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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Accents--Mobile and Hoboken


Very interesting to see myself this way! In this take, (the second, which I felt it was the better of the two) I get all set to do Southern accents and when I start my attempt at a Hoboken one, I'm still Southern ("Ah think it wuz his energi") Took me a line or two to get into the scene. Maybe I should have memorized it and given you a real show! Better luck next time. Those of you who haven't heard a Mobile accent are in for a laugh. Those of you who have--a bigger one! I can do that one for hours.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ya Hoboken accent needs some work. Stuff cotton up ya nose and use da dees dems and does words, and I dink ya will get da part. Your lighting was better, sound was great. STOP looking away from da camara. Keep ya eye on da camera unless you are reading something ...this video was a winner. IF I gave you a ride on my dumbwaiter at 924 garden street, you would find all da wourds us kids used in da old days, going up and going down. You will talk Hoboken talk real quick...and you will have to have your mouth washed out with soap when it's over.

Your readers don't know what that means BUT you DO.

Mary Lois said...

If yas readuhs wanna know what he's talking about da dumbwaiters, click here and look at the comments from a guy called Slezak.

He's right about looking at the camera, too. I'll get that in time!

Anonymous said...

Mary Lois - I loved the reading and all the accents. It is always interesting to me that we do not think we have an accent until someone tells us that indeed we do and they can tell us just where we gained the said accent.
I am from Canada, living on the west coast, but raised on the west coast and people here tell me I have an accent. It is not nearly as 'nice' as the southern accent, so I truly enjoyed your video. Thanks so much!

Mary Lois said...

The West Coast Canada accent is one I'm not familiar with, Peg! But if people can identify it, I'm sure it's there. Do you say "hoose" for house and "moose" for mouse?

I love people from Canada!

Anonymous said...

It's fun to watch da belle. And my hoose is in L.A. now. But it was in nar aboot the
Kentuk line in Ahia where I heard that accent. My friend's name is Housington, but he says Hoisinton.
He may still be there.
Mutha sayes that she jurges it's time to say bye-bye.

Mary Lois said...

Anon, I can get all of that except "It's fun to watch da belle." That one I have to think aboot.

Anonymous said...

"Da belle" be you, hauney.

carole said...

Nice one, don't be frightened of us, think of Meryl! I always think of Robert de Niro when I think of New Jersey accent, why is that, did he do a film in that accent or is that my English ears deceiving me? Could you try and English one next? Maybe the mid-west? All very instructive for us foreigners.

Steve said...

Remember the late Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama? What an accent he had. I always have wondered if some of these thick patrician accents were affected.

Mary Lois said...

The "Howell Heflin accent" is a variation of Southern, not that much like Mobile, but reflective of "deep country." It's the accent most think of as "Southern," and definitely understood easily by Mobile natives.

It's interesting to me that people with very strong accents like to imitate people with the same accent, thinking it's different. Everybody in the South can do a comical Southern accent, and people from Hoboken love to burlesque the Hoboken accent.

Carole, when I read your comment I went straight to my Noel Coward scripts and started working on my upperclass British English accent. Will do it for you when I get the courage! In the meantime, somebody tell her about De Niro--is that Brooklyn or New Jersey?

Accents are fun. They make the world go round!

Anonymous said...

On the Lower East Side of New York, some parts of Brooklyn, and of course HOBOKEN, we all talk the same talk

A good example is if ya ever watch the old movies THE BOWERY BOYS --East Side Kids, leader MUGS, sometimes called Horace Dabusie Jones in the movies (his real name is Leo Gorcey), he made up words as he talked to get his point across. We did the same thing as kids...if ya was talking about a guy drilling a hole in the street ya made a jack hammer sound as ya were talking.

To a non-New Yorker it must have sounded funny. Joe Pesche the actor does a good HOBOKEN talk, DiNiro too. That's not acting. That's the way they talk in real life...and a lot of bad words that I will not print mixed in.

If romancing, you stop to think and use proper words. If angered you tend to spit it all out, no holds barred. You got blasted.

Time does not change the way we talk...that does not make us bad guys...FUG-GET ABOUT IT...is words ya used if ya liked or disliked something.

Today kids use words I cant understand...RAP TALK.

Well I hope your readers got an education.

Anonymous said...

great performance! accents have always fascinated me too, being born and bred in the belly of the southern/white trash beast...but i have people tell me all the time i sound like i'm from minnesota or iowa (how appropriate)...must be from a former life i suppose, ingrained in my dna somehow...i also do a brilliant british accent that stupefies my daughter!

Anonymous said...

On your "accents" in your video: that's when I feel a "foreigner"--I don't hear any difference - I think the only American accent I can distinguish is the one from the South, and even that one...