Boing Boing

Boing Boing

The persistent myth of the California accent

Jason Weisberger
Feb 01, 2026
∙ Paid

Katherine Welles/shutterstock

The most powerful dialect in America isn’t loud, it’s default.

The California dialect isn’t about drawls or dropped consonants. It’s about vowels sliding sideways, uptalk sneaking into declarative sentences, “like” doing an unreasonable amount of labor, and a vocal cadence that sounds relaxed even when someone is delivering b…

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