Posted on 04/30/2002 7:12:45 PM PDT by foreverfree
If you pronounce it 'Flarada' (or arnge for that matter) I highly doubt that you are from 'Flarada.'
Or... like they should be pronounced according to Websters. Go the hell back home if you don't like us 'Hicks.'
BTW: You'll get your wish, as I am leaving the Sunshine State shortly. :-)
Oh? Well maybe my spelling is wrong but I can assure you I was born and raised in Miama, Fla. Mom was a Key West Conch, Dad immigrated from Bessemer, Ala. in 1922. So I think that qualifies me.
Sweet. Feel free to bring back your tourist dollars anytime... just don't bring any furniture.
Miami? Hell, why didn't you say so... that explains everything. Does growing up in Miami give you Florida-New York double citizenship?
LOL. Well, maybe now you could say that, but when I was growing up there(40's 50's) they used to board up all the hotels on the Beach because it was too hot down there in the summer(no air-conditioning then) and all the New Yawkers went home. Mostly crackers them days. During the winter months the NY plates on cars outnumbered the Fla. plates about 2-1. It was a nice place to live most of the year, back then. Not so now, sadly. As I said before, my mom always said that air-condtioning was the worst thing that ever happened to So. Fla. I agree.
Yep. It's sad... I wish they had never dammed the 'river of grass.' The Everglades stretching unfettered from the Atlantic to the Gulf sounds so much more appealing than what Dade, Broward and PBC have become.
Have you ever spent any time in the 'Big Bend' area of the Gulf Coast? To me, that's the real Florida. No sand on the beaches = no tourists, and it is SO very pretty there.
I grew up in St. Augustine and I've lived in Gainesville for the last 10 years. Both are truly amazing places to live. I'd highly recommend a visit if you haven't already done so.
I keep hoping that my part of Florida won't ever change as drastically or as negatively as South Florida and the West Panhandle.
BTW, I've only heard of Mitch because I'm a fan of the Dillards. Being a Dillards fan got me to buy Mitch's book, which got me interested in Ozark culture. Which got me more interested in bluegrass...
The Current Wave
Eminence, Mo. 65466
and enquiring about their subscription prices, which are around $25 a year for the weekly paper, if I remember right. In addition to Mitch's almost weekly column, Roger Dillon the Editor writes a column, and there are a bunch of church folk that write columns, too. For an unvarnished look at pure Ozark life, you ought to read it, it's around 6-10 pages, and is priceless.
I'll tell a story, here: "Who are they?" the newcomer asked. "Pay them no mind," St. Peter said, "They're crazy."
"But it looks like they want to leave!" the man whispered, not wanting the crazy folks to hear him. "Who would want to leave this beautiful place?"
"Well, you have to understand that this happens every year about this time. You see, they're hillbillies, and it's springtime in the Ozarks..." ;-D
Being from Sand Mountain ( and proud of it), I couldn’t agree more. I love my accent. Sand Mountain has a very thick accent. It makes me unique. My wife even laughs at me. I love all accents. What an amazing country to have so many dialects. Yes, Southerners are ridiculed in films, ads, etc. Who cares. As I told a New Yorker once on a conference call “We don’t give a damn what you think. We laugh at ourselves more than you do.” That is the difference. We don’t take anything, except our heritage, too seriously.
They are making this more complicated than it actually is. The homogenization of accents is simply due to our mass media culture and our highly mobile society. We are not living in geographical seclusion and isolation like we used to.
when i lived in austin my next door neighbor was fired from
a tv station for his west-texas twang.
it’s not fashionable.
notice how president bush took speech lessons to get rid of his midland-odessa twang.
Sand Mountain is a very unique place and it is the place I feel most comfortable. Nobody is in a hurry and you are always welcome to come up on the front porch of your neighbors for some iced tea. It’s changing though. Highway 431 is getting to be like the big city with all its sprawl and crazy traffic patterns. So I learned all the back roads and stay off that highway as much as I can. Except for the mandatory trip to the Catfish Cabin.
Much ado about nothing. The age of instant information and all it brings with it is normalizing regional accents that only flourished because of isolation.
And it’s not a midwestern accent that Mr. Marus thinks he hears from Hollywood, it’s a Western accent. The Midwestern accent is abrupt and nasal, ala Jenny McCarthy.
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