Gruchak

In US everyone knows I'm a Brit. Back in UK people remark on my American accent, although once someone in a pub though I was Irish.

My accent is all over the place now! I'm lost.

Pulaski

Where are you from, in the UK? I am from Sheffield and my accent doesn't seem to have changed much since I left there when I was eight years old.

I have only been in the US for fourteen years, but completing school in Glawster and working in Landan didn't seem to do anything to change my accent before I left the UK, so I am not surprised that living in the US hasn't either. I still get comments about my accent most weeks, and often people think I have just arrived.

Gruchak

I'm from Portsmouth in the UK. I don't have any Brits in my life here, neither at home, nor work, so I wonder if that has some to do with my absorbing some of the accent...although any American would instantly spot my British accent. I think, too, that folks from Pompey do have a bit of a lazy drawl with their vowel sounds, so maybe it's also associated with that.

Are you surrounded by Americans also? Maybe you are just impervious to the influences around you.

Pulaski

I rarely see or communicate with any Brits where I live, and although I am not the only Brit with my employer, I rarely have reason to speak to them, not even our London office these days.

I certainly seem to be impervious to picking up accents, as ten years in Gloucester from age 8 to 18 (when you'd expect that I would still be impressionable) didn't give me the slightest hint of a Gloucester/ west country accent, and ten+ years in London didn't change anything either.

My sister on the other hand absorbs accents like a sponge, though she was only four when we left Sheffield, so hadn't been imprinted with a Sheffield accent. That said she has never had much of a long term accent, perhaps because she went to a private school. And while her accent floats around, seven years in France and one in the US didn't leave a lasting impression on her accent.

Bermudashorts

Not many people can place my accent. Brits can usually detect that I am northern but probably not Mancunian. When I got back from Australia quite a few people detected an Australian accent (without prior knowledge of me having been there). Americans have never had trouble understanding me but have often asked if I am Australian and that was before I had stepped foot in the place.

jambey2510

Many Brits themselves cannot place a finger on my accent and where it's from - and have never been able to do, which is odd!

But Americans just know I'm British the moment I utter my first word. Plus my fiance says it's obvious because I have a polite British air about me, whatever the heck that means.

Pulaski

Sounds like my experience, as I am rarely asked if I am Australian - my accent is a mild Sheffield one. I have sometimes wondered if somehow my "air" is British.

jambey2510

I have never understood this whole "air" thing either!

I jokingly said to my fiance one time 'probably because I don't look obnoxious and brash' and she no that's probably it!

Pulaski

Refined and sophisticated.

Nutek

You called?

lizzyq

I presume you mean refined sugar and sophisticaked

davers

That's the look I get when I interact with girls no matter where I am so it's neither here nor there .

In all seriousness though, the "accent glaze" effects you describe are only too real, girls or guys.

Pulaski

I thought you came from Brizzle?

Says he who came from Sheffield.

Pulaski

I agree, but comments on my accent are 9:1 or more, women to men.

Nutek