The regulars over on the Men’s Rights Subreddit are currently getting amused and/or outraged by the existence of a book titled “Girl, Get That Child Support,” a guide to help single mothers track down deadbeat dads and get the child support they are owed. A few of them were apparently so overstimulated by the book’s title, and a reference to “Baby Mamas” in the subtitle, that this little conversation ensued:
Note the upvotes and the (scarcity of) downvotes. And the complete lack of anyone saying “hey, you’re being racist assholes.”
The Men’s Rights Movement, the “most significant civil rights movement of the 3rd millennium.”
I don’t hate you. I think you’re a classist, racist moron. Do I like you? No, but you’re not worth hating.
>>>Do francophones other than Quebecoises use “tabarnac,” “câlice,” etc?
If they’ve spent roughly many months in Quebec and they haven’t gone back to their old culture to reacquire habitual use of their original dialect, yes, otherwise no. These are our unique swears.
Well, it sucks that some people in white collar professions are snobby and judge other
people by their accents instead of their ideas. However, you should know that Tow Mater talks like Larry the cable guy and he got to be an astronaut.
I don’t think that a redneck accent would hurt you in every job interview either. In fact, a politician named Billy Long from Springfield, MO makes campaign ads wearing a cowboy and carrying a fishing pole. He has an Ozarks accent, too, and it wins him votes. People like him for looking and talking like an average Joe even though his political agenda is ultra conservative and only helps the rich. While some people might see a twang as being uncultured, others see it as down to earth.
Having an accent that is considered “lower class” or rural poor can definitely hurt a person’s employment chances. Classism is a thing, that doesn’t mean racism, and racialized classims, aren’t also things.
LBT, I didn’t say you personally attacked me because you believe it’s foolish to judge people by their accent, and yeah it is silly to judge people by their accents. I was referring to assholes like Rutee, and anyone who paints me as a racist because I don’t agree with them politically.
I don’t know if he sounds like Larry The Cable Guy exactly, but Don Pettit has a “low class” rural accent and he’s really an astronaut:
Then why did you say that? You are a terrible liar.
Uhh no one here mentioned anything about your politics. They are talking about your own racist words you idiot. Saying people with “low class” accents would not get hired because its not smart sounding is racist and classist.
to reiterate what i said earlier, i’m right now sitting through a lecture who couldn’t sound more like he’s from rural georgia. he’s a recognized expert in comparative law, a professor emeritus at a law school in i think germany, and a judge.
also. larry the cable guy doesn’t actually talk like that. it’s an act.
*lecture from a guy who
“Melk.”
I remember talking about this with my sister years ago, not long after the family moved to Mass. from Illinois. But I can’t remember who was supposed to be saying “melk,” midwesterners or Eastern Mass-ers. Not sure I’ve heard “melk” in the wild, though I probably have.
Not that long ago I met a woman who had a Canadian accent, at least the “oot” bit, but she’d never lived in Canada or even (if I remember correctly) all that near to Canada. She wasn’t sure where she got it from.
i’m familiar with ‘malk’, which apparently is high in vitamin r
“Melk” to my mind is an Illinois/midwestern thing. Prolly about half of my classmates said “melk”; it was one of those things our teachers tried to shame us out of saying.
And, FWIW, I know it’s sloppy to say “Illinois/midwestern thing,” like it’s a thing. In just my small hometown, a few of the kids I grew up with had full-blown Chicahgo accents, some sounded more Scandahoovian, and some rocked a Southern Illinois drawl.
Stating that people get discriminated against because of their accents is not being racist, it’s just stating a fact. So stop being an asshole, Jumbofish.
There is accent discrimination in some areas.
The reason people are getting tetchy with you, Ruby, is that your response isn’t “so let’s fight accent discrimination and the classism/racism it’s rooted in” but “so let’s all learn to talk properly.”
No its not but you implied it should stay that way and you were ok with that. Not to mention it puts the blame on the victim like oh if you don’t want to be discriminated against don’t have an accent which is bs.
I think you are the one being the asshole here really. You support discrimination while I am just calling you out on it. But if calling you out makes me an “asshole” then sure call me that all you want. I’d rather be an “asshole” in someone’s eyes than supporting discrimination.
Arguably it’s impossible for people to “just start talking properly;” individuals can, but if all the working-class people started talking like newscasters, the dominant group would go and find a new accent to declare “proper,” rather than risk letting everyone into their accent country club.
This happens with names regularly–the upper-class names of one generation (Tiffany, Amber) become the lower-class names of the next–at which point rather than going “Tiffany, what a nice cultured name,” everyone goes “Tiffany, sounds like white trash.” So much for giving your kid a “proper” name. I suspect the same thing would happen with “proper” accents.
(Also, am I the only person who really can’t change their accent? I can’t fake accents at all. Can’t even do a bad fake accent for a joke. I’m lucky to have a fairly “generic” East Coast accent, because if I’d grown up with a rural/southern/otherwise unacceptable accent, there’s no way I’d be able to learn a “proper” accent.)
I didn’t know that. I’d like to hear how he talks when he’s not putting on his act. Is Jeff Foxworthy’s accent real?
I’m the same way. I try to hide my rural accent when I’m in a situation where people will make fun of it, but I’ll still slip up and say something like “We was”, “the car needs fixed”, or add some twang without thinking about it. I can’t keep up the concentration to keep my accent turned off. I definitely can’t fake any other accents.
The flippant way you stated your original entry in this thread is easy to read as support of the racist, classist status quo, you flipping twit. Especially since you are so loath to recognize the status quo is shitty. I too said that it is to your benefit to sound privileged as get out, but I also made it clear that this is a shitty state of affairs and should change, whereas you just matter-of-factly decided to affirm that privilege.
And while your politics will allow the racist status quo to continue, I’ve focused on the racist things you’ve said, because that’s all I need to talk about.
I can do a great Cockney accent, but only for the phrases “allo Guv’nor” and “wot’s all this then?”
Ok, it’s probably an incredibly terrible Cockney accent.
I can also do a sort of Midwestern version of Mark E. Smith’s Mancunian speaking/singing/shouting voice. But mostly that consists of me saying “uh” at the end-uh of almost-uh every other word-uh. And that’s not really an accent, just him.
My accent is almost impossible for most people to interpret, since I grew up all over the place. People guess everything from English (nope) to British Columbia (also nope) to Irish (sort of close I guess, but nope) to British but from Hong Kong (closer, but still not quite). Oddly enough no one ever guesses by accent that I’m Scottish, though I can hear it in my voice if I’ve been talking to family. But I grew up all over the place and then went to boarding school, so that’s to be expected. Recently a lot of Americans don’t even seem to realize that I’m not North American, I think they’re thinking either Canadian or from some other part of the US? The only person recently to notice that I’m British based on accent alone is Japanese (and a professional musician), so that was interesting – I’m not sure if it’s that musicians just have a better ear in general, or that when you learn English as a foreign language you key in on small linguistic variations more.
@ Cassandra Says: I think there might be something to the musicians know accents thing. There’s a woman in my creative writing class who is a recent immigrant from Thailand but she speaks English with the local accent*. It is really weird. She also says that her Chinese professor says she manages a Chinese accent, too. She’s a singer, though, which probably explains it–she’s used to listening to sound and replicating it with her voice.
*I was going to say “she doesn’t have an accent”, but that’s stupid. Everyone has an accent, it is just that some of them don’t stand out to me, and she has one of those accents.
I can’t fake an accent, but I think that’s something separate from changing your accent. Plop me in the middle of my mom’s relatives for a week, and I’ll start talking like I’m from the Southern U.S. If I tried to speak with that accent right now — not gonna happen.
Okay, I have a question that I’ve always wanted an answer to. Why aren’t accents obvious when someone sings? Unless of course the singer exaggerates it, e.g. Herman’s Hermits ‘I’m Henry the VIII?’
I could Google but Manboobers are awesome.