So my use of Cockney rhyming slang has started a hare running in my brain.
In the UK we have a number of nicknames- non pejorative and not racially based - for people who come from certain areas.
So a Cockney is from the east end of London, traditionally born within the sound of Bow bells but extended a bit now.
A Geordie hails from Newcastle-upon- Tyne
A Brummie from Birmingham ( pronounced Birminggum)
A Scouser from Liverpool. Scouse is the accent and also a sort of hotpot.
I was wondering if there is anything similar in the US.
not the US, but in Oz we have:
Sandgropers - someone from Western Australia
Crow eater - someone from South Australia
Banana bender - someone from Queensland
Top Ender or Territorian - someone from the Northern Territory
Tassie or Taswegian - someone from Tasmania
I can't recall the colloquial terms for people from New South Wales and Victoria. Generally in the West (where I hail from) they are often called Eastern Staters or something less polite.
In the US.
I'm not aware of any nicknames for people from different regions other than the name of the region itself.
You can generally tell where someone is from by their accent. A southerner is going to have the southern drawl. Someone from the northeast, New England area, isn't going to pronounce their "R's" The midwest is said by many not to have an accent that is why there are a lot of call centers in the midwestern states.
I'll just say (as someone from New Orleans) that there are a lot of different Southern accents. New Orleans classic city accent could be Brooklyn. North Mississippi and East Texas sound nothing alike. I can hear a difference between Massachusetts and Connecticut, but I can't articulate exactly what.
Vienna German and "German German" (meaning north central Germany) are *way* different. You'll hear tourists from Berlin or Hamburg in Vienna complaining that "nobody here speaks German".
Quote from: DoctorM on August 29, 2021, 09:09:30 AM
I'll just say (as someone from New Orleans) that there are a lot of different Southern accents. New Orleans classic city accent could be Brooklyn. North Mississippi and East Texas sound nothing alike. I can hear a difference between Massachusetts and Connecticut, but I can't articulate exactly what.
Vienna German and "German German" (meaning north central Germany) are *way* different. You'll hear tourists from Berlin or Hamburg in Vienna complaining that "nobody here speaks German".
And the accent you hear in the Tidewater area isn't like either north Mississippi or east Texas, LOL. The "old Charleston" accent has almost died out, but it's a thing unto itself.
Speaking of which and back on topic, someone from the coast of South Carolina is called a sandlapper. (There's a little sea bird with that name, and I think the bird loaned the name to the people.)
"Sandlapper" is cool!
My DD2 spent several years living near Stuttgart in South Germany where there is a strong local dialect known as Swabisch.
Some years later, after she had returned to live on the UK, she visited Berlin. The waiter in a restaurant refused to believe she was English on the grounds that " No foreigner could speak German that badly."
My British friend, who moved back across the pond six months ago, came back to her old haunts in her So Cal on vacation. It was lovely to see her yesterday. I was surprised that her accent had not gotten any thicker in the six months. She smiled happily and just told me that she had never lost her home British accent and we had just gotten use to it in all the years she had lived here in California.
P.S. I asked her if she understood "Half-Inched" , she instantly said "Ah- Pinched- that's Cockney!" That gave me a good laugh.
Quote from: revanne on August 29, 2021, 03:30:59 PM
My DD2 spent several years living near Stuttgart in South Germany where there is a strong local dialect known as Swabisch.
Some years later, after she had returned to live on the UK, she visited Berlin. The waiter in a restaurant refused to believe she was English on the grounds that " No foreigner could speak German that badly."
Great story!
it occurs to me that folk in the south sometimes refer to people on the Atlantic seaboard and parts just west of there as "Yankees." No one really means anything mean by it anymore except perhaps with the same friendly rivalry you'd use against an opposing sports team.
I grew up in the west, but I had a speech impediment where I couldn't pronounce my "R"s, and people would ask me if I were from Boston, on account of that dropped Rs like the way the Kennedys spoke.