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The accent of an old Southern Civil War Soldier.

I don't encounter Southern accents very often in real life.
Could someone shed some light on which particular real-life regional accent was the basis for the lawyer's speech patterns in Futurama?
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Kor
 
Alabama or Mississippi plantation owner or turn-of-20th century town attorney or county judge?
 
I don't encounter Southern accents very often in real life.
Could someone shed some light on which particular real-life regional accent was the basis for the lawyer's speech patterns in Futurama?
https://theinfosphere.org/Hyper-Chicken
The Hyper-Chicken is modelled on Jimmy Stewart's Academy Award-nominated portrayal of lawyer Paul Biegler in Anatomy of a Murder.
However, I think Harry Morgan's portrayal of Judge Mel Coffey in Inherit the Wind might also have been an influence.
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I think it's based on Senator Sam Ervin of Watergate fame. He was fond of saying he was an old country lawyer and he had a folksy storytelling manner and would erupt in righteous indignation at pertinent times.
 
I've lived in the Richmond VA area my entire life so here is my take on it. He sounds a bit like some of the "old money" types you'll meet now and then whose families have lived around here for generations. Sort of a genteel VA southern accent. So I associate it with an older upper class accent but I have no idea if that was true in his time.
 
I realize this is an old thread. Many people consider Virginia the Mid Atlantic now, or barely Southern at all. However, it's sad, because Virginia was literally the "Original South". If you know that, and also most people in Richmond area had a distinctly Southern accent. The Tidewater accent was heard as far north as Alexandria and DC and the Northern Shenandoah Valley. The native accents of Virginia are Southern, not Mid Atlantic. Here is a recording of my grandmother's accent.. She was a native of Richmond, Virginia and lived there most all her life. I think that people are confused about Virginia , in general. The native culture has been sort of diluted because of the DC Metro area growing and growing.

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No one in the South really has that "drawl" anymore. The Nascar twangs is all you hear, and in the general South, there is barely anything. Maybe a very subtle accent in any metro area from DC to Atlanta and anything in between.
 
I came across this video recently. I was wondering how does this old southern accent sounds like to modern ears.

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Doesn't sound that far from a Yankee to me.

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We vacation in Virginia Beach a lot, specifically the Sandbridge area. Nobody has an accent down there when we go to the different places, but we drove down to North Carolina and I swear as soon as you crossed the border it was like we entered a different world. We stopped at this little convenience store, simply called The Store, and everyone working there sounded like they were from the deep south. They as where we were from and I said NY, they got all excited until I told them NYC is about 3 hours away from me.

I think that's because the military presence in Hampton Roads is so strong, but despite what you say, I bet they have a tidewater accent, it's just too subtle for you to notice. I grew up in Northern Virginia and I have a very slight Southern accent. I would never be confused for say, the midwest or California. But it's nothing like the Deep South. Ironically, in NC, I encountered many less Southerners than I did in Virginia- I guess it depends on where you are . Raleigh feels less Southern to me than Richmond, and some places in NC are just as yankeefied as Northern Virginia.
 
Doesn't sound that far from a Yankee to me.

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You have have a good ear. I would never mistake the Confederate for a New Englander- but his accent is not typically Virginian in the sense, he sounds as if his parents might have been from England.
 
You've got to go to the Western and Southwestern part of the state to hear that drawl...it's definitely present there. But in terms of Eastern Virginia, we've got nothing, mostly. Until you go up to the Eastern Shore across the water.

I've always been reluctant to say where I'm from in all the years I've been on this forum, but I live in "Tidewater"/Hampton Roads, Virginia too. We are very "accent neutral", although you do hear things on occasion, like if you go to Suffolk, Smithfield, etc.

Most younger people under 60 don't really have any kind of noticeable Southern drawl, save very remote areas. I know a couple from Alabama in their 30s and they don't have it. I think also youre' confusing hillbilly dialect with something else. Virgil Goode, btw is not from Southwest Virginia, but a native of Richmond. He sounds like my older relatives. And they speak this way up in Fredericksburg as well.

here is my cousin from Fredericksburg area:
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The Northern Virginia accent is much softer, of course.
 
The only differences for a modern southern accent are the 'schz' sound for the s and some differences in vowel drawls.
 
There is a type of brogue spoken in parts of the Outer Banks (mostly Ocracoke) in eastern NC, near where I live. It's known as Hoi Toide around here because that's the way they pronounce "high tide". There are other examples of words that are different from any other area around here. For instance, a "pizer" is a porch. Someone from outside the community is called a "dingbatter".
 
Hi, @RichmondBread , and welcome to TrekBBS! :)

I know you're new here, so I should probably point out a couple things.

One, we discourage posting in old threads. This one had been dormant for two years. The general rule of thumb here is: don't post in a thread if the last post was more than twelve months ago. If you want to discuss the same subject, it is preferred that you just start a new thread; you can link back to the original one in your first post, if you'd like.

You have added some pertinent discussion points, and have sparked further conversation, so I will leave this thread open. Oftentimes in a situation like this, we would close it, however.

Two, it is generally frowned upon to post more than twice in a row in such a short timeframe. If you need to respond to multiple posts, it is best to respond to them all in a single post. You can use the MultiQuote function (the "+Quote" at the bottom right, beside "Reply") to select the different posts you want to respond to, then insert them all into a single reply.

(I am cognizant of the fact that you don't have edit ability on your posts yet, so it would not have been possible to go back after the fact to group them.)

No worries, of course: it takes everyone some time to get used to the customs and conventions of a new place. If you haven't already, you may wish to review our board rules here: https://www.trekbbs.com/rules/

Also, I should mention, I was curious about your user name, so I Googled it to see if I could figure out where it came from. I had never heard of the Richmond Bread Riots before, so I thank you for the opportunity to learn something new!

I hope you enjoy it here! :)
 
I think that's because the military presence in Hampton Roads is so strong, but despite what you say, I bet they have a tidewater accent, it's just too subtle for you to notice. I grew up in Northern Virginia and I have a very slight Southern accent. I would never be confused for say, the midwest or California. But it's nothing like the Deep South. Ironically, in NC, I encountered many less Southerners than I did in Virginia- I guess it depends on where you are . Raleigh feels less Southern to me than Richmond, and some places in NC are just as yankeefied as Northern Virginia.
Hey, neighbor! (From a proud resident if the Containment Area)
 
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