Wherever the Road Leads

I installed a new video card in my computer, so y’all should be able to see this much better. That’s a computer geek joke. Much like, “There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.”

Or, “There’s no place like 127.0.0.1.” There’s a kid out there who started out life by being able to program the family VCR rolling on the floor in stitches reading this.

Okay, this is an interactive post. A little reading but mostly listening. I discovered on YouTube, a series called, “The Accent Tag”. There are a list of words and a series of questions to be answered. The idea is to hi-lite regional accents and word usage.

People from around the world post videos of themselves on YouTube pronouncing these words and answering the questions in their own accent. There are videos from Scotland, Ireland, Australia, the American South, whites, blacks, Asians and Pakistani accents.

One of the words on the list is “Alabama”. How many ways can you pronounce, or mis-pronounce, the word “Alabama”? On my recent cruise with a ship-load of New Yorkers and folks from New Jersey, I found out just how many ways the word can be butchered.

Here are the words and questions. Click on the audio icon below to hear how someone with a mongrel accent – someone of Scottish-accented parents, raised in Canada but after twenty years in the American South – can master these words and questions.

Accent Tag Audio

The audio will open in a new window. Once the audio starts,  click to come back to this page to follow along with the words and questions.

The Words:
Aunt, Roof, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught, Naturally, Aluminium, Envelope

The Questions:

1. What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
2. What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
3. What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
4. What do you call gym shoes?
5. What do you say to address a group of people?
6. What do you call the kind of spider (or spider-like creature) that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
7. What do you call your grandparents?
8. What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
9. What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
10. What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

Please feel free to comment on my pronunciation or answers!

Here’s an example of the Accent Tag on YouTube. I think this young lady is from Texas. She has a unique answer to ‘raining while the sun is shining’!