It is fascinating to me that I can often tell if someone I am listening to is from the same place I am. Oklahoma. In fact it is fun to run and look up the stats on people I may ‘suspect’.
It is not so much an accent as a phrasing or better yet, a philosophy or something like that. Of course I miss a few; but RARELY. Now I can’t pinpoint them to Perkins or Stillwater, but definitely Oklahoma. Maybe it is that they usually have the same take on issues that I share. Maybe it is nothing but pure magic or over the top intellect on my part. Work with me on this.
Here are a few I have researched when I suspected. See if you can find any similarity:
Aside from some we may have ‘always known’ for some reason, such as Geranimo, Quanah Parker, Will Rogers, Gene Autry, and a lot of those guys, some of the others are Blake Edwards, James Garner, Ron Howard, Brad Pitt, and Paul Harvey.
There are a large group of singers, mostly country. I am not even an over the top country western fan (I have been to one rodeo in my life.) but I KNOW these people: Garth Brooks, Roy Clark, Vince Gill, Roger Miller, Carry Underwood, Reba McIntyre. Some of those even have an accent (but not me.)
Then there are people like Dr. Phil McGraw, Kathy Lee Gifford, Skip Bayless, Oral Roberts, and Patti Page. It gets easier to tell. There is also Sam Walton from Walmart and T.Boone Pickens from everywhere; but who started in Oklahoma.
There is also an uncommon amount of athletes beginning with Jim Thorpe, Mickey Mantle, Chuck Norris, Troy Aikman, Barry Sanders, Blake Griffin, Rex and Rob Ryan and such.
If you try to find a common denominator with these folk, you can probably find at least a few telltale signs. Maybe it is just the ‘downhomeness’ of it all.
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