Speech patterns

The differences between people and regions are interesting to me. Living in New Jersey, there's such a diverse difference between accents and pronunciations it's stunning. Someone from North Jersey, close to Staten Island, say, sounds nothing like someone from South Jersey, from, say, Millville. It's really just amazing listening to a conversation between people and picking up on the subtle intonations people have as they speak.

But with the television and internet generation, I've been hearing less of these accent differentiations. As more people turn on MTV and CNN, more flat accents with less unique inflections are becoming the norm across the country. I feel it's kind of sad. In such a huge country as ours, it was interesting to hear the unique ways people would say things. Now, everyone is starting to sound and look the same.

I guess that's the price we pay for globalization.