Think You Don't Have an Accent? The American Accent Quiz Will Prove You Wrong!

[raging moderate]

134. Pretty close in my case, but I don't say "pop."

Although some of my relatives do. Most of us say "soda pop" (that great compromise). One thing I have noticed is the word "pour," which all my family has always pronounced as rhyming with "sure." This was the usual way on the north side of Chicago where I grew up. However, as I lived in several Southern Illinois communities years ago, I gradually learned to rhyme it with "for." That eliminated a lot of "What?" responses and helped me do a better job teaching their children to talk.

Here in rural Northern Illinois, I notice I am in an area that is mixed in this pronunciation. Also, they can pronounce the word "rural" with the middle R sound. If you go one hundred miles south of here, they don't do that, and all the children refused even to try. Most of the people in that area insist on rhyming it with "school" so that it sounds just like "rule."

I noticed some other interesting generalies in my travels. In my childhood neighborhood, almost everybody lifted their tongue-tips to touch behind the upper teeth for S and Z sounds, which are thus lingua-alveolar sounds almost like long T and D sounds, and lifted their tongue-tips in a sort of backward curl for R sounds, so it is a retroflex sound. If you go to Southern Illinois, most people there use the lower incisors for the reference point, so that S, Z, and R sounds are formed more with the tongue-blade, and they form a sort of little bowl midway for the R sound.

As I moved back northward through Illinois, the blade S, Z, and R sounds gradually decreased. In those areas, I learned to be very careful to ascertain what the family custom was for S, Z, and R sounds before trying to work with the children. My rule is never to confuse or upset a child, so I would just teach them whichever form was usual in their families (usually the mother's accent). Some people up this way use a retroflex R for the beginning of words, others for the beginning and the middle of words but not at the end.