Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

It's the high fructose corn syrup, I tell ya!

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Is he incapable of adapting/toning down his speech, or does he feel that is an unreasonable imposition? Just as you can learn a foreign language, you can also learn a different accent if you set your mind to it.

90% of the time, having a British accent here in the US is a big plus, as most people have noted - Americans love the British accent in social situations. However, it can be a negative in the work environment. I can't see any fault in someone wanting a person to speak in a manner that is as clear as possible (as perceived by the target audience for the product/service), especially nowadays with the strong backlash against outsourced call centers in India/etc. A MILD British accent is probably a plus even in business, but a STRONG one - you are asking for trouble if you don't make an effort to adjust it. How many Brits liked it (back in the UK) when they called a business and reached an Indian / Pakistani with a strong accent?

I grew up with a VERY strong North-West accent ("Eh bah gum, trubble up' Mill ...", "eh, by eck lad...", ...) and no-one ever made any attempt to have us speak differently. Whenever we heard anyone with a 'proper English' accent, we would mock them and call them stuck-up (or just call them a "namby pamby southerner" - Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin). Wasn't until I escaped the area to attend Uni in London that I realized just how strong my accent was. Since I loved London, and the south in general, I had no problem letting my accent go but whenever I returned home, I would get 'shit' from people for having a 'southern accent'. Accent is not only a 'class' thing, as others have mentioned, but there is a very strong regional identification too - people in Lancashire think they are better than people in Yorkshire, and all Northerners think they are better than Southerners. Southerners, meanwhile, think everyone north of Watford Gap is a backwards idiot.

I was the only person from my Comprehensive school in Lancashire to graduate from University; a small number started Uni, but I was the only one to stay the course. It was regarded as a waste of time ...

What is 'RP'?

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Received Pronunciation. AKA "namby pamby southerner" :D

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

My husband is from Carnoustie and actually his accent is pretty mild.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Received Pronunciation, or "BBC English".

Makes you sound like a toff. It's how I speak, and got me into many fights during my childhood. Doesn't make me very welcome in places with strong regional accents either! :)

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

I think his bosses boss is just ignorant. Especially since we live in NYC where there is paractically every accent you can think of and plenty of immigrants run major businesses over here with much heavier accents than his!

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

And yet the whole thing is still smaller than Oregon. :huh:
The cowpokes don't talk all that dif'runt from us city folk up here.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Ah, you city folk, with your fancy ways...;)

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

But they are... aren't they???

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

They don't know what RP is :lol:

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Right, that's it! I'm going to TP your house, over the Internet... ;)

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

:lol:

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

I'm an American from California living in the UK and I'm often told by people over the phone that they love my accent or that I don't sound American. I think it's because I don't have a New York accent or a Southern accent as I think alot of people associate America with those accents from what they see in the media in the same way that I think most people in America think the English accent is the Cockney accent or the "posh" accent. After 5 years in England I'm still not good at differentiating regional accents but I know that there are differences.

I'm also mistaken for Irish, Scottish, or Australian over the phone.

After living here I've picked up the English way of saying some things and sometimes my family back home catches me on it but I still sound American.

I can honestly say I've never heard chock-a-block until I came here. :)

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

I have to say, having just got here I've only had mild problems so far. I think sometimes it's not that people don't understand you or want to give you a job but that they are expecting you to sound American when you talk and when you don't, it knocks them for six.

I went to meet some of my husband's family when I first visited and his uncle and aunt physically stared at me for like, 3 minutes! Of course, the more they stared, the more nervous I got and the faster I talked and if you've ever heard a Scottish person who is nervous speak it's like trying to listen to a drunk person talk through mouthfuls of vomit. Needless to say, I'm going to make an effort to slow down next time.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

The other day at work I was telling a new guy how to do something faster and easier. After about 30 seconds of staring at me I thought he was going to give me the whole "I can do it faster my way" speech.

When he finally said something to me it was "Are you ****ing with me?".

I replied "No, I'm serious it's faster that way"

He then said "That accent, you putting it on to **** with me?"

I started laughing and said "No, that is how I talk"

He started laughing then and realised I wasn't taking the piss out of the new guy.

Sometimes in comfortable situations I totally forget I sound different.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

I got back from London in July and I couldn't wait to get back to Seattle where people understand me.
Never spoke to an English person in London for a whole week and it was a real struggle to understand and be understood.
I was foreigner in my own country and I was using sign language sometimes.

In the restaurants here in Washington State they do a cockney accent to impress me and I reply with some Barnsley which I learned from my mate Keith. That usually puts a stop to that while they reach for their Serbo-Croat phrase book... 'whistle atter look sharp ' .. 'taluv' ???

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

POSH: Port out, Starboard home.......the best cabins on board ships are/were situated in that position...affordable only by the posh, rich people.

Would Americans generally have any clue about that kind of stuff?

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Hopefully not...... because thats a load nonsense from
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

No, we don't have ships here yet, or rich people. But we have similar sayings for the stagecoach, which we still ride regularly.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

lol I was just thinking that...good song though

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

:lol:

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Stagecoaches ! Stagecoaches ! Decadent ! When I were a lad we didnt even have clogs !

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

I think old mother shipton foretold the spice girls and it started then.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

:rofl::thumbup:

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

"Posh did not originally stand for "Port Out, Starboard Home" (referring to 1st class cabins shaded from the sun on outbound voyages east, and homeward heading voyages west). The musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang popularized this erroneous etymology" (from this page). Plenty of other references out there too.

But more to the point ... many words have 'original meanings' that are no longer relevant, and knowing that original meaning is irrelevant for current usage ...

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Not only irrelevant but wrong - seeing as a nice pair of winter boots from M&S can't have anything to do with steaming to Bombay

However, I do like to try and absorb as much of this stuff as poss as the original sentiment remains even after the reference in the actual words has died out

It helps with languages too - for instance 'beyond the pale' refers to beyond the palings where the palings are a picket fence. Someone on the outside the fence. In Spanish, a 'palillo' is a toothpick - like a tiny wooden paling. Absorbing all these connections helps me to remember the word because human brains work on connections and associations.

What I am saying is that no knowledge is useless and I like to absorb as much as I can as it's amazing when it comes in useful. Anyone who has ever had a piece of pork chop wedged in their teeth in a remote area of Spain will vouch for that.

It can be amusing too finding out that the Yorkshire phrase 'clap thi lug 'ole' is very close to old Danish of the type spoken in Iceland. So long live the obscure references.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Just read this article on the Beeb. Seems appropriate. Oh and I have heard the agglesteans, also wassuck is common parlance in my family.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8338077.stm

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Don't know about wassack/wassuck - could be the demeaning of the Polish again ? We had lots of Polish DP's (displaced persons) living around us after the war

I have just gone to google language translator and entered

'clap your lug hole' which is Yorkshire for 'smack your ear'

I asked it to translate into modern Danish and it returns:

'Klappe din lug hul'

Anyone who doubts me can try it right now...

It's weird to know I speak Viking
!

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

That's what I'm banking on. :thumbup: It's so much more positive than describing yourself as having a head full of useless trivia. :D

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

I agree - I love tracking down the roots of words/phrases, and it helps me remember. I was simply taking issue with the 'superior' tone implied in "Would Americans generally have any clue about that kind of stuff?"

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

This American would. Before I switched out of the English Lit dept. in college I had the chance to take a really good course called something like "Origin of Languages," (or something similar). It was actually quite interesting .... great professor probably made it so.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Word etymology was banned in the US during the cold war.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

So do Americans say 'posh' or not?

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Only with a phony British accent.

Seriously, I'd say that the meaning is generally known (unlike "butty", for example), but the word is not commonly used by Americans.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Only when we're making fun of Spice Girls.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Thanks, Bill.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

:lol: Oh yeah forgot about her.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Not excessively but a person with a halfway decent vocabulary will know what it means - this even before the Spice Girls.

Re: Is your accent a problem here?
 

Hooked on phonics works for me!!! :thumbup: