black-ccent
n.— «With his light skin, African father and white mother, and only faint hint of what I call a “black-ccent”—the subtle vocal quality that makes most black Americans identifiable as black over the phone (yes, one can “sound black.” It’s been demonstrated repeatedly by linguistic analysis, and the “black-ccent” overlaps only partially with white Southern)—Mr. Obama would easily be cast by these types as “not too black.”» —“The Color of His Skin” by John McWhorter The Sun (New York City) Sept. 21, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A Kentucky listener says her father often prefaced statements with the phrase I tell you what’s the truth. This regionalism appears in the Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English (Bookshop|Amazon). A shorter version is I’ll tell you...
In the 15th century, the word respair meant “to have hope again.” Although this word fell out of use, it’s among dozens collected in a new book of soothing vocabulary for troubled times. Plus, baseball slang: If a batter...