Aaaaargh!

[bunn]

I have watched the TV series 'Fargo', in which increasingly hideous and bloody things happen against a mundane backdrop of Minnesota life.

Turns out that, if, like me, you have no other connotations for a Minnesota accent *other* than 'Fargo', if you hear two people wandering along chatting in a dull manner and praising the colour of the azaleas, in exactly that accent... 

It is TERRIFYING.  I automatically froze and looked around for the body.  :-D 

Comments

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Hee!!

It's very different when you live here, I promise--that's really a northern MN/Northern ND/northern Wisconsin-ish/southern Canada-ish accent. Down here in the Twin Cities (which is a lot more of a cultural mix) there's a lot less of it.

That said, after my first decade living here I noticed that I HAD picked up that broad northern 'o'. It only comes out sometimes, thankfully.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd ever heard it before, or at any rate, not in such volume. The wandering tourists I overhead admiring the azaleas said 'Oh ya' a lot too, so to my very unaccustomed ear, they really did sound like the actors...

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Oh, the movie is COMPLETELY accurate as to that particular accent and manner of speech. The first time I heard someone with the accent I had to surreptitiously pinch myself to make sure that I was, in fact, not hallucinating or otherwise dreaming it.

And then years later when I caught myself saying "aboat" I nearly melted into my chair in mortification right there.