Fake British Accents

[jml 365]

Can anyone please tell me why seemingly normal people "adopt" british accents so readily. Now mind you I am not talking about people that were educated and/or spent many years of living in the UK. I am talking about people who've been there short term, even on holiday, for god's sake and come back speaking like the queen mother's dog walkers fishmonger.

 

I used to think it was only my peeps (read yanks) that were susceptible to this phenomenon but I just got off the phone with a Canadian who'd only been in London for 6 months. Can anyone, anyone explain this to me. And why is it only proper british accents? How come no Cockney?

[DrivinWest 73]

Irish is worse; 10 minute talking to one and I begin to sound like one.

[jml 365]

Oh and for the record, I find british accents to be sexy, on british people. Listening to Madonna these days makes me cringe.

[Showem 868]

I tend to pick up accents really quickly, without even meaning to. My Dad does too. It can be really embarrassing, because if you are talking to someone with a heavy accent and you start to imitate it without realising it, people can think you are making fun of them.

I'd imagine if I was in London for 6 months I'd have some sort of QE accent too.

[gideon 137]

funny thing is, i know of no one in england who talks “plummy

[jml 365]

Okay, so its not intentional then? Hmmm..that makes it seem better at least...

what the hell is plummy?

[Jimbo 1,269]

That depends Gideon - I get a sudden attack of 'poshness' when I'm with a client, and IMHO both Tench and Pascoe speak the Queen's English rather well...

[GregK 2]

This happens to me sometimes. Sit in a bar with some Brits for a while and eventually a word or phrase pops out and I can’t believe how British it sounds. :blink:

[Guest]

true and guilty - i've been accused of being british. I don't wanna sound british. I think the Southern (US) accent is the tops - I guess it's just easier to be understood, and I fall into it subconciously.

[jml 365]

I suspect there has to BE something unique about the British possibly Irish language that makes it easy/desirable to affect. I used to go to Asian restaurants and sushi bars in the states a lot but I never picked up the Asian English accent.

 

Probably not a good example...okay would you start sounding, I dont know "New York" if you were sitting around with some New Yorkers...do you forget to how to say Rs when your around Boston natives? FYI: a lot of bostonites say "paahhk the caah" when the mean "park the car".

[Hazza 5,458]

There was a guy I used to work with in Australia who had this weird British/American type accent. I once asked him where it was from and he told me he had never even left the country before. He said he'd developed it himself while he was still at school to seem more exotic, and now couldn't get rid of it.

 

He was fucking strange...

[gideon 137]

plummy, means to talk as if you have plums in our mouth.

 

i hope i never talk posh, i'd rather talk yorkshire.

[ellewood 5]

i don't think it's exclusively posh british accents that people immitate. í know many many people who pick up bits of other accents (american, canadian, australian, scottish...) after being with them for a short time. if u like/admire someone's personality or how they express themselves, tell jokes, hold the floor etcetc you're gonna subconsciously emulate that. i know this really funny scouser (liverpudlian). hilarious. great story teller. and whenever we meet up or chat on the phone, i start singing my sentences.

 

besides that, us humans were born to immitate - my god, that's how we learn our own language and accents (unless u think of course we're born with a special scouser gene, or new yorker gene). :blink:

[acquascutum 206]

@hazza

 

 

I once asked him where it was from and he told me he had never even left the country before. He said he'd developed it himself while he was still at school to seem more exotic, and now couldn't get rid of it.

worked with a bloke like that too.

had an accent not bound to any geographical location.

he was known as 'four corners' to all and sundry as he could've come from any of the four corners of the UK.

 

he was also bizarre.

[flogger 17]

pikey.

[YorkshireLad6 7,152]

 

i'd rather talk yorkshire.

Did thee call?

[don_riina 7,405]

 

both Tench and Pascoe speak the Queen's English rather well...

You wot? I think if you look into the matter you'll find I speak right proper too.

 

I personally have a problem with the Aussie accent. Few beers sitting with an Australian, and my accent goes all funny. I love that accent

 

 

plummy, means to talk as if you have plums in our mouth.

Nice, very nice. So Posh speaks golden plummy?

[gideon 137]

mr riina! such inuendoes! and with ladies present!

 

(said in a posh, i've never seen my wife naked, pass me the cucumber sandwich dear, and no sex tonight please my john thomas is flacid, accent)

 

@ yorkshire

 

rit' lad wares uz beer?

[don_riina 7,405]

 

no sex tonight please my john thomas is flacid

I think you'll find us southerners would NEVER be so graphic. You said "sex". Sex! hee hee!

I'd just tell the wife that the 11.18 to Chichester was cancelled tonight, and she'd jolly well get the gist.

[DrivinWest 73]

I used to work with a guy who spent a only few months in the UK before moving back to Texas. Afterwards we spoke with a heavy British accent, despite never having been back to the UK for over a decade. To top it off, he was ethnically Mexican. Weird.