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Comment by rdouble | Hacker News Reader

Northern redneck accents are actually a lot different than southern redneck accents. I'm from rural Minnesota and "redneck" people there really do sound like the movie Fargo, and not like Honey Boo Boo.

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Oh, really? I haven't ventured that far north, but I've found that most of the redneck accents between Florida and South Dakota to be rather similar. I would imagine it might be a bit different near the Canadian border. Good to know!

I think that the most non-standard redneck accents I have heard are those in Vermont. It's a strange mix of hippie and redneck.

I've noticed that rural people in the west, like Utah and Wyoming often have hints of a southern-y redneck accent. Same with Indiana. I assumed it was due to the popularity of country music and all the "redneck" shows on television. Sort of like how media in the UK spread the MLE/jafaican dialect all around so that it's sort of the default youth dialect regardless of ethnicity.

What the heck is "Minnesota redneck"? Redneck isn't the same as rural.

I think that the definition of the word redneck varies from region to region. The original meaning of redneck referred to poor, uneducated farmers (not limited to the south). It depends on the speaker and the context if they mean southern, "Larry the Cable Guy" rednecks, or white trash (located anywhere), or even the original meaning of those who work outdoors and sunburn the back of their necks.

I bet there are farmers in Minnesota, too. So there bound to be rednecks.

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