like whom do you sound?

[piperdbh]

There are some threads going right now about accents & linguistics, which prompt this question: when you speak, what famous person do you sound like? I'll go first. I sound like Andy Griffith.

[chasem]

I appreciate the grammar in the subject!

I haven't been told, nor do I feel like, I sound like anyone. I've spent most of my life in Kentucky (since age 5), but I pride myself in not having a Kentucky accent. I feel like, and have been told, I don't have much of a regional accent - just an "American" accent.

[ASinclair]

Having been born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, USA, on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, I used to have a Deep South Southern Drawl. However, I have lived in North Carolina, USA for the last 31 years, so I probably sound like Andy Griffith now.

[EagleJCS]

I don't know that I sound like anyone particularly famous.

Having been born and raised in Louisville, KY, living almost all of my adult life here (except for the year I was working in Cleveland), and having received a university education, I am told by folks from other parts of the country that I have almost no discernible accent.

Using the test OCRichard provided in his thread, I have a neutral American accent (as found in the Midwest region and used by most US newscasters).

I can, however, slip into a Kentucky/country accent, particularly when I get extremely tired and don't concentrate on my elocution. There is a tape recording of me when I was five years old (I think Mom has it right now), and I have a quite pronounced drawl. My mother's mother spoke with a particularly strong Kentucky/country accent, so that's probably where I got it from. I also tend to start subconsciously mimicking other strong accents if I'm around them for a particularly long period of time. (I was told by family that I picked up a very little bit of a Northern Ohio accent while I was working in Cleveland, but it disappeared shortly after I returned home to stay.)

[John_Carrick]

I was told in Glasgow once I don't have an accent.
I'm sort of received pronunciation English

[KD Burke]

I was raised in the Deep South (Southeastern US to those unfamilar with the idiom) in the late 60s and early 70s. At the time, the news reports seemed to be filled with terrible things caused by ignorant or hateful people in my part of the world. With the exception of the aforementioned Andy Griffith, every person in the mass media with a "Southern" accent was portrayed as ignorant, foolish, and ususally venal.

I suppose that due to the negative connotations I associated with my own speech, I subconsciously emulated newscasters and others with the generic "Mid-Atlantic" accent. That is how I sound most often.

When I am around my close kin, or very tired, or depressed my speech tends to slow, and some words mysteriously gain syllables. On those occasions, I sound a bit like the late Shelby Foote.

[OC Richard]

There is a tape recording of me when I was five years old and I have a quite pronounced drawl.

I tend to start subconsciously mimicking other strong accents if I'm around them for a particularly long period of time.

I can relate to both of these things! Of course as a kid back central West Virginia I had a strong local accent at the age of 5, but mostly lost it here in California. I have noticed, on my annual trips back to West Virginia, that the kids in town have stronger accents than their parents. When I asked about it, the parents said it was because the town-kids go to school with the true hillbilly kids from the hollers, and pick up their talk.

I too pick up accents I'm exposed to. I can revert to Appalachian quickly when exposed to it, but also if I'm around Canadians I start picking up their accent. When I spent two weeks at piping school with a load of Canadians I came back talking a bit like them, though I wasn't aware of it until people pointed it out.

[sydnie7]

I have rather precise speech patterns, pronouncing all the letters that "should" be heard (for example, the "h" in white, wheat, etc.). I've been asked if I'm British, but born and raised in Southern California by a mother born in Calif and father born in Texas. Daddy was very conscious of his accent as a young man and worked hard to eliminate it -- it only surfaced in a few words I can remember, such as "mirra" for mirror.

I've worked to maintain this, wouldn't even allow myself to say ain't until I got older and realized I can use it for deliberate effect. As a writer and occasional voice-over 'talent,' as the industry calls us, it's a combination of pride and necessity.

I travel to TN often on business (with Nissan/Infiniti) and while out to dinner one night requested my BBQ on a wheat bun. The waiter actually asked me to say that again, got quite a kick from my "wh"! I did have a voice-over coach teach me how to drop that and say "weat" and "wite" for clients who prefer it that way, but I give 'em H in day to day speech!

[Peter Crowe]

My normal speaking voice/accent is a fairly soft spoken middle class Glasgow-Lanarkshire accent, and the only celebrity whose speech sounds similar to mine (that I can think of) would be Gordon John Sinclair who was the male lead in Bill Forsyth's movie Gregory's Girl (1980) and it's sequel Gregory's Two Girls (only in the original versions where the dialogue was not dubbed for American audiences) made about the same character some 20 years later.

The most perspicacious description of my accent was an elderly gentleman I met in the Borders describing it as a Ferniegair accent. Ferniegair is a village just south of Hamilton and marks the notional boundary between rural Lanarkshire and those parts of the County which are part of the contiguous Greater Glasgow conurbation, and it is about 4 miles south-east of where I grew up in Uddingston.

I usually speak in Scottish Standard English peppered with Scots idioms and phrases, although since living in Massachusetts I sometimes notice myself using Boston area expressions like 'You're all set' and 'quarter of three', etc.

I have not consciously ever tried to change my Scottish accent or speech although living here in Massachusetts I have consciously tried to slow down and leave greater space between individual words.

[CDNSushi]

I have a pretty distinctive voice, and thus haven't been told I sound like any particular person (other than my father a bit), let alone a celebrity. However I HAVE been accused at times of having a "Mormon accent" -- which would make sense, being from Lethbridge, Alberta, originally.