|
You Say Drinking Fountain, We Say Bubbler
I've lived in Wisconsin all of my life, so I don't naturally perceive myself as having an "accent". So, when I go away for a week or so, I listen carefully when I come home. Think Midwestern twang, with a bit (or in some places, more than a bit) of German accent. It's not easy being us - in order to speak you simultaneously emit air through your nose (for the twang) and through the the back of your throat by way of your diaphragm (for the gutteral German thing). Here's an example of what you might hear when you order a brat - "Onion und kraut wit dat eh?" (You would like to have onion and saurkraut on your bratwurst sandwich, isn't that correct?). The "eh" comes, I suppose, as a result of Wisconsin being relatively close to Canada. It seems that the farther north you go, the more often you hear "eh" to signify a period or question mark at the end of a sentence. Notice that in the preceding example, there's no comma, and therefore no pause, between "dat" and "eh". "Dat eh" is nearly run together in everyday speech.
__________________
Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
Last edited by MrKhay : 12-21-2007 at 03:37 PM.
Reason: font change
|