My children officially have southern accents. I had thought initially that they only spoke with accents as a goof, but slowly and steadily over the past year I’ve come to realize that no – they are pretty much just catching on to the accent.
My son doesn’t say “again,” he says, “uh-gay-un.” And he doesn’t do it as a joke.
That’s just one example. But they both regularly speak with an accent now, despite the fact that Denis and I don’t have a southern accent at all.
I’ll never forget listening to my friend’s kid come home from 1st grade when we lived in SC and talk about how they learned homonyms. My friend said, “Oh? What does that mean?” and her son continued in his darling southern accent with, “You know, words that sound the same but mean different things – like heel, heal, and hill.”
J – You DO have a southern twinge, which I heard when you called for directions that time. You might think you don’t, but oh yes, YOU DO! Plus that time when you visited NYC, the folks in my office were commenting on the southern twang then too!
After we had lived in Greensboro for a year and a half my dad would break out laughing whenever I spelled my name: ” B-ah -el -el – whah.”