American English

American English (AmE) is the form of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. It is the primary language used in the United States. As of 2005, more than two-thirds of native speakers of English use various forms of American English. American English is also sometimes called United States English or U.S. English.

Regional differences

Written English is standardized across the U.S., and in schools abroad specializing in American English, although it differs slightly from the written Commonwealth English used in many other countries across the globe. By contrast, there is some variation in the spoken language. There are numerous recognizable regional variations (such as New York-New Jersey English), particularly in pronunciation, but also in slang vocabulary.

Related Topics:
Written English - Commonwealth English - New York-New Jersey English

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Most traditional sources cite General American English (occasionally referred to as Standard Midwestern) as the unofficial standard accent and dialect of American English. However, many linguists claim California English has become the de facto standard since the 1960s or 1970s due to its central role in the American entertainment industry; others argue that the entertainment industry, despite being in California, uses Midwestern. Certain features which are frequent in speakers of California English, particularly the cot-caught merger, are not often considered as part of the standard.

Related Topics:
General American - California English - 1960s - 1970s - Cot-caught merger

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Regional dialects in North America are most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard. The distinctive speech of important cultural centers like Boston, Massachusetts (see Boston accent), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana imposed their marks on the surrounding areas. The Connecticut River is usually regarded as the southern/western extent of New England speech, while the Potomac River generally divides a group of Northern coastal dialects from the beginning of the Coastal Southern dialect area (distinguished from the Highland Southern or South Midland dialect treated below, although outsiders often mistakenly believe that the speech in these two areas is the same); in between these two rivers several local variations exist, chief among them the one that prevails in and around New York City and northern New Jersey.

Related Topics:
Eastern seaboard - Boston, Massachusetts - Boston accent - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Charleston, South Carolina - New Orleans, Louisiana - Connecticut River - Potomac River - New York City - New Jersey

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The sounds of American speech can be identified with a number of public figures: President John F. Kennedy spoke in the Boston accent, while President Jimmy Carter speaks with a Southern coastal accent. The North Midlands speech is familiar to those who have heard Neil Armstrong and John Glenn, while the South Midland speech was the speech of President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Comedians Mel Brooks and Ray Romano retain typical New York accents while Jack Black and Pauly Shore have the standard sound of southern California.

Related Topics:
John F. Kennedy - Boston accent - Jimmy Carter - Neil Armstrong - John Glenn - Lyndon Baines Johnson - Mel Brooks - Ray Romano - New York - Jack Black - Pauly Shore - California

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

African American Vernacular English (AAVE, colloquially known as Ebonics) contains many distinctive forms.

Related Topics:
African American Vernacular English - Ebonics

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Eastern New England

The accents of eastern New England, including those of Boston (see Boston accent), New Hampshire, and Maine (also called Down East), are characterized by a number of phenomena that distinguish them from General American (GenAm). Traditionally, these accents (with the exception of Martha's Vineyard) are non-rhotic, but this feature is slowly losing ground, especially with the vowel {{IPA|}}. Further, most accents in this region have not merged the vowels of father and bother, that is, the two do not rhyme, as they do in GenAm.

Related Topics:
New England - Boston - Boston accent - New Hampshire - Maine - Down East - General American - Martha's Vineyard - Merged

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In general, these accents undergo the cot-caught merger, making cot and caught homophonous as {{IPA|/k?t/}}. They also have a dwindling group of words with broad A, such as past, half, aunt, can't. Among non-rhotic speakers, the broad A is identical to the sound usually spelled ar, so that past/parsed and aunt/aren't can be homophonous pairs.

Related Topics:
Cot-caught merger - Broad A

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The distinction between the vowels of horse and hoarse is maintained in traditional non-rhotic New England accents as {{IPA|}} (with the same vowel as cot and caught) vs. {{IPA|}}.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Words that have {{IPA|}} in RP (where V stands for any vowel), such as origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren, borrow, tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, all have {{IPA|}} in eastern New England, unlike GenAm where most have {{IPA|}} (except the last four in the list, which have {{IPA|}} in GenAm as well).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The eastern New England accents have not undergone many of the vowel mergers before intervocalic {{IPA|}} found in General American. For example, many accents in this region preserve the distinction between {{IPA|}} (as in nearer {{IPA|/n????/}}) and {{IPA|}} (as in mirror {{IPA|/m???/}}), as well as the distinction between {{IPA|}} (as in hurry {{IPA|/h??i/}}) and {{IPA|}} (as in furry {{IPA|/f??i/}}).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Like some other east-coast accents as well as AAVE, some accents of eastern New England merge {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}}, making homophones of pairs like pour/poor, more/moor, tore/tour, cores/Coors etc.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

New York City and northern New Jersey

Main article: New York-New Jersey English

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As in Eastern New England, the accents of New York City and northern New Jersey are traditionally non-rhotic. But the vowels of cot {{IPA|(}}) and caught {{IPA|(}}) are distinct; the former is distinct from that of cart {{IPA|(/k??t/}}) only by being short and monophthongal.

Related Topics:
New York City - New Jersey

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The accent is well attested in American movies and television shows. Bugs Bunny and Groucho Marx both had a Brooklyn accent. The accent is often exaggerated, but it still does exist to some degree with many Brooklyn natives. A more contemporary version of this can be found on the popular television show The Sopranos, which is set in Essex County, New Jersey. However, it is important to note that the dialect portrayed on this television show does not apply to citizens of the entire state; it is a particular socio-ethnic accent.

Related Topics:
Bugs Bunny - Groucho Marx - The Sopranos

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mid-Atlantic Region

Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley

The accent of Philadelphia and nearby parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, is probably the original ancestor of General American. It is one of the few coastal accents that is rhotic, and one of the first to merge the historical {{IPA|}} of hoarse, mourning with the {{IPA|}} of horse, morning. It also maintains the cot-caught contrast, unlike New England and western Pennsylvania. Nevertheless there are differences between modern Philadelphia speech and General American, some of which will be outlined here.

Related Topics:
Philadelphia - Pennsylvania - New Jersey - Delaware - Maryland - Merge - Cot-caught contrast

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• "Water" is sometimes pronounced {{IPA|/w?d?/}}, that is, with the vowel of wood
• As in New York-New Jersey English, but unlike General American, words like orange, horrible, etc., are pronounced with {{IPA|}}. See .
• On is pronounced {{IPA|}}, so that, as in the South and Midland (and unlike New York and the North) it rhymes with dawn rather than don.
• The {{IPA|}} of goat and boat is fronted, so it is pronounced {{IPA|}}, as in the Midland and South.
• The phoneme {{IPA|}} undergoes -tensing in some words; fewer words have the tense {{IPA|}} in Philadelphia than in New York City.
• As in New York City and Boston, there is a three-way distinction between Mary, marry, and merry. A recent development is a merger of the vowel of merry with Murray.
• Canadian raising occurs for {{IPA|}} (price) but not for {{IPA|/a?/}} (mouth)
• There is a split of {{IPA|}} (face) so at the end of a word (for example, day) it sounds like it does in Australia, while in any other position (for example, date) it is pronounced more like {{IPA|}}. Commonly confused words include eight and eat, snake and sneak, slave and sleeve.
• South Philadelphia has been known for r-dropping, even though it has never been a characteristic of the rest of the region.

Baltimore, Maryland

See the separate article on Baltimorese

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh accent has a number of distinctive features. Please refer to that article for more information.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

South

Main article: Southern American English

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• monophthongization of {{IPA|}} as {{IPA|}}, for example, most dialects' "I" ? "Ah" in the South.
• Coastal Southern speech (also some East Coast) is non-rhotic.
• {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} merged before nasal consonants, for example "Wendy" becomes "Windy," "pen" becomes "pin," and so forth.
• Unlike most American English, but like Commonwealth English, glides (, the y sound) are inserted before {{IPA|}} after the consonants {{IPA|, , , , , , and }}.
• In the Deep South, vowels tend to take the hard sound more often, for example, "on" and "own" are similar; "can't" and "ain't" and "glass" and "face" also might rhyme.
• Verbs can have various meanings. For example, 'cut' the light off, or 'mash' the buttons

New Orleans

While including such characteristics of the Southern U.S. English as using "y'all" for second person plural, the New Orleans accent is so unlike the rest of the South and so similar to that of New York City that New Orleanians traveling in other parts of the USA are often mistaken for New Yorkers.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Many pronunciations are surprisingly similar to that found in New York City and northern New Jersey, presumably arising from a similar mix of immigrants. Parallels include the split of the historic short-a class into tense {{IPA|}} and lax versions, as well as pronunciation of "cot" and "caught" as {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}}. The stereotypical New York r-dropping of "toity-toid street" (33rd Street) used to be a common New Orleans feature, though it has mostly receded today.

Related Topics:
New York City - Split

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Perhaps the most distinctive New Orleans accent is locally nicknamed "yat", from a traditional greeting "Where y'at" ("Where are you at?", meaning "How are you?"). One of the most detailed phonetic depictions of an extreme "yat" accent of the early 20th century is found in the speech of the character Krazy Kat in the comic strip of the same name by George Herriman. While such extreme "yat" accents are no longer so common in the city, they can still be found in parts of Mid-City and the 9th ward, as well as in St. Bernard Parish, just east of New Orleans.

Related Topics:
Krazy Kat - Comic strip - George Herriman - 9th ward - St. Bernard Parish

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole is generally considered the best depiction of New Orleans accents in literature.

Related Topics:
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Central and South Florida

The speech used in the urban and coastal areas of Central and South Florida (everything south of and including Orlando) is noticeable for not being a typical southern accent, because a large proportion of the inhabitants of the area are either natives of the Northeast (and therefore speakers of accents like New York-New Jersey English) or else native Spanish speakers (predominantly from Cuba.) The accents heard in some parts of this region, especially in older communities such as Aventura, Boca Raton, or West Palm Beach, are that of the typical New Yorker. However the southern dialect is still predominantly spoken in the rural and inland areas of Central and South Florida.

Related Topics:
New York-New Jersey English - Spanish - Cuba

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In Miami alone, as of the 2000 Census, there are over 145 different languages spoken throughout many communities in Miami and its surrounding areas. Numerically, the strongest of these is Spanish. Most people visiting Miami for the first time complain that they couldn't communicate with the locals because they didn't speak English. There are even stories of going through a drive-through at a fast food restaurant and being greeted in Spanish, then French, and then English. This is especially notable on 8th street (or Calle Ocho) where almost everyone is a native Spanish speaker. This results in "Spanglish", a code-switching conglomeration of English and Spanish. "Escuche Maria, he said to meet him al taller, 'ta bien?" (Hey Maria, he said to meet him at the garage, okay?).

Related Topics:
Miami - Spanglish - Code-switching

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In terms of speakers, the next highest minority languages are, in from greatest to least, Haitian Creole, Brazilian Portuguese, Canadian French, Russian, and Chinese. This makes Miami a very difficult place to pinpoint any certain "accent." Instead, it is a tossed salad of new vocabulary, weird sentence structure and relatively few native English speakers trying to communicate amongst themselves. Standard linguistic rules tend to be difficult to apply in a general sense here; thus, this analysis is mostly demographic in nature.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Inland North

A distinctive speech pattern was also generated by the separation of Canada from the United States, centered on the Great Lakes region. This is the Inland North dialect - the "standard Midwestern" speech that was the basis for General American in the mid-20th Century, though it has been recently modified by the northern cities vowel shift.

Related Topics:
Canada - Great Lakes - Northern cities vowel shift

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This area consists of western New York State (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse), parts of Michigan's Lower Peninsula (Detroit, Ann Arbor, etc.), Cleveland, Chicago, Gary, and Milwaukee.

Related Topics:
New York - Buffalo - Rochester - Syracuse - Michigan - Detroit - Ann Arbor - Cleveland - Chicago - Gary - Milwaukee

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• By the Northern cities vowel shift, cad, cod, cawed, Ked, and cut are pronounced {{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}, and {{IPA|}}, respectively.
• The starting point of {{IPA|/a?/}} (for example, mouse, down) is pronounced noticeably in the back of the mouth ({{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}), while {{IPA|/a?/}} (mice, dine) is much further front: ({{IPA|}}, {{IPA|}}).
• The long-o of "bone" and "goat" is rounded and pronounced far back.
• The word "on" rhymes with "don," not with "dawn."
• Canadian raising is found in areas close to the Canadian border.

The Midland

West of the Appalachian Mountains begins the broad zone of what is generally called "Midland" speech. This is divided into two discrete subdivisions, the North Midland that begins north of the Ohio River valley area, and the South Midland speech; sometimes the former is designated simply Midland and the latter is reckoned as Highland Southern. The North Midland speech continues to expand westward until it becomes the closely related speech of California, although in the immediate San Francisco area the speech more closely resembles that of the mid-Atlantic region.

Related Topics:
Appalachian Mountains - Ohio River - California - San Francisco

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The South Midland or "Highland Southern" dialect follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters out in West Texas. This is the dialect associated with truck drivers on the CB radio and country music. It is a version of the Midland speech that has assimilated some coastal Southern forms, most noticeably the loss of the diphthong {{IPA|}}, , which becomes {{IPA|}}, and the second person plural pronoun "you-all" or "y'all." Unlike Coastal Southern, however, South Midland is a rhotic dialect, pronouncing /r/ wherever it has historically occurred.

Related Topics:
Ohio River - Arkansas - Oklahoma - Mississippi - West Texas - CB radio - Country music

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This consists of the larger parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois which are not in the Inland North, as well as Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, where it begins to blend into the West, and even extends into the Southern parts of Michigan's lower peninsula. Some linguists call this the "North Midland" with the Southern highlands being the "South Midland."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• In some rural areas, words like "roof" and "root" get the vowel of "book" and "hoof"
• People who pronounce "don" and "dawn" differently pronounce "on" to rhyme with "dawn" and not "don"
• St. Louis has a distinctive accent, see the section on it below.
• South Indiana has a distinctive accent, locally known as the "Hoosier Twang" (a well-known speaker is actor Jim Nabors, who played Gomer Pyle on TV and has for many years sung "Back Home In Indiana" before the Indy 500 race).

South Midlands speech, found in the area from Tennessee through Texas, is characterized by:

Related Topics:
Tennessee - Texas

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• monophthongization of as {{IPA|}}, for example, most dialects' "I" ? "Ah" in the South.
• raising of initial vowel of {{IPA| to }}; the initial vowel is often lengthened and prolonged, yielding {{IPA|}}.
• nasalization of vowels, esp. diphthongs, before {{IPA|}}.
• raising of {{IPA| to }}; can't ? cain't, etc.
• Unlike most American English, but like Commonwealth English, glides (, the y sound) are inserted before {{IPA|}} after the consonants {{IPA|, , , , , , and }}.
• South Midlands speech is rhotic. This is the principal feature that distinguishes South Midland speech from the non-rhotic coastal Southern varieties.

Midwest

North Central American English

(Minnesota (esp. rural), Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• As in most North American accents, {{IPA|}} is merged with {{IPA|}}, so that father rhymes with bother.
• Canadian raising: see section on Canada.
• "roof", "book", and "root" all use the same vowel {{IPA|}}); "root" may be pronounced as rhyming with "scoot," however
• Use of German/Scandinavian "ja", pronounced as either /ja?/ or /jæ?/, as an affirmative filler or emphatic; Standard U.S. English "yes" is used in formal settings to answer questions and to start an explanation.
• Tendency towards a "sing-songy" intonation (the area's earliest European settlers were primarily Scandinavian, and this has influenced the local dialect). More recently, this has been reinforced by an influx of Asians, most of whom speak tonal languages.
• Known as "Yooper" in Upper Pensinsula of Michigan See "Escanaba in da Moonlight" for an example.
• For a stereotypical (although very overdone) example of Minnesotan, refer to the movie Fargo. For a more normative example, Garrison Keillor speaks with a typical Minnesota accent.(Note: most southern, even rural, Minnesota accents sound more like the northern Iowan accent. Thicker accents up in the northern areas are still much less defined than in Fargo.) Accents in the Twin Cities will sound like other midwestern urban centers, and are similar to Milwaukee and Chicago.
• final /t/ is replaced in the speech of most individuals by {{IPA|/?/}}, including after nasals, to the extent that a clearly enunciated "can" /kæ?n/ in otherwise rapid speech is likely to be confused with "can't." ("Can" is normally pronounced as /k?n/, or even with the vowel reduced to a syllabification of the /n/ itself, while "can't" is normally pronounced {{IPA|/kæ???/}}.)
• collapse of /ð/ with /d/ and /θ/ with /t/: to use a (hilarious) anecdote from the family history of this author as an example:
• "Yozef? Are you done cleaning the barn?"
• "No, but it's about two turds done."

::(Obviously, cleaning two turds out of a barn is not a very great feat, but the meaning here is "two thirds" (2/3), not "two turds", which indicates a far greater accomplishment...)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::This pronunciation can also be found in the name of popular songs, such as Da Turdy Point Buck (The 30-point Buck), a popular hunting season song by the Wisconsin band Bananas At Large.

Related Topics:
Hunting season - Bananas At Large

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

::It is noteworthy that this phoneme collapse is far more prevalent in rural areas, especially outside Upper Michigan and northeastern Wisconsin. This characteristic is likely due to the large immigrant population (in most cases notably less than a century removed from "the old country"), comprised in great part of speakers of Germanic, Slavic and Finnic languages. One notable exception, giving weight to this theory, is that it is peculiarly absent on Washington Island, in Wisconsin, in the very heart of the prevalence of this trait. Washington Island is home to the most homogeneous Icelander (over 90% of the population) immigrant community in the U.S., and unlike most non-English Germanic languages, the Icelandic language differentiates rigorously between the phonemes /ð/ and /d/ and between /θ/ and /t/.

Related Topics:
Washington Island - Iceland - Germanic languages - Icelandic language

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• W ? V, particularly well ? vell and what ? vaht (Rarely found in people under 35.)
• Perhaps to a greater degree than other parts of the United States, standard American English pronunciation is replacing the regional accent, probably because there is less cultural identity wrapped up in the language than elsewhere

This regional variety has been much popularized, in somewhat satirical fashion, by the popular music group "Da Yoopers" (From "Yooper", a person from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan), singing such songs as Second Week Of Deer Camp, Grandpa Got Run Over By A Beer Truck and Rusty Chevrolet. In addition, it has also been satirized in the form of Coach Z, a character on the Homestar Runner web site.

Related Topics:
Da Yoopers - Yooper - Upper Peninsula of Michigan - Coach Z - Homestar Runner

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

St. Louis and vicinity

• Some St. Louisans (probably born earlier than 1960) tend to merge the {{IPA|}} sound as in for with the {{IPA|}} sound of far. Interstates 40 and 44, are thus farty and farty-far. Similarly, "corn" is pronounced {{IPA|}}. This accent is otherwise a typical north Midland accent.
• Some younger speakers are picking up the Northern cities vowel shift heard in Chicago, eastern Wisconsin, and much of Michigan and New York State. This vowel shift causes words like cat {{IPA|/kæt/}} to become more like {{IPA|}} and talent {{IPA|/tæl?nt/}} to be more like {{IPA|/t?æl?nt/}} or {{IPA|/t??l?nt/}}.
• Since this is in the Midland, "on" rhymes with "dawn," and the Northern cities vowel shift makes this more noticeable here than in the rest of the Midland.
• Some speakers, usually older generations, pronounce words like measure as {{IPA|/?me??.?/}}, and wash as {{IPA|/w???/}}, for example, {{IPA|/?w?r?.??.t?n/}} for Washington.
• Some speakers mispronounce mostaccioli as {{IPA|/m?sk?t?oli?/}}. This seems ironic, with the presence of The Hill.

West

California

:Main article: California English

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some characteristics of California English include:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Raising of the front vowels {{IPA|}} to {{IPA|}} before {{IPA|}}, so that sang and sing are pronounced {{IPA|}}
• Fronting of the back vowels {{IPA|}} to {{IPA|}}. The {{IPA|}} may trigger palatalization of a preceding consonant, so that a phrase like too cool is pronounced {{IPA|}}, a pronunciation jocularly spelled tew kewl, especially on the Internet and in instant messenger services.
• Particularly among young female speakers, high rise terminals in non-question sentences, and laryngealization or "creaky voice" of words in phrase-final position.
• In Southern California, major highways are determined by the word the: "the five" is Interstate 5, "the one oh one" is US Highway 101. In Northern California, highways are not determined with the: I-5 is simply five and US-101 is one oh one. (The Southern California terminology is prevalent further north in Portland, Oregon.)

Utah

The regional dialect of Utah is often jocularly referred to as "Utahnics".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• The merger of {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} to {{IPA|}} before {{IPA|}}, making pairs like the following homophonous:
• bowl / bull
• foal / full
• foley / fully
• Folsom / fulsome
• poll, pole / pull
• polar / puller
• diphthongization of {{IPA| as }}: "egg" and "leg" pronounced "ayg" and "layg", "leisure" and "pleasure" pronounced "layzhur" and "playzhur."
• in some cases, "ar" and "or" are reversed: "I was barn in a born" (I was born in a barn).
• introduction of a "T" into certain words: "teacher" pronounced "teat-chur."
• shortening of some words from several syllables to one or two: "coral" as "crall", "probably" to "probly" or "prolly."
• Merger of /Ar/ and /Or/ by some speakers so that far and for, card and cord etc. are homonyms.
• the use of "fer" in certain expressions, such as "fer cute", meaning "cute" or "fer ignernt": "stupid."
• due to the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, unique euphemisms: "oh my heck" and "gol."

References

• Rainey, Virginia, (2004) Insiders' Guide: Salt Lake City (4th ed.), The Globe Pequot Press, ISBN 0-7627-2836-1
• Article about "Utahnics"

Washington

• The Western Washington accent, notably the Puget Sound region, has more in common with the rest of the west coast, whereas more rural eastern parts of the state have accents closer to that of Idaho and Montana.
• {{IPA|}} is often pronounced as {{IPA|}}: milk becomes {{IPA|}}
• There is no pin-pen merger in the western part of the state; in the eastern part of the state it is occasionally and variably presenthttp://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map3.html.
• For the most part, the accent is General American with the cot-caught merger.

Hawaii

See main article Hawaiian English.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~