I love regional accents. My family speaks with a hardcore "New Yawk" one, so it sounds like home to me. But there are some rather unpleasant atonal dialects in this beautiful patchwork nation of ours that are like nails on a chalkboard. Hello!! It's Friday peoples! I'd like to start off this new feature with an old commercial that instantly got under my skin. Many of you might remember the cell phone campaigns from a few years back with a caffeinated cheerleader and the bullshitting real estate agent.
Both irritating and instantly grating, to be sure, but the young cheerleader character had this sort of vague "Valley Girl" that's not really localized to SoCal anymore, to our collective great misfortune.
I remember a particularly bad elevator trip that included two younger co-workers. They ignored me and quite naturally so, since I am not of their tribe. They had this insane dialogue in a dialect that I have never been able to forget. Like, ever: "Omigod, I LUUUVV your dress. It's, like, retro, but in a cool way." "I knnnnnooooowww! And, like, I got it at Banana." (for those outside the tribe, that means Banana Republic, a clothing store). "Ooooh, noooo wayyyy. I totally used to shop there, then I stopped, but now their clothes are like, sooooo much better." "Yah. They must have gotten a new creative...blah blah blah." "Haha! Like, exactly...blah blah blah..."
I remember a particularly bad elevator trip that included two younger co-workers. They ignored me and quite naturally so, since I am not of their tribe. They had this insane dialogue in a dialect that I have never been able to forget. Like, ever: "Omigod, I LUUUVV your dress. It's, like, retro, but in a cool way." "I knnnnnooooowww! And, like, I got it at Banana." (for those outside the tribe, that means Banana Republic, a clothing store). "Ooooh, noooo wayyyy. I totally used to shop there, then I stopped, but now their clothes are like, sooooo much better." "Yah. They must have gotten a new creative...blah blah blah." "Haha! Like, exactly...blah blah blah..."
For those of you who doubt the trauma-inducing aspects of this accent and manner of speaking, I submit to you this question: would you have been able to endure an elevator ride with that swirling around you? And I mean without throwing punches. I had to actually grit my teeth against the rising laughter, dig my nails into my palms, and face the wall. Yeah, it was like that. But I'm better now.
Hmm. Maybe not. Oh well.
