The Really Bad Cleveland Accent Philosophy

I've been doing this blog for over two years now, longer than I've ever been at any job.

This is my 200th post, so I thought I'd lay down the RBCA philosophy.

It's about two things, really:

• how people perceive you, based on the way you talk, and
• taking where you come from with you, wherever you go.

It's not a big secret that people judge others based on their accent. If you have a British accent (and it doesn't matter what kind, either), when in America, your assumed IQ goes up about 10 points. And if you're from the South, your assumed IQ goes down about 100 points, if you're talking to someone from the Northeast.

So, what kinds of assumptions do others make about you if you sound Cleveland?

I've been thinking about what it means to have a Cleveland accent ever since, as I described in my first post, I happened upon my west-coast roommate at Oberlin making fun of the way I talk.

Now, you don't want to hear about glottal stops and stuff, and despite having excelled at my linguistics classes at Cleveland State, I don't want to or feel terribly qualified to talk about them. So for the nuts-and-bolts of what a Cleveland accent sounds like, go here.

Instead, I'll try and describe its bouquet, if you will, such as one might describe a rustic Beaujolais, or in this case, perhaps Two Buck Chuck:

The Cleveland accent's dominant note is outrage, underscored by a sharp tang of bristly disbelief, suspicion, and distrust. To ears of pretension it might sound slightly unsophisticated, uncultivated. Not corn-fed, but rust-fed. Pierogi-and-cabbage fed. There's a definite note of "fuck you and the foreign car you rode in on" there, too, and "you're not going to pull the wool over my eyes, you bigshot bastard."

And from that, comes its power.

It's my belief that we ought to harness that power for good, rather than let it suck us down into the helpless despair of the Monday Moaner (all of whom, undoubtedly, are afflicted with terminal RBCAs).

And it's my belief that, though it may be unfashionable to talk about national or regional character, Clevelanders are smart people who are used to sifting through heady promises and lies and who simply don't have the patience to listen to anyone's bullshit.

They say Northeast Ohio is in the midst of a Brain Drain, and have the maps to prove it. So, apparently, all of these other regions are experiencing an influx of people with RBCAs.

We ought to retire that old saying, "you can't go home again," because it's ridiculous. You take home with you, wherever you go - even if you escape the frigid grasp of the Great Lakes for the cheap and easy allure of the Sun Belt. You take with you all the misgivings and misconceptions and sorrows that come with growing up someplace scarred by such overwhelming forces as globalization and the persistent, hurtful misunderstandings between white people and black people, and yet you still manage to drum up some nostalgia for Angelo's (large artichoke pizza - $10.95!) and Big Chuck and Little John and you still manage to hope that this year really will be the Tribe's year. Even if you don't like baseball.

You take the power of the Really Bad Cleveland Accent with you, too.

Use it wisely.