Thay-at

There are two types of Southern accents: the endearing kind that is a pleasure to listen to and the kind that makes the speaker sound dumber than a sack of hammers. Unfortunately, Tyler is picking up some of the later. Mind you, my son is far from dumb but Rick and I are trying hard to correct some of the words that make him sound let's just say less than intelligent. Most of the words have an 'a' in them and are one syllable words that he's turning into two syllables such as: cay-at, thay-at. Just as I'm typing he said they-ar (instead of there).

I think he's getting his accent from his teacher in school (who is not dumb but who has a thick Southern accent) or one of his classmates (all who seem smart). I don't know what to do. I don't want to keep 'correcting' him because he's really not doing anything wrong. Who am I to say what is the right way of speaking vs. the wrong way of speaking? Our family may be a mixed bag when it comes to accents. Actually, Rick basically untrained his Long Island accent and you'd never know where he's from with the exception of a few words here and there. He doesn't have any type of accent. I'm from Ohio but grew up in Arizona, where people are from all over and we all just came to acquire a non-regional specific accent. For additional fun maybe the three of us should just develop an Australian accent and really throw people off.