LA-isms

When we lived in upstate New York, we used to giggle at the local accent. It tended to be a really nasal way of talking, with hard vowels, such that "Italian" sounded like "eye-TAL-ian." Or, "Lemme have a HEE-am SEEN-wich." But the most distinctive, and random, thing was that some of the locals put the accent in weird places on a handful of words. Like this: the standard "eleMENtary" became "elemenTARy," "docuMENtary" became "documenTARy," etc.

We always giggled when one of these words popped out of the local newscaster's mouth with the weird accent on the fourth syllable, but I knew I had no business mocking anyone because my LA accent/slang was certainly far worse. I tried to banish "dude" from my vocabulary, but, duuuuude, it is such a fun word with which to pepper ones sentences! My favorite was when I'd catch one of my Binghamton friends starting to say it. See, it's infectious! And harmless. Same goes for my liberal use of "awesome," "sweet," "rad," and even the occasional "gnarly," I gotta admit.

At least I avoided some of the most egregious forms of LA slang: not long after I returned home, I was sitting on the Strand in Hermosa Beach when a shoeless dude slinked by on his beach cruiser. "What up, bro?" was the greeting he offered to some shirtless volleyball players.

WHAT UP?

OMG that is soooooo much worse than anything elemenTARy. My apologies to upstate New York!