Friday Videos Love Crayns and my Grandma

Let’s go for some comforting, relaxing videos today, yeah? Not only is Mr. Rogers a national treasure, but he’s also from Pittsburgh. So, not only do you get to see how crayons (crayns) are made, but because I went down a rabbit hole, you get to hear what my grandmother sounded like, too. I don’t know if Mr. Rogers knew he was a pioneer of ASMR, but the results cannot be argued with. It’s time to make some yella crayns. The local accent is glorious: yella crayns! Yella flahr. There’s a double bucket, but alas, nothing gets worshed. I’m perpetually fascinated by regional accents and how speech changes geographically (the pop/soda divide is particularly fun). So I started looking up western Pennsylvania accents, and specifically Pittsburgh. This footage is from The American Tongues Archive, and was filmed in summer 1985 on the Southside of Pittsburgh. These ladies sound a lot like my grandma. The house (haahs) dress envy I have right now is not measurable. The pink one with the pockets! The snap front on Veronica with the seersucker fabric! Just for fun and because I’m nebby (nosy), I figured out where those ladies were hangin’ aht 41 years ago: Still there. I hope they’re somewhere ...