[HPFGU-OTChatter] southern chatter

[Iggy McSnurd]

>> Iggy McSnurd said:
>
> > Well, I've been living here in the South for just over 4 years now, and

> Dina:
>
> Floridian pretty much all my life, minus my first year as an infant in
> Chicago.  Not a 'deep south' gal... well, depends on how pervy you are.

Iggy here:

Ummm... TMI there, darlin'...

> Dina:
>
> I have a *slight* southern accent, but when I speak to someone with a
> heavy southern accent, I start drawling right along with them.

Iggy here:

That's the way it tends to work with me too.  I talk, for the most part,
like someone from central California.  (I was raised there for 27 years,
moving there when I was 3, and moving down here when I was 30.)  But, if I
spend more than about 15 minutes around someone with a "Southern drawl," I
begin to talk like they do.  Of course, I'm also that way when I've spent
time around a friend's English parents, and an old friend of mine's Scottish
mother.  (Yes, not only can I completely understand the Glasgow accent, but
I ended up developing the ability to affect a Scottish accent that even
fools native Scotts.)

This whole "rule of adaption" is something I am naturally good at, and
allows me to be very proficient at natural phonetic mimicy and easily
acquire accents I'm around for any decent length of time...  (When I did
call center customer service for a cable company in California, I confused a
lot of the Hispanic callers.  I speak only a few phrases in Spanish...
mostly enough to let people know that I don't speak Spanish, and asking them
to please hold while I get them someone who can help them.  I was able to
use these phrases with such a natural accent that the Hispanic customers
were saying to the other CS people that they didn't know why I couldn't help
them, since I was obviously fluent in Spanish at a native level.)

Now, while I tend to "absorb" a lot of the local modes of speech a lot more
readily than most, the rule still applies.  It also works in reverse... You
can be born and raised for 30 years in one place... but if you move to a
place with a different dialect, and go back home, the people from where you
originally lived will often notice a change in your accent... intentional or
not.

> Dina:
>
> As to the 'hunter' bit, one phrase I picked up from a co-worker was 'bend
> you over like a double-barreled shotgun'.
>

Iggy here:

Oddly enough, I understand that one... and I've never heard it before.  (For
those who don't know, a double barreled shotgun is a weapon that's known as
a "breech loader", which means you actually "break" the weapon in the middle
to expose the base of the barrel... or cylinders if it's a revolver like
some of the ones in the American Old West... pull out the spent shells, and
reload in the new ones before snapping the weapon back straight to lock it
in place.  Unlike more modern styled firearms, the spent cartridges in a
"breech loader" don't eject automatically.)

It could mean that he's gonna "break" you... Of course, if he likes hunting
and loves his gun, it could also mean he likes you.  (Not like that, ya
freak...)

Iggy McSnurd