Accented English

[moongirlk]

What a fun thread!

Tabouli, in her always-interesting way, said:

<<The continental Europeans in general got very stroppy indeed about 
being taken for Americans. I was always assumed to be American as 
well, of course, but as someone from an English-speaking country I 
was prepared to be tolerant and correct them with minimal tooth-
grinding.
[Of course, I'm probably not a good example, as I've had people 
guessing my nationality around the world for decades. I used to keep 
a list of all the countries people had guessed me to be from, which 
include Mexico, Greece, Iran and Russia, among many many others (my 
list got up to about 62 countries)]>>

Wow!  62 countries is pretty impressive.  I had one nice shopkeeper 
in Brussels go through about 7 different nationalities on me (also 
including Russia and Greece, strangely enough).  When finally I 
reverted to English and told him I was an American he at first 
thought I was kidding.  Does it say something terrible about me that 
I was thoroughly pleased?  But since then I have most often been 
mistaken for Russian.  I don't know anyone from Russia, so I can't 
compare myself very well, but I do have the same red cheeks as Irina 
Slutskaya; maybe that's it.  

As for accents, in English I always thought I had a reasonably 
neutral midwest American accent, but there are odd bits thrown in 
from who-knows-where.  I say "come with", and also sometimes "used to 
could".  Both of these seem to have come from nowhere, and are not, 
as far as I know, commonly used in the St. Louis area.  I think I'm 
very suggestible, language-wise.  I know I am in my second language.  
When I returned from studying in Brussels, my Belgian professor 
laughed at me, saying I had the most Belgian-accented French of 
anyone he'd ever encountered who didn't grow up there.  In grad 
school I was with a lot of French-French speakers, and drifted more 
in that direction.  Then at my job I ended up spending a lot of time 
on the phone with Canadian-French speakers, and went more nasal, if 
not quite Quebecois.  Now I recently returned from 3 months in 
Mauritius, and I picked up a couple of their Creole aspects, along 
with a more French-French lean to my accent again.  I don't drift 
around nearly so much in English, but I expect that's normal with a 
native language.  

There *is* something that can be identified as a St. Louis accent, 
though, and it's always seemed pretty unique to the area to me.  Can 
anyone tell me if there's another English accent in which words 
like "fork" come out as "fark"?  It's a well-know (to St. Louisans, 
anyway) joke about St. Louis, and I've never heard anyone else speak 
that way.  My mother, strangely enough, sometimes does that, but 
*also* says "cordigan" instead of "cardigan".  A reverse of the usual 
accent.

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Indyfans at a... wrote:
> In a message dated 2/25/02 9:04:10 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> nesbitaa at p... writes:
> 
> << 
>>  Back on the topic of accents, has anyone ever heard of a central 
>>  Indiana accent?  Being from Indianapolis, I'm convinced that   
>>there 
>>  isn't one.  Folks from northern Indiana tend to have a Chicago-
>>style accent, and those from southern Indiana have an almost 
>>Kentucky 
>>  accent.  I fear I may have colorless speech!!
>>  
>>  -Abby >>

> Abby, we are originally from Indy, and I know what you mean about 
the 
> Northern and Southern parts of Indiana and their accents!!  Central 
IN is 
> pretty darn normal, meaning you could read the news on ABC without 
taking 
> speech lessons!   

Supposedly that is the part of the midwest that USAmerican 
broadcasters shoot for accent-wise, or so I've heard.  Works for 
Letterman, I guess!

> There are just a few very mild  Indy twangs ...and I miss 
> them!! 
>                      Hoosier Hugs, 
>                       Jen


Here's another interesting (ahem) St. Louis fact.  For some reason in 
this area, unlike anywhere else I've ever heard of, "hoosier" is used 
as a semi-derogatory term sort of like what I generally hear termed 
in other areas as a "red-neck".  I don't know how that came about.  
Anyone ever heard this before?

Mahoney, the Iowa-luver, said:

<<I think that Iowa is the US's best kept secret, really....>>

I'm glad to hear it - my niece is currently in college in Iowa.  I 
often think the same about Missouri (hi neighbor to the north!).  
It's really kinda pretty around here, and we get the full complement 
of seasons - I like that.  

Evil Flame wrote:
<<*chuckles* On a related note, being from Texas, I get the horse 
comment a lot. (I've probably been on a horse a hand full of times in 
my life.)>>

I travelled with a friend from Texas once.  I guess Dallas was still 
being shown on French TV at the time, because when my friend told an 
older couple we were talking to on the train that she was from Texas, 
the man exclaimed "George Bush Texas!", and the woman wanted to know 
if she lived in a house like the one on the tv show.  When we 
disappointed her by not being rich and ostentatious, she wanted to 
know if my friend was a cowgirl.  When we disappointed her yet again, 
she didn't have much use for us anymore.

I did, however, meet an Aussie guy and a Canadian guy on different 
portions of that trip - both in Italy.  The Canadian's accent (from 
BC) was indistinguishable from mine - we spent awhile trying to 
figure that out when my Texan friend pointed it out.  Can anyone tell 
me what a "normal" BC-area accent ought to be?  We weren't sure which 
of us was weird.  The Aussie was from Adelaide.  I admit to not 
having thought much about varying Australian accents, so to this day 
his is the Australian accent I hear in my head - especially since my 
friends and I exchanged audio-tapes with him and his buddies for a 
couple of years after that, each of us thinking the others were extra-
sexy for having American/Australian accents, until eventually he 
started dating a jealous girl who nixed our communication.  So 
Tabouli and Sean - how typical is Adelaide, accent-wise?  

Kimberly
learning loads of interesting stuff on OTChatter!