In conversation with two scholars last night, one a grad student, the other retired, we fell into a conversation about accents. The other two were British, but their accents confused by moving and education to enough of a degree that neither could decipher where the other was from. In the name of fairness, the elder then tried his hand at deciphering mine - not that he knew much about American accents.
He observed, among other things, that I speak English almost as if I were a non-native speaker. Of course, he's right. I do speak English as a second language - my native tongue is American.
Thanks to a flier sent to entice us months ago, we've been fairly regularly ordering delivery from Nakhon Thai, a restaurant with two branches in London. Tonight, the delivery man asked us if we'd ever been to the restaurant. We haven't.
He tried describing its location, but invoked unfamiliar landmarks. In short order, he switched approaches. If we ever want to go, he said, just call them, and the manager will come over and drive us to the restaurant. C. look askance, but the guy was absolutely serious. Now that would be good service!
He observed, among other things, that I speak English almost as if I were a non-native speaker. Of course, he's right. I do speak English as a second language - my native tongue is American.
Thanks to a flier sent to entice us months ago, we've been fairly regularly ordering delivery from Nakhon Thai, a restaurant with two branches in London. Tonight, the delivery man asked us if we'd ever been to the restaurant. We haven't.
He tried describing its location, but invoked unfamiliar landmarks. In short order, he switched approaches. If we ever want to go, he said, just call them, and the manager will come over and drive us to the restaurant. C. look askance, but the guy was absolutely serious. Now that would be good service!
Profile
owlfish- S. Worthen
- S. Worthen
Comments
See the comment below for more NY Jewish/English accent confusion.
In the case of lemurkin we are not talking upper East side, we are talking the skind of Noo Yoickers who have the volume turned up permanently to twelve
I'm envying your access to Thai! We haven't had much luck finding anything other than kebab shops and pizza that will deliver to us.
I don't understand why people in the mid-West would find it harder to place my accent than west coasters.
If you say "I'd rather dance with my father." with:
3 different backwards "ah" sounds it's a British accent
2 it's a (typically half-way) Canadian accent
1 it's American
I was always amused by my maternal Grandmother's Scottish accent.
As time went by it got thicker and thicker even though she was living in Canada. When some relatives
from Glasgow came over to the colonies to visit they had, by
comparison, almost BBC "received" accents. There was a theory that
as she got older she spent more and more time watching "Coronation
Street" but I don't think there were all that many Scots accents
on that thing.
The rule of thumb for differentiating the various Scots' accents is
that for every "x" miles you move north you turn another vowel
hard. The first one to go is "A": apple = "eh"pple. This is in
addition to the syntax changes and the dialect words. By the time you get to Aberdeen it's pretty strange. I was on a bus once where
three Aberdeenians go on part way through the trip and had to sit
separately. They were talking back and forth down ("doon") the
aisle. My travelling companion wondered what language they were
speaking and didn't believe me when I said it was a kind of English
until I started translating.
/Don spectrum a-inside-little-circle ca dot inter dot net