Twelve Black Code Monkeys

I grew up in Manhattan in New York City, but whenever I would tell people this who were not New Yorkers they would be dubious because they said I had no “accent.” I suppose they were thinking of the typical New Yorker accent that you hear in movies which is probably more of a Brooklyn or Bronx accent. Manhattanites generally don’t speak that way.

Talking to friends and relatives I’ve discovered that I have or had certain peculiarities in the way I talked that seemed a bit odd to them, and one friend actually said he thought he could tell I was from New York, but I’m don’t know, I think some of these things may be my own inventions or just regional phrases. Ok, so for example, growing up I always pronounced “typewriter” as “type – uh- write –er.” Another phrase I use is “on line” in the usage “waiting on line” to get into a movie, etc. Apparently another way to say it is to wait IN line. Waiting IN line doesn’t sound strange to me, but waiting ON line comes out of my mouth naturally without thinking.

Blogging Burt passed on this little linguistic quiz from blogthings.com, which I thought looked interesting and so took the quiz myself. According to this I’m mostly general American English (thus the surprise that some have that I’m from New York) and only 25% Yankee. I’m also 10% Dixie, which is not a huge surprise since I’ve been living or studying in Virginia, DC, and Maryland for the last 13+ years. Not that a test like this is going to be all THAT accurate, since it only has 20 questions in it, but it’s still fun to take:

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?