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Faux-accents developed after a brief residency abroad
Maybe you actually did pick up a slight British accent after your year of travel. It still sounds fake - and dumb.
— Karolena from Brooklyn | Travel | 2.12.2009 | Comments (9)
COMMENTS ››
Do people seriously do that? That is so douchebag.
— Aj posted 2/12/2009
omfg, yes--all the time by at least one person I know. It's a disease.
— OLM posted 2/12/2009
When they're faux, yeah, it's totally douchey, but there are some people who pick up accents *really* easily -- I'm one of them. This happened to me when living in Hawaii because 90% of my exposure was to non-native speakers of English, so at one point I started dropping articles ("let's go to store" vs. "let's go to THE store"), and then I had to be painstakingly careful about it because I was teaching English at the time -- it was infuriating how hard it was to retrain myself, and even I felt like I was being affected. Ugh!!
— Diana posted 2/12/2009
yeah diana...sounds like you're just a douche with an excuse
— haha posted 3/20/2009
I dont have a British or German accent, but since I live in a British community in Germany but I have noticed I've changed the way I use words and lost some US words for German or UK words .. crisps for chips, chips for fries, bits for stuff, rubbish for trash, dodgy for weird, etc. When the language you hear all day is Brit or German and you have to explain yourself each time you use a US word, it's easier to use their words.
— Jen posted 3/22/2009
There's no such thing as a "British" accent...there's hundreds of different accents within Britain.
— Me posted 8/30/2009
But then why does everyone know exactly what someone is talking about when they say 'British accent'? The same is true with American accents, there is an overwhelming one, then many variations therein.
— you posted 8/30/2009
I lived in England for 9 years and didn't pick up an accent...but my enunciation changed a lot, as did my vocabulary and emphasis on certain words. It's called adapting to your environment, folks...you need to communicate where ever you are. And people who get annoyed by it are probably just envious they don't get the same opportunities to travel. Get over it, and don't tell me YOU don't pick up different American regional accents if you work with someone who has one different from you. IT HAPPENS, and there are worse things.
— Yorkie posted 9/8/2009
Not everybody does it on purpose to show off or whatever. I don't think there's anything cool about "having an accent", but if I hang out with someone with a different accent for a few hours, it creeps into my speech. If I read a book written in overtly british vernacular, I start THINKING with a british accent. In my case it might be because I pay obsessive attention to trivial details, focus intently on people who are speaking to me, and tend to mentally repeat everything I hear
— xi posted 12/29/2011
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