I Don’t Have An Accent – You Do

Do the people from Toledo have an accent?
Do they speak with a brogue or come across plain?
I’m referring to the Ohio town on Lake Erie,
not the famous place and former capital of Spain.

To us it was natural or the Midwestern accent,
championed by anchormen on the nightly news.
A neutral dialect never revealing childhood origins,
no matter what utterances their mouths did spew.

Venturing forth from Toledo I rapidly realized,
not everyone sounded alike when they spoke.
For some it was dialect or the words selected,
what we called pop, many called soda or Coke.

I remember moving south and stopping for gas,
requesting recommendations for a place to eat.
Just off the interstate in Bowling Green, Kentucky,
the twang I heard nearly knocked me off my feet.

Thinking he saw my Ohio plates and put on an act,
I arrived at the diner, finding the vernacular the same.
The waitress approached me with a smile on her face,
then she laid it on so thick that it all seemed a game.

I lived in Alabama a spell before continuing to Texas,
where y’all accused me of having a Yankee accent.
Living in those places must have given me a drawl, because
you guys thought I talked funny when back to Ohio I went.

Conversation would be bland if we all talked alike,
accents add spice, and local lingo does too.
Dialect differences are to be celebrated not shunned,
I’m glad I don’t have an accent, but it sounds like you do.

——

World Poetry Day 2021: UNESCO adopted March 21st as annual World Poetry Day back in 1999 to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard within their communities. World Poetry Day for 2021 does not have a specific theme. #WorldPoetryDay #WorldPoetryDay2021

Image Credit: American Regional Dialects by Craig M Carver from the accents chapter of Jeremy Smith’s The American-British British-American Dictionary for English Speaking People. I added places I lived or spent a large amount of time in rough chronological order), thus contributing to my accent (or lack thereof): Toledo, Butler (Missouri), Cincinnati, (Bowling Green, Kentucky is included as a reference), Huntsville (Alabama), Austin, Colorado Springs, and Atlanta.