My Talk.

Most people say I’m country. Others ask me where I’m from because I don’t sound like I’m from “down here”. Truth is I’m from right here, Charlotte North Carolina (well close to it anyways). I grew up in the small town known as Harrisburg right outside of Charlotte, about ten or fifteen minutes from UNCC. When I think of Harrisburg I think of true country folks or most of Concord for that matter. My mom was also born and raised in Harrisburg along with majority of the rest of my mom’s side of the family so we all got a little bit of that southern dialect. My dad is from another small town called a Monroe and I couldn’t tell you how far that is from here but it can’t be more than an hour, and to my disadvantage or advantage they’re pretty country there too.  Actually I think they may have a thicker southern accent down there than my family in Harrisburg, but that’s just my opinion. I noticed in one of the videos a woman pointed out that you will automatically know where a person is from when they say the words “street” or “straight” because of the way they pronounce it. I laughed when I heard this because they way they say it is the EXACT way I pronounce it as well as everyone else I can think of in my family. I can be having a conversation with someone and as soon as I say the word “street” the way I’ve always pronounce it, they’ll stop the whole conversation and laugh at that. That gets old real fast though. When someone points that out I try to correct myself the next time but it’s extremely hard. I guess the two videos I can relate to the most would have to be of course be “Dialect in southern cities” and the other “African-American English”. I understand the dialect in southern cities because I grew up and still live in a southern city. The terms the man and children were describing in “African-American English” I definitely knew because I think I use some of those on a daily basis. I believe that some people look down on southerners because they think we’re uneducated, they think we just sit down here drinking whiskey and moonshine sitting on some porch jibber jabbing eating fried chicken and farming all day. But that’s not true, well in most parts anyways; we’re just as educated as the rest of the nation. Those people just haven’t been to the south or been too deep in the south.