WEBVTT 00:00:00.399 --> 00:00:04.630 Kevin Spacey grew up in California, but in House of Cards, he plays a politician from 00:00:04.630 --> 00:00:08.630 South Carolina. "As we used to say in Gaffney..." The first thing you'll notice about Spacey's 00:00:08.630 --> 00:00:13.219 accent when he's playing Frank Underwood is what happens to a lot of his Rs. "Money is 00:00:13.219 --> 00:00:19.750 the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years. Power..." This is called 00:00:19.750 --> 00:00:23.939 r-dropping, and it's a feature of several well-known dialects. "He would rather the 00:00:23.939 --> 00:00:29.960 poor were poorer." "The greatest wilderness on Earth." "In the tradition of bipartisanship." 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:34.810 "Metropolitan Museum of Art." But it's also associated with the upper class of the plantation 00:00:34.810 --> 00:00:40.350 South. "This war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring." R-dropping emerged 00:00:40.350 --> 00:00:45.000 as kind of an affectation among posh people in southern Britain in the 18th century -- the 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.460 English didn't always talk that way. And then it spread to elites on the East Coast of the 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:54.940 US. At the same time, r-dropping was a feature of the creole and West African languages spoken 00:00:54.940 --> 00:01:00.330 by some of the slaves in the South and their descendants. But after World War II, new generations 00:01:00.330 --> 00:01:04.599 of white Southerners essentially abandoned r-dropping, so today you'll see it mostly 00:01:04.599 --> 00:01:10.430 in the very oldest generation, or more frequently with African-American speakers from the South. 00:01:10.430 --> 00:01:15.250 Take Lindsey Graham as an example. Like Kevin Spacey's character, Graham is from the northern 00:01:15.250 --> 00:01:21.220 part of South Carolina, and his Rs are largely intact. "going to sell the oil to another 00:01:21.220 --> 00:01:26.630 customer." And that may be because language in the Southern Appalachian areas was influenced 00:01:26.630 --> 00:01:32.320 by settlers from Ireland, where people aren't exactly shy with their Rs. "Seriously. Serious. 00:01:32.320 --> 00:01:39.320 How close does that sound to the Kentucky accent where they talk like that and I'm talking 00:01:39.320 --> 00:01:42.780 like this?" Regardless, R-dropping probably can't be the shortcut that white actors use 00:01:42.780 --> 00:01:47.290 to sound Southern in the future. Instead, the main feature that unites Southern dialects 00:01:47.290 --> 00:01:53.560 is something called /ay/-ungliding. For people outside the South, this vowel has two parts. 00:01:53.560 --> 00:01:58.420 You can probably feel your tongue shifting as you say the word "buy." But in Southern 00:01:58.420 --> 00:02:05.420 speech, /ay/ is a one-part vowel in many cases, sounding more like ah than ay. "Five" "and 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:09.999 livelihoods" "terrified." But there's an important distinction here that Northerners might not 00:02:09.999 --> 00:02:15.930 be aware of. Most Southerners only do ay-ungliding before what's called voiced consonants, or 00:02:15.930 --> 00:02:20.409 at the end of a word. The difference between voiced and voiceless consonants is whether 00:02:20.409 --> 00:02:26.420 your vocal chords vibrate when you say them, and ay-ungliding before voiceless consonants 00:02:26.420 --> 00:02:32.540 is stereotyped in the South as a less-educated way of speaking. "But I don't want your life." 00:02:32.540 --> 00:02:36.669 Ay-ungliding triggers a shift in the vowels, or in the space in the mouth where the vowels 00:02:36.669 --> 00:02:42.510 are formed. The ey-sound shifts lower in the mouth. "And then blame somebody else." The 00:02:42.510 --> 00:02:46.919 eh-sound moves forward to the front of the mouth. "Just as strong and opinionated as 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:53.829 men." As do the vowels pronounced in the back of the mouth like go and boot. "Thank you." 00:02:53.829 --> 00:02:57.629 These vowel shifts occur to different degrees in different parts of the South, and they're 00:02:57.629 --> 00:03:02.709 certainly fading in cities where there's a lot of migration and generational change. 00:03:02.709 --> 00:03:06.509 But if you're an actor from the North or the West, the vowels are really the key 00:03:06.509 --> 00:00:00.000 to sounding Southern.