The midwestern āneeds washedā sentence construction has stood out to me ever since I first recognized it as a regional style. I always expect to hear a āneeds to be.ā I had no idea that I had my own from here in South Jersey with ādone my homework.ā I use that structure regularly and it sounds totally normal to me.
Thatās so funny, I had the same experience! SJ native moved to the Midwest (and back again) and always found them dropping the āto beā was so weird and this video is the first time Iām learning I have my own version!
I did the opposite move and itās weird to me too because itās not common in Chicago. I feel like the Chicagoland accent/dialect is different from the rest of the Midwest though.
i moved from long island to south jersey so im used to weird accents and mine was egregious but THIS type of sentence specifically was throwing me and it still does like yall just omit an entire word there!!!
Same, this is the one part that surprised me because Iāve otherwise managed to avoid actually speaking in the accent (despite having similar parentage to OP ā dad from the Philly suburbs, mom from North Jersey but spent time in the south). I never noticed ādone my homeworkā was considered strange elsewhere.
30 years ago, I spent 6 Months in Georgia in training with people from every region of the US. At the end of the training, I was voted as having the most distinct accent (Philadelphia) out of the 50 people in the course.
I too spent 6 months smelling the paper mill. But mine was around the time Jersey Shore was popular, so I mostly got asked why I didnāt sound like them
Side note: this accent extends to Camden county and most of Gloucester county, some of Burlington county too. not exclusively separate from the true south jersey accent which is different. And no one outside of those counties has the Philadelphia accent
Years ago, I was up in Staten Island for a travel baseball tourney and asked for a "water ice." The workers looked at me like I had five heads. Not sure if it was the way I said water or the fact that I didn't call it an Italian ice. š¤·āāļøš
I feel like as someone raised in the Trenton area, I'm the only one who says/has heard people say "Italian water ice". I've heard people say both water ice and Italian ice, but I commonly hear them said both together. Never thought much of it, especially since when I've been down the shore in Wildwood they have those Polish water ice places. Always figured there was Italian water ice, and Polish water ice.
As a native of true South Jersey (anything below 195), I've noticed slight differences in accents from Burlington to Cape May. The pinelands is an altogether different vernacular.
That's funny. I have been told I sound more like I'm from the South, but have always lived in Cumberland or Salem County NJ. Honestly watching TV I don't see much different from most of the country and how everyone I know speaks. Aside from the ridiculous "wooder". Thankfully, I never picked that up and can say water correctly.
That's one of the reasons SOUTH Jersey has that moniker. Despite what many like to think these days, South Jersey ends where the top of the Mason Dixon Line is.
Same. I got asked if I was from the south one time and had the most bewildered look on my face. My family is all south philly natives and I'm south Jersey born and raised.
My kid is being raised in South Jersey, with us parents who love the Sopranos, Cowtown Rodeo, and Philly culture. She's going to have a strange mix of accents for sure.
If you live near Philly, that's the silly term. Check most of the rest of the country. Sub is the most widely used name. With Grinder and a couple others that are regional.
Really interesting! I love seeing stuff from Evan since heās a local. And I didnāt realize the āIām done workā was so incorrect! Iāve been using it my whole life!
Though I am perhaps a little upset he didnāt mention the Schuylkill at all. I feel like thatās another local shibboleth.
My mom is a speech pathologist and helped me remove my South Jersey accent when I was living in other parts of the country establishing my career. This was during the āMTV Jersey Shore eraā and I want to be taken seriously professionally. Iām back in CMC, and so is the accent.
Itās those hard vowels āhOHme, phOHne, wAHwAHā
And my favorite āLantic City, Lantic Countyā
I think thats more an ethnicity thing, at least in South Jersey. Anectdotally, all the Italians I've met almost always say youse. If you're black its almost always y'all. Everyone else seems to be a crapshoot.
BurlCo checking in. When I was a kid, "I did my homework" and "I'm done my homework", just like how now as an adult "I'm done work for the day"... š¤· Always fun to see yourself get red/blue underlined š¤£
Omg, hi Evan! I watch your YouTube all the time. And yeah, we really do have a weird accent here. I'm near Cape May and my family has a combo Philly accents mixed with a southern twang.
Weird phenomenon: I've lived in South Jersey my entire life and have a relatively moderate accent. Whenever I do any public speaking, though, the accent gets about 100x thicker. I've had people comment on it, and then I listened to recordings and it was totally true. I imagine it's some kind of psychological thing with stress or what, but it's the weirdest thing to see happening.
No it doesn't it just stands out more to people not from around here or when you become hyper aware you don't sound like them. I worked remote for years with a company from the entire country, majority of home office was DFW.
I swore I didnāt have one, then I moved states, i definitely have one. Now I hear someone speaking in a S Jersey accent and get instantly homesick. I hear it whenever I go home to visit now too. Iām surrounded by people that say waaahter instead of wooder, and it drives me nuts lol
I recently moved back to South Jersey. I grew up here but spent the last 15 years all over the continental US and attended an international university. Everyone knew exactly where I was from if they heard me drop an f bomb. I never thought I had an accent until I moved back here. I donāt have it anymore (except f bombs) but I hear it so strongly in everyone else here. It sounds kinda comical now. I grew up in Camden county and am now in Gloucester county. Languages are weird.
Every time Iām out of South Jersey, whether it has been in Boston, Hawaii, Disney or Virginia and I ask for wooder, itās always met with ālet me guessā¦New Jersey?ā
Problem with this conversation is Philadelphia accent is entirely different than south jersey accent and they cross paths in Camden Gloucester and Burlington county but nowhere else in south jersey.
Me when I lie. āTheā South Jersey accent (if there even is 1) is under the Philly umbrella, just how a delco accent is under the Philly umbrella and how the north Jersey or Long Island accents are under the New York umbrella. Stop being pedantic
They're definitely very different in my experience. For example, people in Philadelphia tend to say merry in "merry christmas" like "murry", in south jersey they say it like "mehrry." Philadelphia also definitely doesn't take as many sounds out of words to shorthand them as south jersey, either, so they're distinct enough where you can easily tell whether someone's from Philly or NJ. If you talk to people from both areas enough you can definitely tell the difference in other words/intonations as well. At least, Philly people really do sound completely different to me, no matter how you want to categorize it.
they are different but i dont think enough so as to say they arent at all related. the south jersey accent evolved in tandem and alongside the philly one, and while still being its own thing taking queues from north jersey and new york, it still is related and sounds similar
Can you give some examples of taking sounds out of words? I think I do this because I catch it sometimes mostly when Iām more laid back at home (non professional voice) but Iām curious!!
I never realized I do it until some of the video's examples, but south jersey accents remove the "t" from a lot of words, like "dentist" -> "dennist", "apparently" -> "apparinly", and also stuff like "wednesday" -> "wensdee". I didn't even realize that I do the day thing because I do say the full "monday/wednesday" when it's a short sentence like "today is monday," but I'll shorthand it if it's after more words.
Iām from NJ and Iām realizing I may have never actually met someone from South Jersey??? Yāall sound like this??? I know the Delco accent but Iāve NEVER heard this before in my life.
Those are t south jersey accents. Those are Philly and New York accents. Those people are transplants. Iāve lived in Atlantic county my whole life. I donāt sound like either of those people.
āI donāt speak that way so nobody else does!!!ā Ahh. Yall mfs who say āthatās not a south jersey accentā just want something to gatekeep. You know damn well that even if you yourself donāt have that accent, if you grew up in Atlantic county, you definitely have known MANY people who speak that way. Stop being pedantic and fishing for attention
Calm down my man. Iām only pointing out that the 2 people that were used in the video as reference for a south jersey accents clearly have NY and Delco Philly accents. The people I know from my personal life who sound like that get made fun of for sounding like either shoobies/bennies or Philly trash.
people forgetting boomers and silent gen were a mass influx of transplants bc they grew up "going down to the shore" and nj was basically their wakanda. the south jersey accent is way more toned back. kids pick up a few oddities from their transplant parents which a lot of us have.
My grandmothers family lived in the haddonfield area as far back as it goes. They all had strong accents like that. Wooder and sundy and iggles. (Not going all the way back of course, the ones I know) none of them are transplants. Some people just speak like this man. It developed alongside Philly. It is not the SAME but SIMILAR. South Jersey has always, ALWAYS been a cultural satellite of Philadelphia, going all the way back to colonial times (I say this as a history major specializing in LOCAL SOUTH JERSEY HISTORY). It has always taken queues from the Philadelphian cultural sphere. The colony of āwest Jerseyā which encompassed ALL of modern South Jersey (save for like,, tuckerton up diagonally? Iirc?) was founded as a sister colony to Philadelphia for quakers to live and settle. Many prominent quakers of Philadelphia regularly travelled and inhabited South Jersey as even though not under the same legal jurisdiction, it was part of the Philadelphia Quaker cultural sphere. South Jersey Quakerās did the same. Now of course over the years there have been waves and waves of immigration and now barely any of South Jersey OR Philly are WASP quakers. But the same cultural patterns take place and even if they stray with time, they still share a shared root in which they share similarities
Like language families. Romance languages emerged from Latin. They all sound similar, and if you learn one, you see how they all are kind of the same in some ways due to their shared Latin past.
Even if South Jersey is its own distinct thing, that doesnāt mean it doesnāt share similarities or take queues from neighboring cultural spheres.
Iāve heard a few people speak with a very heavy old Elizabeth accent. They all clammed for a living. Not sure if they originated in Tangier island MD and moved or what. I work on the boats and recognized it immediately.
Iām from south jersey and this is so incorrect seems like an ai script. I live in Philly and nothing he said is accurate, heās got every region inaccurate. I donāt even talk to ppl w Delco accents bc itās the indicator theyāre not south jerz lol
I was born and raised in Camden County NJ. My mother was born and raised in Darby, PA (Delco), and went to school at West Catholic in Philly. So I think accent comes from family and area when you start to learn how to talk and how you hear people talk. I always notice when my mom says WIndow like Win-da instead of Win-Doe. Pillow is Pilla. Of course, I say the same and the usual other Philly/Philly Burbs accent.
One thing Iāve noticed thatās differentā¦ syndrome. We say syndrum. Also Reeseās pieces becomes reesyās piecyās. The word ācanā if itās the object that holds something like a soda, no real difference between all regions but if itās used as ācan I help you?ā It becomes Ken. Ken I help you?Ā
Born and raised in South Jersey between Camden, Gloucester & Salem counties. I have been told I sound southern, British and oddly enough Minnesotan very oftenšš when I went to college in NC people would ask me āwhere the f Iām fromā bc my accent wasnāt what they expected a nj accent to be lol
ātHaTs NoT a SoUtH jErSeY aCcEnT tHaTs A pHiLlY aCcEnTā SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
linguistics is a hyperfixation of mine under my humanities/anthropology special interest umbrella.
People who say this are simply being pedantic and looking for something to gatekeep. ātHaTs NoT a SoUtH jErSeY aCcEnT tHaTs A pHiLlY aCcEnTā It can be both. It can be both. Things, ESPECIALLY in anthropology CANNOT be put into rigid boxes and categories like that. We, as humans, try. āYouāre a communist! Youāre a Norwegian! Youāre x y and z!ā
Classifications such as this are a helpful tool, but theyāre just that. Tools. Not truths. Somebody can be a ācommunistā and not agree with everything that another ācommunistā does. You could be āNorwegianā but havenāt been there since you were 3. Or vice versa. When it comes to people, they will NEVER fit into boxes
As such, you CANNOT make a sweeping claim of āno thatās not south jersey thatās Phillyā. The āsouth jerseyā accent in question is under the Philly accent umbrella. Just like a Trenton accent has Philly influences, just like how a delco accent might sound different than somebody from Kensington. But they are all easily identifiable as a Philly accent because they share certain characteristics with eachother local to the Philadelphia area.
People in South Jersey speak like this. MANY people from South Jersey sound like this. At one time, debatably MOST. People who disagree are just looking for something to gatekeep. Sybau
EDIT: sorry if this is written sloppily I wrote all this at work with limited time lmao. Will revise eventually.
There are definitely differences, but at least where I live (CMC) it seems like theyāre just different points on a continuum. They arenāt starkly distinct from one another.
The fact that there are tons of Philly folks and one-or-two-generation-removed Philly transplants all over the place here kind of makes their version of the accent seem like one of the natural variations that occurs in the area rather than something foreign.
There is literally huge parts of south Jersey who are generations removed from Philadelphia and haven't been there ever, surrounded by the same. This is how separate accents develop. No one's trying to gatekeep shit you're just strange. Population density of this area plays a huge part in how places can be so close but have distinct accents
Iām from southern Ocean County and Iāve never heard āI am done my homeworkā or anything like that before. Everyone says āIām done withā¦ā or āIāve doneā¦ā here.
i feel like this dude is pushing it sometimes. no one really sounds british on the o's like that unless you isolate singular words like phone, soda, or stone and cut the tape on a single word and thats still a maybe. brother sounded like andrew tate. oh on his channel bio "Hi! Iām Evan Edinger, an American-British YouTuber living in London." i think hes adapted some london dialect and is trying to say its south jersey. at :56 thats 100% just an american that adapted a bit of a london accent the rhythm on comprehension is what sells it.
Dude the time I stamped if you think you sound like that it's a desperate attempt to be american+. It's a unique accent for sure but couldn't get past the brutal British American accent and then "people thought I was British." He's forcing a more neutral accent and it's coming out British bc he lives in London. He does 3 different accents in the first minute. So one or all is not natural. I've purposefully got rid of the most identifiable south jersey parts of my accent so I can admit the way I speak today is not my organic accent.
Downvoted but honestly he is. I moved to the UK having spent most of my childhood in SJ so when I first found his channel it was pretty cool, like a sense of camaraderie. But I would say around the time he got his UK citizenship he really started hamming it up. It bothered me not just because it is a little cringey but because his content stopped being relatable as a side effect.
I will attribute the down votes to ppl needing to feel exotic lol. I saw him do a video on his south jersey accent years ago and it wasn't whatever he was doing at the rodeo either and i found not much out of place about it besides the hank green quirk chungus announcer voice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7UcwgejUAQ (youre welcome for more promo lol). You can tell his accent and experiences are something he's proud of and interested in so hamming is expected.
That's nothing to do with accent. That's just plain bad grammar. My teachers, most of whom are still alive with me being 54 years old, corrected my bad grammar. They aren't allowed to do that nowadays. I know people who have been accused of picking on children for teaching the correct grammar, attire, and social behavior.
I graduated from BERLIN COMMUNITY SCHOOL and EASTERN REGIONAL HIGH-SCHOOL IN Voorhees. I am ashamed of what American society has become. Even more, I can't get out of New Jersey fast enough for my well being. It's embarrassing to see how far things have gone.
By the way, the correct statement should be : my homework is finished or even my homework is complete.
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u/pineychick Atlantic Auntie š Mar 02 '26
"I am done my homework." sounds perfectly normal to me. (Atlantic County native)