Your dialect clashes with mine
I have been living in California for six years now but I still maintain the same dialect I had when I made the move in 2005. I know, shocking, right? Believe it or not I don’t speak like I just stepped out of Jersey Shore nor do I drop the letter “r” in my speech. If I had a car, I would park it, not pawk it.
I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated I am with the idiots who just can’t get over how quickly I lost my east coast accent. Newsflash: I grew up speaking the same dialect as 90% of Californians. I have learned that certain parts of California have southern (as in the Deep South, not southern California) accents, but you don’t see me asking them if they grew up in Georgia? No, that would be rude.
As soon as I tell someone that I grew up on the east coast I notice their eyes start to glaze over with confusion as they ask me how long I’ve lived in California. When I explain that I moved west for college I get an almost identical responses each time, “But, you don’t talk like an east coaster.”
What does that even mean? How can someone talk like an entire coast? Have these people ever even been to the east coast? Most of the time, no, they’re just going off of the stereotypes they see on TV. It’s starting to become a joke among my closer friends, but the reality is, it’s no joke. It’s incredibly aggravating.
Someone needs to make an accurate TV show, set on the east coast, with no accents. I’d watch it.
