Wyoming’s Accent Just Isn’t That Strong

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.

I have stumbled across some characterizations. You know, 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 I took a Wyoming Slang Test. It was about how cowboys talk, 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 deep south. Some Texas folk sound near it at times, but it ain't the same. We may refer to accent, but we rarely use the word drawl. You know how that sounds. It's really thick.

I saw 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 the 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.