Mom-isms

Wendy over at All My Branches Genealogy has a great post called What A Bunch of Hooey! as her submission for the 54th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. I had forgotten to mention in my earlier post some of my mother's Mom-isms and some of the "'er thans" as we call them.

Mom-isms

Perhaps it is just the New York influence, but people watching was always a leisure time activity in my family, especially if we went into Manhattan for a Broadway show or shopping. When the activities and walking had taken their toll, we'd often sit on a bench and just watch the parade go by.

This is when Mom's sayings usually came out. Her favorites always began with "Would it kill . . ." as in:

"Would it kill her to wear a bra?" This was a frequent one as Mom seemed to be obsessed with the figures of other women. Mom's real passion was that someone should just look "put together" not that they had to be perfect. And usually the end phrase of her lecture was "she'll end up being a 44 Long."

"Would it kill her to run a brush through her hair?" Again, the same theme. One just didn't roll out of bed and leave the house without some proper grooming and "putting on one's face" as she liked to say.

'Er Thans

These are the "comparative" sayings that I heard growing up, some of which I still use. Many family members and friends contributed these. I don't think they need explanation:

"Uglier than a box of broken bells."
"Dumber than a box of hair"
"Hotter than two June brides"
"Hotter than Dutch Love" (which I never understood but knew not to ask)
"Busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest"
"Busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger"
"Colder than a well-digger's *ss"

Random Sayings

I grew up with or overheard these as well:

"He was so ugly it looked like his face caught on fire an' someone tried to put it out with a chain!"

"My mother didn't raise any stupid children. Just two ugly ones and they're still at home."

"What do I look like?" (This usually involved something that cost money and children knew, even at young age, that this was a rhetorical question not to be answered)

What American Accent Do You Have?

I have always been intrigued by accents, especially those found in American English. I found a great quiz (see below) which helps determine which form of American English pronunciation you tend to use. Mine, is Inland English aka American Inland English which is not unusual, and I'll explain why later.

For those of you that are unaware of the intricacies of American English pronunciation, commonly called accents, see this great article on Wikipedia.

I grew up but 90 miles from New York City but somehow managed to escape having a typical New York accent. My mother was born in New York City and grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey with quite a heavy accent. When describing it to friends I tell them to imagine Judge Judy - seriously. I grew up hearing words like "cawfee" (coffee), "buttah" (butter) and "sistah" (sister). Every now and then I can be caught using that pronunciation, usually if I've been on an extended visit back home.

But living in the Catskill region of New York put me more in line with the pronunciation used in upstate cities such as Syracuse and Buffalo. It is closer to what most would call a "Midwest Accent" better known as American Inland English. However, I don't use all the lexicon - I still say "soda" instead of "pop" for carbonated beverages. I still say "stand on line" instead of "stand in line" at the grocery store.

I also tend to use quite a few Yiddish words in my speech, even today. This is due to the fact that my part of New York served as a resort region for many of the Jews living in New York. These vacationers were often either immigrants from Germany, Poland or other parts of Eastern Europe or first generation Americans who grew up speaking Yiddish. I still say things like meshuge, cockamammie, and bashert.

As I got older and went to college and then lived out West, I became adept at picking out various accents. Two accents that seem similar to most but are very destinct to me are the accents of Philadelphia and Baltimore. The easy test: ask the person to pronounce the word "water" - if the "a" sounds more like "oo" in wood, then that person mostly likely has a Philadelphia Accent. Baltimorese not only is an accent, but also includes a unique lexicon and a habit of dropping middle portions of words: "geen" instead of "going."

I imagine that when my Dutch ancestors arrived here in 1661, they had a difficult time adapting to English when that became the standard in the New York colony in 1670. And, I still remember some of the Irish brogue that my great-grandmother Therese McGinnis Austin had inherited from her mother Bridget Farren McGinnis.

Take the quiz below to see how your pronunciation is described - I was surprised that mine was not more Middle Atlantic English. Perhaps my four years in Chicago are starting to affect my pronunciation - who knows?

Let me know what type of accent you have, and if your ancestors had unique accents, either in their native tongue or in English - and what challenges they had to overcome with learning English. The funniest example of mixed up compound English words I ever had: a friend's father from Poland would say "Oh, you have overhang," instead of "Oh, you have a hangover!"

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz