My friend from SC said sometimes he felt like a second class citizen due to his accent (mostly cause people will start treating him weirdly once they heard him speak). I was wondering do y’all feel the same.

45 comments

  1. No, it just makes them a person with an accent. I don’t judge people by their accents, just the words that come out of their mouths.

  5. He’s right. In my experience in the tech field, a certain subset (definitely not all) of Californian or northeastern treat you differently/weirdly or just outright assume you are stupid.

  6. In the US, people with strong regional accents tend to be less educated, not only people fro the South, but in general. And that is the sort of judgment people are likely making. When I worked for a large national company, talking to people on the phone, I recall that professionals like engineers had mild accents, but the clerical staff often had strong accents, whether Southern, Boston, Brooklyn, whatever.

    For example, in your question you used the Southern expression “y’all” rather the standard Standard American English term “you.” If I went all Brooklynese and used the term “youse,” what judgments might you make about me?

  8. There’s definitely a group of people who will act like that-I met a lot of them when I was working in upper class circles in the northeast. Rich people who have never gone south of DC have some serious misconceptions about what goes on in the south.

  9. No. I’m a city government employee in the northeast of the US. The people I have to deal with every day have thoroughly taught me that not being from the south doesn’t mean you’re naturally more intelligent.

  11. When was at grad school in the south. Anytime we had a public speaker or a video recording they looked for scientists with non-southern accents.

  12. Noone is going to admit “yep I’m prejudicial!”

    But it’s very real. I can tell when I’m being pigeonholed and surprise the pigeonholer when I use a polysyllabic word or express a liberal point of view. I’ve got a bit of a chip on my shoulder about it but I try to have some patience about it too. I can’t fight prejudice with hostility and expect that to improve the world or my life.

  13. I definitely get a little side-eye from people who haven’t spent much time in the South. I have a mild but omnipresent Appalachian/ Southern accent. It’s fairly uncommon though- rare enough that I remember individual times that it’s happened.

    Sometimes it actually helps to play it up and lean into the stereotype if I’m dealing with someone like that.

  14. Can confirm it’s a thing. I’m in IT and when I have to speak with people in my field long distance with my natural accent, I definitely get treated differently. Like I’m just a low-ranking grunt and not very knowledgeable. As soon as I turn on the west coast/California accent, that goes away.

    The worst part is that there are a lot of people, just like in some of the replies to this thread, from other regions that think that this doesn’t exist and do exactly what southerners are talking about when they minimize the issue with “oh this happens to everyone.” It doesn’t, not anywhere near the same level.

  15. Southern accents are consistently evaluated negatively by other Americans:

    https://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/southern/sounds/

    For example, Americans are less likely to vote for candidates with Southern accents, across party lines: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12862

    This article provides a very short overview, with additional links: https://altalang.com/beyond-words/americans-bias-southern-accent/

    This article has a lot of superfluous information, but describes several studies where specific Southern accents (especially Appalachian English) were discriminated against in higher education. It also describes how linguistic variables associated with gender and race are discriminated against at that level: https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/152/3/36/117327/Addressing-Linguistic-Inequality-in-Higher

    TL;DR: Many of these responses will say “No, I’d never treat someone differently for the way they talk” but the evidence will tell you otherwise. Southern accents, especially rural Southern accents, are consistently associated with being less educated and less capable, and that absolutely changes how people are treated. Your friend likely did experience some negative treatment due to the way he speaks.

  16. Personally, no, but I do know that it is a thing for people to be prejudiced against those with southern accents.

  17. Not at all. In fact, southerners from my experience are really nice and outgoing. I personally haven’t seen one mistreated because of their accent or where they came from.

  18. I moved to NC as a child so I don’t really have a southern accent (although I use “yall” every other sentence), but I’ve definitely noticed that people tend to associate southern accents with being uneducated or bigoted, which is really unfortunate

  19. I’m from Massachusetts originally but I work with people from all over the country. After a while you learn that there are wicked smart and wicked stupid people from all over.

  20. The same thing goes on up North with “working class” Northern accents like the former Philly accent that’s now moved to the suburbs , the former Boston accent also moved to the suburbs, and the former Queens/Brooklyn accent that’s now moved to Long Island.

    Snotty Northerners look down on people with these accents and they see them as being trashy, low class, and uneducated.

  21. Sadly it does make some people view them that way not just for Southern accents, but Appalachian accents too due to negative stereotypes it’s sad.

  22. Yes. People treat you like an idiot. I lived out west for a bit, and everyone assumed I was a total moron. I am no Einstein, but I am not dumb either.

  23. There is a cultural phenomenon related to characters in media who are less intelligent having Southern accents, and it does effect how people view southerners. It is important to recognize that bias that might exist subconsciously and realize there’s some razor sharp people and some dumb mofos everywhere.

    I always like to watch Smarter Every Day because it helps me see a bunch of really smart people with really deep southern accents and dispel the notion from my subconscious mind. Here in Wyoming, I don’t get the opportunity to do so in person very often.

  24. No, of course not, I have southern friends who are self-conscious about their accent but for me no, an accent doesn’t say anything about intelligence.

    The prejudice is around unfortunately, but everyone has an accent so judging people by their accent is silly.

    Edit>> I have a friend who is a scientist and in medical, extremely intelligent woman, she was raised in Philly and North Carolina. We’re both black and in casual conversation she sounds a bit rough to some people and I guess they think she’s from the hood or something. They’re always surprised to learn she has a masters, works as a scientist and has a white husband.

    I think it’s one thing to think maybe a person isn’t educated because of their dialect, but to be so sure of that stereotype that it surprises you when they are educated is just plain sad to me. We all make assumptions, but we should recognize that they are just that assumptions based on absolutely nothing but stereotypes and generalities.

  25. In my eyes? No.

    For,some people, yes. Though I suppose you could hear a Boston accent and then Masshole or Brooklyn accent and think abrupt jerk as well.

    Also the slow drawl of the South varies greatly between Atlanta, Birmingham, or Amarillo. My favorite quote from a coworker from Birmingham was, “I can’t wait to go home where I don’t have an accent”. We were all in Europe at the time so they had no problem talking about how he didn’t sound like the people on TV.

  26. This behavior is not specific to American accents. Some Parisians will also look down at fellow countrymen with accents from northern France, French Canadians or citizens of other French speaking countries. I always keep in mind that such behavior betrays the one looking down, not the one being looked at.

  27. Not really. That only tells you the general area they learned English in and nothing more. To infer anything else is speculation and without merit in any but the simplest of questions.

    A******* with Accents could be a funny reality program, that being said.

  29. I grew up in and live on the Panhandle of Florida. There has been a sharp divergence between my generations accents, as opposed to our parent’s/grandparent’s . You run into most millennials in the area and they’ll have a more General American English way of speaking. But, we grew up with all of the people of note having thick southern accents. Teachers, politicians, etc. So, done it the most accomplished people that I’ve ever known have sounded like Andy Griffith, so I never judge.

  30. I have one, so no.

    I also tend to suppress it when I’m in the northeast until I have a feel for people. Never had cause to start doing that in other regions.

  32. It’s definitely a thing.

    I was born and raised in the South but my mother took pains to scrub the majority of the Southern accent from our speech. I can remember my mother correcting my pronunciation at a young age and telling me “People will think you’re dumb if you talk like that. Say it like the man on the news.”

  33. I have a Texan accent, similar to southern, but I get the same thing. People make a lot of assumptions about my education and political positions based on how I say certain words. Some people like the accent, but a lot of people assume you’re an uneducated redneck.

  34. Absolutely. It’s why we learn to code switch. I miss when my accent was more intense, it’s hard to achieve now since I’m so used to code switching. Gotta be around all my family or drinking to really relax into it.

    But also it’s not just the accent. Just being from the south is enough for some people to judge you.

  35. I have a very neutral accent because it was hard to articulate in college to non southerners. They were polite about it and the foreign exchange students just couldn’t follow so I practiced a very unplayable accent.

    My northern friends commented once how much smarter I sound than usual Southern Folk so I make it an effort to only explain complex shit like I’ve only ever ate biscuits and gravy. Tech support is only given with the mightiest of Appalachian draws!

  36. This is why you’ll meet many Southerns who code switch. I once was the nurse for a patient from New York, and they demanded a new nurse because they were walking and heard me using my southern accent to talk to some sweet Meemaw.

    He said if I actually sounded like that, he didn’t know how I could have been smart enough to get my nursing degree. Then, he demanded a new nurse. Joke was on him. Most of us are the south, so they laid hard into their accents.

    Edit: Of course, this is just a single example, and not everyone from other locations in America would do this.

  37. No, it makes them interesting (in a good way). We don’t hear that variety of accents in real life encounters very often. It identifies the speaker as coming from a distant part of the US. We want to talk some more with them, want to hear about where they are from, etc. (There are several distinct southern accents. Even very rural Yankees like us will notice a few of the differences.)

  38. As a person *with* a southern accent, I’ve definitely encountered people who feel that way.

    People who suddenly look at you differently. I had someone who I hadn’t known long but who I was becoming close to, who I considered a “good” friend ask me one time, with a straight face, “so how did you escape being like the other dumb southerners?”. It didn’t occur to her that it was her bias making her think we were all dumb, no, it was just that I was different.

    People who assume I’m slow, backward, etc. because of the geography of my birth, even though they’ve never really talked to me, they’ve just heard my accent. People I’d otherwise consider intelligent.

  39. Honestly I used to think of people with heavy southern accents as not as smart back when I started in engineering in 2008. Now that I have been working with people from the south for over 15 years, I don’t even notice the accent and have completely gotten over my own prejudices. Never did I think of them as second class citizens, but I was an idiot and prejudice. I will teach my kids we are no different than our friends with southern accents, especially since some have become my best friends.

  40. I’m sure this happens. People can suck.

    But for me personally- absolutely not!! In fact, southern accents are my favorite accent.

  41. I’m from Appalachia but I’m close enough to the Great Lakes that I can switch easily between speaking patterns. When I’m talking to the public i use more of the Great Lakes accent but when I’m in private it’s more of a mix and if I’m trying to trick someone it’s always the Appalachian that comes out because it makes people assume I’m dumb.

  42. No, absolutely not. I’m sorry that others have made them feel this way. I have a Great Lakes Midwest accent, so I get how it feels to have people think certain things about you or mock your accent. Maybe that’s why. I also quite like the southern accents.

  43. Of course not, but then I *have* a strong Southern accent (and am proud of it and never wanted to lose it). i work in the professional class in Washington, DC and it is incredibly rare to run across a fellow accented Southerner. I have definitely had some people express prejudice against me, including one black guy from up north who refused to work with me “because you know how they are down there.” He told this to me black friend who literally got me that job, which is how I heard about it.

  44. I’ve gotten better, but it was definitely a problem my freshman year of college (me from the northeast corridor going to school in the south). Subconsciously I thought of people with strong southern accents as less capable and less worldly. It didn’t help that the latter was very often true — people who hadn’t encountered religion beyond evangelicalism, weren’t open to listening empathetically to people from unfamiliar backgrounds, etc. But “less capable” was completely wrong. They obviously got into the same school I did. They were quiet about some of the extraordinary scholarships they had earned. It took a year for it to sink in that a valedictorian from a southern high school was still a valedictorian.

    A couple decades later my bias is pretty much down to my guard being a smidge higher with someone with a southern accent. I have stronger biases I haven’t shaken as well, that someone with an Indian accent will be difficult to work with and someone with a French-Canadian accent will be an asshole. (Unfortunately the French-Canadian bias has been born out by all but one person.) I don’t like that the solution is to spend time with people, because the majority of people I don’t give an equal chance are ones I meet only briefly. I’ve probably missed out on a couple friendships that way.

  45. I have a pretty distinct Southern/Appalachian accent and have been mocked and talked down to because of it many times. I went to a pretty prestigious university near Chicago, and constantly had to mask my accent because speaking normally would have people laughing or asking intrusive questions and making rude comments (“jokes”) about my heritage.

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