Culture Shock

[caspernc]

I moved from Oregon to North Carolina in the late seventies. Yeah the trunk of a car became the boot......the boot...Wha...! The glove box became...I didn't even KNOW there was a glove box LOL. Collards....what in the world? You eat the top of a turnip? In Oregon we eat the turnip!!!! The chickens get the greens, LOL.
Okay this maybe PCI but when I moved to NC everyone complaned about being bused to schools, I asked how long was the bus ride and they said 20 minutes. I had to laugh in Noti, Oregon if you want to get to school you rode the bus for 1.5 hours one way! the other way could be shorter but DON'T count on it.
In Oregon, the lande of LOTS of water, EVERYONE takes swimming lessons. It is just a part of life. You know how to swim. When i moved to NC Swimming was an option. Most I met had never had a swimming lesson. TOTALY unheard of from MY point of veiw. But Oregon has twice as much water.
There are MANY other things but you get the idea!
Total culture shock!

 

[hikerchick]

Quote:
OOOH, accents....ok, here's one....tell me if you pronounce these names differently:

Don vs. Dawn

Aaron vs. Erin

Pauly vs. Polly


Where I am now, they're pronounced the same. Where I come from, there's an obvious difference....which I don't know if I can type but can certainly say.

I pronounce those all the same way.

I pronounce them differently, but I have a friend who kept talking about her friend "Pauly". I assumed her friend was a guy. Her friend was a chick named Polly.

 

[AquaEyes]

Quote:
I just say it as in coke=soda=pop

Ah, ok, got it.

 

[Matthew3590]

I think with the names, don and dawn, Aaron and Erin, Polly and Pauly they are spelled differently cause people were probably like" I don't want a girls' name" or "why do I have to have a boys' name?"

 

[AquaEyes]

Quote:
I pronounce those all the same way.

I pronounce them differently, but I have a friend who kept talking about her friend "Pauly". I assumed her friend was a guy. Her friend was a chick named Polly.

"Don" to me rhymes with "Khan", while "Dawn" has a definite "aw" sound, like when you see something cute and say "Awwwww....."

"Aaron" has an "a" sound like the "a" in "average", while "Erin" has an "e" sound like in "ebony"

"Pauly" has the same "aw" sound as in "Dawn", while "Polly" sounds exactly like "poly" as in "polymorphic"

Here in Buffalo, each set is pronounced as a sort of "in-between" the two extremes that I say, such that you can't tell "Don" from "Dawn", etc.


BUT

Up here, everyone sounds like a pirate! Whenever a word has an "ar" sound, like "car" or "market", that sound comes out like a pirate would say "Argh, me matey" but without the "gh" on the end. And there sounds like there's a "y" inserted when a soft "a" follows another letter, but without an "r" after. For example, "have" sounds to me like the word "yeah" with an "h" in front and a "ve" at the end....."hyeahve." When there's a long "i" sound, it gets almost cut into two syllables. Thus "nice" becomes "nuhyeece."

And something else I notice being here...my own accent, which was pretty mild before (people often asked me where I was from when I was back on Long Island), has gotten stronger, at least according to my friends back home. So I sound even MORE like a Long Islander than I did when I was on Long Island! Haha.

 

[redhen]

Quote:
Really??? What part of Maine did McDonalds have lobster cakes??
Hubbys parents live in Maine... so we go there to visit.
I'll be looking at all the McDonalds now!!

 

[redhen]

Quote:
The real polish name for those pigs and blanket things is.. Golumpki. Its cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and ground pork or hamburger.. with tomato sauce over them.
Never heard of them called pigs in blankets before! Interesting!..

 

[crtrlovr]

Quote:
The real polish name for those pigs and blanket things is.. Golumpki. Its cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and ground pork or hamburger.. with tomato sauce over them.
Never heard of them called pigs in blankets before! Interesting!..

always just heard it referred to as stuffed cabbage or cabbage rolls... just goes to show you...

 

[MustLoveHens]

Quote:
This made me laugh! When I moved from Cali to Tennessee, of the first time I walked into a restuarant and wanted a diet soda. I was asked what kind of diet coke I wanted but only after the girl behind the counter had to slow her speech way down so I could understand her southern drawl. It turned out that in the South, there are many kinds of coke, but only one Cola.
After that I stopped drinking "coke" and switched to Iced Tea which in the south is only made with sugar and an once or two of liquid.

They also had a saying "I'll be outta pocket." I was thinking that the person who said this was talking about and out of pock expense. But no, money had nothing to do with it- it ment that they would be unavailble or unreachable for a while.

 

[crtrlovr]

When I moved from SE MO to Louisiana, it was like moving to a different planet!

Everything was different. For instance, where I come from if you're curious about someone, you may glance around surreptitiously, but you never look directly at them if they're looking your way. In contrast, down there, they just stare right at you, not the least bit embarrassed or inhibited. The accents were so heavy, I had trouble understanding many of the people, including my mother in law. She talked very fast, had a strong accent, and had a tendency to mumble AND keep talking as she walked into different rooms (including the bathroom) and still be talking when she came back out. It was probably a year and a half before I understood anything she said to me...

At the school where I worked, one of the women was asking the kids if they wanted "Mah-nez" on their hot dogs -- I was completely baffled.

(mayo) Someone would say, "crack the window", and I was like "REALLY?" or something about a 'hose-pipe' (water hose) or say, "I'm gonna carry Mr. XXXXX to the grocery store" .... seems like it would be easier to take them in the car ...

It took me a while to figure out when my BIL said something about putting "Earl" in the car, he was talking about motor oil. Ah, yes. BIG differences from region to region!