Southern culture on the skids......literally

WTF? A guy at work told me about this, and I just had to research it.
Sure enough, Oak Ridge Laboratory briefly had an idea of teaching Southerners how to "talk right"
so they would be taken more seriously. Are you fucking kidding me? Dear mother-of-god imagine if anybody even THOUGHT about suggesting other cultural groups be taught the proper way to talk the world as we know it would implode. True, a Southerner suggested it. But the fact that any company would even consider this for more than five seconds amazes me.

The "Southern accent" is already on the way out the door with a quickness. I live here - my family members are married to Southerners, and my kids' friends are Southerners who sound nothing like their parents.

http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/oak-ridge-cancels-class-reduce-southern-accents-24758844

You know you sound like retards.

Define "you". I'm a Yankee by birth. What people say is more important than how they sound IMO.
That said, many Asian accents kick my ass all up and down the street. And Ebonics at a fast pace throws me for a loop.

I'm happy California English is replacing regional accents due to the power of the media. Hopefully it kills ebonics as well.

Midwestern English is still the standard in the news media, yanno.

Welcome back, motherfucka!

Really, now. Got the guts to say the same thing to some inner-city black kids?

"Whah you is!" "What it do!"

You think they don't sound like fuckin' mongoloids? Bet you haven't got the cheese to tell them that shit!

It's funny how you guys are against bigots...

Then when it comes to the south you are the biggest bigots imaginable.

There's a word for that.

(of course it's the same word that describes most of your ideology if you look even a little closely at it)

You moron...

Inner city blacks are not on the "Approved to be a bigot against" list.

I'm fine with calling ebonics sufferers idiots. I have many faults, ask any one, but not speaking my mind has never been one of them.

The purpose of language is to communicate. If someone can't understand you, you're not getting your point across.

What you speak when you're with your family and your friends is your business. What you speak on a job interview or in any other venue where you expect to be taken seriously needs above all to be understood. If that means cleaving to Midwestern Standard for that instance, then it's as important as showing up in business attire instead of cut-offs and flip-flops.

I suspect that's what this course was about, and it's nothing new. Q.v. George Bernard Shaw/Lerner & Loewe.

(Born and raised in East Texas, long-time resident of Louisiana James Lee Burke frequently has his characters tell each other "Take the collards out of your mouth and speak like you mean to be heard.")

If I still spoke like the kids I went to grade school with, I'd sound like Fran Drescher. Not something I'd want to inflict on anyone.

However, certain California accents drive me crazy, particularly that Valley Girl accent. Or maybe it's just that they all, like, Talk So Fucking Loud.

Then there's my next door neighbor, who sounds exactly like Ray Romano. And he never. Stops. Talking.

Well, I have to give you that. It's not speaking your mind that's the problem, it's the mind you're speaking.

Why? You think they can't take it? I think they can take it.

I talk fairly loud.

Shit, he can cruise through National City right the fuck now and pull that (it's 9:10 as I type this)

I can drive and post the webcam video for lulz.

Loudly, ya Mongoloid. Adverb (modifying the verb "to talk), not an adjective.

You fail at English.

I'd pimp the fuck outta that video! arty:

Believe it or not I do correct people's poor grammar be it my nephew or some person at the store. So far no one has punched me though I'm sure some of them have thought about it. BTW National City is mostly Mexicans and not blacks.

Well, fuckin' stop it. Your grammar sucks, too, so you're in no position to correct anybody else's.

Americans teaching other Americans how to speak English...

You wouldn't need to do much. Videos of a dumbass instigating a beat down on himself usually go viral without effort.

My sister's a Jersey girl who's lived in the South for 25 years. She sounds like a hick now.

Her son who mostly grew up there almost sounds like a native, but I can still understand him.

The trailer-tra - er, "southern belle" he was married to? Couldn't understand a fuckin' word she said. She once greeted me with "Ha yawl bee-yin?" I had to ask for multiple repeats before I understood it was meant to be "how have you been?"

Dad was once told by a local that he should get a "pee cup." Dad was confused, and said he didn't have an incontinence problem and could usually make it to the toilet. "Naw," the local said, "A pee cup! Ya know, a pee cup truck, fer hawlin shee-yit."



But I suppose it's no worse than regional accents in other countries. The variations across Great Britain are pretty extreme too.

What does "literally" mean again?

Yeah, people on the east coast dont have accents, huh Forbin.

Especially Joisey.

I used to live in Oak Ridge back in the 80's and still visit from time to time since. You get all kinds of accents there really between the hilljacks that a require an interpreter to the light southern twang to straight Midwestern nothing. The labs there might be the cause since you import talent from all over I'm sure.
But even here in central Ohio, you have people with no accent at all to people who sound like they came out of the hills of West Virginia.
My mother-in-law comes from Salt Lake City and she drives me nuts the way she talks. Very slow and deliberate but she puts "take" or "took" in front of every verb. Like, "She took and went to the store." or "You need to take and get you some Vitamin C". The last sentence is because she's also into homeopathic medicine and has a whole array of bottles with medicine droppers that are far superior to anything modern medicine has provided ....but I digress....

It means that I'm disappointed that this isn't a thread about roadkill cuisine.

Whatchoo mean, dere, pal?

Jersey ebonics be tough to unnerstan too.

Jerz-E-Bonix? Sounds like a new band!

Back to the thread title (and trying to ignore the "literally"), what does the OP mean by "Southern culture," given the number and variety of dialects state by state and region by region?