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Why Does Everybody Relate Southern-Accents To Unintelligence?

I’m a Junior in High-School from a small town in Tennessee, and by small I mean there’s only 500 people in my entire school from pre-k to 12th grade. I love my accent which has a southern twang to it, and it really annoys me when other people “try” and imitate it. It comes out sounding worse then some of our sayings down here, lol.

Even though I love my accent, with all the stereo-types it gets from people believing we’re nothing but a bunch of hicks that don’t have enough education to live with the “rest” of the world, it makes me reluctant to talk in front of people.

Which I can understand why some of the southern accents annoy others because if it sounds fake and too country then it probably ain’t real, and that annoys me also, but it’s really not fair how everybody seems to put us all in the same boat as illiterate and unintelligent. Which brings me to my question, why does almost everybody relate southern accents to unintelligence?

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Answer #1

You’re totally right it’s really unfair and stereotypical. I’m from a Northern state, and I guess it’s because people with Spanish accents and people from up north talk a lot faster. Also I have a friend who went to live with her grandparents down in Arkansas for a month and had to go to school there. She said that while the teacher was trying to teach the kids algebra, she had already learned that stuff years ago. I don’t know, hope I’ve helped in answering your question though! (=

Answer #2

ikr, im from tennessee too and I moved to oklahoma for a while they instantly thought I was frm. miss. I think people do that cause we say yall and aint and cause we talk slow and try to sound out words, compared to say people frm new york who say son and yo and they talk at a faster speed.

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