When you hear a nice southern accent, especially from a female speaker, you hear that twang. When men speak, I suppose it’s more of a drawl.

Twang is considered an onomatopoeia.

That Twang is an onomatopoeia might seem straightforward enough. But upon further reflection, it became a much more fraught topic. Twang is characterized as an onomatopoeia based on the second definition, which is the sound like when a banjo string is plucked: the sound is similar to the word, or perhaps the word is divined in the reverberation of that quaint instrument. Put another way, the word is a literal representation of the sound.

But to hear the twang of a woman speaking in a southern accent, one can hear the word twang in there, although implicitly, in those plucky, sassy tones that such women make with their delightful regional accents.

Follow me on Twitter

Sign up to be informed of new posts:

Comment below: