars discredit the original notion of General American as a single regional or unified accent, or a standardized form of English[5][8]—except perhaps as used by television networks and other mass media.[1][21] Today, the term is understood to refer to a continuum of American speech, with some slight internal variation,[5] but otherwise characterized by the absence of "marked" pronunciation features: those perceived by Americans as strongly indicative of a fellow American speaker's regional origin, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. Despite confusion arising from the evolving definition and vagueness of the term "General American" and its consequent rejection by some linguists,[22] the term persists mainly as a reference point to compare a baseline "typical" American English accent with other Englishes around the world (for instance, see: Comparison of General American and Received Pronunciation).[5]

 

Origins[edit]

Regional origins[edit]

Though General American accents are not commonly perceived as associated with any region, their sound system does, in fact, have traceable regional origins: specifically, the English of the non-coastal Northeastern United States in the very early twentieth century.[23] This includes western New England and the area to its immediate west that was itself initially settled by speakers of Western New England English:[24] interior Pennsylvania, upstate New York, and the adjacent "Midwest" or Great Lakes region. Ironically however, since the early to middle twentieth century,[1][25] deviance away from General American sounds started occurring, and is ongoing, in the eastern Great Lakes region due to its Northern Cities Vowel Shift towards a unique Inland Northern accent (often now associated with the region's urban centers, like Chicago and Detroit) and in the western Great Lakes region towards a unique North Central accent (often associated with Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota).

 

Popularity[edit]

Linguists have proposed multiple factors contributing to the popularity of rhotic General American speech throughout the United States. Most factors focus on the first half of the twentieth century, though a basic General American pattern may have existed even before the twentieth century, since most American English dialects have diverged very little from each other anyway, when compared to dialects of single languages in other countries where there has been more time for language change (such as the English dialects in England or German dialects in Germany).[26]

 

One factor fueling General American's popularity was the major demographic change of twentieth-century American society: increased suburbanization, leading to less mingling of different social classes and less density and diversity of linguistic interactions. As a result, wealthier and higher-educated Americans' communications became more restricted to their own demographic, which, alongside their new marketplace that transcended regional boundaries (arising from the century's faster transportation methods), reinforced a widespread belief that highly educated Americans should not possess a regional accent.[27] A General American sound is then the result of both suburbanization and suppression of regional accent by highly educated Americans in formal settings. A second factor was a rise in immigration to the Great Lakes area (one native region of General American speech) following the region's rapid industrialization after the American Civil War, when this region's speakers went on to form a successful and highly mobile business elite, who travelled around the country in the mid-twentieth century, spreading the high status of their accent system.[28] A third possible factor is that various sociological (often race- and class-based) forces unconsciously repelled socially-conscious Americans away from pronunciations associated with African Americans and poor white communities in the South and with Southern and Eastern European immigrant communities (for example, Russian Americans) in the coastal Northeast, instead settling upon or favoring pronunciations more prestigiously associated with White Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture in the remainder of the country: namely, the West, Midwest,[29] and western New England.[30] There's also preference towards General American over Chicano American English, where it is often portrayed negatively in the Anglo viewpoint. [31]

 

Influential to the "standardization" of General American pronunciation in writing was John Samuel Kenyon, author of American Pronunciation (1924) and pronunciation editor for the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary (1934), who used as a basis his native Midwestern (specifically, northern Ohio) pronunciation.[32] Ironically, Kenyon's home state of Ohio, far from being an area of "non-regional" English, has emerged now as a crossroads for at least four distinct regional accents, according to late twentieth-century research,[33] and Kenyon himself was vocally opposed to the notion of any supreme standard of American speech.[34]

 

 

more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American

I knew it all along. Larry the Cable Guy doesn't actually have a southern accent. He only uses it when he's putting on a show as a comedian. The camo hat never fooled me.

 

very interesting trivia!

 

 

Pocket worthyStories to fuel your mind

 

When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?

 

The absence of audio recording technology makes “when” a tough question to answer. But there are some theories as to “why.”

 

Mental Floss

Matt Soniak

 

....

 

As for the "why," though, one big factor in the divergence of the accents is rhotacism. The General American accent is rhotic and speakers pronounce the r in words such as hard. The BBC-type British accent is non-rhotic, and speakers don't pronounce the r, leaving hard sounding more like hahd. Before and during the American Revolution, the English, both in England and in the colonies, mostly spoke with a rhotic accent. We don't know much more about said accent, though. Various claims about the accents of the Appalachian Mountains, the Outer Banks, the Tidewater region and Virginia's Tangier Island sounding like an uncorrupted Elizabethan-era English accent have been busted as myths by linguists. 

 

 

more:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/when-did-americans-lose-their-british-accents?utm_source=pocket-newtab

okay, it's been a long time since I lived in NE Ohio, but I never heard of some of this stuff, like "That's Jake."  Can someone confirm the validity of this? I do remember Sweetest Day, though. Who knew it was limited to Ohio? then again maybe Machine Gun Kelly isn't the most reliable source. Most of this is pretty lame. 

 

 

I admit it; I'm old.  But am I the last person on earth to use "Wabash" as a verb?  In a recent group conversation, I said I though that someone had been "Wabashing" the soap - meaning to add water rather than more liquid soap to the dispenser. Nobody knew what I was talking about.

 

Maybe, given the choice of river name, Wabash-as-a-verb is a Midwesternism.  Wabash the soup, Wabash the coffee, etc. used to be common terms in Cleveland.

I think that's just called "put water in it" now

^ Mystery solved maybe.  Nobody Wasbashed the soap, says my wife the molecular geneticist.  The soap underwent saponification; when two similar soaps were mixed, centain molecular bonds were weakened in each. 

I'm a Hoosier who grew up along the Wabash River, not from Cleveland area, which is probably why I've never heard Wabash used as a verb -- interesting.

 

You've probably heard of Skibidi Ohio Rizz over the last few months - where Ohio means "cringe". 

 

What are some other outsider uses of Ohio or Ohio-related terms that you know of in pop/regional/urban cultures?

I've never heard "Wabash" as a verb in 4 decades of living in Cleveland, never even heard of it as a local dialectic thing until this.  Why would we adopt a river hundreds of miles away as a verb to mean "to water down"?

Most people east of I-75 and south of U.S. 30 don't even know how to pronounce it. We hired a guy from Indiana to work in Lancaster who saw a sign saying "Tecumseh" and said "You guys are going to have to help me out here". So we showed him the word Coshocton and he was like "No way" Then I busted out Tuscawaras and even the Lancaster natives couldn't to it. Then I handed the Lancaster people a piece of paper saying Wabash (after showing it to the Indiana guy). The Lancaster employees said "Uh uh" and the Indiana guy was like "Boom!"

 

So think about the Native American words can pronounce (and can't) because of where you live.

13 hours ago, GCrites said:

Most people east of I-75 and south of U.S. 30 don't even know how to pronounce it. We hired a guy from Indiana to work in Lancaster who saw a sign saying "Tecumseh" and said "You guys are going to have to help me out here". So we showed him the word Coshocton and he was like "No way" Then I busted out Tuscawaras and even the Lancaster natives couldn't to it. Then I handed the Lancaster people a piece of paper saying Wabash (after showing it to the Indiana guy). The Lancaster employees said "Uh uh" and the Indiana guy was like "Boom!"

 

So think about the Native American words can pronounce (and can't) because of where you live.

 

perpetual arguement with my spouse: LAAN-caster not lin-cister 😂

14 hours ago, X said:

I've never heard "Wabash" as a verb in 4 decades of living in Cleveland, never even heard of it as a local dialectic thing until this.  Why would we adopt a river hundreds of miles away as a verb to mean "to water down"?

 

I asked friends in Indiana, and they'd never heard of it either. A couple of us looked around the internet, and I found very few references to it in newspapers.

 

One history of the Wabash Railroad, which originally operated several lines between Toledo and St Louis/Mississippi River towns, said the term originated among railroad yard workers in East St. Louis, and meant to cram more cars into an area than it could hold. Scattered references in the late 19th Century had the general meaning "to cheat". It shows up a couple times in towns along the Wabash River, meaning to get dunked in the river.

 

One witty writer in 1953 noted concern about the "un-Wabashed" pigeons of Pittsburgh, whose home in the Wabash Terminal was soon to be demolished. 

 

But that was about it - nothing Cleveland specific, in fact, no sources from Cleveland or even Ohio. Doesn't mean people weren't saying it though. 

48 minutes ago, mrnyc said:

 

perpetual arguement with my spouse: LAAN-caster not lin-cister 😂

 

My dad said "Lang-stir" which I thought was only his thing but when I looked at the Wikipedia page "Lang-stir" was "official". But then somebody edited it so it wasn't "official" anymore.

Years ago, I was forcefully corrected when I called in "Lan-CAST-er." As in fan or man.

 

Have made sure I said "LANK-i-stir" or "LANG-stir" as Dad of @GCrites pointed out, ever since.

On 5/19/2024 at 7:48 PM, X said:

I've never heard "Wabash" as a verb in 4 decades of living in Cleveland, never even heard of it as a local dialectic thing until this.  Why would we adopt a river hundreds of miles away as a verb to mean "to water down"?

 

It was in use when I lived in Cleveland and I'm guessing I'm a lot older than you.  The headwaters of the Wabash are in Mercer County, OH.

the southern accent —

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C69VXftO1qW/?igsh=MXR6eDJsN205dm1udw==

save wuddah — classic ny 😂

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8Dg0DYs8D6/?igsh=MWZsMncydndrZmQ5dw==