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    The accent of man

    All the Northerners up here say I sound dead Southern. Yet when I talk to a Southerner, they mock me mercilessly, affecting an Emmerdale/Corrie/Generic Northern accent and say things like "GOIN T'T'T'T POOOB?"

    In a time where I am crippled with existential angst, and searching for my place both in society and the World at large, the last thing I need to be treated like is an unwanted child in a divorce settlement.

    #2
    The accent of man

    If there were any justice in this world, you, sir, would be treated like the Mercedes or the flat-panel tv in a divorce settlement.

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      #3
      The accent of man

      Everyone told me I sounded American when I came back. It would appear showing any adventure outside your home region results in appearing a bit different.

      Which makes sense, I guess.

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        #4
        The accent of man

        you didn't sound particularly American. It was just the odd word or phrasing that was bizarre.
        Your A's were mangled.

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          #5
          The accent of man

          People are usually pretty surprised when they find out I'm American, or when they hear my parents' accents for the first time.

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            #6
            The accent of man

            You're not amer'can

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              #7
              The accent of man

              If you've got the transatlantic thing going on you can generally make it work for you. Or something.

              [edit] Dunno that the same applies between London and Lancashire though.

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                #8
                The accent of man

                People are usually pretty surprised when they find out I'm American, or when they hear my parents' accents for the first time.
                Your mother certainly doesn't sound very Irish.

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                  #9
                  The accent of man

                  In a time where I am crippled with existential angst, and searching for my place both in society and the World at large, the last thing I need to be treated like is an unwanted child in a divorce settlement
                  It's great for the creative juice, so consider yourself bloody lucky to be crippled with existential angst.

                  I can tell you I was shocked! Shocked to be called a "Bloody Yank!" on one of my trips to Blighty. I nearly grabbed him by the lapels, "Look mate, Fuck you, I'm as English as you are, so piss off!"

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                    #10
                    The accent of man

                    Oh EIM. Just enjoy being 'exotic' and 'unusual' everywhere you go, eh.

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                      #11
                      The accent of man

                      I yearn to be 'run of the mill' and 'ordinary'. Or, preferably, 'not Southern'.

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                        #12
                        The accent of man

                        People are often quite stupid about accents. Somebody I met in New England said, after I told them where I'm from, "Oh yeah, you sound like your from Philly." No I don't. I don't say "wooder" for "water" or "Iggles" for "Eagles" or take vacations downashore or ask my friends "Yiz want hoagies?"

                        I also don't have an especially western PA accent, although my speech has more of that in it than any of the other Northeastern accents.

                        I've also been asked, again by New Englanders, if my accent is Southern. Ha!

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                          #13
                          The accent of man

                          EIM wrote:
                          ....when I talk to a Southerner, they mock me mercilessly, affecting an Emmerdale/Corrie/Generic Northern accent
                          Tell me about it. I work with a guy who constantly, constantly asks me if I "want a cup o' beans" in a Michael-from-Alan-Partridge style which would, no doubt, be fucking hilarious if I were even remotely Geordie.

                          The stupid Dartford-born bastard.

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                            #14
                            The accent of man

                            "Kent" is, of course, how estuary-dwelling southerners pronounce a certain other word.

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                              #15
                              The accent of man

                              Great. Now I have a Salad earworm and want to go spend all my money in Brent.

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                                #16
                                The accent of man

                                Rogin wrote:

                                "Kent" is, of course, how estuary-dwelling southerners pronounce a certain other word.
                                I worked in Sheffield for a time, and I used to take loads of ribbing for my accent (Berkshire with London influence), especially the way I said /kant/, cf the locals' /koont/.

                                To which I would riposte wittily: "Ee oop bah goom tha noz, fook off!"

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                                  #17
                                  The accent of man

                                  I seem to have a strange accent. I recently met up with my Germany-based step-sister, whom I hadn't seen or spoken to in 21 years. She said I had no trace of a northern German accent anymore. Thing is, I wonder if I ever had one, because a few months after coming to South Africa when I was 16, I was speaking German to Germans, and one of them accused me of having a vague French accent.

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                                    #18
                                    The accent of man

                                    I get the same as EIM, though not from people I've grown up with. Plenty of people down here think I sound northern (which is really odd, because as none of you apart from Steveeeeee are aware, I don't) and everyone oop north thinks I sound southern, which I sort of do in so far as the middle English accent is 'southern'.

                                    In Spanish, as I've mentioned before, I'm frequently taken for Argentine, which is a fantastic ego boost (knowing I speak good Spanish, I mean - not being mistaken for a greasy cheating South American). My cousin Robert speaks far better Catalán than he does Spanish, to the degree that when one of his girlfriend's friends (who is from A Coruña) first met him, she thought he didn't speak any Spanish because his accent was so bad. Robert's girlfriend has told me I speak better Spanish than he does. This is all rather amusing given that he's spoken it all his life and I, frankly, haven't.

                                    He, for his part, speaks English with a mix of a typical 'Catalán-speaking-English' voice, and a very distinct Nottingham twang (my mum's family, which is also his mum's family, are from Nottingham) which he's picked up from another of our aunts who he spent a couple of months living with one summer about 6 years ago.

                                    Oh, and every time I stay in a hostel abroad, and meet a North American, they think I'm Australian. Every fucking time. I'm not the only Brit who suffers this, I know because I've asked others. I really don't get that at all.

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                                      #19
                                      The accent of man

                                      That's nowt. I was asked what part of Australia I was from by an Australian. The very North, I told him.

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                                        #20
                                        The accent of man

                                        Thats nowt anarll. A bloke from Ware (Herts) thought I was Welsh. Ive a Sunderland accent which as everyone knows is a sophisticated very distant cousin of "Geordie".

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