Do I have an accent?

As Jeff and I were coming down from Mt. Rube last night we were talking about song writing. I said that I thought some of my song fragments would make better poems than songs. After a little bit Jeff said, "Can I ask you a question? Don't be embarrassed." Now, when someone says something like that don't you just know an embarrassment is on the way? He said, "What kind of accent do you think you have?" I said, "I dunno...West Riverside, maybe?" He said, "Not Texas?" "No." I told him that when my folks moved to California my dad took classes to lose his Texas accent so he could be a better salesman. We were raised speaking Californianian. Jeff said he wondered if I had some traces of Texas because I said "powems" instead of "poems". He said I said it twice. Powems. I was shocked. It was also pretty damn funny.

I tried to say it again. Even when I tried to stress the POE it still came out POW. Dang! Now I'm hyper aware of it. As I was driving home (by way of the farm) I kept trying to say "poem". It kept coming out as "pome". Oh well. It was good for a laugh. Now I'm wondering what other words are possibly Texafied.

We also talked a little about Jeff's speech patterns. He said people sometimes think he has some kind of accent. I said I can see why because he has a way of flattening his vowels at the end of a sentence. I think it's just his way of adding emphasis. Just now I realized that Bill doesn't have that same quality in his speaking. Pam doesn't either. I think that all of my sibs and I speak in pretty much the same way. Well, except for Debbie. She's been in Missouri for too long. Anyway, it's kind of interesting. My ears perk up when I hear an interesting voice.

And now I'm going to go write some Edgar Allen POEtry. Damn, it still isn't coming out right!