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Aspects Of Southern American English

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The ever so charming dialect of Southern American English is often found quite pleasant sounding to other Americans. In fact, according to an article in TIME Magazine and a survey from dating site Cupid.com, “the sing-song honey sweetness of the Southern accent is the country’s sexiest”. Many Northerners, Midlanders and SouthWesterners are enthralled by the attractiveness of Southern English. Although, some language and grammar aspects of Southern American English are thought to be improper or incorrect. This negative aspect of the language variety makes those who speak it sometimes seem uneducated or incorrect when it comes to the “rules” of American English (pbs). Southern American English, also known as SAE for short, is a true gem of an…show more content…
That's a whopping fourteen out of fifty states, where SAE is widely spoken. Going back to the Cupid.com survery, it was interesting to see that Mid-Atlantic accents seemed to be the least attractive variety of the English language when surveying 2,000 men and women on the dating site. Southern accent had 36.5 percent of the vote while Mid-Atlantic had only 4 percent of the vote (TIME). Even though the “southern language” is for the most part the same throughout the different southern states, the deeper south you go the more likely for all the features to be used. A map of the southern half of the United States is divided linguistically by “the Upper South, Lower South and Delta South”…show more content…
The vegetable green beans is often called “snap beans” in some southern communities. Another fascinating older lexical difference is a dragonfly being called a “mosquito hawk” (pbs). Many varieties of American English have interesting lexical differences but SAE has to have some of the most intriguing. Its old time sayings have been passed down from generation to generation.
There is a common misconception of southerners and their variety of language being perceived as “dumb” or wrong. People get the idea of southerners being grammatically incorrect or illiterate because a multitude of movies and television shows portray them that way. Popular shows like The Dukes of Hazzard make out those who live in the Southern United States to use “non-proper English” (pbs). Yet through understanding and researching all of the features of SAE it is very evident that their speech is entirely correct in all characteristics of standard
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