Egg and Cress

I have a hard time imagining an American getting pissy about a mistake in identifying their accent. The only people I've met (with foreign accents) who got bent out of shape about such a mistake were the Irish, British, Australians and South Africans. Maybe it denotes a lack of national pride on our part? Of course, southerners and Texans get a lot of flack from the rest of the country, but nobody gets up tight because someone mistakes an Arkansan accent for one from Georgia. So, london66, if you're hoping to insult somebody, I think you're SOL.

Rete

+1

Brits have to remember that to the American, who does not travel abroad all that often, the accents from Australian, Britian, South Africa sound similar. Yes, I'm sure that the more enlightened American knows about regional accents in each country but on the whole the accent does sound British.

Of course, as Brits you are more familiar with your accents and the regional dialects so the question of "are you from Australia" hits you as an insult that someone cannot immediately get where you are from.

Actually the shopkeeper hit it on the head and you were the one who was a bit arrogant in your unsaid thoughts. If you can't tell the difference in accents between a Northern and Southern then you don't know the diversity of the American accents.

BTW where was the humour in your post?

Jerseygirl

Perhaps that's 'cos you are American.

Rete

-10

Sarah

I never expect an American to be able to pick up a regional accent, that's asking way too much lets be honest, but I am surprised that an awful lot of Americans cannot differentiate between Australia, British or South African accents as they are so very different.

kimilseung

Some people have an "There is America and there is rest of the World" attitude. All none N American English sounds the same. Imagine a Brit not knowing if someone was South African or a New Yorker.

Rete

I'm assuming they are. My excuse is hearing impairment but even with that impairment, never having been to the UK, SA or Australia, and with very few foreign films under my "belt", I would have to rely on other clues as to which nationality's accent is being voiced.

Personally, I have found Brits to be very soft spoken and Austrialians to be rather loud. South African's I not know unless told since you can't rely on race to be all telling.

Rete

IMHO I think that attitude is one that can be applied to a very small fraction of American people.

BTW my Canadian husband now living in Mississippi was told this weekend that he has a New York accent.

SultanOfSwing

It's pretty easy - Australians always talk in questions, so if the person's voice doesn't go 'up' at the end of each sentence, they're English

Anian

My sister went backpacking with a load of Australians. She came back with the Australian accent? Where every sentence sounds like a question?

zargof

But how do you distinguish a Dingo from a Kiwi?

SultanOfSwing

I can tell that the Kiwi accent is different, but I can't come up with a word to adequately describe how, unfortunately ...

I'm not often presented with the necessity to have to worry about it though.

nethead

Kiwi has a much shorter vowel sound I would say.

SultanOfSwing

The best thing I could think of was that it's somewhere between an Australian and a South African accent. Sort of.

robin1234

I used to know this (having been a Youth Hostel warden for twelve years.) I think you had to get them to say "sex" or "eggs" .. or maybe it was "six" not "sex."