When I started college in So Cal, the first several questions to pour out of a new acquaintance would go as follows: "Where are you from? Do you say 'soda' or 'pop'?" and somehow that'd follow with, "You're from Oklahoma, aren't you? You have a bit of a twang, but not quite Southern."
I'm still a little baffled by the idea that I'd have anything close to a twang or a drawl. I always thought I spoke English with the most bland, ordinary American accent a person can have. After all, my parents were raised near Los Angeles, CA, and Columbus, OH. You'd think any accents from either place would yield a progeny of nondescript pronunciations. And while I content there's not much of an LA accent, the peeps in central Ohio most definitely have a bit of a twang. Not only did I think myself a bland speaker, but my peers in high school even accused me of having a bit of a British English accent. Heaven forbid anyone actually enunciate his words correctly. But apparently, a kid from Colorado is indistinguishable from a kid from Oklahoma to the SoCalies.
Fast forward 4 years and I'm in DC. The new acquaintance questions changed a bit, "Where are you from? What's your major? (Or, What do you do?)" and a new twist, "You're from California, aren't you?"
My answer, "Well, sorta. I've been going to college in San Diego. Why do you ask? What's the give-away?"
"Well, every other phrase out of your mouth is, 'I'm all,' 'he's all,' or 'she's all,' and you say 'dude' . . . a lot."
I gotta say, I picked up the "dude" against my will. Much the same as the jinx I brought upon myself insisting that yellow is the dumbest color for a vehicle, other than a taxi—those of you in the know will know I currently drive a yellow Ford Escape, sans fare meter. But the "I'm all" quotative? (Which is really more "Ah'm all") I had no idea. It's actually a souvenir from my formative years in SoCal that I hold dearly. Though now, I use any "all" less and have added a steady supply of weird, New York/Chicago sounding "a" vowels to my speech, as well as healthy doses of "Shame" and "Lord" to just about every indicative.
This observation is really relevant to nothing, save one of those meanderings through Wikipedia, studying Mid-Atlantic accents in comparison with other American accents, which led me to http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/californian/, and one of those passages that gives my heart a little jump of warmth.
"One of the innovative developments in white English of Californians is the use of the discourse marker “I’m like,” or “she’s like” to introduce quoted speech, as in “I’m like, ‘where have you been?’” This quotative is particularly useful because it does not require the quote to be of actual speech (as “she said” would, for instance). A shrug, a sigh, or any of a number of other expressive sounds as well as speech can follow it. Lately in California, “I’m all” or “she’s all” has also become a contender for this function. We know that the quotative “be all” is not common in the speech of young New Yorkers, for example, while “be like” is. This allows us to infer that “be all” might be a newer development and that it may also be native to, or at least most advanced in, California."
And, if you're a total geek like me when it comes to linguistics and self-awareness, you might find this incredibly interesting as well. If not, well then chalk it up to my never-ending random sense of the world and a need to express some of myself without actually complaining about anything. 'Cause I'm all, mission accomplished.
