Petty of me I know, because she's so appealing and can do just about anything, but when she says "pitcher" for picture and butchers words by saying "exspecially" and "exscape," I cringe and want to turn the show off. She obviously is a smart woman, I just wish she sounded like one!
shareShe has a thick northern, almost Canadian accent. She would think you say words incorrectly as well.
shareShe's originally from Michigan, specifically Detroit. Her accent is common for a native Detroiter.
All of your examples are a dialect thing. She's from Detroit and works in Minneapolis. Nicole speaks with a solid, Midwestern (inland), working-class accent. It's effective for her since she works in construction and the local real estate market.
If she ran around talking like Martha Stewart, she'd get laughed off a construction site. Plus, she'd probably get charged twice as much at the local salvage shops.
She's got a lot of good tips on her show. If she hurts your ears, put the captions on
Inland! I'll have you know that Great Lakes people consider themselves from the "North Coast". If you stand and look out at any of the lakes you'll find that lake is subjective and inland is inaccurate.
shareIt doesn't matter if she's from Detroit, Minneapolis or Canada, or what her accent is, the OP is correct. Nicole is saying "pitcher" (the person who throws the baseball) when she means "picture" (a photograph) and she says "expecially" and "excape" which are wrong. The words are especially and escape.
shareI'm from the Detroit area and we do say excape and expecially. Honestly, I never even notice it before until I read this and said it myself to compare. I never heard anyone say pitcher instead of picture though.
shareI never heard anyone say pitcher instead of picture though.
Nicole does not sound at all Canadian. I'm Canadian and grew up in Toronto and we do not sound like Nicole Curtis. I have relatives in Detroit, including my mother's cousin who settled in Lake Orion after she married and that's who Nicole's accent reminds me of. In fact, I'm really glad they took out the part of the intro where they're uncovering the bannister and she said, "Why would anyone cover that up?!" That's when her accent sounded the most grating to me.
shareAlso when she says "houses" its a very weird inflection
shareIf she ran around talking like Martha Stewart, she'd get laughed off a construction site. Plus, she'd probably get charged twice as much at the local salvage shops.Martha Stewart's speaking voice is totally fake.
I don't mind her dialect so much as her grammar. She says things like "this window is broke" instead of "broken". In one episode of the bungalow house, when talking about the bushes, she said "if you last your cat in there you'd never get THEM out". Little things like this drive me nuts.
share