i worked with a guy in his 50s tonight who had a new york accent. we talked for a while, and though the accent was the first thing i noticed, after a while i noticed a ton of mannerisms i hadn’t seen since my last trip down long-island-way; mannerisms of the patriarch of the home where i spent my new york days, joey badagliacca’s home. so i asked my coworker, on a hunch, where he was from. yep, new york state! haha.. he could’ve been joey’s best friend, the way they were so similar in their little quirks, the ways they delivered a story, etc.
and i got to thinking.. what do us pacific northwesterners come off as to other people? all i could come up with is that we’re something like the stereotyped german. dry sense of humor (”joke” ah ha.. ha.. ha. ha.) .. being “clever.” a touch overly serious, a touch of general disregard for the old guard.
what do y’all think?
I'm a 30-year-old 
language
As far as English is spoken around here, we have the most untainted by an accent speech in the US. My German teacher said that’s why her exchange teacher in Germany liked sending German kids over here. Of course, they all had a British accent, but at least they didn’t have to worry about listening to ours.
But for mannerisms, that’s a difficult one because there are those that we like to think that we have compared to those that we actually portray. For example, us here in Seattle like to think of themselves as polite and kind. However, in the recent year there was a women standing on the edge of a fairly large bridge on I-5 over Lake Union and the police stopped traffic both ways during the morning rush hour. People started to yell at her and tell her to jump … so they could get to work or wherever they were going that was more important than this woman’s safety.
The thing is, I think there are general regional mannerisms perhaps, but I think they are also differentiated by one’s socio-economic background. Meaning, rich people from here probably talk and act like rich people other places but might have their own “regional” quirks. However, rich people from Seattle probably don’t act or talk like the homeless in Pioneer Square.
May 3rd, 2003 at 4:29 pm
yeah, that’s my question- how we actually come across to others. and obviously generalizations aren’t completely true, but there are still trends that i’m interested in thinking about.
anything to add in that specific direction? like.. i didn’t know seattle-ites were supposed to be polite, and i’d certainly never have guessed that from the seattle people i knew. people from big cities in the pacific northwest all seem the same to me. how do we come across to californians? (californians definitely come across differently to me, and i’d say i’ve known and been related to enough to be a fair judge of the general character.)
May 4th, 2003 at 11:57 am
impressions
The only thing I’ll add is that everyone I’ve spoken to says that west-coasters have an almost hick-like accent. I agree with the people who say we have the least accented english, but it’s interesting that to someone with an accent, that sounds hick-y.
May 4th, 2003 at 1:31 pm
Sociology 101
My sophomore year of college I took Sociology 101 and at one point the professor made the comment that people who live in the Pacific Northwest are considered, by the rest of the country, to be the strangest people in the United States. Many people didn’t seem to believe him but he asked the people in the class (it was a large class, easily over a hundred people) who weren’t from the Northwest to raise their hands (I can’t remember about how many did) and he asked them to say where they were from and if they agreed with him. The people were from many different parts of the country and all agreed with him. If I remember correctly most of it had to do with the fact that we all look like, we drink a lot of coffee and beer, we all wear flannel and fleece and we don’t generally strike up conversations with strangers but, when we do, we’re hard to shut up. I know I don’t fall into some of those categories, as I know many people who are involved with Rusted don’t- but that’s why they’re generalizations.
However, my comments about people I’ve met from Seattle- whether it is me being in Seattle or meeting someone from Seattle visiting Portland- is that they’re generally a little _too_ nice, which creeps me out.
May 4th, 2003 at 2:32 pm
Portlanders sind nicht Deutschers!
No, definetely not German. For instance (and from brief experience), Germans are punctual (not that I am punctual myself, but tri-met sucks, and my appointments at work are never on time). Germans don’t strike up conversations with strangers. Here, I get all sorts of people start rambling to me about their life that I don’t really care about. Especially downtown and on the bus, or in a shop somewhere. At work, people call me to place a classifieds ad and a lot of them will give me their life story, or tell me what happened to them that makes them need a roommate as soon as possible.
And I don’t care how many jokes oregonians make about california drivers. We may drive fast, but at least we’re in control. We look both directions before turning right onto a street and watch for pedestrians (we don’t want to stain our cars with blood). We also know the difference between the fast, middle, and slow lanes on the freeway. :)
May 6th, 2003 at 4:07 pm
Not True
I spend a decent amount of time in the bay area (i’m here now) and the rest of my life in portland. Drivers in portland are HANDS DOWN better than california drivers. California drivers drive just fine, but they do not obey any of the rules… and that is why they are bad drivers. Thus you get the weave across 3 lanes driver, the california stop (roll) driver, the do not signal driver, the floor it for 60ft driver, and no one in cali has any better idea of fast lane for passing slow lane for slow cars than anywhere else, indeed it is worse because they have too many lanes to choose from. Sure we have these problems in portland, as does anywhere, but they’re worse here, if only because of the number of drivers.
And don’t even get me started about how california drivers drive IN THE RAIN.
It is a stereotype. It came about, and is lived up to because in a general sense, it is definitely true. Aggressive driving leads to accidents. California is the leader of the US in aggresive driving.
S
May 7th, 2003 at 8:45 am
the accent
The ordinary West Coast accent has a lot of things that stick out to an Easterner, though they’re things people from the South and the Midwest sometimes do, too, so I guess it’s more us having an accent than you — we say “orange” and “folk” differently, for example. Generally, I’d say the West Coast accent is almost unaccented as far as pronunciation, but it has a very definite speech rhythm. That rhythm is, well, similar to what the rest of the country would call “effeminate”.
I think the reason for the hick accent is because the poor white people out West are descended from Oklahomans.
May 7th, 2003 at 4:45 pm
yeah, that is the most striking thing i noticed when i went out to the east coast - my rhythm and enunciation were different in a way that made me feel kind of milquetoast talking to all those bad motherfuckers. i felt … overly careful and cautioned. like i was weighing my word choices too much, maybe. that i stood out, definitely.
i didn’t think you spoke too much like the other east coasters i knew when you were out here visiting, curiously.
May 8th, 2003 at 5:40 am
Well, I’ve never been almost run over by a car while using the crosswalk when the signal was in my favor until I came here (people don’t look to see if there’s a pedestrian using the crosswalk before turning). I also never experienced the middle lane as being the “fast lane” on the freeway until I came here. People still DON’T use their signals, and they tend to stop at intersections where there are no stop signs. People here still drive at crawl speed in the rain (I thought they would be used to the rain, and maintain a fairly normal speed anyways.) just like they do in cali, and semi trucks drive in both the middle and fast lanes on the freeway. That doesn’t happen in cali.
Just sayin’…
May 8th, 2003 at 8:44 am