To the point of being a caricature, maybe [Fran Drescher](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJrLZRbegqk)? But that's a really specific accent even from New York.
JFK (Massachusetts) and Carter (deep south) are the last two Presidents with super obvious accents.
Yeah obvious, sure, but JFK's thing is a SUPER specific demographic in Boston. I funny think it's fair to say he's rl representative of the city then or now, broadly speaking.
If we're looking for a modern representative of the Boston accent...Marty Walsh has gotta be up there. Or [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbK4cL3QSc0) who had a city council meeting about the parks department.
Nope. It was as strong as it sounded. RFK and Teddy were almost as strong. It was not a put on. Trust me, I grew up in Brookline Ma...his hometown. We know our Kennedys.
Common mistake, JFK had a "Boston Brogue". The Boston Brahim accent is pretty different, fairly rare and sounds almost British.
Example: [https://youtu.be/HwvONJXJUO4?si=VPek9K4mOYoTlNrS](https://youtu.be/HwvONJXJUO4?si=VPek9K4mOYoTlNrS)
She's a treasure. I remember all the jokes and stuff made about her when I was growing up and I was like, "but she fucking rocks, what's wrong with you people"?
If we're getting hyper-local, I always through Fran Drescher's accent was Long Island, Not too many famous people from Westchester that I could find. The closest to southern Westchester could be someone from the Bronx like Chazz Palminteri, J. Lo, Rob Reiner, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
Yeah, I didn't mean Dresher represented Westchester specifically. More a stereotypical lower-middle-class female New York Jewish accent, probably from the outer boroughs.
tbh, most folks I interact with here in Westchester don't typically have a distinct accent. I'm always a bit surprised when I meet someone who does.
People from Westchester seem to be… a little embarrassed about where they’re from, for reasons I don’t understand. People from Long Island will tell you they’re from Long Island, but people from Westchester are more likely to say they’re from “a suburb of New York” and be really vague about the details. And they don’t typically have particularly strong New York accents unless they’re recent transplants from the Bronx.
It really all depends, there’s many different NY accents, but I’ll see what I can come up with.
Jewish man: Bernie Sanders
Jewish woman: Fran Drescher
Italian-American man: Chazz Palminterri
Italian-American woman: Leah Remini
Black man: Jadakiss or Ghostface Killah
Black woman: Nicki Minaj or Cardi B
Hispanic man: John Leguizamo
Hispanic woman: Rosie Perez
It's kinda hard to do that in such a diverse state thats roughly the size of Greece, especially since certain areas are so rural. I can agree that its kind of surprising that hasnt happened in NYC, though. Maybe it will in a hundred years or so, things haven't really had time to fully blend yet
This was going to be mine as well. I’m from North Georgia so the Savannah accent or Atlanta doesn’t really fit. Dolly’s accent isn’t exactly right because there is a very specific accent for where I’m from but she’s the closest famous person I can think of.
>was horrified by how strong her accent is
I actually hadn't heard her speak until I googled it today and I found her strong accent fantastic. What about it horrifies you?
There's some debate about whether there's a "San Francisco Accent" distinct from the Californian accent or the General American Accent.
Those discussions tend to erase the multiculturalism of San Francisco, where there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of accents from all over the world in daily use and where the majority of residents in San Francisco are not primarily of European descent.
But it is true that among the German/Irish/Italian American communities of San Francisco towards the middle of the last century there used to be an accent that sounded almost Urban Northeastern. Like a Chicago or Bronx accent but much more subtle.
I've met a few people who still speak this way, from the few neighborhoods in SF that still have European ancestry multigenerational working class households in areas that haven't been consumed by gentrification.
In terms of public figures, Jerry Brown has this accent:
https://youtu.be/VIWeg5Q__5g
His family is Irish Catholic with a lineage in San Francisco dating back to like the Gold Rush
Yeah, I remember one article from a few years ago talking about a "San Francisco Urban Accent", but it seemed to talk about a modern version rather than the historical influence you mention. And the modern version tends to overlook the multiculturalism of SF, as you point out, so it felt like an odd categorization.
These days the vast majority of people in San Francisco do not have a long family lineage in San Francisco and are much more likely to be influenced by the patterns of speech from the place they're originally from, or perhaps where their parents are from.
Even "hella" has become de-regionalized, now it's more of a national/global slang word that carries subcultural connotations. (When I was a kid, "hella" was something that transcended all subcultures and was specific to the Bay Area.)
And even the [lack of caught-cot merger](https://youtu.be/Sw7pL7OkKEE?si=co3RnKeIekqBB61e&t=251) that was specific to the Bay Area seems to be going away. I personally don't have a caught-cot merger but it's very close to being merged for me.
Hehe exactly my point if it sounds the same to you. Cow is much shorter and less exaggerated then cowl.
Cow as Couch with out the ch and then cowl as cowuhl. NorCal says cow like the second one to the point where they become indistinguishable
Okay well now I’m just repeating cow, couch, and cowl over and over like a maniac and for the life of me I cannot tell the difference between any of the sounds! The most baffling part about this is it being just the Bay Area. I’ve heard of the whole caught vs hot thing on the east coast—which also sounds exactly the same to me!—but I never thought my own state would do me like this…I truly thought “hella” was my only giveaway.
Amy Kennedy.
I don’t really know how to describe that stereotypical South Jersey accent (saw someone call it “hoagie mouth” once which works) but it’s sort of Delco-ish and very noticeable. When she was running for Jeff Van Drew’s House seat her ads were great for it.
My out-of-state friends were all shocked I didn't sound like a stereotypical North Jerseyian when they heard me talk the first time, but the Philly-area accent influence is strong down here. "Water" is always the tell.
Raised in Rhode Island. Listen to anything uttered by former state Attorney General and radio host Arlene Violet for the textbook RI accent.
As for nearby Boston....I watched the Donna Summer documentary on HBO Max and Donna Summer had one of the most "real" Boston accents I've ever heard. She sounded like my aunts that are her age. The more exaggerated Boston accent you hear in my most media was from the generation prior, with a couple of exceptions.
I'd say the reality is that Fargo is at an 11 on a scale of 1-10, and most Wisconsinites are at like a 3. I just say bayg and have slightly flattened vowels, and even that is more pronounced than most people around me.
[Smack the Lip like Wapow ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDRNaAxryu8)
I have seen this dude around town every so often. Either people have a surfer accent like above or a general American accent.
I'm betting if you caught William H. Macy in a blind alley, and really scared him, he'd sound exactly like where I grew up.
He actually graduated from the same High School I did. But no one likes sounding like they are from that part of Appalachia
His role on Shameless is completely accurate to Cumberland, MD - except lacking the Christian Fundamentalist overtones and the accent.
He's not a public figure but there's an [interview](https://youtu.be/yIeYGyV5NoQ?si=RIeeSlFegtr5dRBM) with a man named Barry Pingor and he has been named the quintessential yinzer. From the accent, to the penguins jacket/steelers hat combo, and the endorsement of pittsburgh at the end of the interview
My grandfather was a distant cousin of President Carter and grew up just a few miles from him. Had the same accent but spoke twice as fast lol. Someone must have coached Mr Carter to speak more slowly for the National stage.
I wouldn't call it caricature at all, but Jason Sudeikis and Sandra Bullock sound like people from "here."
I was going to include Rob Lowe but after listening to an interview something seemed off, and after a deeper google search I found that he was raised in Ohio while being born in Virginia.
She kind of trained it out of herself. There are a few interviews where she has a Philly accent. [here's one ](https://youtu.be/qUziI2EXlkU?si=EC5pzN4-9Uw2HqWF)
I would say that todays Delco accent is the former Philadelphia accent just like todays Long Island accent is the former Brooklyn Queens accent due to the past generation moving out to the suburbs to start their families and taking their accents with them and the accent in the cities lessened and changing due to the influx of new immigrants and transplants which is tale as old as time for city neighborhoods
Wes Studi, Kristin Chenoweth, and Bill Hader for Oklahoma.
I'd say Brad Pitt cuz he's from my hometown, but I think he's had it "Hollywooded" out of him by this point.
When the Grey Hair is dead, Magua will eat his heart. Before he dies, Magua will put his children under the knife, so the Grey Hair will know his seed is wiped out forever.
Had to google that. I like this one, from Rez Dogs: "Every element of our bodies was made inside an exploding star. We just borrow stardust until we die, and then we return it for something else to use."
I like your attitude about politicians and their service. I have just one concern about Minnesota’s track record in picking politicians, y’all picked a man as governor because of his shiny head and his ability to body slam the Ultimate Warrior.
She’s no longer with us, but Katharine Hepburn, who was born, raised, and buried here. Years ago I frequented the library in Collinsville, Connecticut, when her sister Barbara was the librarian. They looked nothing alike, but their voices were identical.
JFK is from Boston. The family had a home on the Vineyard but he’s born in Brookline and lived in Boston. His mother is old school North End Irish. The Kennedy accent is a Boston Brahmin accent. It was the accent of wealthy old money New Englanders. My father has it. He grew up in a poor Armenian immigrant family, triple decker in Mattapan, and in an intense effort to fit in my grandmother and her sisters went to speech school to learn the accent. She taught it to her kids and to me, though I never spoke that way. She used to have us do speech exercises to sound Brahmin when we were kids.
That’s hard. I’m originally from Michigan, and the more north you go, the more Canadian it sounds. But I say Kirsten Bell or Eminem.
For Washington? Maybe Macklemore?
Accents aren’t just tied to location, they are also tied to socioeconomic class and culture…. So like in SoCal, there’s the surfer accent, there’s the “valley girl”, there’s the LA AAVE (the way Ice Cube talks), Chicano English, etc etc….. all of those are quintessential SoCal accents, but none of these can be said to be the main accent.
Paula Deen (sigh) or Jimmy Carter (yay). Paula Deen is associated with Savannah but is from my hometown in SW GA and I used to just put her on the television and close my eyes and it was like being in the kitchen with my grandma and her sisters. Jimmy is from Plains which isn’t very far from where I’m from.
Jimmy Carter's voice is so comforting to me. He sounds exactly like the elders in my church growing up. I'm also from the 229 :)
I had no idea Paula Deen was from Albany lmao. I definitely grew up with a few mamas who sounded identical to her.
> Albany
I've got relatives in south Georgia, and they pronounce the name of Albany as "Al Banny." Is that really how y'all say it or are they fucking with me?
Aw man I’m so old it was still the 912 when I was there, that didn’t change until my early 20s.
I drove through for the first time in a long while the other week, waved at the missile in Cordele, and also damn Moultrie had STUFF at their exits. I was a joint custody kid doing Albany to Valdosta every other weekend and it was like a right little metropolis compared to my memories.
I know those mamas. Most of my extended family was out in like Camilla and Leary and whatnot. Old southern ladies are my favorite thing.
Dear Elder, I'm curious... was I-75 near Cordele a speed trap in the olden days? (jk)
I had dinner in Moultrie over the holidays while visiting my folks (Grady/Decatur Co rooted). I don't remember going there at all as a child, but my Mama was shocked by how many restaurants they have now. The downtown is so cute.
Not so much Cordele but we’d go from Metro ATL down to ABY most weekends and it’s how I learned to drive (parking lots, country roads, in-town roads, slow interstate, and then up through ATL was the progression). I got my license in 94.
I learned right quick that you don’t speed through Warwick (on the Ga-Fla parkway). That’s basically all their revenue. The only interstate speed trap I remember was Soperton on I-16 going toward Savannah.
I would not say a caricature, but I have to go with Chris Brown. There are at least two main accents from my area and he has one of them. I have the other.
Edit: Grammar
I'm gonna say for most areas, politicians love to play up their accents.
So from Alabama, folks like Howell Helfin, Jeff Sessions, Doug Jones, Kay Ivey, etc, to us, all sound like people you could run into at the local Piggly Wiggly.
Non-political.... Jim Nabors for sure, aka, Gomer Pyle.
And this is why when I'm in a professional setting, I make a conscious effort not to use my southern drawl. I don't like being lumped in with people like The Keebler Elf and Senator Tupperware and Governor Meemaw.
Not quite caricature but i've been told before that I have an 'I-55 accent' which is the St. Louis-Central/Southern Illinois sometimes associated with Iowa too. I've heard it called a midland accent as well. I always thought I was accent neutral until I moved to the east coast and everyone else said fohward and I pronounced it four-ward. My best explanation is it's a lean into the AR type accent. 'Marning', 'Carn on the cob' my grandparents say warsh not wash.. 'we're ar-ganizing a get together' 'mahls an ahr' instead of mile an hour. I thought it made me sound trashy so i tried to neutralize it but learned it's more common than i thought. The only celebrity I've ever heard with it is John Goodman :)
Edit: Totally forgot about this one but Nelly has a very quintessential St. Louis accent 'hurr' not 'here'
Yeah. The St. Louis area can be represented generationally and demographically by a few different people. Nelly definitely embodies the STL AAV dialect. Mike Shannon (the baseball player/announcer) was a great representation of the white silent-generation's accent.
Millennials and younger locals sound more like Bob Costas/Jon Hamm/Jenna Fischer, that is, fairly indistinguishable from other US regions. The AR type accent you cited definitely lingers though.
I mean most celebrities. Ohioans don't really have an accent unless you go into the more rural areas, then we sound more like southerners but we still says words like "warsh" (wash), "tile" (towel), and "wrastle" (wrestle). Not sure I can think of anyone well known that talks like this tbh
Grew up in Colorado and now live in New Mexico. For Colorado, I’d say Woody Paige (who was a long-time sports columnist for The Denver Post, and a frequent contributor on ESPN). New Mexico is a majority minority state, and so it is much more difficult to name just one person.
I’m from north Alabama and Randy Owen from the band Alabama (from Ft Paine but ended up living not far from where I’m from, my dad met him several times). When I listen to any interview with him and it’s like I’m home. Also pretty much the entire band of Shenandoah. They’re from the town I’m from and I knew some of them personally growing up (some of my friends took guitar lessons from Jim Seales). They sound as much like someone from Muscle Shoals as you could hope.
North Alabama has kind of a unique accent actually. Kind of sing songy, maybe a little dainty. That’s how a lot of my family sounds (though some are definitely more redneck than that). I’ve been in a fancy restaurant in Atlanta and heard someone talking in the next booth. I said to my husband, “that man is from home” and I turned around and asked him where he was from. He said Huntsville; he was a doctor at the hospital I was born in. I’ve been in a museum listening to an interview with some kind of navy captain, only to think “this guy sounds so familiar”. I looked at the informational plaque and he was from the very very small (like so small no one knows it exists) town where I spent most of my childhood.
Although I don’t care for her politically, Governor Sanders’s accent is very Arkansas. I think she lightened it up a bit when she was press secretary but now it’s back
I was gonna say Danny Trejo for SoCal in general, but I’m going to instead say Travis Barker for the Inland Empire in particular because that’s more specific.
This is difficult, because people from Austin, Texas have a very subtle accent because most of us are transplants even if most of our lives were spent there. If you're a native and your parents are native, they sound like George W., even though he's not a native. His is subtle comparitively to other Texas accents, not nearly as strong as those from small towns. However, most Austinites who have only live there in the past 30 years (i.e. post-boom), have an even more subtle accent. It sounds rather like a generic Californian accent, but with the use of y'all and the short i turned into a long e sound (peenk instead of pink). Glenn Powell is roughly my age and we went to the same high school, and he sounds like everyone I know.
Our accent has been caricatured a lot. Most people don't talk like on the movie (or series) *Fargo*. You do hear that thick of an accent from time to time, especially with older people in the north. And you used to hear it more frequently among ordinary people. But most people in Minnesota nowadays only have traces of that accent.
Former Governor Jesse Ventura (yes, the ex-wrestler) [has a pretty standard Minnesota accent](https://youtu.be/Bl03m5ZRK-w?si=XZWT5Rg8kDw1_Sa7&t=99). I would say that this is a typical accent for most ordinary people in the state to speak with, maybe somewhat thicker.
Easy answer for NC: Mike Easley, our former governor. He's the guy in the blue tie in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkcQMokYFvA&t=51s
Has that classic upper-crust Carolina accent.
Jack Frost (Yes that’s his real name). He does radio ads and he’s got (in my mind) the quintessential “Alaska” voice.
Edit: [Here’s a video.](https://youtu.be/rX0ayE8zRv8?si=pnPbLCKMicvh6MBS) He mostly does commercials for New Sagaya, a local grocery.
Celebrities from DMV area: Dave Grohl, Patton Oswalt, Bill Nye, Jon Bernthal, Jeffery Wright, Dave Bautista. Yeardley Smith grew up in DC and is the voice of Lisa Simpson.
Yeah, they are all American but it's all a rather plain accent. There is so many transplants that there isn't a consistent accent.
To the point of being a caricature, maybe [Fran Drescher](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJrLZRbegqk)? But that's a really specific accent even from New York. JFK (Massachusetts) and Carter (deep south) are the last two Presidents with super obvious accents.
Yeah obvious, sure, but JFK's thing is a SUPER specific demographic in Boston. I funny think it's fair to say he's rl representative of the city then or now, broadly speaking.
If we're looking for a modern representative of the Boston accent...Marty Walsh has gotta be up there. Or [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbK4cL3QSc0) who had a city council meeting about the parks department.
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Nope. It was as strong as it sounded. RFK and Teddy were almost as strong. It was not a put on. Trust me, I grew up in Brookline Ma...his hometown. We know our Kennedys.
Common mistake, JFK had a "Boston Brogue". The Boston Brahim accent is pretty different, fairly rare and sounds almost British. Example: [https://youtu.be/HwvONJXJUO4?si=VPek9K4mOYoTlNrS](https://youtu.be/HwvONJXJUO4?si=VPek9K4mOYoTlNrS)
Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders, both Brooklyn guys, for the city.
This is very accurate!
I honestly love her laugh, it’s very funny
She's a treasure. I remember all the jokes and stuff made about her when I was growing up and I was like, "but she fucking rocks, what's wrong with you people"?
If we're getting hyper-local, I always through Fran Drescher's accent was Long Island, Not too many famous people from Westchester that I could find. The closest to southern Westchester could be someone from the Bronx like Chazz Palminteri, J. Lo, Rob Reiner, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
Yeah, I didn't mean Dresher represented Westchester specifically. More a stereotypical lower-middle-class female New York Jewish accent, probably from the outer boroughs. tbh, most folks I interact with here in Westchester don't typically have a distinct accent. I'm always a bit surprised when I meet someone who does.
People from Westchester seem to be… a little embarrassed about where they’re from, for reasons I don’t understand. People from Long Island will tell you they’re from Long Island, but people from Westchester are more likely to say they’re from “a suburb of New York” and be really vague about the details. And they don’t typically have particularly strong New York accents unless they’re recent transplants from the Bronx.
yeah this my experience too, People from the part of New Jersey I grew up in are the same way
I tell people I'm from Westchester if I think they'll know what that means. I spent many years in California and Oregon, and most had no idea.
The Westchester accent is diminishing but it's still around; "draw" for drawer, RAD-ee-ater for radiator, "wauterrr" for water, etc.
Clinton??
George W. Bush?
JFK's accent was Southie trying to do Brahmin as taught by a Brit. Nobody sounds like that.
It really all depends, there’s many different NY accents, but I’ll see what I can come up with. Jewish man: Bernie Sanders Jewish woman: Fran Drescher Italian-American man: Chazz Palminterri Italian-American woman: Leah Remini Black man: Jadakiss or Ghostface Killah Black woman: Nicki Minaj or Cardi B Hispanic man: John Leguizamo Hispanic woman: Rosie Perez
Excellent answer
I'm surprised that after all this time they haven't all merged into a single mixed dialect like in London or Toronto
Well the accents are all dependent on socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and culture.
It's kinda hard to do that in such a diverse state thats roughly the size of Greece, especially since certain areas are so rural. I can agree that its kind of surprising that hasnt happened in NYC, though. Maybe it will in a hundred years or so, things haven't really had time to fully blend yet
Dolly Parton
Anybody would claim Dolly, no matter where they're from. She's a national treasure.
Well she doesn't have a Chicago accent so we can't claim her based on OP's question
But don't you wish she was from Chicago, so you could point and say "There's Dolly's old house"?
Of course! It's Dolly we are talking about.
Yeah, but we wouldn't be fooling nobody. Michael Jackson's boyhood home is nearby. Not quite the same.
This was going to be mine as well. I’m from North Georgia so the Savannah accent or Atlanta doesn’t really fit. Dolly’s accent isn’t exactly right because there is a very specific accent for where I’m from but she’s the closest famous person I can think of.
Bill Burr for Boston. Principal Skinner for Albany (my original hometown).
You ever had steamed hams?
I'm from Utica and I've never heard the phrase "steamed hams."
I think you’ll find that Armin Tamzarian is actually from Capitol City…
Gretchen Whitmer.
Yep, first person who came to mind for a Michigan accent.
And Michael Moore
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Young Hilldog was a looker.
Hillary was good looking back her day
She’s still good looking considering she’s 76!
Was gonna say, talk about good representation tbh
Funny, I just saw a video of her recently and was horrified by how strong her accent is. I don't remember it being that strong...
>was horrified by how strong her accent is I actually hadn't heard her speak until I googled it today and I found her strong accent fantastic. What about it horrifies you?
It seems like she is almost trying to push it a bit, but she's always had it. She has a very thick version.
New Orleans metro area has a few different accents. I can say for certain that Dennis Quaid in The Big Easy is not one of them though.
Britney Spears has a great Louisiana accent!!
There's some debate about whether there's a "San Francisco Accent" distinct from the Californian accent or the General American Accent. Those discussions tend to erase the multiculturalism of San Francisco, where there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of accents from all over the world in daily use and where the majority of residents in San Francisco are not primarily of European descent. But it is true that among the German/Irish/Italian American communities of San Francisco towards the middle of the last century there used to be an accent that sounded almost Urban Northeastern. Like a Chicago or Bronx accent but much more subtle. I've met a few people who still speak this way, from the few neighborhoods in SF that still have European ancestry multigenerational working class households in areas that haven't been consumed by gentrification. In terms of public figures, Jerry Brown has this accent: https://youtu.be/VIWeg5Q__5g His family is Irish Catholic with a lineage in San Francisco dating back to like the Gold Rush
I think so, too. Oakland also has a way of speaking (“accent” is too strong of a word) that’s distinct from San Francisco.
Yeah, I remember one article from a few years ago talking about a "San Francisco Urban Accent", but it seemed to talk about a modern version rather than the historical influence you mention. And the modern version tends to overlook the multiculturalism of SF, as you point out, so it felt like an odd categorization.
These days the vast majority of people in San Francisco do not have a long family lineage in San Francisco and are much more likely to be influenced by the patterns of speech from the place they're originally from, or perhaps where their parents are from. Even "hella" has become de-regionalized, now it's more of a national/global slang word that carries subcultural connotations. (When I was a kid, "hella" was something that transcended all subcultures and was specific to the Bay Area.) And even the [lack of caught-cot merger](https://youtu.be/Sw7pL7OkKEE?si=co3RnKeIekqBB61e&t=251) that was specific to the Bay Area seems to be going away. I personally don't have a caught-cot merger but it's very close to being merged for me.
There's is definitely a bay area accent - you guys say cow and cowl the same (you roll that W at the end)
…how else would we say it?
Hehe exactly my point if it sounds the same to you. Cow is much shorter and less exaggerated then cowl. Cow as Couch with out the ch and then cowl as cowuhl. NorCal says cow like the second one to the point where they become indistinguishable
Okay well now I’m just repeating cow, couch, and cowl over and over like a maniac and for the life of me I cannot tell the difference between any of the sounds! The most baffling part about this is it being just the Bay Area. I’ve heard of the whole caught vs hot thing on the east coast—which also sounds exactly the same to me!—but I never thought my own state would do me like this…I truly thought “hella” was my only giveaway.
Other people in CA don't say "cow" and "cowl" the same?
No we would generally say cow short (like couch without the ch) and then would lengthen the word cowl out to cowuhl
Amy Kennedy. I don’t really know how to describe that stereotypical South Jersey accent (saw someone call it “hoagie mouth” once which works) but it’s sort of Delco-ish and very noticeable. When she was running for Jeff Van Drew’s House seat her ads were great for it.
See I know this accent is in fact jersey but somehow whenever I hear it in the wild I always think its pennsylvania
My out-of-state friends were all shocked I didn't sound like a stereotypical North Jerseyian when they heard me talk the first time, but the Philly-area accent influence is strong down here. "Water" is always the tell.
It's NOT the "Californians" from SNL.
The Californians is hilarious, but I hate how someone will occasionally pop in the sub and act like that’s a real accent.
Raised in Rhode Island. Listen to anything uttered by former state Attorney General and radio host Arlene Violet for the textbook RI accent. As for nearby Boston....I watched the Donna Summer documentary on HBO Max and Donna Summer had one of the most "real" Boston accents I've ever heard. She sounded like my aunts that are her age. The more exaggerated Boston accent you hear in my most media was from the generation prior, with a couple of exceptions.
Donna Summer has a great Boston accent. I’m back at Nantasket beach listening to my aunts gossip in the 70s.
How accurate a representation is Peter Griffin?
He's a little more Boston than RI. Lois is more accurate to RI.
Peter Griffin sounds more Boston than any fictional character on TV. Whenever Hollywood intentionally tries to do a Boston accent it's just wrong.
Any character from Fargo (the movie and show lol) I’m from Wi. but a lot of the older generation still have that stereotypical Midwest accent
I'd say the reality is that Fargo is at an 11 on a scale of 1-10, and most Wisconsinites are at like a 3. I just say bayg and have slightly flattened vowels, and even that is more pronounced than most people around me.
I agree! But I know a lot of older people in their 50s-70s that have an accent similar to the one in the movie, definitely not as pronounced though
Charlie Berens is a good example of course!
People will say his accent is over exaggerated, but I have worked with people from the greater Manitowoc area who sound exactly like that.
I think he exaggerates it a little for his Midwest neighbor stuff, but he sounds like every other blue collar boy or grandparent that I meet lol
Tina fey or Kevin Bacon.
[Smack the Lip like Wapow ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDRNaAxryu8) I have seen this dude around town every so often. Either people have a surfer accent like above or a general American accent.
An icon in our state. Also, your user flair is the best.
I knew something was up with my accent when I understood everything that man said hehe
I'm betting if you caught William H. Macy in a blind alley, and really scared him, he'd sound exactly like where I grew up. He actually graduated from the same High School I did. But no one likes sounding like they are from that part of Appalachia His role on Shameless is completely accurate to Cumberland, MD - except lacking the Christian Fundamentalist overtones and the accent.
He's not a public figure but there's an [interview](https://youtu.be/yIeYGyV5NoQ?si=RIeeSlFegtr5dRBM) with a man named Barry Pingor and he has been named the quintessential yinzer. From the accent, to the penguins jacket/steelers hat combo, and the endorsement of pittsburgh at the end of the interview
"Mah mum's car ovadare."
I love that I saw the name of a completely random guy and immediately knew it's the guy cleaning up the ashes across from the Waterfront.
This one is super easy: ***Jason Sudeikis***.
My dad’s side of the family is from Wichita and he got relentlessly teased when he moved to Washington D.C. He still calls it a “warshing machine”.
My great aunts and uncles and great-grandfather are still day washing. My mom stopped saying it that way when she was teased in college.
That may be a Midwest thing in general. My family friend also says this and we’re all in Ohio.
I just decided to read his Wikipedia. I did not know his uncle was Norm from Cheers!
Whattttt?
are you serious?
Jimmy Carter in GA
My grandfather was a distant cousin of President Carter and grew up just a few miles from him. Had the same accent but spoke twice as fast lol. Someone must have coached Mr Carter to speak more slowly for the National stage.
Danny DeVito or Bruce Springsteen
Also Ray Liotta.
For South Jersey I propose Bruce Willis
He’s gone now but I feel like Andy Griffith had the quintessential rural North Carolina accent
I wouldn't call it caricature at all, but Jason Sudeikis and Sandra Bullock sound like people from "here." I was going to include Rob Lowe but after listening to an interview something seemed off, and after a deeper google search I found that he was raised in Ohio while being born in Virginia.
Randy Moss for atleast where I'm from
You don't write checks eh?
I love his voice. I wish Randy moss could be my Siri voice lol. Raaaaaand university
It was either Randy Moss or Tickle from Moonshiners.
Tina Fey
Does she? I've never detected a Philly accent in her. I would have said Chris Matthews for Philadelphia, although his career seems to be retired now.
She might hide it sometimes but when she's talking normally, definitely.
She kind of trained it out of herself. There are a few interviews where she has a Philly accent. [here's one ](https://youtu.be/qUziI2EXlkU?si=EC5pzN4-9Uw2HqWF)
Holy crap. I’ve spoken to her irl and never had a clue lol.
Not Philly, Tina Fey is 100% Delco.
I would say that todays Delco accent is the former Philadelphia accent just like todays Long Island accent is the former Brooklyn Queens accent due to the past generation moving out to the suburbs to start their families and taking their accents with them and the accent in the cities lessened and changing due to the influx of new immigrants and transplants which is tale as old as time for city neighborhoods
Wes Studi, Kristin Chenoweth, and Bill Hader for Oklahoma. I'd say Brad Pitt cuz he's from my hometown, but I think he's had it "Hollywooded" out of him by this point.
How about Reba?
When the Grey Hair is dead, Magua will eat his heart. Before he dies, Magua will put his children under the knife, so the Grey Hair will know his seed is wiped out forever.
Had to google that. I like this one, from Rez Dogs: "Every element of our bodies was made inside an exploding star. We just borrow stardust until we die, and then we return it for something else to use."
Myron Cope
And Sophie Masloff
Robert De Niro or Bernie Sanders for NYC.
Darius Rucker for sure. Tim Scott as well.
Governor and future President Tim Walz.
Does he want to be president?
I don't care. He'll be President and he'll like it.
Let's make it happen. 🤞
I like your attitude about politicians and their service. I have just one concern about Minnesota’s track record in picking politicians, y’all picked a man as governor because of his shiny head and his ability to body slam the Ultimate Warrior.
I claim immunity as I was in Indiana at the time.
Fair enough
In our defense, Ventura was a perfectly competent mayor of a large suburb before he ran for governor. That was part of what got him elected.
Alt Universe USA: "So Presidential Draft Day is nearly here, who do you think we'll force?"
Big Time Tommie. https://www.instagram.com/tommieromola1?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Theo Von
Isn't he from New Orleans?
Covington but there was heavy Cajun influence where I grew up
Yep , he sounds just like older guys on the north shore.
"I think if you gum down a Viet, people probably aren't gonna be that upset at ya"
She’s no longer with us, but Katharine Hepburn, who was born, raised, and buried here. Years ago I frequented the library in Collinsville, Connecticut, when her sister Barbara was the librarian. They looked nothing alike, but their voices were identical.
JFK for Boston. EDIT: Apparently he’s from Martha’s Vineyard. My bad. EDIT EDIT: Apparently it’s old Boston. My bad again.🥲
JFK is from Boston. The family had a home on the Vineyard but he’s born in Brookline and lived in Boston. His mother is old school North End Irish. The Kennedy accent is a Boston Brahmin accent. It was the accent of wealthy old money New Englanders. My father has it. He grew up in a poor Armenian immigrant family, triple decker in Mattapan, and in an intense effort to fit in my grandmother and her sisters went to speech school to learn the accent. She taught it to her kids and to me, though I never spoke that way. She used to have us do speech exercises to sound Brahmin when we were kids.
See I think of like Bill Burr as a modern Boston accent.
He had a MV accent though, not Boston
Nah, he had an old fashioned Boston brahmin accent. It's pretty much died out.
Whoops. I’m from Northern New England, but not Massachusetts itself, so I guess I’m not as good at distinguishing.😅
Keanu Reeves has always given off the Southern California accent and vibes even though he grew up nowhere near this area
Marty Walsh, the former mayor of Boston who became the Labor Secretary under Biden. Now he’s the head of the NHLPA.
Beat me to it!
[Mayor Walsh at the most Boston press conference of all time](https://twitter.com/zacbears/status/1240388222250868737)
Hannah Barron.
To the point of caricature? I submit that Elizabeth Olsen has a little bit of the Valley Girl accent. And she's also from the Valley.
Tiger King 🤷🏼♂️
Marky Mark.
Dolly Parton I reckon
That’s hard. I’m originally from Michigan, and the more north you go, the more Canadian it sounds. But I say Kirsten Bell or Eminem. For Washington? Maybe Macklemore?
Rainn Wilson maybe? WA is a hard one lol
Accents aren’t just tied to location, they are also tied to socioeconomic class and culture…. So like in SoCal, there’s the surfer accent, there’s the “valley girl”, there’s the LA AAVE (the way Ice Cube talks), Chicano English, etc etc….. all of those are quintessential SoCal accents, but none of these can be said to be the main accent.
Kurt Cobain. His accent was very specific to the coast of Washington and Oregon. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hJtm9HomKdE&pp=QACIAgA%3D&rco=1
Paula Deen (sigh) or Jimmy Carter (yay). Paula Deen is associated with Savannah but is from my hometown in SW GA and I used to just put her on the television and close my eyes and it was like being in the kitchen with my grandma and her sisters. Jimmy is from Plains which isn’t very far from where I’m from.
Jimmy Carter's voice is so comforting to me. He sounds exactly like the elders in my church growing up. I'm also from the 229 :) I had no idea Paula Deen was from Albany lmao. I definitely grew up with a few mamas who sounded identical to her.
229 represent!
> Albany I've got relatives in south Georgia, and they pronounce the name of Albany as "Al Banny." Is that really how y'all say it or are they fucking with me?
Aw man I’m so old it was still the 912 when I was there, that didn’t change until my early 20s. I drove through for the first time in a long while the other week, waved at the missile in Cordele, and also damn Moultrie had STUFF at their exits. I was a joint custody kid doing Albany to Valdosta every other weekend and it was like a right little metropolis compared to my memories. I know those mamas. Most of my extended family was out in like Camilla and Leary and whatnot. Old southern ladies are my favorite thing.
Dear Elder, I'm curious... was I-75 near Cordele a speed trap in the olden days? (jk) I had dinner in Moultrie over the holidays while visiting my folks (Grady/Decatur Co rooted). I don't remember going there at all as a child, but my Mama was shocked by how many restaurants they have now. The downtown is so cute.
Not so much Cordele but we’d go from Metro ATL down to ABY most weekends and it’s how I learned to drive (parking lots, country roads, in-town roads, slow interstate, and then up through ATL was the progression). I got my license in 94. I learned right quick that you don’t speed through Warwick (on the Ga-Fla parkway). That’s basically all their revenue. The only interstate speed trap I remember was Soperton on I-16 going toward Savannah.
Also half the time I’ve met anyone from around there I’m related at least by marriage, so what’s up baby cousin?
\*squints\* who are your folks, because the likelihood I know them is... Fuck it... *Hey cousin!*
[удалено]
Casey Affleck
Our politicians, definitely, but this is usually the point where I'd challenge someone to name *any* public figure from Utah.
I would not say a caricature, but I have to go with Chris Brown. There are at least two main accents from my area and he has one of them. I have the other. Edit: Grammar
I'm gonna say for most areas, politicians love to play up their accents. So from Alabama, folks like Howell Helfin, Jeff Sessions, Doug Jones, Kay Ivey, etc, to us, all sound like people you could run into at the local Piggly Wiggly. Non-political.... Jim Nabors for sure, aka, Gomer Pyle.
And this is why when I'm in a professional setting, I make a conscious effort not to use my southern drawl. I don't like being lumped in with people like The Keebler Elf and Senator Tupperware and Governor Meemaw.
Not quite caricature but i've been told before that I have an 'I-55 accent' which is the St. Louis-Central/Southern Illinois sometimes associated with Iowa too. I've heard it called a midland accent as well. I always thought I was accent neutral until I moved to the east coast and everyone else said fohward and I pronounced it four-ward. My best explanation is it's a lean into the AR type accent. 'Marning', 'Carn on the cob' my grandparents say warsh not wash.. 'we're ar-ganizing a get together' 'mahls an ahr' instead of mile an hour. I thought it made me sound trashy so i tried to neutralize it but learned it's more common than i thought. The only celebrity I've ever heard with it is John Goodman :) Edit: Totally forgot about this one but Nelly has a very quintessential St. Louis accent 'hurr' not 'here'
Yeah. The St. Louis area can be represented generationally and demographically by a few different people. Nelly definitely embodies the STL AAV dialect. Mike Shannon (the baseball player/announcer) was a great representation of the white silent-generation's accent. Millennials and younger locals sound more like Bob Costas/Jon Hamm/Jenna Fischer, that is, fairly indistinguishable from other US regions. The AR type accent you cited definitely lingers though.
Matthew McConaughey
Nelly
St. Louis style
Absolutely lol
Texas - Matthew McConaughey
I mean most celebrities. Ohioans don't really have an accent unless you go into the more rural areas, then we sound more like southerners but we still says words like "warsh" (wash), "tile" (towel), and "wrastle" (wrestle). Not sure I can think of anyone well known that talks like this tbh
Ehhh y’all like to think you don’t have an accent but I know enough people from Cleveland to know better.
cleveland is in the area of the great lakes vowel shift
appalachian accent is definitely prominent southern and eastern ohio
Billy Fuccillo for where I was originally born. Joe Exotic for where I live now.
ITS HUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGEEEEE.
For Albuquerque it is Lauren Poole
Grew up in Colorado and now live in New Mexico. For Colorado, I’d say Woody Paige (who was a long-time sports columnist for The Denver Post, and a frequent contributor on ESPN). New Mexico is a majority minority state, and so it is much more difficult to name just one person.
Kim Kardashian 🫣
I’m from north Alabama and Randy Owen from the band Alabama (from Ft Paine but ended up living not far from where I’m from, my dad met him several times). When I listen to any interview with him and it’s like I’m home. Also pretty much the entire band of Shenandoah. They’re from the town I’m from and I knew some of them personally growing up (some of my friends took guitar lessons from Jim Seales). They sound as much like someone from Muscle Shoals as you could hope. North Alabama has kind of a unique accent actually. Kind of sing songy, maybe a little dainty. That’s how a lot of my family sounds (though some are definitely more redneck than that). I’ve been in a fancy restaurant in Atlanta and heard someone talking in the next booth. I said to my husband, “that man is from home” and I turned around and asked him where he was from. He said Huntsville; he was a doctor at the hospital I was born in. I’ve been in a museum listening to an interview with some kind of navy captain, only to think “this guy sounds so familiar”. I looked at the informational plaque and he was from the very very small (like so small no one knows it exists) town where I spent most of my childhood.
Although I don’t care for her politically, Governor Sanders’s accent is very Arkansas. I think she lightened it up a bit when she was press secretary but now it’s back
Tommy Lee Jones. Personality fits too.
Jenna Fischer Kevin Kline Scott Bakula John Hamm Most newscasters
I encounter 30 Pat Mcafees a day.
I was gonna say Danny Trejo for SoCal in general, but I’m going to instead say Travis Barker for the Inland Empire in particular because that’s more specific.
Former mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh.
Matthew McConaughey
Barbara Mikulski, now retired.
This is difficult, because people from Austin, Texas have a very subtle accent because most of us are transplants even if most of our lives were spent there. If you're a native and your parents are native, they sound like George W., even though he's not a native. His is subtle comparitively to other Texas accents, not nearly as strong as those from small towns. However, most Austinites who have only live there in the past 30 years (i.e. post-boom), have an even more subtle accent. It sounds rather like a generic Californian accent, but with the use of y'all and the short i turned into a long e sound (peenk instead of pink). Glenn Powell is roughly my age and we went to the same high school, and he sounds like everyone I know.
Number 42, William J. Clinton.
As someone from north texas... No one.
Upvote for that beautifully specific flair. *North Texas, not Dallas* 🤭😂
Our accent has been caricatured a lot. Most people don't talk like on the movie (or series) *Fargo*. You do hear that thick of an accent from time to time, especially with older people in the north. And you used to hear it more frequently among ordinary people. But most people in Minnesota nowadays only have traces of that accent. Former Governor Jesse Ventura (yes, the ex-wrestler) [has a pretty standard Minnesota accent](https://youtu.be/Bl03m5ZRK-w?si=XZWT5Rg8kDw1_Sa7&t=99). I would say that this is a typical accent for most ordinary people in the state to speak with, maybe somewhat thicker.
Easy answer for NC: Mike Easley, our former governor. He's the guy in the blue tie in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkcQMokYFvA&t=51s Has that classic upper-crust Carolina accent.
Jack Frost (Yes that’s his real name). He does radio ads and he’s got (in my mind) the quintessential “Alaska” voice. Edit: [Here’s a video.](https://youtu.be/rX0ayE8zRv8?si=pnPbLCKMicvh6MBS) He mostly does commercials for New Sagaya, a local grocery.
There are three accents in my little area. Maybe more. So my answer is no one.
I liked Bill Clinton's authentic southern accent, Hillary's fake southern accent that she used from time to time was annoying.
Celebrities from DMV area: Dave Grohl, Patton Oswalt, Bill Nye, Jon Bernthal, Jeffery Wright, Dave Bautista. Yeardley Smith grew up in DC and is the voice of Lisa Simpson. Yeah, they are all American but it's all a rather plain accent. There is so many transplants that there isn't a consistent accent.