Looks like my mom’s mom was enjoying herself on her trip to Puerto Vallarta with my parents. Sarah and I are jealous that we have to wait until December for our next visit.
[linguistic dorkiness warning]
In other news: check out this link:
http://accent.gmu.edu
I’ve always maintained that my in-laws have a more southerly accent than the people I grew up with around Detroit. Compare this guy with this one. The first one is a middle-aged man from Detroit (who is also a native speaker of a large ethnic group in the Detroit area — can you hear it?), and the second one a 21-year-old man from St. Louis, MO (they don’t have a sample from Kansas City…how about it, Po & Susie?). Hear the southernness in the ‘oo’ vowels? I think it’s different, but even more southern-sounding as you head west across Missouri. Or how about this guy, from Wichita, KS? The accent my in-laws have is probably an average between the St. Louis and Wichita speakers…which makes a lot of sense, geographically.
I could spend all day on that site. I’ve pretty much got the sample text memorized already.
This reminds me of a coworker from Oshkosh (Minnesota, don’t ya know). He was laughing at the memory of a viewing of “Fargo” in Oshkosh a few years back. Everyone in the theater was laughing at the accents in the movie! He did the best imitation of the locals laughing at a similar (if not identical, in my mind) accent.