My Texas Accent... and Yours

When I first meet people who grew up on the West Coast or in the Midwest, it's pretty inevitable that, at some point, they'll comment that I don't sound like I have a Texas accent.

I know what they mean: Hollywood's portrayal of your typical Dallas resident has us sounding like some comically slow deep-south yokel with a lump of tobacco tucked inside his cheek. I've done a fair bit of traveling around the state, and can pretty comfortably say that I've yet to hear that particular parody of a hybrid Georgia/Tennessee accent anywhere in or near Texas. It's as hilariously off-base as James Doohan's Scottish accent (which Craig Ferguson once commented sounded to actual Scots like "a Pakistani who'd had a stroke.") Once you get out into the less urban areas of Texas, you'll find a wide variety of distinct accents -- some of them bordering on incomprehensible -- but nothing I've ever heard on TV or in theaters.

I digress. My point is: my life has been split pretty evenly between Houston and Dallas, and the "standard American newscaster" accent that I use is one that I share with the vast majority of people who live there. However, as much as that may be news to those people who haven't visited the state, the more interesting part of this is that those commenters who are surprised that I sound like them have it exactly backwards: they, in fact, sound like me.

Take a look at those locations where languages evolved without some unifying force: accents across London are so varied that those people with a good ear can pick out which corner of the city you're from. In the US? Not quite so much. I mean, sure, some areas have pretty distinctive accents (Boston, New York City); but there's a widely recognized "generic American" accent that is spread across the bulk of the country. How did we get a single dominant set of pronunciation across nearly 2,500 miles, when London has dozens across its meager 35?

The widely accepted answer is: radio and television. During the past century, the fact that every American was able to hear the same set of voices -- a set that was relatively small during the early years of broadcasting -- led us to establish a single set of pronunciation that is accepted as neutral, as normal. As in "you don't have an accent." But keep in mind that the phrase "you don't have an accent" just means "you have the same accent as I do."

In early days -- think back to recordings of radio broadcasts -- these voices were the high-pitched, nasal tones that developed in New York's melting pot. Think of Howard Cosell ("the Bronx is burning", "down goes Frazier") and Herbert Morrison ("oh the humanity"). For some reason, that's not what took hold.

If you go back and find the newscasters who first sounded like this "American accent" we all take for granted, you'll find broadcast pioneers like Bob Schieffer, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. These were the huge, nationwide newscasters who brought the news into American homes, from the German annexation of Austria, all the way through the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

I sound like them. Not because I've heard them on broadcast media, like most Americans. I sound like them because Bob Schieffer was born in Austin and grew up in Fort Worth. I sound like them because Walter Cronkite grew up in Houston and went to school in Austin. I sound like them because Dan Rather grew up and lived in Houston.

I sound like them because we're from the same place.

So, you see, this accent that you think of as American? That's ours. That's what developed organically in the large cities of Texas. The accent that I have? That's a Texas accent straight up -- or, at least, one of the myriad accents from across the state.

And, to those people who marvel at the fact that I "don't have an accent": what this means is that you have a Texas accent, too.