Yeah, I’m with trackball_fetish, that’s not really a PNW thing as much as it is a Midwest thing.
Now, in many ways, the PNW accent is a kind of… less exciting version of the Midwest accent, watered down Midwest.
The only time I can remember PNW people using ‘ya know’, its either because they just actually are from the Midwest, or they are intentionally trying to sound folksy.
A good portion of the PNW was originally settled (cough colonized) by… basically originally Germans and Nordics who moved from the East Coast to approximately Minnesota, but then moved even further east to basically either Portland or Seattle.
… maybe you could say ‘ya know’ is part of the rural/eastern PNW accent, as the sparser areas of the PNW today tend to be more affordable for a Midwesterner to move to, just by way of economics, relative cost of living.
All that being said, I would be interested in other verbal tics you’ve observed PNWers to have.
One tic I know I have is saying ‘like’ far too often when I’m basically exasperated, like, what am I even doing?
But, because I’m not Californian, I intone ‘like’ with much less emphasis, in a monotone way.
‘Like’ is definitely over used out here but not the same as the Cali one, I can usually pick out Californians in Washington… partially because as a southerner they recognize another person who is aggressively talkative to strangers.
I actually do agree with your take that PNW accent a restrained Midwest accent which actually tracks pretty well. And just to be clear I don’t mean “dontcha know” or “don’t ya know” that is Midwestern as hell, what I mean specifically is y’all tend to add “ya know” to the end a lot of sentences”. When I first pointed out to my best friend, who grew up out here, she sent me a text later that night saying, “Fuck you I hear it everywhere now, ya know”
The other big one that comes to mind is “pre-funk” which is apparently just slang for pre-gaming but I’d never heard it in the south or northeast
PNW is kind of notoriously ‘way too online’ and we suck at / hate talking to people we don’t know already, in person.
I think the ‘ya know’ thing that you are talking about, I think that was basically a tiktok thing for a while, basically a meme.
So… that’s my guess there: its essentially a meme that worked its way into the vernacular of the ‘way too online’ zoomers/alphas of the PNW.
‘Pre-funk’… yeah I remember that starting to catch on, and being annoyed by it, lol, because it literally just is ‘pre-game’… I don’t use that phrase, but yeah, a lot PNW people do.
Also, its funny: I’m in the Midwest now… and because I am actually capable of striking up a conversation with people I don’t already know, in person, yeah, people do seem to guess that I’m from Cali, more than they guess Seattle.
So if you’re saying people assume 'talkative = Californian"… I guess that would mean that I actually have something resembling ‘normal’ social skills, at least in comparison to the PNW hikkikomori, hahaha!
I was talking with some older dude recently, with an accent … I think he said Kentucky… but goddamn it, after we got to be a bit friendly, he started rambling off … I literally could not understand a word he was saying, for like 30 seconds of him talking.
Yeah, I’m with trackball_fetish, that’s not really a PNW thing as much as it is a Midwest thing.
Now, in many ways, the PNW accent is a kind of… less exciting version of the Midwest accent, watered down Midwest.
The only time I can remember PNW people using ‘ya know’, its either because they just actually are from the Midwest, or they are intentionally trying to sound folksy.
A good portion of the PNW was originally settled (cough colonized) by… basically originally Germans and Nordics who moved from the East Coast to approximately Minnesota, but then moved even further east to basically either Portland or Seattle.
… maybe you could say ‘ya know’ is part of the rural/eastern PNW accent, as the sparser areas of the PNW today tend to be more affordable for a Midwesterner to move to, just by way of economics, relative cost of living.
All that being said, I would be interested in other verbal tics you’ve observed PNWers to have.
One tic I know I have is saying ‘like’ far too often when I’m basically exasperated, like, what am I even doing?
But, because I’m not Californian, I intone ‘like’ with much less emphasis, in a monotone way.
‘Like’ is definitely over used out here but not the same as the Cali one, I can usually pick out Californians in Washington… partially because as a southerner they recognize another person who is aggressively talkative to strangers.
I actually do agree with your take that PNW accent a restrained Midwest accent which actually tracks pretty well. And just to be clear I don’t mean “dontcha know” or “don’t ya know” that is Midwestern as hell, what I mean specifically is y’all tend to add “ya know” to the end a lot of sentences”. When I first pointed out to my best friend, who grew up out here, she sent me a text later that night saying, “Fuck you I hear it everywhere now, ya know”
The other big one that comes to mind is “pre-funk” which is apparently just slang for pre-gaming but I’d never heard it in the south or northeast
Huh.
Ok… I think I have an explanation for ‘ya know’.
Its a zoomer/alpha thing, not a millenial thing.
PNW is kind of notoriously ‘way too online’ and we suck at / hate talking to people we don’t know already, in person.
I think the ‘ya know’ thing that you are talking about, I think that was basically a tiktok thing for a while, basically a meme.
So… that’s my guess there: its essentially a meme that worked its way into the vernacular of the ‘way too online’ zoomers/alphas of the PNW.
‘Pre-funk’… yeah I remember that starting to catch on, and being annoyed by it, lol, because it literally just is ‘pre-game’… I don’t use that phrase, but yeah, a lot PNW people do.
Also, its funny: I’m in the Midwest now… and because I am actually capable of striking up a conversation with people I don’t already know, in person, yeah, people do seem to guess that I’m from Cali, more than they guess Seattle.
So if you’re saying people assume 'talkative = Californian"… I guess that would mean that I actually have something resembling ‘normal’ social skills, at least in comparison to the PNW hikkikomori, hahaha!
I was talking with some older dude recently, with an accent … I think he said Kentucky… but goddamn it, after we got to be a bit friendly, he started rambling off … I literally could not understand a word he was saying, for like 30 seconds of him talking.
Accent was waaaay too thick for me to decipher.
Hate to poke hole in your theory, but I don’t even know anyone Gen Z or alphas, these are all millennials and older
Well, I tried.
Maybe I just don’t/didn’t know people who commonly use ‘ya know’.
Yeah and it could easily still be a recent development, I’ve only been out here for 5ish years
Well that is about as long as I’ve been in the Midwest, so that tracks.