Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Love That Texas Drawl

I’ve written previously about adjusting to both the vernacular and the accent here in Texas, and while we haven’t exactly mastered either, we have improved dramatically over the last eight years. (My voice, however, still gives me away...I assume because of my Midwestern twang. Last month I was talking to an office receptionist when an acquaintance I know from the kids’ school - who happens to work nearby - popped her head out to see if she had correctly identified me by ear. “I knew I recognized that accent!”)

Thank goodness, because according to a new survey by Big 7 Travel, Texas comes in at number one on the list of "Top 50 Sexiest Accent in the USA". Apparently their (our?) “Southern accent with a twist” – with its friendly greeting (“Howdy!”) and strong emphasis on the ‘r’ sound – swayed a significant number of the survey’s 1.5 million participants.

Boston and New York accents ranked second and third, respectively, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Long Island came in at 48th, 49th, and 50th. A Wisconsin accent didn’t make the list at all (probably because it falls somewhere between Minnesotan and Midwestern and didn’t warrant its own voting category), so I guess our best course of action is to continue trying to sound as much as possible like our fellow Texans…

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