Talking like a duck

Recently, I've become obsessed with the way I've been pronouncing words like "ground" and "found". As I mentioned last week, my darling semi-offspring have been relentless about pointing out when my "ground" sounds country. Just yesterday, when I couldn't decide whether I should tell my students "researchers found that", or "researchers find that", my "found" came out sounding like the lovechild of "found" and "find, making it seem as as though I was born and raised in the south, which sent my students whooping and hollering. So hello self-consciousness. I mean, I love to blend in, but to sound like a native? No, thank you.

Now I do realize that I'm possibly a little more obsessed with what I sound like to others than most people. I've always wondered: do I sound southern? Midwestern? Or, worst of all, Dutch? I was the angsty teenager who would tape her speeches before she gave them, so she could make sure she could correct anything that didn't sound just right. I am the neurotic adult who will record her work voicemail, and then redo it three times because the inflection wasn't right. Or I slurred my name. Or pronounced my last name like an overzealous German.

For years, I assumed that everyone was as neurotic as I was. Am. But then I moved here. And met Dutch ladies who, after having lived in the US for forty years, spoke with an accent so thick you could use it slice bread, while claiming they spoke perfect, accent-free English. And politicians whose southern accent was so thick, they sounded like they had just walked off the set for Gone With The Wind or The Hillbillies.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for being who you are, and if that means talking with a "tick duts eccent' or like Boomhauer from King of the Hill, then go for it. I will love you just the same. But a little self-awareness would be nice. Don't claim to speak perfect American when you pronounce 'pan' like 'pen', and 'much' like 'muts'.

Oh, and on that note, can the real southern politicians please stand up? You see, I refuse to believe that every single Georgia politician really talks as though they just got off harvesting pecans and picking peaches. I mean, these men and women sound more southern than Jimmy Carter, Andy Griffith, and Tammy Wynette put together, while most born and bred Georgians I hear around me every day have reduced their southern accent to a "y'all" and a slight flattening of their vowels. I realize the appeal of sounding like "the common man", but people, you sound ridiculous. Mainly because all real Georgians know no real Georgian would have a Savannah 'r' (the British-sounding r used in Gone with the Wind) and a mountain-based country twang.

So, yes, I might be a little obsessed. And if someone could tell me why everyone keeps thinking I'm from southern Ohio/Missouri when those are two states I have never lived in, that would be great. Thanks.