who the hell in dc has come up with this hair brained lunatic deal, was it 0's wife?. southerners are proud independent people as I found living in the se for 13 years. those who don't necessarily use it will turn it on full force, I hope.

Dahntahn to cheer on the STILLERS!

Pittsburgh, and yes, Maine... are the most difficult accents to cover ...yins goin dahntahn??

Don't you know.

That's funny. It makes you unique allosaur. Anyone ever suggest you get speech therapy?

Darn tootin'

Did you need a passport???:-)

Being from Pittsburgh I know what you mean. We pronounce certain words differently like melk(milk). I never thought it was a big deal.

I learned that trick watching the Andy Griffith show

Some accents cannot be learned from voice coaches. My particular example is the Maine accent, especially the word usually transcribed as "ayup" that means yes or agreement. That word, and perhaps a few other Maine localisms, is an ingressive pulmonic acquired in childhood. It is not in the repertoire of the voice coach. Extremely few languages have words spoken while breathing in, instead of out. Maine's "ayup" is one of those words.

A deliberate slam on a certain demographic that our real-life Mister Thompson cannot reach and might never reach.

In his column Todd Starns says, "Bless their hearts." When I moved from UpNorth to DownSouth I quickly learned that is a polite phrase that's used in place of some coarser phrase that could have been used instead.

Local accent is particularly handy for hiding one's education. Sometimes it's not immediately obvious that the ignorant-sounding redneck has a PhD in mathematics, or mechanical engineering, or both. Perhaps he likes it that way.

You're a theatre person.

NO KIDDING!!!
When I first moved from my hometown ( just south of Fargo, ND) to Phoenix, people kept asking me which country I was from!?!
I'd reply: " I'm frum da hostile forin cuntry of Meenesota!"

I am guessing that would have been a huge story.
I am also guessing that the organizers would be racist and insensitive.

I have a mixed accent, having been born in Massachusetts and raised by Yankees in Alabama near the Florida and Georgia state lines. Rednecks can hear me talk Yankee. Worse, I can hear myself talk Yankee. Yankees hear me talk with a Southern drawl. Worse, at those times I can hear the drawl come out of me and I can't really stop it. Back in the 80s I won a stuffed animal from an accent expert at a county fair. He could not figure out where the heck I came from.

I bet you get some interesting looks. I'm not sure how they thought they could offer this class and no one would be insulted.

For me, it isn't the accent, it's the grammar.

Or others who do not speak understandable English and who work with the public....

I'm afraid I do the same thing.

LOL

In my youth I moved from Ohio to Texas. I was promptly taught there was nothing wrong with a Yankee that a couple of years in Texas couldn't fix. I 'magine that's so.

Now that I'm back in Ohio I have found Yankees think people with southern accents are not as smart as people from the north. I have used this to great advantage in negotiations. I love an ambush! That moment when all the bright people in the room discover they have been out flanked by someone that seemed so...dim.

Truly, that prejudice is no less discriminating than any other.

I always liked a southern drawl. Why would we want to get rid of it?

That is correct. Thou (now completely out of use except in the Bible) was once the common but respectful form of "you", where you was a familiar form.

I wonder what would have happened if they offered to help Mexicans get rid of their accent?