The South is no longer bothered by the media's jokes and inaccurate portrayals on our accents. There seems to be this belief that the intensity of your southern accent is indication of low-brow intelligence and a clear sign that you have an NRA meeting this Saturday.
Born and raised in the South, I consider myself lucky as I developed an odd and geographically ambiguous accent in lieu of the stigmatized southern accent. So, I’m not used to the shock and and awe that people have when they hear someone pronounce something differently than most others.
While wandering through the Carrboro farmers' market a few weeks back, there were several different vendors selling mini-pies. When I asked one if they had a pecan pie they had me repeat the question over and over again as if they couldn’t understand. Turns out they didn’t like the way I said ‘pecan,’ and evidently they were out of pecan pies. If I couldn’t get my pie then I wanted to get a caramel apple. In order to avoid another embarrassing moment over my possible mispronunciation of the word 'caramel', I simply pointed to the apple I wanted and put my money on the table.
So, a couple weeks later and still a little butt hurt about the ‘pecan’ ordeal, I decided to take to the streets (and the pit) to find out how UNC students actually pronounce ‘pecan’ and ‘caramel.’
Below are the two sentences that students were asked to read out loud to themselves and then mark which of the two pronunciation options they used when reading out loud.
- Carol decided to bring a pecan pie to the pot-luck dinner on Tuesday.
- pee-can
- peh-kahn
- Houston got a caramel apple instead of a cotton candy bag at the state fair.
- care-a-mel
- karr-ah-mall
In total, 34 students were surveyed about their preferred pronunciations of pecan and caramel.
(In case you were wondering: I used the 'pee-can' pronunciation at the farmers market)
(In case you were wondering: If I had decided to use my voice to tell the vendors that I wanted a caramel apple I would have used the 'care-a-mel' pronunciation.)
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