Accent

November 30, 2015

Greetings from where it sounds like,

“I will buy any creme, cosmetic, or elixir from a woman with a European accent.”  Erma Bombeck

When I was a young man it seemed to me that having an accent would make me more interesting.  I tried to cultivate a ‘British’ accent which might have come off as Australian or Irish, and sounded almost as convincing as my pirate accent.  Arr.

For about twenty five years in high school I tried to learn French.  I thought at some point this would be beneficial in meeting girls, maybe French girls.  I did not learn French, or develop a French accent, although I can do a reasonable ‘Inspector Clouseau’.  I blame my French teacher, who was from Spain and probably confused my ear.

All of us have preconceived notions about people with accents.  Rather than reveal my own xenophobic racism, I’ll let you fill in the blanks with your own story:
Australian…

French…

German…

Indian…

English…

American…

Regardless of our biases, there is something exotic about an accent.  It provokes a curiosity.  People want to ask ‘Where are you from?  What is that like?  Is it different than suburban Cleveland?’  So for a while in my formative years, just after giving up on becoming Spiderman, I thought having an accent would somehow make me stand out. (Truth: I have not given up on becoming Spiderman)  Thankfully after only a few humiliating episodes I gave up on sounding like someone I was not, then gave up on looking like someone I was not, thinking like someone I was not, and eventually became whoever I am. 

As I grew up I grew interested in accents for other reasons.  People who sounded like they were from somewhere else became portals to those places.  I love knowing that there is more to explore, and every time I met someone who sounded as if they were from elsewhere it caught my attention.

One mistake I stopped making was guessing about accents.  I’ve watched a lot of movies, so for a while I figured I could spot a County Cork versus a Chelsea versus a Highlander.  Nope.  And it turns out I can’t tell a Austrian from a Netherlander.  It’s better to say nothing than to start guessing. Same advice about women you think might be pregnant.

I’ve also learned that I can’t identify accents from here in the U.S.  I can make a guess about some east coast states and come close (especially if the Bostonian mentions he lives near ‘Hahvahd Yahd’).  But I tend to lump everyone from Minnesota, North Dakota and most of Canada in the same group.  And folks from the south, sorry, you’re all from Georgia.

Because I’m from here, I don’t think Midwesterners have an accent.  We all sound like each other, which of course is not as cool as sounding like you’re from somewhere else.

When I was about twelve I went to Scotland to visit family and found celebrity.  I was something of an attraction among the neighborhood kids there because of my ‘foreign’ accent.  I remember them asking me to say different words just to hear how Americans talked.  They all wanted to sound like a Yank.

My cousin, a little jealous of the attention, said he could ‘talk like an American’, and followed with a reasonable teenage John Wayne impersonation.  I laughed. ‘That’s not what Americans sound like.’

My Dad sounded like an American but when you scratched the surface, when he was around his kin, he sounded like someone else.  The burr and lilt of the old country came out.  I remember observing this transformation with a certain awe.  My Dad could be from here, or from somewhere else.  What was even more revealing was he was still the same person.

I realize how much movies and TV have informed us in our preconceptions but I have learned better, I think.  Not all English are Oxford educated or 007, not all French are gourmet, not all Swiss are in the Army. Not everyone from Jersey is a mobster, and being from Alabama doesn’t make you a moonshiner. And as hard as it may be to believe, not all Midwestern men are sexy and cultured and intelligent just because we sound like this.

Hope this finds you accentuating the positive,

David

Copyright © 2015 David Smith