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I take on the inflection of anyone I’m talking to – when I worked on a film in Manchester, England, & then went back to London people said, “Aha! We knew you weren’t American.” If someone stutters, I tend to do it too. When I was in the hospital once & several people were visiting, my mother said I took on the cadence of each in turn.
I tend to do that too. I think it’s from spending years in sales. You might be a natural salesman!
I grew up in Lawnguyland and when I move to Manhattan at age 18 I realized just how bad it sounded (I never really heared it until then). I worked pretty hard to get rid of it. I’d slip back into it though if I spent too much time back there. I’d start asking for behz (beers). I’d also throw in plenty of ‘oh my gawd’ and ‘ya know’? into the mix as well.
After I successfully lost all traces of an accent I moved to Brooklyn. All bets were off, my Lawnguyland mutated to Brooklynese and it stuck.
if you want to hear every form of the English language, you need only to rent one of these movies;
Snatch
Layer Cake
Rock n’Rolla
I take on the inflection of anyone I’m talking to – when I worked on a film in Manchester, England, & then went back to London people said, “Aha! We knew you weren’t American.” If someone stutters, I tend to do it too. When I was in the hospital once & several people were visiting, my mother said I took on the cadence of each in turn.
Being black with an English accent always impresses. Those jobs might start rolling in!
That’s exactly the problem with considering any accent the “proper” one. You begin to make assumptions about people’s education, upbringing and their competence at a job that are clearly discriminatory (and illegal).
Believe me, I work out of many hotels, I’ve had dumb-as-a-rock guests that speak very properly.
Those aren’t that hard, ditto, although I have always dealt with people from Nawlins.
I also knew how to pronounce Michigan, (which a lot of Brits get wrong calling it Mitchigan) before I came.
Maybe if Americans come to the UK they should get one for Gloucester, Leicester, Norwich, Chiswick etc.
When I see an English place name used for a town over here now I often have to wonder whether to adjust to phonetic pronunciation or not.
MM,
don’t try it, I once tried to fake the british accent in an interview and had security called on me by the lady interviewer, when I was trying to say the word for cop, bobbie and it came out boobies.
wooops.
Arkady – please excuse me, I’ve never been good with foreign languages
Well, this is weird then.. Despite the classic Bronx upbringing I never dropped the t in water, or udder for utter. It seems somehow my sister and myself wound up with midwestern accents. I don’t say Longiland either. I knew it. I’m strange :-b
I don’t really have much of an accent myself. It all depends who you were around… if you spent much of your time reading books, watching movies you probably don’t have much of one but I’ll bet it probably comes out at least a little when you’re angry. Just don’t get angry at me!!! ; )