The first sentence of the Which North American Accent Was Voted the Most Attractive? article answers that question...
If you hail from the Lone Star state or the Heart of Dixie, then chances are you won’t have any problems in the dating department.
Those of you who do not know what state the Lone Star state is, well, the Lone Star state is also known as Texas.
I pretty much agree with this most attractive accent conclusion. I have, multiple times, found myself totally charmed by a dripping honey Texas accent.
Years ago I made a website for a Texan named Ann. I usually try to get people to use email to communicate about website issues, due to that being much more efficient than talking on the phone. However, with Miss Ann, if she'd email me with a question, I'd call her, just to get to hear her dripping with honey accent.
Elsie Hotpepper is a native Texan. I would not describe the Elsie Hotpepper Texas accent as dripping with honey. The Elsie Hotpepper Texas accent is perfectly pleasant, just not a honey dripper. With Elsie Hotpepper her Texas accent comes in two versions. There is the professional spokeswoman Elsie Hotpepper Texas accent, which is subtle and understated.
And then there is the Elsie Hotpepper in informal mode Texas accent, which I characterize as Elsie Hotpepper being in Cowgirl mode, with her Texas accent much more twangy and peppered with barnyard vulgarisms spoken with that peppery twang.
Gar the Texan is another native Texan with his own spin on the Texas accent. Gar the Texan's Texas accent was acquired in West Texas, so I guess his version would be known as the West Texas accent variant. I would definitely not characterize Gar the Texan's Texas accent as dripping honey. It is more of a slow drawl with the Texas accent part of the drawl being very understated.
Understated, that is, until Gar the Texan has one of his bouts of the vapors. At that point his Texas accent gets extreme, to the point of being difficult to understand as the drawl starts dropping word endings, almost to the point of getting into slur mode.
Speaking of a hard to understand Texas accent, my best example of that variant is a neighbor all the neighbors call Crazy Greg. If you have yourself a Crazy Greg encounter you usually find yourself in a conversation which makes no sense, spoken in a twangy drawl that is very hard to comprehend.
Susan is another native Texan neighbor. Susan's Texas accent is another honey dripper. I particularly like talking to Susan because many of her sentences end with the word "Hon" which never fails to make me feel all cozy.
I don't know if it is what is known as a guilty pleasure, or just a regular pleasure, but one of the things which pleases me is to wander around Walmart hearing snippets of dialogue in multiple variations of Southern accents, including when the loudspeaker makes an announcement, like "Clean up on aisle 12" spoken with a Texas twang.
I have attempted to affect a Texas accent a time or two.
I have had a Texan, a time or two, tell me I fail at this effort.
Apparently my faked Texas accent, to a Texan's ears, sounds like an annoying Yankee trying to sound Texan.....
I think there should be some caveat about genders. When a man speaks with a Texas accent, it mostly sounds stupid. I've tried to lose my accent for years. And, as you say, I can mostly do it when I can think before I talk. Vapors cause a cessation of the cranial algorithm.
ReplyDeleteWomen, on the other hand, sound sexy. At least some of them do.
You didn't mention the "Queen of Wink". If I remember right, she's from Louisiana and one of things that attracted me to her was her accent.
It's been years since I talked to her, but I think she still maintains it to some extent.
Gar, I thought of the Queen of Wink regarding this serious Texas accent issue, but knowing her accent formative years were in LA, not TX, and the fact that when I've talked to her I've never noticed much of a Texas or Southern accent, though the accent she does have does drip honey, I did not include the Queen of Wink's among the accents of note I made note of.
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