What’s all the fuss a-boot?
Some people have distinct accents that don’t change - no matter where they go, no matter how much time they spend speaking a second language, no matter how many foreigners they speak to.
I’m not one of those people. Naturally, I speak too fast for most non-native English speakers to understand. Hell, I naturally speak too fast for most native English speakers to understand half the time.
So, in my laborious effort to slow down, I end up morphing my speech into something, well, something odd. And it has actually become quite consistent.
The result is that no fewer than 20 people have asked me if I’m Canadian in the past two months.
One friend of mine claims this is because it is offensive to ask a Canadian if they are American so it is just safer to ask the other way around. I’d buy that justification if I could just stop saying OOT and ABOOT.
I’m not one of those people. Naturally, I speak too fast for most non-native English speakers to understand. Hell, I naturally speak too fast for most native English speakers to understand half the time.
So, in my laborious effort to slow down, I end up morphing my speech into something, well, something odd. And it has actually become quite consistent.
The result is that no fewer than 20 people have asked me if I’m Canadian in the past two months.
One friend of mine claims this is because it is offensive to ask a Canadian if they are American so it is just safer to ask the other way around. I’d buy that justification if I could just stop saying OOT and ABOOT.
posted by sue at 2:43 PM
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