Western Pennsylvania Lingo, Dialect, and Accent

[gln1955]

I'm from Erie and moved to southern California. I never thought I had an accent until I moved here. Apparently we also dont enunciate the end of a word. Everytime I say in the back, my boss says "in the back or in the bag." The coulda woulda stuff is out here though. No one outside of western Pa knows what a jitney is. Other than that, just some of the blending of the words. Nother is another though, not other

I also grew up in Erie. I went to school in State College with a lot of people from Philly and eastern PA, then continued school in Pittsburgh. All regions had their idiosyncrasies. Those were minor compared to living in Oklahoma and then West Texas. I met my wife in Lubbock, so some of the Texas words and phrases are fully ingrained now.

 

[Chad Michael]

 

[dbase]

We speak like that in the Philly area. Yous gotta problm wit that?

 

[Lindsey Burke]

Ah, LOL, this is funny! Grew up and spent the first 22 years of my life in Washington, PA, about 25 miles south of the 'burgh. So many of the OP's phrases and terms are spot on. My parents still say warsh, chipped ham, tagger, and quite a few others. Another one I'll add is 'hamburg', dropping the 'er' off the end of the thing one orders at McDonalds or Burger King, etc.

Oddly enough, when I did move away from western PA and moved to western Kentucky, those nice country folk there heard my Pittsburgh accent and thought I was from either a New York or England (no kidding). Living there, I picked up some nice phrases like 'I reckon' and 'I'm plum full', and of course, 'y'all'. But that's a whole 'nother thread.

You are absolutely correct. Originally coming from eastern KY, I'll do my best to work up a KY thread but it's going to take a while.

 

[One_Dude]

I do remember that song by the 5 Stairsteps, but would not have remembered the name of the group.

One other local speech pattern item around Southeastern Ohia is the dropping off the "g" in words that ends in "ing". For instance, "going" becomes "goin", and "fixing" becomes "fixin", and the practice includes all words ending in "ing".

Thump on,

One_Dude

 

[dwm74]

Also, you must be aware that there are two states here; "Ahia" and "Ohia".

Thump on,

One_Dude

That is so funny, and also 100% correct. Mostly the two-A's version is what I heard growin' up.