Wyoming doesn't really have the accent people seem to think we do. We’ve heard jokes about a Wyoming accent, but after further review, let’s compare.

There are characterizations. You know, like when we hear we all ride horses to work we immediately say, “No we don't. Horses are where horses are supposed to be, and otherwise we get around like the rest of the world.” There also seems an occasional wrong idea of how we talk. Just a couple of months ago we took a Wyoming Slang Test. It was about how cowboys talk, but it was more about slang than twang. By the way, cowboys are in all western states, not just Wyoming.

There are degrees of different dialects around this great land. I thought Northeast Texas was the south, until I spent 2 years on the gulf coast of Mississippi. Let me tell you, that's the deeep south. Some Texans sound near it at times, but it ain't the same. We may refer to accent in Wyoming, but we rarely use the word drawl. You know how that sounds. It's really thick.

Check this online chat with an out of state author, writing a novel set in Wyoming. She asked how a 19 year old girl from here would sound. The long thread had as many descriptions of how our accent does not sound. For instance, a woman from the northwest said that in all the time she’s lived in Wyoming, not once has anyone pronounced the name of her home state with an r – as in Warshington.

There’s one more thing I’ve noticed only more over the years away from Texas. When I still visit there, kids seem to speak faster, with sharper consonants, and better grammar. I also suspect Texas isn’t the only place this is happening. For youth everywhere, the avenues of communication extend further on a grid that we never had. For them, there’s just less accent to this smaller world, as it is in Wyoming.

Is there any one ism you sometimes hear that most sounds like “Wyoming” to you? Feel free to leave a comment on that.

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