Accent Crisis
People are always asking me where I am from. Every single time I'm asked I always make the person guess before I answer. It happens most often at work so there are times when I get an entire table of guesses. It quite genuinely interests me where people think I may have come from. I've discovered because of picking up on various different accents I'm surrounded by, I have quite a strange one myself. People have guessed both Scottish and Irish before; and the other day I got Norwegian for the first time. About 95% of the time people guess Canadian. I feel all of these are justified as I majorly struggle with my O's. Australian's pronounce their vowels quite differently sometimes and I can't quite manage to match how they say their O's. Every single time they guess Canadian and I respond "American" they feel the need to give me this explanation.
"I almost guessed that! I'm never sure, and so I always go with Canadian because it's the safer bet. If you guess American and they turn out to be Canadian they'll be very offended. But if you guess Canadian, Americans are rarely offended."
That is actually pretty word for word, and it always amuses me. I feel they should have stopped after "I almost guessed that!" What they don't seem to realise is that by telling me that Canadians are offended if called American, then Canadians obviously have something against Americans. Which is sort of insulting. So while this person did not mean directly to insult me, the insult still was passed through their unnecessary explanation as to why they guessed I was Canadian. So, in the end, their efforts to not offend me were futile.
What I have decided now is I am going to make more of an effort to retain my American accent. Despite being made fun of when I say to-may-to instead of to-mah-to, and carmel instead of caramel, and don't forget aluminum instead of aluminium (that one has sparked so much debate), I much prefer my original accent than this weird broken not from anywhere accent. I am proud that I am American.
Wish me luck in my efforts!!!!
"I almost guessed that! I'm never sure, and so I always go with Canadian because it's the safer bet. If you guess American and they turn out to be Canadian they'll be very offended. But if you guess Canadian, Americans are rarely offended."
That is actually pretty word for word, and it always amuses me. I feel they should have stopped after "I almost guessed that!" What they don't seem to realise is that by telling me that Canadians are offended if called American, then Canadians obviously have something against Americans. Which is sort of insulting. So while this person did not mean directly to insult me, the insult still was passed through their unnecessary explanation as to why they guessed I was Canadian. So, in the end, their efforts to not offend me were futile.
What I have decided now is I am going to make more of an effort to retain my American accent. Despite being made fun of when I say to-may-to instead of to-mah-to, and carmel instead of caramel, and don't forget aluminum instead of aluminium (that one has sparked so much debate), I much prefer my original accent than this weird broken not from anywhere accent. I am proud that I am American.
Wish me luck in my efforts!!!!
Comments