Shortly after moving to Arizona, I temporarily feared I was losing my hearing because people often were not making sense to me anymore and I found myself in the middle of conversations that sounded like they were being conducted in a foreign language.
For example, one day at my daughter's Brownie meeting I was talking to another mom. She was telling me she had recently bought a new coach. At least I thought that’s what she was telling me. Doing a slight head shake while trying to process this information, I asked her, “A coach? What is that? Some new car model?”
She then looked at me as though I were speaking in tongues and replied, “No, a coach. You know…like…to sit on?”
That wasn't really sweetening the deal and I began to panic and wondered if perhaps the first stages of Alzheimer's were setting in early for me.
"In the living room…?" she (finally) added helpfully.
“Ooooohhhhhh.” The light dawned as I realized that she meant a COUCH. And that she had moved here from Canada.
There was a definite communication gap happening. And I have to admit, it was not all one-sided. I often said things that others could not understood either, or that even produced laughter. That's why I go to great lengths here to avoid saying “coffee” and “dog”. And it’s not because I don’t like either of those things. In fact, I love them both. But although the reaction from others is mixed as to whether I have a Jersey accent or not, even I can hear it when I use certain vocabulary. It's very hard for me not to say "cawfee” and “dawg", but I really don't see what's so funny about it. My own kids would tell me to say coffee when they wanted a good laugh. Naturally neither of them has a good and true New Jersey accent because they were too young when we left the state. The only way I can prove to them that they once talked like I do is by showing them pre-1997 home movies.
The thing is it goes way beyond pronunciation. There are whole lists of things that have different names depending on where you live. That is why I didn't blink when my friend said she had a new "coach". By that point I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised to hear a car called a coach. Why not? Where soda is called pop (a term I had previously heard mainly on Andy Griffith reruns), anything is possible. What I really needed was something that does not exist as far as I know: a "Garden State/Everywhere Else Translation Dictionary". If I were to write one, these would be a few of the entries I would include:
What New Jersey called I now heard called
gravy pasta sauce
a casserole a covered dish or hot dish
chop meat ground beef
Russian dressing Thousand Island dressing
ranch one story house
sneakers tennis shoes
a highway a freeway
crumb buns coffee cake
a woman a gal
pocketbook purse
catty corner kitty corner
sliding glass doors Arcadia doors
sweet shop luncheonette/coffee shop/market cafe
oh geez geez Louise
damn! dang it!
And one of my all-time favorite expressions that I learned in Arizona goes as follows. If someone asks you something about which you're pretty passionate in your response (for example, if you were asked if you wanted some free money) you might say "I sure do!" Right? I think we've probably all said or at least heard that phrase. Well, when I first got to Arizona, one day I asked someone if they had a pen I could borrow and they said "I sure don't!"
I sure don't? What does that mean?! For some reason I found it very odd to hear this positive exclamation used in a negative way. I had to stop for a second and decide if this penless person was in fact mocking me. But no, I eventually realized this was a common expression that somehow took hold west of the Mississippi. It's merely another manifestation of the maniacally bubbly nature of people who see sunshine three-hundred and forty days a year.
Comments
Enjoyed that one! I have a hard time with just that same thing but I'm learning..
I have a friend who has the heaviest New Jersey accent you ever heard, but steadfastly denies that she has any accent at all. But one time she e-mailed me, "Maybe I do have an accent. I just sneezed and my voice recognition software typed 'Hong Kong.'"
I was in a Circle K there once and they said oh, Jersey? A little startled by wondering how they knew that I said how did you know? She said oh, you said cawfee, and I could tell by the accent.
I have been accused of that nasty heavy NJ accent. When we're out there my friend teases me all the time, say drawer, say coffee, say TAWK! LOL..ok, maybe a slight NJ accent :)
Nicole, I only get to hear that accent on such rare occasions now that when I do, it's like music to my ears. Maybe it's not as lyrical as hearing someone speak Italian, but it still has its own special something.
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