RoadWarriorFromLP

An American says she fell asleep with a headache - and woke up with a British accent

The Arizona woman says she has gone to bed with extreme headaches in the past and woke up speaking with what sounds like a foreign accent.

At various points, Australian and Irish accents have inexplicably flowed from her mouth for about two weeks, then disappeared, Myers says.

But a British accent has lingered for two years, the 45-year-old Arizona woman told ABC affiliate KNXV...

...Myers says she has been diagnosed with foreign accent syndrome (FAS). The disorder typically occurs after strokes or traumatic brain injuries damage the language center of a person's brain — to the degree that their native language sounds like it is tinged with a foreign accent, according to the Center for Communication Disorders at the University of Texas at Dallas.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ritish-accent/
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Forgetting for a moment whether this is or isn't complete bollocks, the obvious question is: Do you find your accent convincing, or does she sound more like a graduate of +the Dick Van Dyke Language Academy?

robtuck

Well, it's not British, maybe a hint of Van Dyke trying a Cockney who has spent a lot of years in South Africa.

plasticbag_uk

I get totally misunderstood when I try to buy fast food

I am a truck driver and last year I spent the night at Sloatsburgh service area where they have a Dunkin Donuts, the following morning I wandered into DD to order breakfast, at the counter, "A bacon egg and cheese onion bagel please ?"
"Sausage ?"
"No, bacon egg and cheese"
"Sausage egg and cheese ?"
"No, bacon, B A C O N, bacon"
The guy then goes and gets his supervisor who asked what the problem is and I reply "I just want a bacon, egg and cheese onion bagel please ?"
"You want sausage ?"
At this point I begin to loose my temper, "What is it you don't understand ? Is this a dream ? Did I go to sleep in my truck cab last night and wake up in Nigeria this morning ?"
At this point a lady standing next in line bursts out laughing.
"Why is it you can't understand ? how on earth does f**king bacon sound anything like sausage ?"
"Sir, you want sausage, egg and cheese ?"
"No I f**king want f**king bacon egg and f**king cheese"
"Please sir do not curse, my staff cannot understand you, please speak English if you can"
"I am speaking English, I happen to be English for f**k sakes"
now the lady intervenes "He wants a bacon egg and cheese onion bagel"
"Oh right" said the boss and instructed the assistant to get my order. What the f**k did I do wrong ? How on Earth can the word bacon sound like sausage ? I get this a lot but the confusion between those two very different words confuses me.

BEVS

She doesn't sound particularly English to me.

GeoffM

I was told to speak English once. He won't make that mistake again.

robtuck

In a Burger King, after saying my name for the order, they translated me saying Robert into Rovuk - I am sure my accent was novel to them but that's not even a name!

dc koop

I was tracking delivery of a package on line I had mailed to my brother-in-law Gordon in Florida.

The FedEx receipt stated that someone called "Golden" had accepted delivery of the package.

Obviously a misunderstanding of the word Gordon as it's pronounced in London dialect.

As far as fast food outlets are concerned most of their employees come from Mexico or South America with not much more than a basic working knowledge of English

BEVS

I had that once from an American pal over a turn of phrase . My reply was that I spoke the Queen's English. What did she speak?

yellowroom

Bloody frustrating when it happens, but so very funny. I've done the water/wadder routine, but never bacon/sausage!

My own personal theory is that people get some kind of mental block when they hear your accent. If I hear someone talking with a different accent, and there is a word I don't understand, my brain tries to work it out from the context of the rest of the sentence. (Eg a spanish-born vet talking about my cat's tee-rod rather than thyroid). Whereas in the US, there are a great many people who just go - "this guy is talking funny. I don't get it" and give up. Mostly in areas where they don't get a lot of folk who aren't from round here IYKWIM.

Sarah

Personally, 9 times out of 10 I get asked whereabouts in Australia I'm from. Even had one guy get quite huffy with me when I told him he was wrong and I wasn't actually an Aussie. Also been asked if I'm from South Africa and when I replied no, he said "well you're not British." He looked very perplexed when I said I was.
I suppose my lingering Lancashire accent just sounds very un-british to most peoples ears.

Pulaski

Australian?
I rarely get asked if I am Australian, maybe once in every ten times I am asked about my accent, so maybe a half a dozen times a year. I think I was asked once if I was South African, and literally only once or twice (in 15 years) if I was from New Zealand.

As I mentioned the last time this topic came up on BE, I am beginning to think that it is something about my demenor that, added to my accent (which is muted Sheffield) makes me appear British.

kimilseung

I've had all sorts, but the oddest, from an educated adult, was Czech.

zzrmark

Ukrainian for me (quite possibly because UK said with an English accent sounds like Ukraine to an American).

spouse of scouse

My husband's accent after 25 years in Australia was still pure Scouse, and still unintelligible to half the population.

Responses in Liverpool to my Aussie accent range from 'you're from down South aren't you?', to South Africa and New Zealand. A couple have got it right, although a butcher said to me 'I know that accent, my daughter lives there! You're from Queensland!'. His offsider had to explain to him that the country's actually called Australia. And anyway, I'm a Sandgroper, not a Banana Bender

Norri

[QUOTE=yellowroom;12449022]
My own personal theory is that people get some kind of mental block when they hear your accent./QUOTE]

That's may theory also.
On Sunday I went down for breakfast in the hotel and asked for two fried eggs over easy and the waitress thought I wanted pancakes.