Always good to see biases being recognized and broken down. My experience is in the US, where bias is primarily race rather than class, but even here accent figures prominently in that bias....
Always good to see biases being recognized and broken down.
My experience is in the US, where bias is primarily race rather than class, but even here accent figures prominently in that bias. Growing up, I was taught the "proper" way to speak which turned out to be largely programming to reject dialectic variations associated with Black culture (example: "aks" vs "ask"). I am not saying that there was a conspiracy among my English teachers, but this kind of structural reinforcement of whiteness is often how bias manifests.
One of the most eye-opening things for me was learning how challenging it can be for someone not be able to bring their whole self into a space because the default culture does not accept their culture. Being a white male, my experience in most spaces was one of comfort and acceptance, and I just assumed everyone else felt that way too.
Becoming a stay-at-home dad, I have experienced a culture not built for me for the first time in the way most programming is set up for moms or assumes that the primary parent will be the mom. Although this impacts me in the smallest of ways compared to the biases that many people experience, it has helped me have more empathy for that experience.
A book that helped me a lot is Michelle Silverthorn's Authentic Diversity. The most chilling part of the book for me is her relating a question from a young Black woman asking, "How long will I have to code switch how I talk and change how I dress and act to be accepted in the business world?" And her answer is "maybe forever". The book has excellent practical advice on how to think about diversity problems differently and how to talk to leadership about it.
I think the bias against Southern accents is also much stronger than many people think about. I've talked to plenty of academics who said they weren't taken seriously until they learned to present...
I think the bias against Southern accents is also much stronger than many people think about. I've talked to plenty of academics who said they weren't taken seriously until they learned to present their ideas with a standard Midwestern accent. There's a kind folksiness often associated with it (see The Beverly Hillbillies), but it's usually dismissed as uneducated and unrefined.
For those than come along and want further reading that solidifies the prejudices conferred alongside a Southern accent, there’s no shortage of writing from publications like The Bitter Southerner...
Exemplary
For those than come along and want further reading that solidifies the prejudices conferred alongside a Southern accent, there’s no shortage of writing from publications like The Bitter Southerner and Salvation South about accent and its implications. See: With Drawl
I can personally say I was never more aware of my accent than when I moved to the north. I really questioned whether I actually sound like that. Then I quickly learned a different delivery to make my origins less obvious, mainly so in a professional setting I could minimize any preconceived notions.
Truthfully, when making first introductions, “You don’t sound like you’re from Louisiana” and “Where’s your accent, then?” are two questions that make me bristle like no other. I’m sure the inquirer has given virtually no thought to what they expect the answer to be. They probably don’t want to hear “The bias and shame I thought you’d bestow upon me has led me to suppress it.” Or, “my accent isn’t that strong anyway, and most any southerner could tell you that living in the south doesn’t mean you have an accent.” Or, perhaps the most honest, “I don’t know you, and that part of me is not for you.” Lifting a nice quote from a Salvation South post, I am currently going with “an accent can betray the wrong information.”
This weekend was the first time I’ve met someone outside of the south who asked me immediately “where’s that accent from?” They were from the Carolinas, and somehow clocked it immediately. It was a nice reassurance that, when I’m comfortable, that part of me still comes out.
I think the only time that, "you don't sound like you are from atlanta" made me bristle is when some lady absolutely insisted I was lieing about it cause she was there for three days and they all...
I think the only time that, "you don't sound like you are from atlanta" made me bristle is when some lady absolutely insisted I was lieing about it cause she was there for three days and they all had southern accents. And I'm pretty sure she honestly thought I was lieing and that her 3 days experience was obviously enough to know that no one could possibly be from atlanta and not have a southern accent. LIke why the fuck would I lie about being from Atlanta (also I noticed I only got these comments when I was visiting my grandparents up north east)?
Otherwise for me I found it pretty hilarious how northerners would be surprised I was from Atlanta (oddly enough, people from the south have said they can hear a small accent in how I talk but it is southerners who can detect it). Granted it only came up when I'd hear them talking about how they visited the south and the crazy accent they had so I always felt I had to chime in (on the other hand this was a conversation that came up enough that it wasn't just a one time thing).
(no, I've never tried to change my accent... just neither of my parents actually were from the south, I just grew up in it cause that's where they settled after I existed so I grew up in it).
TBF, I never was proud about being from the south though so I was happy people couldn't tell. But I totally can see the bias (I was ranting with a kid who was from alabama when we both were waiting to get on the plane for an exchange student to france thing about how everyone thinks we should have southern accens and assumes we are all farm people if they hear it).
I've lived in the PNW now for about as long as I've lived in the South and have yet to have one person be shocked I don't have an accent. It seems to be a very northeastern thing to assume we all have accents.
Absolutely right about the southern accent (outside the South, at least). I grew up in East Texas, rife with strong accents. For whatever reason, I don't have much accent myself. Once I was back...
Absolutely right about the southern accent (outside the South, at least).
I grew up in East Texas, rife with strong accents. For whatever reason, I don't have much accent myself. Once I was back visiting my high school, and was talking with one of the administrators (who was a truly lovely person).
Since I was one of the strongest students academically to come out of the school, she said, "I want the new headmaster to meet you. He thinks we're all just a bunch of hicks." So when I went in, I put on the strongest possible Texas accent for the whole interaction. We both managed to keep a straight face, but I thought she was going to burst.
I’m not even from US and I picked up on that bias subconsciously just through the TV and films that made it to Australia. I know growing up I always disliked the “tall poppy syndrome” around...
I’m not even from US and I picked up on that bias subconsciously just through the TV and films that made it to Australia.
I know growing up I always disliked the “tall poppy syndrome” around intellectual pursuits, and I ended up associating it with the “bogan” accent, so I ended up shaping my own accent to be less country and more city, but I didn’t realise I also had tied that bias to the southern US accents too...
When I first started watching Smarter Every Day, I genuinely had trouble accepting that this person with a strong southern accent could be as interested in science and engineering as I was, because it was so outside my experiences at that stage, but I’m grateful that watching their videos because they were interesting and compelling has helped me break down the bias that I held.
If it comes as any comfort, passively absorbing biases from media about a people you have never interacted with is different from exhibiting those biases against real-life people when you meet...
If it comes as any comfort, passively absorbing biases from media about a people you have never interacted with is different from exhibiting those biases against real-life people when you meet them face-to-face. The first few times you meet a person from Culture X, they are such a novelty that you focus on the person in front of you and take them at face value.
The real problem comes when you have myriad small exposure to Culture X. The exposure is too limited to notice what they are really like as individuals, but it's too frequent for you to find them interesting enough to assess them as individuals.
I am an American Southerner (I grew up in Tennessee and Georgia) who now lives in Australia. My experience is that, while Australians are well aware of Southern stereotypes as they are presented in US media, they never treat me like I am that stereotype. They are always very willing to see me as I am and are not surprised to learn that I do not match the stereotype (for example, that I am an atheist raised by atheists and that even my assorted elderly family members living in log cabins in scattered hollows of the Appalachian mountains fiercely despise Trump, support trans rights, oppose racism, etc.). Americans by and large have a much harder time ignoring the stereotype than Australians do.
It goes the other way as well. I had heard many stereotypes about bogans before I ever stepped foot in Oz, but because I'd never met one before I came here and was honestly pretty iffy at even identifying them, it was very easy to forget the media depictions and just take people as they were. I've been in Australia for 12 years now, and I have never acquired any bias against bogans — nor any bias toward or against any other Australian socioeconomic class — because it's been my overwhelming experience that, no matter what a given Australian may look like or sound like or dress like, I can't actually reliably predict what they will be like.
And yet, when I encounter another American, I immediately pick their socioeconomic class and find myself thinking about them differently because of it (something I try very actively to resist, but it takes work) unless they're from the small handful of cultures I have more extensive prior experience with — but that's honestly exceedingly rare, since I grew up in some very poor communities, and people from those socioeconomic backgrounds mostly don't/can't travel to Australia.
The retirees from New York think all the locals here in NC are idiots. I was visiting some in-laws (retirees from New York) in a 55+ community and legitimately heard some old bat by the pool say...
The retirees from New York think all the locals here in NC are idiots. I was visiting some in-laws (retirees from New York) in a 55+ community and legitimately heard some old bat by the pool say "the country bumpkins around here are so charming, you can really tell that they are trying hard when you talk to them"
My father's family moved around when he and his siblings grew up, living throughout the rust belt and into the coastal plains of the mid Atlantic. Each of my aunt's and uncles had a unique...
My father's family moved around when he and his siblings grew up, living throughout the rust belt and into the coastal plains of the mid Atlantic. Each of my aunt's and uncles had a unique dialect, from "God's English" from parochial school in Detroit to Baltimore mush mouth. When I grew up, we were fairly strictly taught "God's English" which was reinforced in Bible school, but because we lived in rural unincorporated areas I also picked up a lot of rural farm speak (northern, not southern). So I've picked up multiple dialects of English from my childhood and family.
It's been quite a gift to be able to walk into court and speak perfectly accepted proper English, and walk into a rural rest stop and adopt a rural affect and blend in. I can disappear into just about any social environment by changing my clothes and dialect.
Conversely, I know a number of folks who have tried their best without success to hide their rural accents because of how it is interpreted in urban areas, and aave speakers have it just as bad or worse.
It's sad how quickly people find any reason to jump to conclusions about others.
As someone who isn't in the upper class or in media, it was a surprise to me years ago to find out that some people train to learn an accent instead of using the one they were born with. These...
As someone who isn't in the upper class or in media, it was a surprise to me years ago to find out that some people train to learn an accent instead of using the one they were born with. These accents come in and out of favor I guess, like the Mid-Atlantic accent you hear in American broadcasts from the 1940s.
But upper class people will always want to have something to separate themselves from the masses, so if Received Pronunciation wanes I'm sure there will be a replacement.
As other comments in the thread mention, I think it's more often that people want to fit in, so they ditch their "unrefined" accents. There are definitely prestige languages and accents in some...
As other comments in the thread mention, I think it's more often that people want to fit in, so they ditch their "unrefined" accents. There are definitely prestige languages and accents in some regions, but that feels distinct.
This isn't even something limited to the media or upper-classes. I'm white and from the suburbs in Northeast Ohio, so my dialect is very close to the "standard" in ways that mean I don't have to...
This isn't even something limited to the media or upper-classes. I'm white and from the suburbs in Northeast Ohio, so my dialect is very close to the "standard" in ways that mean I don't have to consciously unlearn the dialect I grew up with. But even I have been subtly influenced by those around me in order to sound less regional -- when I moved to a city where people said "soda" rather than "pop", I mostly switched over. My dialect pronounces the "short a" sound (as in "cat") in a particularly distinctive way, which I've toned down since moving away.
And I'm a linguist, so I've had "all dialects are equally valid and only culture and prejudice is why some are seen as better or worse" drilled into my head. Imagine how hard it is for a poor black kid who grew up speaking AAVE (short for "African American Vernacular English"), who's gone through their whole life being told that way of speaking is wrong and makes them stupid.
Interestingly, this seems to be happening everywhere due to the Internet! Not that accents are dead obviously, but more and more people speak with blended accents from multiple regions. Here's a...
But even I have been subtly influenced by those around me in order to sound less regional
Interestingly, this seems to be happening everywhere due to the Internet! Not that accents are dead obviously, but more and more people speak with blended accents from multiple regions.
My southern accent only comes out when talking to other southerners. It's not wise to have a distinct southern accent when working in tech, especially a company based in California.
My southern accent only comes out when talking to other southerners. It's not wise to have a distinct southern accent when working in tech, especially a company based in California.
Ain't that the truth. Bless their heart, folk from the coasts can't help but assume everyone from the South is a raging bigot. It drives me up a wall sometimes!
Ain't that the truth. Bless their heart, folk from the coasts can't help but assume everyone from the South is a raging bigot. It drives me up a wall sometimes!
I hope this is tongue-in-cheek, but if not, you realize you're using a known [southern] insult on a group of people whom you've made broad assumptions about as a way to express displeasure that...
Bless their heart, folk from the coasts can't help but assume everyone from the South is a raging bigot.
I hope this is tongue-in-cheek, but if not, you realize you're using a known [southern] insult on a group of people whom you've made broad assumptions about as a way to express displeasure that they make broad assumptions about groups of people...
It seems pretty obviously facetious. There’s a kernel of truth there, of course, but I sincerely doubt that they earnestly believe that everyone on both coasts thinks all southerners are bigots.
It seems pretty obviously facetious. There’s a kernel of truth there, of course, but I sincerely doubt that they earnestly believe that everyone on both coasts thinks all southerners are bigots.
Well can't speak about southern accents etc., but my north-eastern accent along with spanish inspired mother tongue with a bunch of Italian talk - i get stares when i ask for coffee when am...
Well can't speak about southern accents etc., but my north-eastern accent along with spanish inspired mother tongue with a bunch of Italian talk - i get stares when i ask for coffee when am outside my area - mistakes have been made let alone if i ask for half-n-half; apparently nobody knows what that is outside of the metro ny area.
Okay half & half is definitely a think outside of metro NY, I'm familiar with it from growing up in the Cleveland suburbs. People are either being assholes to you or genuinely not understanding...
Okay half & half is definitely a think outside of metro NY, I'm familiar with it from growing up in the Cleveland suburbs. People are either being assholes to you or genuinely not understanding what you say, because that's a pretty normal term throughout the US.
That said, I'm an American living in Germany and I once got a black coffee when I was trying to order a Coke Zero so.
Agreed, it could be me being the idiot so can't take that away from the equation. I have learned to use the word "cream" outside the metro ny area. That seems to be the term everyone understands.
Agreed, it could be me being the idiot so can't take that away from the equation. I have learned to use the word "cream" outside the metro ny area. That seems to be the term everyone understands.
I mean, I didn't want to outright call you an idiot... ;) No, half and half is a totally normal name. Like, I guess "coffee and cream" is a thing, but I don't think people usually call it just...
I mean, I didn't want to outright call you an idiot...
;)
No, half and half is a totally normal name. Like, I guess "coffee and cream" is a thing, but I don't think people usually call it just "cream" elsewhere. Half and half is a specific product that is distinct from products with "cream" in their names, and those are usually not used with coffee. In the US, the only accurate, descriptive coffee-mixing-liquids I would expect are half and half and creamers. If someone told me they did not know what half and half is, honestly, I'd think they were a bit of a dummy.
Yeah, if you order a coffee with cream where I’m from, you’re generally getting half -n-half rather than light or heavy cream (I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone put actual cream in a coffee). If...
Yeah, if you order a coffee with cream where I’m from, you’re generally getting half
-n-half rather than light or heavy cream (I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone put actual cream in a coffee). If you ask for half-n-half, people will 100% know what you’re asking for though.
Always good to see biases being recognized and broken down.
My experience is in the US, where bias is primarily race rather than class, but even here accent figures prominently in that bias. Growing up, I was taught the "proper" way to speak which turned out to be largely programming to reject dialectic variations associated with Black culture (example: "aks" vs "ask"). I am not saying that there was a conspiracy among my English teachers, but this kind of structural reinforcement of whiteness is often how bias manifests.
One of the most eye-opening things for me was learning how challenging it can be for someone not be able to bring their whole self into a space because the default culture does not accept their culture. Being a white male, my experience in most spaces was one of comfort and acceptance, and I just assumed everyone else felt that way too.
Becoming a stay-at-home dad, I have experienced a culture not built for me for the first time in the way most programming is set up for moms or assumes that the primary parent will be the mom. Although this impacts me in the smallest of ways compared to the biases that many people experience, it has helped me have more empathy for that experience.
A book that helped me a lot is Michelle Silverthorn's Authentic Diversity. The most chilling part of the book for me is her relating a question from a young Black woman asking, "How long will I have to code switch how I talk and change how I dress and act to be accepted in the business world?" And her answer is "maybe forever". The book has excellent practical advice on how to think about diversity problems differently and how to talk to leadership about it.
I think the bias against Southern accents is also much stronger than many people think about. I've talked to plenty of academics who said they weren't taken seriously until they learned to present their ideas with a standard Midwestern accent. There's a kind folksiness often associated with it (see The Beverly Hillbillies), but it's usually dismissed as uneducated and unrefined.
For those than come along and want further reading that solidifies the prejudices conferred alongside a Southern accent, there’s no shortage of writing from publications like The Bitter Southerner and Salvation South about accent and its implications. See:
With Drawl
Southern Accents and That Nashville Sound
Dialect Stalkers
I can personally say I was never more aware of my accent than when I moved to the north. I really questioned whether I actually sound like that. Then I quickly learned a different delivery to make my origins less obvious, mainly so in a professional setting I could minimize any preconceived notions.
Truthfully, when making first introductions, “You don’t sound like you’re from Louisiana” and “Where’s your accent, then?” are two questions that make me bristle like no other. I’m sure the inquirer has given virtually no thought to what they expect the answer to be. They probably don’t want to hear “The bias and shame I thought you’d bestow upon me has led me to suppress it.” Or, “my accent isn’t that strong anyway, and most any southerner could tell you that living in the south doesn’t mean you have an accent.” Or, perhaps the most honest, “I don’t know you, and that part of me is not for you.” Lifting a nice quote from a Salvation South post, I am currently going with “an accent can betray the wrong information.”
This weekend was the first time I’ve met someone outside of the south who asked me immediately “where’s that accent from?” They were from the Carolinas, and somehow clocked it immediately. It was a nice reassurance that, when I’m comfortable, that part of me still comes out.
I think the only time that, "you don't sound like you are from atlanta" made me bristle is when some lady absolutely insisted I was lieing about it cause she was there for three days and they all had southern accents. And I'm pretty sure she honestly thought I was lieing and that her 3 days experience was obviously enough to know that no one could possibly be from atlanta and not have a southern accent. LIke why the fuck would I lie about being from Atlanta (also I noticed I only got these comments when I was visiting my grandparents up north east)?
Otherwise for me I found it pretty hilarious how northerners would be surprised I was from Atlanta (oddly enough, people from the south have said they can hear a small accent in how I talk but it is southerners who can detect it). Granted it only came up when I'd hear them talking about how they visited the south and the crazy accent they had so I always felt I had to chime in (on the other hand this was a conversation that came up enough that it wasn't just a one time thing).
(no, I've never tried to change my accent... just neither of my parents actually were from the south, I just grew up in it cause that's where they settled after I existed so I grew up in it).
TBF, I never was proud about being from the south though so I was happy people couldn't tell. But I totally can see the bias (I was ranting with a kid who was from alabama when we both were waiting to get on the plane for an exchange student to france thing about how everyone thinks we should have southern accens and assumes we are all farm people if they hear it).
I've lived in the PNW now for about as long as I've lived in the South and have yet to have one person be shocked I don't have an accent. It seems to be a very northeastern thing to assume we all have accents.
Absolutely right about the southern accent (outside the South, at least).
I grew up in East Texas, rife with strong accents. For whatever reason, I don't have much accent myself. Once I was back visiting my high school, and was talking with one of the administrators (who was a truly lovely person).
Since I was one of the strongest students academically to come out of the school, she said, "I want the new headmaster to meet you. He thinks we're all just a bunch of hicks." So when I went in, I put on the strongest possible Texas accent for the whole interaction. We both managed to keep a straight face, but I thought she was going to burst.
I’m not even from US and I picked up on that bias subconsciously just through the TV and films that made it to Australia.
I know growing up I always disliked the “tall poppy syndrome” around intellectual pursuits, and I ended up associating it with the “bogan” accent, so I ended up shaping my own accent to be less country and more city, but I didn’t realise I also had tied that bias to the southern US accents too...
When I first started watching Smarter Every Day, I genuinely had trouble accepting that this person with a strong southern accent could be as interested in science and engineering as I was, because it was so outside my experiences at that stage, but I’m grateful that watching their videos because they were interesting and compelling has helped me break down the bias that I held.
If it comes as any comfort, passively absorbing biases from media about a people you have never interacted with is different from exhibiting those biases against real-life people when you meet them face-to-face. The first few times you meet a person from Culture X, they are such a novelty that you focus on the person in front of you and take them at face value.
The real problem comes when you have myriad small exposure to Culture X. The exposure is too limited to notice what they are really like as individuals, but it's too frequent for you to find them interesting enough to assess them as individuals.
I am an American Southerner (I grew up in Tennessee and Georgia) who now lives in Australia. My experience is that, while Australians are well aware of Southern stereotypes as they are presented in US media, they never treat me like I am that stereotype. They are always very willing to see me as I am and are not surprised to learn that I do not match the stereotype (for example, that I am an atheist raised by atheists and that even my assorted elderly family members living in log cabins in scattered hollows of the Appalachian mountains fiercely despise Trump, support trans rights, oppose racism, etc.). Americans by and large have a much harder time ignoring the stereotype than Australians do.
It goes the other way as well. I had heard many stereotypes about bogans before I ever stepped foot in Oz, but because I'd never met one before I came here and was honestly pretty iffy at even identifying them, it was very easy to forget the media depictions and just take people as they were. I've been in Australia for 12 years now, and I have never acquired any bias against bogans — nor any bias toward or against any other Australian socioeconomic class — because it's been my overwhelming experience that, no matter what a given Australian may look like or sound like or dress like, I can't actually reliably predict what they will be like.
And yet, when I encounter another American, I immediately pick their socioeconomic class and find myself thinking about them differently because of it (something I try very actively to resist, but it takes work) unless they're from the small handful of cultures I have more extensive prior experience with — but that's honestly exceedingly rare, since I grew up in some very poor communities, and people from those socioeconomic backgrounds mostly don't/can't travel to Australia.
The retirees from New York think all the locals here in NC are idiots. I was visiting some in-laws (retirees from New York) in a 55+ community and legitimately heard some old bat by the pool say "the country bumpkins around here are so charming, you can really tell that they are trying hard when you talk to them"
I wanted to firebomb their golf carts.
My father's family moved around when he and his siblings grew up, living throughout the rust belt and into the coastal plains of the mid Atlantic. Each of my aunt's and uncles had a unique dialect, from "God's English" from parochial school in Detroit to Baltimore mush mouth. When I grew up, we were fairly strictly taught "God's English" which was reinforced in Bible school, but because we lived in rural unincorporated areas I also picked up a lot of rural farm speak (northern, not southern). So I've picked up multiple dialects of English from my childhood and family.
It's been quite a gift to be able to walk into court and speak perfectly accepted proper English, and walk into a rural rest stop and adopt a rural affect and blend in. I can disappear into just about any social environment by changing my clothes and dialect.
Conversely, I know a number of folks who have tried their best without success to hide their rural accents because of how it is interpreted in urban areas, and aave speakers have it just as bad or worse.
It's sad how quickly people find any reason to jump to conclusions about others.
As someone who isn't in the upper class or in media, it was a surprise to me years ago to find out that some people train to learn an accent instead of using the one they were born with. These accents come in and out of favor I guess, like the Mid-Atlantic accent you hear in American broadcasts from the 1940s.
But upper class people will always want to have something to separate themselves from the masses, so if Received Pronunciation wanes I'm sure there will be a replacement.
As other comments in the thread mention, I think it's more often that people want to fit in, so they ditch their "unrefined" accents. There are definitely prestige languages and accents in some regions, but that feels distinct.
This isn't even something limited to the media or upper-classes. I'm white and from the suburbs in Northeast Ohio, so my dialect is very close to the "standard" in ways that mean I don't have to consciously unlearn the dialect I grew up with. But even I have been subtly influenced by those around me in order to sound less regional -- when I moved to a city where people said "soda" rather than "pop", I mostly switched over. My dialect pronounces the "short a" sound (as in "cat") in a particularly distinctive way, which I've toned down since moving away.
And I'm a linguist, so I've had "all dialects are equally valid and only culture and prejudice is why some are seen as better or worse" drilled into my head. Imagine how hard it is for a poor black kid who grew up speaking AAVE (short for "African American Vernacular English"), who's gone through their whole life being told that way of speaking is wrong and makes them stupid.
Interestingly, this seems to be happening everywhere due to the Internet! Not that accents are dead obviously, but more and more people speak with blended accents from multiple regions.
Here's a video about Southern accents fading: https://youtu.be/97T8VpFGS4A?si=l97_2Gm0NdAP3iEj
My southern accent only comes out when talking to other southerners. It's not wise to have a distinct southern accent when working in tech, especially a company based in California.
Ain't that the truth. Bless their heart, folk from the coasts can't help but assume everyone from the South is a raging bigot. It drives me up a wall sometimes!
I find it funny that this comment is very technically bigoted.
The humor is multilayered.
I hope this is tongue-in-cheek, but if not, you realize you're using a known [southern] insult on a group of people whom you've made broad assumptions about as a way to express displeasure that they make broad assumptions about groups of people...
It seems pretty obviously facetious. There’s a kernel of truth there, of course, but I sincerely doubt that they earnestly believe that everyone on both coasts thinks all southerners are bigots.
Archive link
I see where it talks about accents making the top 10 and bottom 10 list, but the article that it links seems to only mention five British accents.
Here is the actual source: https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/70872/Sharma%2050%20years%20of%20British%20accent%20bias%20Stability%20and%20lifespan%20change%20in%20attitudes%20to%20accents%202021%20Accepted.pdf?sequence=5
The formatting was crewed up when I tried to copy paste the list but you can find it midway through the article.
Well can't speak about southern accents etc., but my north-eastern accent along with spanish inspired mother tongue with a bunch of Italian talk - i get stares when i ask for coffee when am outside my area - mistakes have been made let alone if i ask for half-n-half; apparently nobody knows what that is outside of the metro ny area.
Okay half & half is definitely a think outside of metro NY, I'm familiar with it from growing up in the Cleveland suburbs. People are either being assholes to you or genuinely not understanding what you say, because that's a pretty normal term throughout the US.
That said, I'm an American living in Germany and I once got a black coffee when I was trying to order a Coke Zero so.
How did you manage that? Their term for Coke is just Cola.
I still have no idea. I don't remember exactly what I said, my best guess is I said "Cola Zero" but it was hard to hear.
Everyone knows what half and half is. You must be dealing with idiots...or maybe your accent is just that unusual?
Agreed, it could be me being the idiot so can't take that away from the equation. I have learned to use the word "cream" outside the metro ny area. That seems to be the term everyone understands.
I mean, I didn't want to outright call you an idiot...
;)
No, half and half is a totally normal name. Like, I guess "coffee and cream" is a thing, but I don't think people usually call it just "cream" elsewhere. Half and half is a specific product that is distinct from products with "cream" in their names, and those are usually not used with coffee. In the US, the only accurate, descriptive coffee-mixing-liquids I would expect are half and half and creamers. If someone told me they did not know what half and half is, honestly, I'd think they were a bit of a dummy.
Yeah, if you order a coffee with cream where I’m from, you’re generally getting half
-n-half rather than light or heavy cream (I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone put actual cream in a coffee). If you ask for half-n-half, people will 100% know what you’re asking for though.