Regional Accents

[MrsBruce5 0]

Hi All,

Mr Bruce has been here for nealy 8 months now-and well, things are really good, better than ever in fact-but I am finding that I am picking up an Aberdeen accent with certain words ! I am from Brooklyn, and have always had a thick sort of Brooklyn dialect-but lately more and more people have been asking me if I am am Scottish. My 9 year old has been picking up bits of it as well, although not as much as I have...In my work I deal with many new clients, and over the last few weeks-I am getting asked more & more ...

Has anyone else had this happen?

Just curious...

[mi_illusion_st 0]

hes got some of my accent now.. southern eh

[Leney 0]

I think it's bound to happen. Everyone says I sound completely different when I come back from Scotland, though I don't hear it. It's nothing I do conciously, and I feel like an ####### when it's pointed out to me. But the same thing happens to my hubby when he spends time in the states, he goes back, grabs a taxi at the airport, and they ask him from where in Canada he hails. Our poor boys (6,4,2) are just a big mess though when it comes to accents and terms. Our oldest came home from kingergarten to tell me we were wrong in calling it a bin, as it's a garbage can - and it's not a trolley it's a shopping cart, his teacher said so! heh :/ And I recall a nurse at hospital asking why our middle boy was saying "no yet" instead of "not yet" as if he had a speach problem. Our littlest is the funniest though. He wouldn't say yes for the longest time, it was "aye" and the confusion set it when we were trying to teach him what and where his eye was. For the longest time when you'd ask him a question and he'd answer in the affirmative he'd simultaneously poke himself in the eye

[*julez* 124]

Griff aways claims my 7 year old daughter is a natural for his accent and British phrases. Her timing and pronunciation are perfect! While I can never say "Blimey" in a convincing manner, I'd never question her!

I am dire for the most part!

[featherB 1]

I'm soooooo bad for picking up accents - my accent now is a complete mess. It's full of inflections I picked up from my Yorkshire/black country housemates at university (a loooong time ago now) and god knows what else. It's so bad that when I went to stay with a friend in Wales for the weekend once (again, years ago), it took me about a month to get rid of the welshness I'd picked up (people kept pointing it out to me) and I was there for less than 48 hours! People are always saying they think I'm from 'up north' (I'm from London!) and have been asked by a couple of irish people if I'm Australian.

I always seem to do this if I'm surrounded by people with different accents, or even if I'm just talking to one person for any length of time... but really don't think it's happened so far with Casey, or just when I've been surrounded by american accents in general.

Have other UK-ers found themselves picking up an american accent?! I'm amazed that it hasn't happened to me in the US so far, but maybe once I'm living there.... I just hope people don't think I'm taking the p*ss! (Nah... they'll probably just ask 'are you from Australia?')

[msu17 0]

Neither of us have picked up the accent YET. My mother however is HORRIBLE! She hears Paul talk for 2 minutes and starts saying everything weird Granted her father was English, but still... Then again she's the one who starts saying eh as soon as we cross into canada, even without speaking to anyone

[ajames79 0]

Neither of us have picked up the accent YET. My mother however is HORRIBLE! She hears Paul talk for 2 minutes and starts saying everything weird Granted her father was English, but still... Then again she's the one who starts saying eh as soon as we cross into canada, even without speaking to anyone

Ha..my mother is some what similar.

Give her a few glasses of wine and she also gets this very posh accent!

It is really funny!

[PCKAA 0]

Ekk I'm so dreading losing my english accent...

[no name 1]

I use more British phrases now, like when I lived in the UK. I say sort it out, or I'm knackered, etc. Strangers think I have a bit of a Brit accent on some words though.

J hasn't changed at all - stil very British & people all the time make him repeat himself. I did catch hiom saying TO-MAY-TO the other day. Cus really, no Yank gets TO-MAT-O...

[TimsDaisy 0]

See! Why were we giving Madge such a hard time a week or so ago?!

I was with a friend over the weekend who heard me on the phone wishing my fiance good night saying "So, are you in bed, then?" and my friend called me out for my brit inflection - which I hadn't really noticed.

It's human nature!

[Mary Lou 673]

I have picked up a few phrases, but as for Gary's accent, no way. Madge and Gywennie's accents are put on imo. I did hear Gary calling the garage how i say it, he usually says it where it rhymes with carriage.

[Dr_LHA 3]

Ekk I'm so dreading losing my english accent...

You don't have to! I've lived here for 8 years, and lived with my wife for 6 of those, and have never got so much than as a comment about my accent being different when I go back to the UK. Phrases, however, are a different matter. I have a nasty tendancy to say things like "Parking lot". However as an act of revenge for that, my wife now says "Shopping Trolly".

[Toledospod 0]

I've had some people tell me at work(Best Buy)that it sounds like I might be picking up an American accent, but I don't think I am. I couldn't possibly imagine losing my British accent! It's what makes me British!

[britty 1]

I definitely havent picked up an American accent but I have started to use US terminology like "backyard" for garden, and "gas" for petrol. I definitely dont use those words when speaking with my friends and family back home though so it must be a conscious thing while Im here. My hubby definitely has picked up on a few words though and regularly says british rude words not normally heard over here. Also, having watched Catherine Tate on a few occasions, he really does love saying "innit", "am i bovvered?", and "is iiiitttt" for yes !!

[featherB 1]

Hmm... I've just realised that some friends of my family, who are from London but lived in LA for 20-something years and moved back to the UK a couple of years ago, both have very strange accents. They both sound a bit australian, if anything - obviously 20 years of exposure to american accents did something very odd to them indeed!