RedJen's Rearview Mirror

I’ve gotten a lot of interesting email at work, but today I received one that threw me a little. It wasn’t rude or anything, just unexpected. I’ve always known that they way you speak can be a hint to the area you are from. I never realized the way you string words together could as well and in this case more accurately than some people have guessed from hearing me talk. So today I found an email thanking me for my help with something and for another email I sent out with more detailed information on a similar topic. At the bottom of the email was this: “Just curious - your grammar usage is similar to what I grew up with. Are you from the Pennsylvania/Ohio area?”

Why yes I am, in fact I’m from Central Ohio and lived there until I moved down here to North Carolina. The thing is, I didn’t use any colloquialisms in my email, I purposely avoid them and so I’m not sure how he managed to narrow me down to those two specific states. I’m rather curious at this point, so I’m probably going to have to ask him what tipped him off.

My Midwestern non-accent has been known to throw people, but I wouldn’t expect the way I string sentences together to do the same thing…