Florida 1

Listen to Florida 1, a man in his 20s from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 20s

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1970s

PLACE OF BIRTH: Fort Lauderdale, Florida

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: African-American

OCCUPATION: football player, actor

EDUCATION: Subject was in a college theater program in Boston when recorded.

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject has lived in Alabama and Boston, in addition to his native Florida.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Eric Armstrong

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 1999

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

For instance, this guy named Charles. Oh, man, this guy was so country, man. It’s like, uh, for instance, I, uh, I’d use this phrase, if he had to rob a store, he wouldn’t tell everybody, “OK, everybody, get down on the goddamn floor.” He say, [shouts in dialect] “Ev’yb’y on the goddamn flo’! Ev’yb’y down on the goddamn flo’!” Whereas he’s really tryin’ to say, “Everybody get down on the goddamn floor.” You know, instead o’ sayin’ “floor,” he say “flo’.” And, you know, instead o’ sayin’ “’Ey, boy, hey boy, what’s goin’ on?” “Hey, bo’! Hey, bo’, c’m’ere, bo’.” You know, stuff like that. Y’know, um, there’s this there, the quarterback, on the football team from, uh, uh, Mississippi. An’ when he speaks, he’s like, uh, lemme see if I can imitate; we used to call him Tyson. His name was Robert Vonne [spelling?]. He used to go [in dialect]: “Boy, oh boy, I tell you. Bo’, dem boy from Florida, bo’, dem boys, dey know how to represent may. Dey know how to represent may.” They don’t say man, they say “may.” May. [Interviewer: For man?] Yeah. May, “What’s goin’ on, may?” Stuff like that. Um, we have another guy from, uh, uh, New Orleans, OK, and, uh, his name: Matter of fact, his name is Shawn Joseph; he’s my best friend. And instead of him sayin’, um, “What’s up?” or, uh, “How you doin’?” or where I’m goin’, they have this slang; they say, “Whoa na.” [in dialect] “Whoa na! Wha’s goin’ on, Je’? Whoa na?” Instead o’ sayin’ “What’s up, Jeff? What’s goin’ on?” Like “Whoa na! Ya heard me, huh?” Stuff like that. Um [laughs] It’s, we had an, oh, a variety of guys from the South. We had a guy His name was (uh) Chris Williams, and he was a receiver. (Um) Usually, I use mostly footba, um, his players, ’cause that’s, you know, that was my family back then, before I got into theatre. And, uh, man, this guy, when he talked, man. We’d have to go, “Huh? What’d you say?” Y- I mean, you know, like sometimes you guy’s’d do me, like you don’t understand. [unclear] “What’d you say? Say it again, Jeff.” I mean this guy was terrible, ma- Well, it wasn’t terrible, it was just, you know, where he’s from. But, he’d be like, um, [in dialect]: “Any time I go down the South there in the riber [sic, river], I gotta go down there, and I gotta get mah bo’ down in there for de flo’. An’ den we go down there. We, we, we get it all togethe’, see what I say?” And we’d like, “Uhh, no. What did you say?” [Interviewer] Well, he was really fast. He was really fast, and, he, he’d never follow through with the rest of his words.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 29/10/2007

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.