The Fargo thing was an exaggeration, but yeah, I've known Minnesotans who talked that way.
(Fargo is in North Dakota, by the way.)
Several people say "dude," and a few do it non-ironically."
Hey, dude, less of the postmodern surferbashing, I was totally stoked just the other day when I snagged a gnarly tube and didn't wipe out until I had totally impressed the babes.
"Dood" is the postmodern 'Dude' BTW
Dude, I was being totally representational.
My favorite bits of surf-talk, actually, are specific bits of technical jargon: green water, milk, boneyard, alley, washing machine. All words for parts of waves or breaks.
Let's see, stereotypical Florida sayings. It's hard to think of any offhand because there are at the very least four Floridas, and probably many more. There's "waterfront condo" Florida, "inner-city Miami" Florida, Rural/North Florida, and Orlando/Disney, which technically isn't even in the Evil Empire but is an evil empire in its own right. Florida doesn't have its own accent, little say its own dialect. Am I right, grant?
Dave Barry (Floridian) was once involved with a map of the states of Florida and came up with around 22 or so. In general, around Tampa, there’s a strong Indiana/Illinois presence, in the swamps there’s… swamp talk, which is similar but deeper than the Deep South lingo you’ll find in the north and middle (non-coastal area) of the state. Around Jacksonville, you’re in New Jersey/mid-Atlantic languages. South-east Florida, where I live, is half New York and half Latin America, with isolated pockets of Deep South and swamp talk to the west (the New Yorkers call the Deep South people rednecks; the Deep South people call the swamp talkers rednecks). Both coasts are heavily settled by northerners. Oh, and Orlando is Dallas: a corporate city.
There is a native Florida dialect, but it’s basically been supplanted by generations of snowbirds and vagabonds. If you run into somebody with a name like “Totch” who has a relative who herded cattle using a whip, you’re looking at a remnant of that culture.
Oh, and on the Latin American tip, I've never heard someone actually say, "Ay caramba!" in a Spanish sentence. "Ay, que triste!" (what sadness!) yes, or "Ay, que horor!" (what horror!), and sometimes "Ay, ay, ay!" but never "Ay, caramba." |
