TV spokesman with Tidewater accent

[TheLadyjazzy1]

The Waltons!!

[TheConservativesrock]

Whats funny is if you live in Richmond you can understand every word and barely even here an accent.

[Qdude10]

I live in Northern Virginia, and apparently, I have a Californian accent, even though I lived in VA all my life.

[wendila]

@Qdude10 I'm also from NOVA, and I'm pretty sure the accent here is closer to a midwest accent rather than California. Here's a hint-- Californians can't tell the difference between "cot" and "caught", "caller" and "collar", and "Dawn" and "Don".

[Qdude10]

@wendila Coincidentally, I pronounce each pair of words the same way. Perhaps I do have a Californian accent, though I don't know where I got it from since my parents are foreign.

[Classymoto]

lived in virginia beach for 17 years...definitely recognize this

[Robbiegurl1313]

From Richmond- don't hear an accent...

[parnicksmusick]

@Robbiegurl1313 then listen harder because there sure as hell is one there.

[Tiny21Dancer]

Dude. Freaky. This is my accent exactly. At school and stuff I try to neutralize my accent, but at home I lazily string my words together like he does here. I love Tidewater accents. Very warm and inviting. All the tourists are killing it.

[medic4832]

Sounds similar to the accents in Southern Louisiana.

[RememberSoCal]

if this is how the founders talked, this accent is badass. and it still is. its such a shame, so many accents unique to America are dying. this, the southern accents, various dialects from the northeast and throughout the country...how boring would just one accent be?

[toocool00121]

I used to talk this way when i was a kid.... but kids at school made fun of me and always asked it was Canadian or Irish..... dumbasses...

I saw myself talking on a home video of me as a kid.... I blame the military. People who come to this area from other places affect the speech, as well as Cable TV. lol.

miltitary: good for jobs, good for the country, just bad for the accent... lol

[jimsi]

I live in this area, many commrcials have these folks as spokesmen and women...

[MyMonkeylover123]

i think he has a nice voice, much nicer than those valley girls! hahah

[Bistol1]

the way this old fart is talking is supposed to be the way people spoke in Shakespeare´s times. If that is tha case...well fuck me. Because it sounds awfully retarded.

[Wielki000]

@Bistol1

Actually it's the other way around. In Shakespeare's time in England people pronounced the "r" s after vowels. It's just an accent anyway, there is no correlation between intelligence and pronunciation.

[mremile72]

it isn't consistently non-rhotic 'conveRRting'  for instance

[kakaze]

he pronounces government and older quite like the normal British way but about...very weird.

[SummerHerald]

@kakaze normal 'british' is non-rhotic; just like this guy is (most of the time).

[JadeyBabe02]

ha im from the norfolk part, ocean view, we dont really talk like that anymore :/ somewhat though

[DiverseLA]

Is this accent somewhat similar to early colonist's accents in the area?

I was trying to figure out how the colonists spoke. I'm guessing it was a combination of British and the accent he's speaking.

[benofoz]

@DiverseLA Look up the Tangier, Virginia accent. Supposedly, the closest to colonial English you can find.

[Turigamot]

@DiverseLA Look up Tangier Island to hear what people sounded like during the Colonial Era.

[p7byrd]

This sounds NOTHING like a Boston accent.  You people are morons.

[bigumpi]

finally someone pointed out that VA has its own set of accents.

[fordtruxdad]

Here in northeastern N.C. we also have a non-rhotic accent. Our "about" differs from the Tidewater in that ours is pronounced more like "a-bite".

[DustinCSA]

@fordtruxdad I know exactly what you mean!!! "Goin dinetine ta bah a new hise!" 

[ligerhunter5223]

Ha, his name is fanny.

[VASINGER]

if someone looks up a "very richmond phone call" you will hear a tidewater va accent, that sounds more classically southern/virginian, than the one represented in this video.

[jetfreak4]

Strange how similar it sounds to a Boston accent....it's fairly flat, with a few differences, but in many ways it sounds like a fusion of a Deep South accent and a New England accent. Probably not too surprising that the accents could be confused except for the 'y'all' part of it....both New England and the South have English and Scotch-Irish descent.

[VASINGER]

@jetfreak4 not really. To untrained ears, it may sound new englandish. However, the non-rhotic southern drawl is much different. A slower enunciation, and the Boston accent is much more nasal and brisk sounding. Also, notice how he says "aboot"-which is coastal Southern (some say Canada- those Canadians probably spent their summers on Southern shores, lol). Ive heard Bostonians and the inflection is much different.

[AirCooledMan2006]

Sounds like a Canadian raised in Virginia.

[VASINGER]

@AirCooledMan2006 No, Canadians do not say it like that- they say more 'Aboat" as like rhymes with oat. If anything, Canadians stoled that from Southerners.

[CAR18MEN]

that guy must have lived when Virginia Beach was still Princess Anne county.

the only people in VA beach who sound like that are people who live in Blackwater or near the NC border.

[GanEdenAustralia]

Very close to a British accent.

[123IOWNALL321]

Not at all. The only thing this has in common with British accents (not a single British accent, since that covers Wales, Scotland, the British Isles, and Ireland) is that it's a non-rhotic accent. None of the vowel sounds are similar at all, making it highly distinct from a British accent. I would know this from acquiring an ear for these sorts of accents; trust me, it's very different.

[cvvemuri]

@123IOWNALL321

Of course British accents of the 17th-18th century would have been very different from those today. And many of them were rhotic at the time too.

[MrMorg19]

@cvvemuri Not 'many'. Linguistic divergence however, would mean a Brit in Britain or Colonial America in the 1700s would be a converging accent of something like this man's speech and that of the people who inhabit the modern british port where the settlers came from.

[nwalsh1]

@MrMorg19 Being from the County of Norfolk in England I am astonished at how similar his accent is to the one still spoken here today (we're often made fun of for the old fashioned way we speak)

[UTubeHeadVA]

I see this commercial on TV all time. I swear this elderly gentlemen has been "84 years of age" since 2008.

[aunicornist]

Retahment yeauhs

[witchypoo71]

That IS a strong SE Virginia accent! I live in Virginia Beach myself. With so many Military transplants in the area, you don't hear that kind of accent very often.

[almasry]

that's a cute accent :)

[Darroth]

Wow, it does kind of sound like British

[shiretta]

Granddad had this same accent......

[haylkat1]

Ha, I live in Va, on the water bitches ;D anywooo...That accent is dying down...I do have some of this thoe...But my accent is very very strange thoe...My grandparents had that accent...Damn northerners and midwesterners, your KILLING our accent :(

[clod8]

ha ha

i mean, you're the one's who are choosing to change your accents

[Supermassively]

@haylkat1 T-H-O-U-G-H.

[murdabitches]

@haylkat1

funny because without the northerners and Midwesterners the tidewater area would be dead. That whole region lives off the military and the government.

[naizret]

Very, very pleasant sound; perfect for somene trying to sell you a loan. I live in NoVa and plenty of people here sound like that, although they tend to be older.

[averagejoe0073]

Translation: Hi I'm Bill's Fanny. I need talk at you bout gettin security up in here for when you reel old. You be thinkin about Seniors first, and makin yo morgage reverse from the govments. You just gots to be 62 with equidy in yo ho. You keep yo ho and don't never give no money to nobody. Yo chilrens get all yo debt. It reel easy to get free money. Seniors First been doin dis up in here for 10 yeers. Ring deez bitches up for some deelz yo!

[Preluding99]

OH MY LORD!

[IeatMsPacMan]

yeah if it wasnt a public commercial thats exactly what he would have said lol

[averagejoe0073]

So did the real commercial really have the banner on the bottom of the screen that says "TV Spokesman with Tidewater Virginia Accent?" That seems unnecessary and redundant. Anyone who can't tell that is real ignunt.

[melville80]

Same here. Sounds just like my grandpa. Makes me miss him. That accent will not be around much longer, as more northerners come to the area.

[burntrubber11]

damn so true virginia accents are dying out. I grew up in Richmond my whole faimily has that accent. I grew and moved to NOVA and there are no true VA accents up there.

[dcflava74]

I agree the white people have a very straight laced northern accent up there while more of the african americans have a sort of fusion of the DC accent which is kinda similar to the Va accent,like a sort of urban country grammar.

[TheConservativesrock]

@melville80 That will eventually cause a new accent possibly.

[KC1971J]

@melville80 Yep, blame it on those damn Yankees!! lol

[zachmasterzach]

@melville80 you're right. totally ruined your accent. proud of it too.

--a Northerner

[hprdg284]

He sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. I love this accent.

[brohan914]

wow, all this time i wondered how why my friends dad told us to go play oout side when we were six

[kittybumble]

I think my pop pops was even stronger than that haha

[monumentfloyd]

Sounds just like my granddaddy!