Benicio Del Toro is from, like, Pennsylvania.

I thought he was from Puerto Rico but went to boarding school in PA?

I've taken to watching most things on TV with subtitles on. But I blame not understanding what's being said to my decling ability to hear. darn rock and roll.

BDT is from Puerto Rico. He went to school in Pennsylvania at 13. I have no idea what his "real" accent is like, but I know plenty of people who retained childhood accents through a switch like that.

I'm patently not one of them. But I have extenuating circumstances, I swear.

Nutty, I'm surprised at your comprehension problems. Unless there's a dip in volume or something I hold against the audio quality of the show I'm pretty much good to go. Maybe you need a new TV.

vowel-confusion of anybody from Chicago

I'm finally understanding the "Chicago accent," or at least, how it is different from "standard American." I always thought I spoke "standard," but after hearing myself say things like "Kee-athy" for "Kathy," and "sass-age" for "sauce-age," I'm finally seeing why we sound different. It's all part of that Northern Cities Vowel Shift that I didn't even know about until I saw "Do You Speak American?" on PBS last year.

Like I said, it's not that I can't understand what's being said; it's that it takes me longer to sift through the candidates of what's being said, and that reduces my involvement with the story. I keep noticing the words, and not the content thereof.

There are generally-accepted mushes, that have become seamless through repetition, like omina, as in Omina go to the store. Do we need milk? But other mushes, that aren't instantly familiar, require extra brainpower I could be spending on the story.

I'm just surprised because I've never noticed anything like that in my consumption of accents that are not my own. Which is really all of them. However, if a well-placed accent confuses my ear any, it's not likely to throw me out of the story unless I have zero comprehension and miss the word entirely. In fact, it's likely to draw me deeper in.

There are generally-accepted mushes, that have become seamless through repetition, like omina, as in Omina go to the store. Do we need milk? But other mushes, that aren't instantly familiar, require extra brainpower I could be spending on the story.

I have this problem not so much with diction as with sentance structure. I realize most people understand, in speaking and listening, misplaced modifiers, but I actually spend an extra few seconds puzzling as to what the heck the person means.

I have this problem not so much with diction as with sentance structure. I realize most people understand, in speaking and listening, misplaced modifiers, but I actually spend an extra few seconds puzzling as to what the heck the person means.

I have the opposite problem in that I elide over the actual words as soon as I grasp the content of what's being said and tend to mentally hop around from foot to foot in my mind waiting to speak. Which means, that I don't listen closely enough sometimes and can miss nuance. Though I generally I have a very high rate of gist-getting.

This has turned out to be problematic talking with JZ as she's all about the extended narrative riff, with curlicues and metaphors and her word balloons can fill all the extant space between her mouth and the ceiling.

Also, she's immune to visual cues that I got it already which causes my brain to Irish jig at an even more frantic pace.

Does "A Regular Guy" still do movie reviews on WXRT? That's the classic Chicago accent.

I'm going to take a stand and say that "midwest" is not the "standard" American accent. Or at least, the Great Lakes type accent sure isn't!

I have no idea what his "real" accent is like, but I know plenty of people who retained childhood accents through a switch like that.

That reminds me of a thing from The Departed that really resonated with me, when Leo gets asked if he had two different accents growing up, because I totally did.

Well, the Regular Guy (I'm not too sure if he's still on XRT, Laga--it's been a long time since I listened to that station regularly) is an exaggerated version of the Classic Chicago Accent, like the "Da Bears" guys were on SNL. There's a good example of the more typical Chicago accent here (mp3 clip).