tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post3987987226522024216..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: AccentsAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-64176331077169386142014-06-22T11:08:07.603-04:002014-06-22T11:08:07.603-04:00I'm fascinating by a talent for mimicry. I us...I'm fascinating by a talent for mimicry. I used to love listening to Tracy Ullman take on accents of all kinds. She was one of the few non-Texans who could get pretty close, though she's Australian, if I'm not mistaken.<br /><br />John Sayles's "Lone Star" was a good movie, but it had some spectacularly bad Texan accents, especially poor Yankee/Puerto Rican/posh schools Elizabeth Pena trying to do a Valley Chicana. Yikes. Not that I could imitate it either, but I can hear the difference.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-43321078429497133922014-06-22T10:39:24.080-04:002014-06-22T10:39:24.080-04:00I grew up around a lot of people with a wide range...I grew up around a lot of people with a wide range of foreign accents, my grandparents included, so it's rare when I cannot parse what someone with English as their second..or third or fourth language, has said.<br /><br />When it comes to American accents I can usually place someone within the right state or portion of a state when I listen. I can also pull off using most regional accents as well. (I am a pretty good mimic.) But my two favorite are the N'Hampsha and the Down East Maine accents. They come in pretty handy when storytelling!DCEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07473492838008371044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-81964845865062542102014-06-18T23:06:53.954-04:002014-06-18T23:06:53.954-04:00The South does very well for itself, thank you ver...The South does very well for itself, thank you very much. My mild Southern twang and sirs and ma'ams have served me well on business trips up north. And I've met a number of perplexed Yankees who were convinced they'd hit it out of the park in the "slow, stupid" South.The Anti-Gnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04386593803225823789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-67544420996047852272014-06-13T14:20:02.648-04:002014-06-13T14:20:02.648-04:00I do not recall ever hearing Lewis' voice. Fo...I do not recall ever hearing Lewis' voice. Found him on You Tube. Sounds English to me. Not a problem.Sam L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00996809377798862214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-27185085251360372102014-06-13T00:40:00.979-04:002014-06-13T00:40:00.979-04:00I think there is little to compare when considerin...I think there is little to compare when considering accents due to English being someone's 2nd language to the various accents of those whose 1st language is English. <br /><br />My accent is a hybrid of western Colorado and east Texas southern. <br /><br />I can also do, on demand, Atlanta GA southern or hillbilly. What I cannot do is any variation of the western Colorado accent... unless an ear for Mexican pronunciation of Spanish counts. <br /><br />To my western Colorado relatives, I sound Southern, to my Southern relatives, I sound "you ain't from around here, are you". <br /><br />I do not "get" Cajun any more than I "get" Tagalog. It's incomprehensible to me. I do believe that being exposed to a language/dialect/accent at an early age does have a benefit. <br /><br />However, I've found that the accent that benefits me most often is the (somewhat fake) deep Southern. There are circumstances when it's desirable to be thought really stupid when I'm really only mildly stupid. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> Donna B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16771075314473811594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-70389594109785874162014-06-12T21:29:26.158-04:002014-06-12T21:29:26.158-04:00I had a physics professor from Switzerland who kep...I had a physics professor from Switzerland who kept saying in-TERR-fer-RENTS. It took me until March to figure out he was saying "interference." Needless to say, the lectures were not valuable to me. Fortunately, the textbook was.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-41407003022202397922014-06-12T16:55:12.759-04:002014-06-12T16:55:12.759-04:00I like hearing regional accents, the more intense ...I like hearing regional accents, the more intense the better, and I regret seeing them wash out and intermingle as much as they do now. I listen to a lot of Great Courses lectures. I'm very demanding in one sense--minor verbal tics can drive me right up a wall when I have to hear them for six to twelve hours at a stretch--but the accent itself is never a problem.<br /><br />I had no idea so many people were familiar with C.S. Lewis via his radio voice, though. I thought most of us knew only of his authorial voice, which I quite like. I imagine I'd be fine with his spoken voice, too, for that matter. In my head, I suppose I hear Anthony Hopkins in "Shadowlands," but Lewis was more of a middlebrow Ulsterman, wasn't he?<br /><br />My husband used to be driven to distraction by an Asian engineering professor who said "finksha" for "function." He had to rely almost entirely on what the guy wrote on the blackboard. But there's a big difference between a strong accent and a weak command of English, and anyway there were no flies on this professor's command of engineering.Texan99https://www.blogger.com/profile/10479561573903660086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-50910071951496373332014-06-12T08:34:41.848-04:002014-06-12T08:34:41.848-04:00The effort is vital. As an extreme case, some of ...The effort is vital. As an extreme case, some of my colleagues' English is scrambled enough to make it sometimes impossible to tell if they are registering support or objection to some detail. But only a fool would tune them out because they don't sound right.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.com