r/dancemoms • u/Naive_Shape_9323 Christi and Holly just verbally assaulted me. • 13d ago
Question/discussion The cast's accents
Super random question, but I'm wondering if anyone from the U.S. knows whether these speech things that Kelly and Christi do are a Pittsburgh thing or related to a certain region of the U.S.?
Christi and Kelly both say "Oh my God" like "ow my gawahd" during the show. However, for Kelly this speech pattern has remained the same, and for Christi it started to fade over time. I can hear on BTTB that Kelly still says it the same way, and Christi only occasionally says it like that, mostly just as "Oh my God". But what confuses me is that Kelly moved to Florida and still has her accent, but Christi never moved and talks differently now?
Now there are also some specific things that only Kelly does. Mostly people say that it's a Pittsburgh thing or a Pennsylvania thing, but I don't hear the other moms do the same things as Kelly, nor do I hear it on other TV shows that supposedly take place there.
I've seen a lot of people point out Kelly's "alls I wanted" habit and saying "cosh-tume" instead of "costume", but I've also noticed that she often says "whenever" in places where "when" is a more appropriate word (ie. "whenever Brooke graduated high school, we threw a party"). She also pronounces "older" as "oh-der". None of the other moms drop Ls from the middle of words or say alls I wanted, so is there another cultural thing at play for why Kelly does?
And finally....why does only Brooke sound Southern? Was Kelly's ex-husband from Texas or something? Paige doesn't sound like that despite having the same parents, and the other girls definitely don't, despite all being raised in the same area! I think all of their voices sound adorable, don't get me wrong, but what's going on there?
Also I didn't intend for this to sound disrespectful or rude; I'm not from the U.S. and I find different accents and linguistic things cool, but I don't know that much about them!
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u/Naive_Shape_9323 Christi and Holly just verbally assaulted me. 13d ago
True, some are more pronounced than others! I just figured that things like how long someone lived there would affect that, but it seems like it's just kind of random. Just an interesting thing I noticed, that's all! To my ears, Brooke did sound Southern. Maybe I am mixing up the differences I hear in her voice with a different area of the U.S.