ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Floridians have the "least sexy" accent, according to Big 7 Travel.
As a second-generation Floridian, I have to ask: What accent?
According to Big 7's list of the Top 50 Sexiest Accents in the USA, "Floridian" ranks 44, reportedly just slightly worse than a Pittsburgh accent.
Sorry, Long Islanders, your accent was deemed the "least sexiest" in the nation.
The sexiest accent according to Big 7's users? Texan.
But do native Floridians really have accents? Do we really pronounce sandwich as "sangwich"?
A former graduate student at Brigham Young University wrote her master's thesis on "A Latent Class Analysis of American English Dialects." Author Stephanie Nicole Hedges' research found Florida "accents" grouped in The South cluster.
Her paper says those in the South has a strong pronunciation of "lawyer" with the "aw" pronounced the same way as "saw." Her paper also said the South has "the highest probability" of the word "poem" being pronounced as two syllables and "mayonnaise" being pronounced like "man-aise."
Floridians are also more likely to pronounce both "pin" and "pen" as "pin."
Linguists William Labov, Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg created an interactive Atlas of North American English using data collected from telephone interviews in the 1990s.
These linguists categorize Central and South Florida in the Midland dialect category alongside cities like Atlanta and Charleston, South Carolina. These cities and regions have been found to contain a large number of people from other states.
The atlas also specifies the "Miami accent" widely-spoken in South Florida as being developed by second- and third-generation Hispanics.
An Orlando Sentinel article from 1997 said Florida Crackers developed their own dialect in the English language using "Southern dialect and unusual corruptions of words."
The Sentinel said Crackers also use "crackerisms" like "as pleased as a blind hog findin' an acorn tree."
Big 7 also lists a Tallahassee accent in the 37th spot. The site said you'll most likely hear a Southern twang in people from Tallahassee. They say "y'all, but not quite right."
The site ranked the Miami accent 13th, saying it has a "sexy rhythm as Spanish with Cuban loanwords thrown in for good measure."
What other people are reading right now:
- Woman gets 15 years for posing as sheriff, releasing boyfriend from jail
- Russian hackers accessed 2 Florida voting databases, DeSantis says
- 'Carol Burnett Show' star Tim Conway dead at 85
- E.coli outbreak linked to ground beef: 196 sickened in 10 states
- Video shows healthcare staff punching, beating man with disabilities with belt
►Make it easy to keep up-to-date with more stories like this. Download the 10News app now.
Have a news tip? Email desk@wtsp.com, or visit our Facebook page or Twitter feed.
