Language AutoBiography: Restrictions

There are a lot of different ways that people can say so many words. It differs each time you go to a different state. I am from South Philadelphia, and I was born and raised here, and the way that I say some words differs from the way others say some words. I sometimes put an extra syllable at the end of my words, or i stretch the word out and my parents mock me for it so I try to change the way I speak, but it’s hard because I’ve spoken that way for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I leave a letter or the ending of a word out, and that’s just because of my accent. My boyfriend’s mom’s name is Jen, and she is from New York, so she has a different way of saying some words than I do because of our different accents. Some of the words we say are the same, but some of them are completely different. “Joe go get your ‘beg’!” Yelled Jen from the top of the basement stairs. “Jen what did you just say?” I asked her because I didn’t think I heard her right. “I asked Joe to get is beg.” she said with a confused look on her face. “You mean bag, Jen?”  “I’m from New York I have a different accent than you.” “Oh okay.” I giggled as I said it because I forgot that I have an accent too, its just hard to realize it because almost everyone around me has the same accent that I do. There is more than just one word we say differently because of our two different accents. Another word we say differently is bagel. Jen says it as “baygel” and I say it as “begel”. Sometimes people that have the same accent as me say words differently. I was talking to Alexis about needing an envelope for money and she said, “Bail, I need an onvelope for this money.” “Lex you mean you need an envelope?” “Bail, it’s onvelope.” “No Lex, it’s envelope. It’s spelled with an -en.” We went into this long conversation about if its pronounced envelope of onvelope, and we even asked Joe, my mom, and Joe’s little brother Matty, until we just realized that it could be said either way depending on your accent. Another word a lot of people have controversy over how it’s said is caramel. Some people say it as it is spelled, so caramel, and other people say it with out the second -a, so carmel. It’s hard to understand some accents and some are very easy to understand because some of them could possibly sound a little bit like your accent, but the ones that are very hard to understand will probably not even be close to your accent.  Every time you say something that is different from the way someone else says it, it usually means that they have a different accent than you, and that’s not a bad thing, it just means that they say words differently than you, or their voices sound different when they say words.

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