Sunday, September 24, 2006

Jersey girl

We had yummy beef stroganoff and cauliflower au gratin with Karen, Chris, Ross, and Lars last night. Lindsay seems to have developed a large crush on Lars. Whenever you say his name, she looks at him and grins.

Karen commented last night that her boys sound Jersey. It is coming up on 2 years I've lived here,and already my ears are muting out what was a distinct regionalism when I first moved in. Ever so much more distinctly I hear my in-laws from New Yawk, my mom with the blendy-schwa goodness of a New England accent, and my sister's rapid fire language is nearly indecipherable. I know my own accent melts into the sounds around it. There are some words I say that sound distinctly Midwestern, and everytime I have a conversation with Mom both my vowels and my "r"s get a little softer.

I was thinking about it as I awoke this morning. Lauren was already up, playing library with the stuff animals in her room. She poked her head in and announced, "Ear and I are in charge of checking out the books."

Ear?

The second time she walked by, this time to retrieve the bathroom stool, I sat up to see she had her great stuffed Eeyore in tow. Ohhhh. E're.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You just explained something to me. When I was talking to my high school girlfriend her voice sounded so different. You made me realize that after 30 years living in California, she has an accent.
Thanks for clarifying my thoughts.

Lady Epiphany said...

I have a sensitive ear to it. I can usually imitate accents pretty well, but it also means that I sometimes unconsciously will imitate someone's accent during a conversation...

Karen posted some pictures of Lauren and Lindsay from last night...or, as Lauren would say "lasterday".

LMP said...

My sister-in-law has a niece whose accent has been extremely southern from the get-go. Once she commented on something pink and her mother, laughing, said "She says "pank" instead of "pank", I just don't know where she gets it!" Hmmm...I wonder...

karen said...

Lars gets hot around the collar when I say, "twenty," insisting it is really said "TWUNNY."

I also tend to sound like whomever I am speaking with which is troubling as I'll hate to wake up one day and find I sound like I'm from New Jersey! Every now and then I hear myself say something and I wonder who said it - those poor mangled vowels couldn't be MINE, could they?