Why does Bush have an accent?

[HEyHEY]

From what I gather his family is from New England. His Dad worked in Washington, he went to Yale. So when the FUCK did he pick up the accent?

[shraby]

1. From an acting coach...where else?

[JohnKleeb]

2. A very good acting coach

[allalone]

29. couldn't have been a very good coach

cuz it's a lousy accent

[JohnKleeb]

43. yeah but good enough to make people not realize hes from connecticut

[SoCalDem]

3. He needed one to "fit in" with the Native-born Texans

Lots of people put on accents to blend in,..

He uses it to show "he's just plain ole folk"..

Some people actually buy it:(

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

20. Doesn't fit with my experience

When I lived in Texas, it was the Texans who accepted me. The Yalies and Harvoids in my grad program were the ones who snooted on my strong California accent.

[SoCalDem]

21. HE was so insecure, that he felt he needed it..

Most people in a region do NOT dis the new people.. The "social climbers" new to an area, are the ones who try to put on the accent:)

[Big Kahuna]

4. Degenerative brain disease.

[Columbia]

42. That's what I think too

[olddem43]

5. He obviously cultivated the accent -

He lost a campaign in Texas for congress because he was perceived as an easterner. I guess that's when he decided to become a "cowboy."

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

6. His siblings don't have accents either.

Even Jeb. Especially the other siblings.

He not only went to Yale, he went to prep school in Maryland in his junior high and high school days. So he only came "home" to TX on holidays. Then Yale, then Harvard. Doesn't exactly make you heavy on the twang.

There is old footage of him speaking and he has no dialect at all. His fake dialect has gotten thicker and thicker as time has gone on, and it is heavier or lighter depending on the audience. I minored in linguistics and have an ear for this stuff. It's soooo damn affected.

And it pisses this Texan off. He's a carpetbagger.

[Lisa]

40. Timothy Bottoms noticed that too ...

Preparing to play the Shrub in that Comedy Central TV show, he noted that Bush's "accent" comes and goes, depending on the audience ... and that it's not like the dialects Bottoms learned as a professional actor. Another Bush impersonator, Brent Mendenhall, is from Missouri and has a lot of experience with Southern accents -- and he said that Bush just talks like he has "a mouth full of marbles", from no region in particular.

I wonder if Bush picked up his fake western drawl from watching TV shows as a kid? Along with that corny "smoke 'em out" vocabulary?

Bush didn't really spend many of his formative years in West Texas, because they moved to Houston when he was still in junior high, and he went to a fancy prep school there. Also, the people he'd have spent the most time with would have been his own family, and they're New Englanders. So I'm not surprised that his "natural" accent (the one he uses when he thinks nobody's paying attention, e.g. before he ran for office; and as someone else on this thread noted, when he gets all emotional and forgets how he's "supposed" to talk) isn't really West Texan. I recently heard someone who'd spent all his life in the Midland area speaking, and it didn't bear much of a similarity to Bush.

[DAGDA56]

7. And to my ear, Jeb does not! Didn't they grow up together?

[Silverhair]

8. He did spend his early boyhood in Midland, TX.

He can drop the accent when he wants to. He thinks it wins him some support by making him appear like one of the common folks.

[Career Prole]

9. Just like everything about the bush family

it's a freakin' lie.

[Shoeempress]

10. He grew up in Connecticut, schooled at Phillips Andover, MA(an incredibly

tony, old money school) then off to Yale (CT) and Harvard (MA). Then drinking for 20 years followed by moving to Texas where he was a failed Business man. Yea, fake accent.

[MichiganVote]

11. Because he's an asshole

[happynewyear]

12. he is pretending to be a Texan

and he is not a Texan on any level whatsoever. I'd be appalled if I lived in Texas and I felt required to support him, as apparently many Texans do!

I do not believe that any person in Texas needs to feel the least bit guilty if they do not support *. I've talked to a few that feel like they must support him being they live in Texas. However, I always *remind* them that * is not from Texas, he is a wanna be cowboy and that is stretching it even IMO.

:puke:

:kick:

[Longhorn]

13. It's largely an adopted accent.

Okay, I was born in Indiana and lived there or in Michigan until I was 16 and we moved to Texas. At the same time, many oil companies moved their headquarters to Houston and my school district doubled in one year. Many of the newcomers were from New York or New Jersey and had a lot to say about "My school back home" which was always bigger or better than our school. The movers and shakers of the school were the natives and I did not want to be associated with those Yankee complainers, so I very quickly tried to sound more Texan, using words such as "y'all" and "fixin' to." (Drove my mother crazy! ;))

That was 33 years ago. I probably don't sound too Texan to other Texans but I don't sound like a Hoosier to other Hoosiers, either.

Bush* did go to grade school in Midland and Houston, I believe, and he lived in Midland, Dallas, and Houston, at various times as a young adult. He definitely doesn't have a natural accent but one he picked up, on purpose, to fit in with the good ole boys. There are real cowboys and then there are psuedo-cowboys like Bush*, who is reportedly afraid of horses!

Believe me, I ain't defendin' him!

[rogerashton]

16. Me, too

and I done growed up in Northwest Louisiana. I can lay it on as thick or as thin as I need to, but being around southern folks always brings it out.

[Zang]

18. haha

notice how his accent accidentally got lost when he was upset during the debates?

[KC21304]

14. I'm sure he aquired it around the same time he realized

he needed to add something to get that southern vote so he decided he would try 2 for good measure. An accent and religion.

[tnlefty]

27. Well, he went 0 for 2 with this southerner! I reject his religion and his

fake accent! And I have had fellow lifelong southerners tell me that I have a "delightful" accent (cringe). I despise the way he sounds and I can't stand to hear Jeff Sessions either, but I know that I have an accent because I hear it in my kids and it strikes me when I hear them say particular words/phrases and I know where it came from - me. My accent is different from their Dad's.

[prayin4rain]

15. I think it is more of slur than an accent.

I actually did grow up in Texas and I don't talk like that. I did work at an auto parts store for a short time and a lot of people did actually talk like that, customers and staff. His, however, comes from pure moranity.

[benito]

17. Why does Governor Arnold still have his Austrian accent?

Because he's an actor, just like shrub.

[billybob537]

19. He chose Texas accent

Because nobody in Mass or Conn would fall for his stupid bullshit.
He's afeared of cows and horses. How Texan is that?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

22. To my ear, he doesn't have an accent - he has several

It seems to get more cornponeish and duelin'-banjolike the deeper Bush penetrates the bible belt. And as he journeys west of the Mississippi, his "r" sound changes, like the way Oklahomans pronounce the word "wire" as "war".

Bush also has a speech impediment. He seems incapable of pronouncing the "z" sound, especially at the end of a word. I don't think that's a Texas affectation. It's no accent I've ever heard.

[Pharlo]

24. The closest I have come to hearing an accent

similar to the one George W. affects, is the character played by Slim Pickens in "Dr. Strangeglove: Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Bomb".

It is entirely possible that both Mr. Pickens and Bush are adapting authentic Texan accents. I just find the similarities somewhat disconcerting.

[Atman]

23. It comes and goes according to audience

Not kidding. Watch his addresses to the UN. NO accent. Watch his speeches in front of NASCAR fans or on southern military bases...he's practically spittin' chewin' tobaccy. He is a total fraud, through and through.

[Stephanie]

26. Exactly. He puts on the phony TX accent for his campaign rallies.

But when he's in DC or NY he drops it.

[DemBones DemBones]

34. Well, he used to chew tobacco and spit in a paper cup at Harvard

business school. As a professor, I'd have thrown him, or any other cup spitters, out of my class -- yuck! Tobacco chewing is an outdoor sport.

[maddezmom]

25. Jim Beam helped him out with it!!

or was it Johnny Walker??

[teamster633]

28. Don't forget that fine Peruvian blow...

...plenty of brain cells lost to the marching powder, too.

[allalone]

30. accent acquired?

my son has been living in Texas for 15 years and he is just now starting to sound a little Texan. He was born and raised in California. Whats funny is that a California accent sounds cowboy to my relatives in the midwest.

[Robbie67]

31. It's actually not difficult to pick up an accent

if you live in the South for a while

Besides, he's playing his "accent" to the hilt nowadays

[RPM]

32. cuz he's a goddamn goldbricking son of a bitch

'nuff said

[0007]

33. An accent? A nasal draw is not an accent.

[yardwork]

35. LOL! Point to you!

Even if the chimp did spend some childhood time in Midland, TX, he wouldn't have picked up much of an accent. I'm sure he attended private elementary schools full of other kids from eastern families.

My kids were born and raised in North Carolina and they have no southern accent, because their parents have no southern accent.

Kids learn to speak the way their families speak at home. Chimpy ain't no Texan.

[nonconformist]

36. Bush lost his first election in Texas

Because he was viewed as a snooty New England outsider. That should tell you why he has an accent now. Plus, Republicans are now locked into the good ol' southern boy tactic because it pulls away from a traditionally Democratic base. In Bush's case though I think they overplayed their hand and it will start to backfire some for them in the future.

[pauliedangerously]

37. HIS ACCENT IS FAKE, JUST LIKE HIS "RANCH" eom

[proReality]

38. He has an accent?

Guess I'd better stop swearing at the TV when he's on, so I can hear it.

[autorank]

39. Can you spell "Dissociative Identity Disorder" n/t

[eauclaireliberal]

41. Because the average American

is a complete morAn. That "Aw, schucks!" thing has the Pukes eating out of his hand.