Why do many Americans equate southern accents with low intelligence?

Umm, because it's true?

Go down south and find out fer yurself, OP!

People with any thick accent give off a less then worldly vibe. Be it Southern, Brooklyn or upper midwest. If you sound like you've never left your trailer park no one will think you're a great intellect

Poor sweet darling baby OP!

[quote] Poor sweet darling baby OP!

Well bless his heart.

I think its because most of the "elites", be it higher education (Ivy league), Finance (Wall Street), Fashion (New York), Show biz & glamor (Hollywood), etc. they all developed away from the south. Since the elites have the most influence, their ways of life which include their manner of speech and accent became associated with the upper classes of American society and thus, considered to be of higher importance and standard. I welcome any counter agreements though.

[quote]less then worldly

Oh dear.

Then/than is my bete noire.

Or, it could be that Southerners are just plain — and proudly — stupid, R6.

White trash shuger

These people sound pretty stupid.

No, there's a certain Carolina drawl that I love. I've known several southern lawyers- very liberal, intelligent, and compassionate - with this accent and boy is it hot.

EVERYBODY has an accent. Even the Queen of England and the King of Spain

^^ This ^^ And NO accent is thicker than any other, despite R3’s seemingly astute observation.

It's not so much low intelligence as lack of education and confinement to a small area, OP. A lot of people would superficially diagnose those factors as "stupid".

I disagree with R13. Every English-speaking country has a "standard" accent, and the further anyone's accent diverges from that, the more likely they are to be viewed as less well educated and travelled, and probably lower class. You can tell what the "standard" is because it is the accent actors use when the character's provenance is not important but being understood is. It is the accent in which professional singers sing.

The more an accent diverges from "standard", the more it is likely to be described as "thick", because the harder it is to understand if you're not an English speaker or you don't come from that particular country.

Non English-speaking countries, at least the European ones, have the same issues. When you, as an English-speaker, learn French you will learn Sorbonne standard, but you won't hear that in many parts of the country, including a lot of Paris. And you sure as hell won't hear it in Quebec.

It’s the accent more equated with white trash

After listening to the Murdaugh related 911 calls I’m starting to believe the Southern accent is a danger to basic communication that has the potential to seriously cause harm. It’s one thing as a northerner not to understand it, but it becomes obvious that southerners can’t understand each other.

r6 technical London is in the southern part of England and certainly the UK as a whole. But it’s closer to the continent so that’s an exception.

We're just as likely to equate California Valley-speak, or a heavy New Joyusie/Bronx or Brooklyn accent to mean the same thing, OP.

I am fascinated with accents. I have had relatives that have moved to the US south and they picked up the accent within a year but it seems that people from the south that move north never lose their accents.

Australia and New Zealand residents were originally nearly all from the UK, how did they develop such distinct and different accents from the home country. I have heard people from Scotland speak and sometimes it is almost like they are speaking a foreign language, some times I can only make out a few word they are saying.

Will the English language eventually get so laden with accents that they become almost like separate languages? Will the broadcasted word keep that from happening?

Nah, I'd stay in Cleveland for a couple of weeks as a child with family and picked "crick," etc. up quickly.

There are many thick accents like r3 describes which have never been considered an indicator that someone is "less than worldly." Upper class British accents like Nigel Bruce when he played "well done, old bean" types, thick American Mid-Atlantic theat-ah accents, Received Pronunciation like Alistair Cooke, what used to be called the "typical Harvard accent," are all examples of thick accents that aren't considered markers of stupidity or of being a rube.

Also, some Southern accents don't conjure up images of stupid people. The old educated Southern types like Shelby Foote, the Southern belle, and I'd go so far as to say even the Cajun French accent sound interesting rather than unintelligent.

There's also that Southern Businessman accent that probably has an official name but I don't know what it is, but I do know that Gerald McRaney is really good at it. You don't get stupid from that accent so much as ruthless and right wing and unpleasant.

A majority of military and civilian pilots use a particular slow drawl that communicates more calm confidence than it does a slow mind. You can hear it in every passenger announcement from the flight deck.

For northerners, OP, I think a lot of the perceived “stupidness” has to do with the slowness of the cadence - the urban NE uses a more direct, snappy level of patter, and even the slower pace of rural areas up here don’t slow to the speed of a southern drawl. I don’t assume lank of intelligence, but I do get impatient.

This is an interesting subject to ponder but I find myself in need of a little clarification. Which southern accents does the OP have in mind? There are a multitude of accents to be found below the Mason-Dixon. There is the southern inland, the Appalachian, the lowlands, the drawls, the twangs, the coastal accents (and there are multitudes of those as well), the particular way of speaking to be found in Louisiana due to the Creole and Cajun influences, the Rhotic manner of speaking, the urban accents, the rural accents and the list goes on. Is the OP referring to the accents of white speakers or to the accents of southern American black speakers?

It's been my experience that an educated and intelligent speaker will sound educated and intelligent no matter the accent and the same goes for an uneducated one. The act of equating intelligence (or lack thereof) with particular accents says much more about the person making the equation than it says about the accent or the person speaking in an accent.

Trae Crowder and Cory Ryan Forrester this is not about you xx

Because it just sounds like stupidity.

Well, those Yankees seem to love mine!

I read OP's question and literally the only thought that comes to mind is "... why wouldn't they?"

I used to work for a guy from Mississippi who had the loveliest drawl, almost like a cartoon character, the plantation owner in some of the Bugs Bunny cartoons, come to mind. Very old world genteel Southern gentleman.

He used to make us laugh though because he'd say things like "are you mocking me, suh?" which made us laugh harder because we almost expected him to demand pistols at dawn or to draw a glove out and slap someone's face.

Because Southern states have dominated the rankings of the least educated states for a long time, OP:

Well, I'm Southern and to me nothing sounds more stupid and angry than the fast talkin' NY accent. Is it Lawn Guyland that has that on or the Bronx?

Yeah, the whole "Yooze" "Deeze" "Dem" "Doze" accent from the north east (Boston?) sounds incredibly ignorant as well. And is much harsher than the southern accent.

We have eyes and ears

Yes, Boston is horrible. I almost posted that. LI too.

Henry Higgins was right. Anybody who does not speak with a proper British accent (aka “received pronounciation”) is a common guttersnipe.

Those proper British accents make us colonials think you are effete poofsters.

The Tidewater and NE NC accent is closer to Elizabethan English than modern Brits.

Research yourself, this ain't Speech 101 at college.

It's not bigotry when liberals do it.

When I was 12, I made the regional spelling bee (the last step before the National Spelling Bee). I was shocked when I lost to some other kid from Kentucky who had a very thick hillbilly accent. He went on to the national bee and exited in the 5th or 6th round.

Because it is the one type of “ethnic” humor still tolerated.

I still think that Jimmy Carter’s southern drawl was part of why he was so unpopular. He was brilliant but often thought of as rural/country.

[quote] It's not bigotry when liberals do it.

That’s because liberals have earned the right to be bigoted against anybody who is not one. It is not just your right, it is your fucking duty at this point. Outright open bigotry against the unenlightened is a privilege of enlightenment.

I have one personal exemption to this rule: Blaire Erskine.

Southern-bashing is just a cover for anti-Black racism from the guinea-infested still-redlined blue states.

Because doing impersonations in AAVE is considered WAYCIST.

Yet homophobia is considered acceptable.

This is why punching down is punching back when gay men and lesbians do it.

I echo what R41 said.

When Carter was president, I had to constantly remind myself that he was a well-educated man, because his accent made him sound like an idiot (to me, at least).

Homophobia is where white trailer trash and black ghetto trash intersect. It is the reason the lower classes deserve to be the lower classes.

Jimmy Carter was just another racist white southern trash hick. Anti-Zionism is racism because Jews are people of color.

"That’s because liberals have earned the right to be bigoted against anybody who is not one."

How very goosestep of you!

Piss off Matt. No one wants your damn bullshit. Jews are not POC, FFS. Are you off your meds again and, if so, take them before someone gets a welfare check.

[quote] That’s because liberals have earned the right to be bigoted against anybody who is not one. It is not just your right, it is your fucking duty at this point. Outright open bigotry against the unenlightened is a privilege of enlightenment.

Oh the irony of Republicans/rightwingers calling liberals bigots. It’s typical “I know you are but what am I?”

Not liking an accent is not big time bigotry. Want to know what bigtime bigotry is?

*marching through Charlottesville saying “Jews will not replace us”

*saying Mexicans are “rapists and drug dealers, maybe some good people too”

*preventing people to come into your country because of the majority religion of their country (unless it’s a wealthy Gulf ally, of course)

*electing and worshipping a man accused of molestation by 35 women

Just a few of, sadly, scores of examples.

Experience

I was about to ask why M.A. was having a temper tantrum over this particular topic when I remembered that letter his parents wrote about him when he was a kid, and the Southern state they lived in at the time. Someone's taking this personally!

I keep hearing about this letter. Where can I find it?

I'm not reposting it, r55. Every time it gets posted, M.A. complains and the thread gets deleted.

Can you google it?

I am a genteel (Cheshire Conn by way of the Philadelphia Mainline) ) yet drunk Irish American, and I have lived all the USA, including Georgia and Texas. So if I meet a college professor who lives in Savannah, and wear round spectacles and sports a dashing seersucker suit at 60, and he has a thick southern accent with gentlemanly manners - I don't think he's stupid. He's not stupid.

If I meet Jethro, Bubba's cousin, at the Piggly Wiggly, and he has no mask, a Trump hat, and some probably affiliation with the KKK and AA, and might definitely make moonshine and/or meth? Yeah, he's fucking stupid.

Do you know what else is bigotry? Saying that a man in a dress is actually a woman. Calling Jews white while ignoring antisemitism from white supremacists. Watching unfunny sitcoms about white people at the expense of actually funny ones with Black and or integrated casts. Refusing to have sex with your own sex.

WTF? Ya'll too much!

Matt's usual tiresome shit @R59. You are not black and never will be, not with that blond/red hair.

R59 is ugly Anscher. The hideous thing is off its meds again.

Well tomorrow it needs to show up for its court-appointed psychiatric treatment so hopefully we’ll get a few days respite.

R62 is a racist yt junkie. Stop dragging the rest of us down to your level, you pill addicted loser.

Who is this Matt person? I've missed all this.

Italians in the northern and pacific coastal states are more to blame for racism than anybody in the south. Anyone who claims otherwise is not only a racist but is probably in the mafia or a homophobic pedophile in the Catholic Church.

Wut, R65?

[quote] How very goosestep of you!

That’s a speciesist slur. Off to the gulag with you!

Matt, you have no business calling anyone else a loser.

Been living under a rock R64?

You really dont hear a thick southern accent much anymore except with older people. Ive always been incredibly turned on by one,but then again I was born and raised in the south.Yes,I had one growing up but having lived all over the country most of my life it disappeared .

No, I don't read every thread.

Please, show your DL PHD, r68.

True R69. I think modern mobility is softening a lot of our accents. I had a much more distinctive accent when young but moving further North in my youth softened my East Texas accent up quite a bit so that people will say I have an accent but can't quite place it.

R68, that’s its typical “I know you are but what am I?” approach to life. Ugly Anscher has no other schtick.

Think about what a world-class loser you must be to exist solidly to blight others. What else does ugly Anscher do?

[quote]No, I don't read every thread.

You must not read much if you've missed the troll known as Matt Anscher, the Zionist troll on a bender.

Matthew Anscher freelance writer?

White gentile racists like you add no value to anything. You are parasites to only take and never give back.

Well, no wonder I don't read this shit.

Carry on and I will too.

Jews are superior so you project your loserhood onto us out of pure unadulterated antisemitism.

Freelance writer means unemployed R74. He gets some sort of disability because he's unemployable.

Matt, you have no clue who is white, gentile, jew or poc on an anon board so cut the shit.

Keep up your hate speech and harassment and there will be no yt race by the end of this century.

Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da

🐷 Deliverance

Your descendants will all speak Hebrew and have dark skin.

Black Southerners are superior to white Northerners.

Matt, dear, there is no hate speech or harassment. You doxxed yourself here a long time ago and your childish rantings are ineffectual.

Black slaveowners should never have had to give up their slaves and should be allowed to enslave yt trash. It is the only way they will learn.

Black slaveowners’ descendants deserve yt slaves as reparations for having their property systematically stolen from them by white union war criminals.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.......rant, rant, rant, rant.....

Southerners are uneducated.

yt is for youtubers?

R65 - more than the Irish? LOL!

Our little troll is posting with two accounts.

At least the southern accent sounds relaxed and friendly. The Boston, New York, Jersey accents sound like mafia with bodies buried in the backyard. Very abrasive, aggressive, and just plain ugly.

My parents are from Arizona and moved to New Orleans in the '60s. My dad hired a lawyer and my mom went to speak with him. She came back mad at my dad for hiring such an uneducated hick who said "dees" and "does". But my dad said he was very educated, he was just Cajun.

I'm surprised your mom could even understand him R92. I drove from Houston to New Orleans and stopped at some gas station on the way and couldn't understand a word they were saying.

R7 "bete noire"

Oh, dear.

[quote] At least the southern accent sounds relaxed and friendly. The Boston, New York, Jersey accents sound like mafia with bodies buried in the backyard.

I know, right?

Couldn’t agree more, guys!

Because it’s true?

You are killing us! This is LITERAL violence!!!!

Only those in the south do that.

I have a good friend from the deep South and Siri can't understand a word he says.

Large vocabulary and correct grammar are the two markers of educated people, not accents. My former boss (southern female) had the most gentile southern accent possible, and a mind so sharp she could cut through a problem in no time flat. Plus, southerners have a stock of country sayings that are humorous and can cut the tension in a room very quickly. But a vocabulary consisting of 500 words or less, half of them swear words, impresses no one, whether the speaker is a New Yorker, a Floridian, a Texan, Ryan Lochte, or practically any contestant on Big Brother.

A northern accent will result in you being called a God Damn Yankee in most of the rural US south OP. They still call the Civil War, the "War of Northern Aggression" .

It works both ways.

Snobbery pure and simple. You see the same thing in other countries.

The South is identified with Christian fundamentalism, which is stupid. That is a big part of it these days. It's unfair to a lot of Southerners, but it is a factor. Also, they are identified with racism, Trump worship, also very stupid things. Not fair to many, but other factors. In general, the South and Southerners do disproportionately embrace stupid things, like being anti-vaxxing lately and generally assholes about Covid. Again, plenty of highly intelligent Southerners reject those things, but they are kind of stuck with the fact that so many Southerners don't. Prior to that it was Jim Crow and all kinds of other shit. And really, as the most conservative part of the country, they are going to be stuck with a reputation for being backwards.

I’m an upper southerner so may be biased, but I think certain Northern accents sound uneducated. I have a cousin from Connecticut who sounds like a dim bulb sports bar habitúe. He doesn’t pronounce the final syllables of anythin’.

[R102] Are you posting from 1940? I haven’t heard the Civil War called that except ironically as a joke or in movies.

Look at their IQ scores, OP. They’re the dumbest in the country.

The South still won’t even call it the CIVIL war. They’re at the bottom when it comes to education.

OP, familiarize yourself with the legacy of hookworm in the South prior to the great treatment programs largely spearheaded by the Rockefeller Fdn. helped increase the mean intelligence of the South, thanks to curbing the endemic parasitic infections among children and adults across Dixie.

It wasn't just the poor, but high rates of poverty in the South contributed the most to the problems. Poor people did not wear shoes much in warmer weather. Shoes and the money to pay for them were saved for winter. In summer, without plumbing, The ground afforded a very convenient way for the worm lifecycles to succeed, since many people used the bushes when a need arrived, spreading larva for the feet to infest and make their way to be adults in the intestines.

Persistent anemia and the loss of protein nutrients because of parasitic appetites made them lethargic, sapped their energy, stole their weight and yielded the slow, shiftless, aimless manners that became Southern stereotypes.

These infections remain a problem, often ignored and untreated, but not like before.

As for why the South is still such a problem in other ways, see threads on fascism, personality cults, evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, slavers, traitors, secessionists and cultural norms on enforced stupidity.

R109 Please explain the cesspool otherwise known as Indiana.

[quote] Why do many Americans equate southern accents with low intelligence?

Because it's true. I lived in NYC for 40 yrs and moved to a town outside of Atlanta. They are the dumbest people I've ever met

Hookworms, r109?!

Do you play in puddles?

[quote] They’re at the bottom when it comes to education.

They're proud of it too

I remember when Obama was elected, he wanted to put funds towards some program(s) that would make college more affordable and more people could attend college. I think he had said something to the affect, "We want to make it so everyone can go to college". I remember the comments in our local paper,

"we don't want our kids going to college"

"he wants to force our kids to go to college"

"this is socialism"

"it's communism", "he's a communist"

"this is what Hitler did to the Nazis"

"I didn't go (to college), my kid ain't going either"

"we don't want this for our kids"

A southern accent signals low cunning.

*Sarah Huckabee Sanders here*

[quote] [[R102]] Are you posting from 1940? I haven’t heard the Civil War called that except ironically as a joke or in movies.

Well that says more about you than me R106, just because you haven't heard it, doesn't make it not true.

[R116] It says about me that I live in the South snd have a whole bunch of elderly aunts who don’t say that and if I said it they would laugh.

[quote] Are you posting from 1940? I haven’t heard the Civil War called that except ironically as a joke or in movies

They don't call it anything. They never talk about it. They act like it never happened.

They lost the war

"The War of Northern Aggression."

I'm a Yankee and I've heard the expression. Many times. And always used in a faux-ironic passive-aggressive way by Southern acquaintances. Just trying to get in one last dig before it really is all gone with the wind.

Call the war anything you want. No matter what you call it, the South still lost.

Ms. Lindsay, is that you?

Go on home, girl, and take care of your Covid.

even liberal southerners have problems with their accents

So now we have a "War of Northern Aggression" troll ? Im a born and bred southerner ,with family from in pretty much every southern state,and not only have I never in my 60 years heard anyone talk about the civil war ,Ive never heard anyone call it that.Except on tv. WONA troll has never been south of the Mason Dixon line in its life. Shoo fly ,shoo !

[R122] Same here, I have family in Virginia, The Carolinas, Arkansas, Florida, Texas and Louisiana. Never heard it once. There are people that have rebel flags but not anyone I know, they’re the mark of stupidity and loserdom. I’ve seen them in upstate New York and Pennsylvania, too, so they must now symbolize white supremacy not just the “lost cause.” Im glad to know who to steer clear of.

My brother lives in Canada and was talking about rednecks there with confederate flags. We're from Texas and he was all "WTF"?

and then he said "moose"?

[quote] even liberal southerners have problems with their accents

I grew up in NYC, I can't stand a southern accent or a northern accent. I call a lot of insurance companies as part of my job. A southern accent usually means someone who is kind of dumb, but more importantly really, really slow.

But when I hear a NY-ish accent, I get a bad feeling in my stomach. A lot of the time they're pushy/rude

I have relatives born/raised in the south. We could barely understand them in the 1970s-1980s. But they've lost most of their accent in college or just over the years

The people that still have southern accents tend to have not dealt with a large circle of people during their life. They tend to be small town people that don't get out of their small town very much. They tend to be stupid

The polite southern way of referring to the civil war is "The War Between The States". But I lived in Tallahassee for 12 years, and a friend of mine born and raised there would teasingly call it "the War of Northern Aggression" just to get a rise out of me.

The only Southern state in the top 20 of US states for IQ is Virginia. (That said neither NY or CA is in the top 20 either, in fact CA is down near the bottom). But most of the states in the top 20 are Northeast or Midwest and except for CA, AK and HI, the 16 states with the lowest IQs are in the South or Southwest.

That is probably why.

R122/R123, I'd like to introduce you to the Texas State House grounds in Austin, TX, where there are huge stone statues commemorating the South and The Confederacy, with plaques that clearly feature the phrase "The War Of Northern Aggression".

So fuck off with your "I never saw it, therefore it doesn't exist" bullshit logical fallacies.

Typical revisionist plaque from the 1950s

Because it saves time.

We NE/NJ/NY guidos get it just as bad, OP

R129 pics or it doesnt exist,lying cunt.

But they are, Blanche, they are vacuous, racist dullards who couldn’t empty piss from a boot if the instructions were written on the heel!

Why are they peeing in boot?

Because they ain't got a pot to piss in.

Don’t the doublewides come with toilets?

R133 = Trumper

If the shoe fits…

The Union imperialists took Black people's slaves away, too, to lower them to the level of the poorest poor whites.

[quote] We NE/NJ/NY guidos get it just as bad, OP

That's because you're even more racist than they are.

The War of Northern Imperialism and White Supremacy

There is no reason Blacks should have been forbidden from enslaving their inferiors.

I support reparations for Black slaveowners whose property was cruelly and racistly stolen from them by Yankee honky imperialists.

Here....while I found no "war of northern aggression" mentioned it does display some other propaganda.

I live in Houston and have never even been to the Capitol. Been to the Riverwalk many times though.

The Union still enslaves Black men to this day, only they call it prison labor. That's while they're killing women and children of color overseas and assassinating legitimately elected world leaders.

I stand in solidarity with every nation ameriKKKa has illegally invaded and illegally attacked.

Black slaveowners' descendants deserve to get their slaves back as reparations for the racist imperialist Yankees taking them away.

[quote] It is the accent in which professional singers sing.

No. Just no. Regular people don’t go around saying “mah baybah don’t Leah”

*keah

Which brings up something I've been curious about, do country singers exaggerate their twangs when they sing?

r110 or Pennsylvania, where I grew up. It's slightly better than the worst parts of Mississippi, but not much. The USA is very big, and there are many different kinds of ignorant douchebags, compared to say Belgium or Luxembourg.