RoB1833

I was waiting for the SSN office to open the other morning and a good ol' southern boy joined the queue...... He asked me a couple of questions and both times I stood there staring at him blankly and had to ask him to repeat himself, I couldn't understand a word of it. Needless to say the conversation didn't last very long!
Anyone else having problems with their southern counterparts???

scotch03

Perhaps it was an FBI agent asking you some questions in Arabic! You showed him!!!!

tony_2003

They do tend to mumble a lot. My mother in law is from Oklahoma so I usually ask her to translate anything. Met her dad who has lived down there all his life and I understood him perfectly...I think it's largely the "Trailer Trash" type who are difficult to understand....watch more Jerry Springer and you should be ok

Yorkieabroad

Tony - maybe i'm misreading but did you just call your mother in law trailer trash? Wow - punchy stuff for a sunny saturday afternoon! Must dash - taking your lead as inspiration, I'm, off to explain Reggie Perrins Hippo to my M.I.L!!

Yorkieabroad

Ps - on the comprehension bit, I haven't had too many problems with the actual words, although sometimes the meaning gets lost a little by the word order. Hard to explain, and I can't thikn of an aexample, but maybe someone out there knows what I mean? For training, try writing down as many as you can of the 1000 or so words at the end of a radio commercial for cars - you know, the one that starts "subjecttocreditreferenceslimitiednumberofvehicule savailablethisoffernotvalidinsomestatesorondayswit hayinthemblahdiblahdiblah"

tony_2003

Not at all, she is from a fairly well to do family and definitley not Trailer Trash. However seeing as she is from the south she can understand a lot of things I can't. She aint your stereotypical mother in law either, I get on very well with her

Emm

I don't seem to have as much trouble as my hubby does, he completely failed to understand the waiter the other evening as he listed the beers that they had. 'Bass Ale' sounded like 'Bas-eel', which hubby took to be 'Basil', not a beer that he recognsed .

I often find myself interpreting for him but it also happens the other way round too. My daughters American friend was at our house and completely failed to understand my daughter when she said 'butter'. It was only when I translated it to 'budder' that she understood.

Who would have thought that you could have such misunderstanding over what is essentially the same language?

Emm.

Yorkieabroad

Phew - thats a relief! Yeah, I get on pretty well with mine too - even more so now that we're 5 miles down the road rather than 5000 miles round the world. I think a lot of it has to do with not understanding my sense of humour (she certainly has no idea about Perrins Hippo)!!. And eating her food. She's Chinese (so food is very important) and a great cook, and I love her food, which gives me a head start on her other 2 sons in law are a bit pizza, burger and fried chicken...

alabama_bound

I get this all the time when the wife and I pop back to see her mum (or is that mom)

If I tell anyone my name is Paul they stare at me blankly until the long suffering tells them my name is really "pole"!!!

It becomes quite an amusing game when we go out for a meal to see how much the waitress can understand without having to get the missus to translate.

Whilst on the subject, has anyone had a problem with southern women flirting with them??

When we go out I am always getting flirted at by waitresses etc even in front of the wife. Never happened in the northern parts of the USA.

The just love the good old British accents down there :P

tony_2003

.

Yep happens to me all the time up here too
Doesnt please my wife too much...I guess it's a little suspicious when I tip more after it happens though

NC Penguin

How long have you been in NC? After moving to NC myself, it took a couple of months before I began to understand the local accent. However, that's the not the real issue.

I've noticed that it's the locals who have difficulty understanding my accent. I find this odd because I speak in a standard British accent (there's no regional dialect in my speech).

When I'm on the phone at work, I sometimes have difficulty understanding the odd person but they're not necessarily the state I live in. e.g. other parts of the South.




NC Penguin

RoB1833

I've been here about two months, most of the time I can catch something of what they say and make some sense of it...... but this guy was really mumbling, talking fast and had the worst southern accent I've come across!

Not had too many problems being understood, I have a light northern accent, being from South Manchester. Most problems I have is with terminiology and general sentence structure which seems to be different over here.

NC Penguin

What it really boils down to is that British men sound and act different to Southern men. That's the main attraction, the novelty.




NC Penguin

tony_2003

I think it's more of the initial shock of hearing an accent that causes people to say "what?" even though you pronounced every word slowly and clearly for them.

I have a very toned down Edinburgh accent and usually only have problems when meeting someone new. My workmates understand everything I say now that they know me.

Stumpyguy

I think you are probably right. Anyone can be good looking, I am most definitely a novelty.

When I travel through the more rural parts of the south the most common response I get from the locals when I try to engage them in conversation is wide-eyed amazement. If I get any complements on my accent I always tell them that their's is also very nice. I like to share the luuuurve.