People that change their accent

Novella · 20-05-2014 11:39PM

I work for a US company so spend maybe 5 or 6 hours a day talking to Americans on the phone and my boyfriend is American. At work, or even talking to himself, I'll say things like trash, in the mail, soda, maybe slightly change how I'd naturally pronounce things.

I do it to avoid misunderstandings, not because I want a different accent. My boyfriend says when I'm with my family or talking to other Irish people, he sometimes can't understand me! So I wouldn't say I change because I like how an American accent sounds, it's just easier than constantly explaining myself!

Legs.Eleven · 20-05-2014 11:40PM

Hotale.com wrote: »

There's a Louth accent?

Jesus Christ yes!

carlmango11 · 20-05-2014 11:40PM

riclad wrote: »

i think its annoying to use america slang like lol ,
awesome etc

"lol" is hardly American. It's an Internet thing used all over the world

Pwindedd · 20-05-2014 11:41PM

geddylee wrote: »

Agree 100 percent. Do people really feel that ashamed from were they come from.

No I don't think this is always the case. Some people are more chameleon like, they adapt or blend to their surroundings. It's not necessarily a wilful change. You could argue that these people immerse themselves in the local life a bit more, although it would probably take a few years to happen. I thought my husband had an immovable "sowf lundun" twang, yet I've caught him "ahh jayyyysusing" on occasion.

Anyone who does it after a week would have to be a bit of a tosser though.

Legs.Eleven · 20-05-2014 11:42PM

carlmango11 wrote: »

"lol" is hardly American. It's an Internet thing used all over the world

Only countries that speak English, I'd assume?

Gordon · 20-05-2014 11:42PM

Sky King wrote: »

There's a fascinating website that an irish linguist has... I'll see if I can find it and post the link.

Basically he spent years recording how people in Ireland speak by getting them to read a standardised sentence into a recorder.

He then comments on the accents according to various technical criteria (which I don't understand) but he discussed the old school D4 accent [Oim gewing to pork the core near the dort station] which believe it or not has all but dissapeared and been replaced by the nu-school american valley girl accent... with the stupid questioning intonation (like when every sentence sounds like a question? even when it's not?) and the fronting of the o sounds (the cainty caincil are on the saith baind raindabish)

Needless to say, his opinions on the subject, while restrained and ostensibly neutral, do imply to me that he regards the purveyors of this accent as complete fuktards. Which they are.

Edit: his name is raymond hickey and here's his site

https://www.uni-due.de/~lan300/HICKEY.htm

you could spend hours on that if you were interested in it

Purely by dialectology, the Police managed to pin Wearside Jack, the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer down to a tiny area in England.

FearDark · 20-05-2014 11:43PM

Novella wrote: »

I work for a US company so spend maybe 5 or 6 hours a day talking to Americans on the phone and my boyfriend is American. At work, or even talking to himself, I'll say things like trash, in the mail, soda, maybe slightly change how I'd naturally pronounce things.

I do it to avoid misunderstandings, not because I want a different accent. My boyfriend says when I'm with my family or talking to other Irish people, he sometimes can't understand me! So I wouldn't say I change because I like how an American accent sounds, it's just easier than constantly explaining myself!

Actually yes, I'm guilty of this too. When I was living in New Zealand and going out with a Kiwi girl I'd pronounce my words clearly and talk a lot slower for her and I only realised when she told me one day that when I'm with my Irish friends she can't understand a word I say because I revert back to talking like I normally do...with a thick Tipperary accent, or should I say a tick Tipp accent :pac:

Olive8585 · 20-05-2014 11:43PM

FearDark wrote: »

Knew a girl who moved to London for two years and she came back on a holiday home one time with the thickest cockney accent Arry' Redknapp would be proud of. The holiday turned into a year and bit by bit she "lost" her accent, she's still knocking around town and the accent is back to normal.

Twat.

I had uncles live there for 30/40 years and they never changed their accent.

Why does that make someone a twat? I never understand why people say this. Being horrible and disrespectful makes you a twat. Picking up an accent makes you...someone who easily picks up accents. I know a lot of people who do that and it's generally people who are very musical and/or good at languages.

People often comment on my cousin because she's had so many different accents, but she's also moved around loads, literally 3 years here, 3 years there...she always wonders what accent she's supposed to have, exactly! Herself, her sister, her brother, her mam and dad all have different accents. None of them are fake, it's just a result of constant moving around and family all over the place.

The Backwards Man · 20-05-2014 11:44PM

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Only countries that speak English, I'd assume?

JAJAJAJAJA!!

Talib Fiasco · 20-05-2014 11:47PM

Yeah it does depend on where you are...like it'll change if your college friends are from different parts of the country. I always have had a hysterically bad Cork accent compared to anyone else in my family and even my friends so they all thought moving away for college would sort it out....apparently my accent is now stronger than ever. A good few of my college friends have remarked that their friends and family said there is a slight Cork twang to their accent. Can't help not wanting to be a rebel I guess :pac:

But now I'll even admit my accent changes slightly at times, more so when I'm saying a specific word really. A friend of mine's accent would change every week depending on what county he spent his previous weekend in. No joke it'd go from Cork to Kerry to Waterford to Dublin to Galway and to Tyronne in the space of a few months.

Sand · 20-05-2014 11:51PM

I've never got the fascination AH seems to have with accents and people having "fake" ones. The thread reappears every few weeks with some comment about some girl/lad getting a bit above their station and needing to be knocked down, or this imagined "American" accent that seems to be taking Dublin by storm. There seems to be some sort of curtain twitching inferiority complex at play.

20-05-2014 11:51PM

George Hook is a high profile media figure who changes his accent depending on who he's talking to.

If he's in Cork it's the full on Cork accent.

If it's a working class Dub then Hook turns on the Torquay Road, Foxrock accent.

If it's an American he talks about the "Cops" when referring to the Gardaí.

If it's Jon Snow or Geoffrey Archer he adopts the Tory boy "Come now Lord Archer, tell me about your latest novel"

Worst part is, he acknowledges it seems to be almost proud of it.

:mad:

Canard · 20-05-2014 11:53PM

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

Only countries that speak English, I'd assume?

I would've thought this too, given that I know French speakers have their own equivalent (mdr - mort de rire, dead from laughing :P ), but Spanish people say lol too. They use it more for disbelief though from what my friends tell me, like "you got with that guy? loooooooool", which is weird given that we native English speakers know what it really stands for and all.
Little random fact for you.

20-05-2014 11:55PM

Thing I can't understand is, why is it always Irish people that experience this phenomenon? Why do Americans almost never lose their accent when they live abroad?

Or British people? Any I've come across have lived for a good number of years before their host country's accent might come creeping in.

Is it just inferiority complex? Ashamed of all things Irish? Trying to be "progressive" and leave the "backward-looking" things that made us Irish in the first place (things like music, language, sport, accent etc)?

Rhys Essien · 21-05-2014 12:01AM

Does anyone notice the accents of the Irish people working on English TV.Liz Bonin,Amanda Byram and Dr Pixie McKenna now all with English accents while the likes of Roy Keane and Dara O'Briain are holding on to theirs.

Cupcake_Crisis · 21-05-2014 12:03AM

I, for some bizarre reason, get progressively more culchie while I'm drinking. I've no idea why.

Kaycee2 · 21-05-2014 12:03AM

When I moved away from Dublin everyone else noticed the change in accent after a few years it wasn't deliberate at all it just happened gradually, moved back to Dublin and now I could sell apples on Moore street

In work we'll play back phone calls and the persons who's call it is is usually surprised, some even embarrassed to hear how they sound

The best is when people speak to foreigners like they're the non English speaking ones, all of a sudden their accents change from whatever it normally is to a German speaking English

ratmouse · 21-05-2014 12:05AM

Sand wrote: »

I've never got the fascination AH seems to have with accents and people having "fake" ones. The thread reappears every few weeks with some comment about some girl/lad getting a bit above their station and needing to be knocked down, or this imagined "American" accent that seems to be taking Dublin by storm. There seems to be some sort of curtain twitching inferiority complex at play.

Hardly! Your accent is something you acquire back as far as your early days growing up as a child. It's how you speak and how you sound when you speak. It's hardly going to change overnight without someone making a conscious effort to do so. Plain and simple.

Muise... · 21-05-2014 12:05AM

Cupcake_Crisis wrote: »

I, for some bizarre reason, get progressively more culchie while I'm drinking. I've no idea why.

Briseann an dúchas trí shúile an chait. Go with it, Cupcake, it's the very blood in your veins speaking!

Cupcake_Crisis · 21-05-2014 12:07AM

Muise... wrote: »

Briseann an dúchas trí shúile an chait. Go with it, Cupcake, it's the very blood in your veins speaking!

I'm Tallaght born and bred! If it was the blood in my veins talking I'd be threatening to set people's cars on fire.

fleet_admiral · 21-05-2014 12:08AM

Gordon wrote: »

Purely by dialectology, the Police managed to pin Wearside Jack, the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer down to a tiny area in England.

wasnt there rumours of him being linked to royalty?

KungPao · 21-05-2014 12:09AM

Apparently Gary Oldman (a very English man living in the USA) has forgotten how to speak like an English man :rolleyes: I love the blokes work but he's full of shyte.

Muise... · 21-05-2014 12:09AM

Cupcake_Crisis wrote: »

I'm Tallaght born and bred! If it was the blood in my veins talking I'd be threatening to set people's cars on fire.

It's the ancestral culchies!

Cupcake_Crisis · 21-05-2014 12:10AM

Muise... wrote: »

It's the ancestral culchies!

It actually could be. Apparently a cousin has a similar issue. It's a constant source of amusement for my friends.

Olive8585 · 21-05-2014 12:12AM

ratmouse wrote: »

Hardly! Your accent is something you acquire back as far as your early days growing up as a child. It's how you speak and how you sound when you speak. It's hardly going to change overnight without someone making a conscious effort to do so. Plain and simple.

For a lot of people, they just speak like the people around them. It's not 'fixed'. So if they move somewhere else, they start speaking like the new people who are around them.

Rhys Essien · 21-05-2014 12:13AM

Imagine all the grief the foreigners get when they go back to their home countries with big Dub and Cork accents.:D

Gordon · 21-05-2014 12:17AM

fleet_admiral wrote: »

wasnt there rumours of him being linked to royalty?

Dunno, haven't heard of that.

Electric Sheep · 21-05-2014 12:17AM

Deleted User wrote: »

Thing I can't understand is, why is it always Irish people that experience this phenomenon? Why do Americans almost never lose their accent when they live abroad?

Or British people? Any I've come across have lived for a good number of years before their host country's accent might come creeping in.

Is it just inferiority complex? Ashamed of all things Irish? Trying to be "progressive" and leave the "backward-looking" things that made us Irish in the first place (things like music, language, sport, accent etc)?

You notice it in irish people. The American friends of the US expat probably notice the accent change in him, whereas to you he still sounds American.

Olive8585 · 21-05-2014 12:18AM

Rhys Essien wrote: »

Imagine all the grief the foreigners get when they go back to their home countries with big Dub and Cork accents.:D

I'm not even kidding, I've met loads of African and Chinese people with really strong Dub accents because they've been over here so long. I always wonder if people back home notice how they sound when they speak English.

therealme · 21-05-2014 12:18AM

I get told I have a "flat" accent. Nobody who has ever met me could tell what county I am from or if I am from city/country.

It used to really annoy me but then people told me I sound lovely over the phone so can't be too bad :-)

People that change their accent

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