A completely unintelligible accent.
Monday afternoon saw myself and two friends (one Australian and one English) in the back of a taxi on the way to the train station attempting to converse with a Scottish man who had the world’s strongest accent. The whole situation rendered me completely stupefied. I was consciously concentrating very hard to understand what he was going on about but it all just came out in this huge, drawn out, mumbled syllable. The only thing I managed to grasp was something about a sister who lives in Australia and someone who glasses someone in a pub….hopefully the two weren’t connected.
Luckily for me, my English friend had obviously taken some lessons in Scottish and was able to hold up the passengers side of the conversation and my Australian friend and I were saved from the humiliation of having said ‘oh yes of course’ to a question which was not of the yes or no variety...
It was only afterwards that it got me thinking about the whole accents phenomenon. How is it that people come to say the same words (well in the Scottish case I swear they weren’t the same) but in a different way?
It is the general consensus that everyone likes the sound of other people’s accents over their own. I find it highly amusing that some of the English I have met love the Australian accent, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. It’s so terribly nasally and we make up and shorten words like there is no tomorrow.
However, accents are useful tools for two main reasons.
1. They make you recognisable as coming from a certain country or area and can thus perhaps give you something in common with another person from that country or area.
Or, and most importantly,
2. It provides endless entertainment for the people who don’t have your accent and are constantly laughing at the way you say things.
I can admit that I have been lucky enough to experience both sides of the argument. Although, perhaps the latter more than the former. Of course.
So despite his interesting speech and pronunciation, I wish to say hello to the nice Scottish man who drove us to the train station. We are all unique individuals and it would be rude of me not to appreciate the speech from your beautiful homeland.
And besides, you can’t help it if no one has a single clue what you are saying.
Do the English learn a lot about the Australian accent from Neighbours?
DEFINITELY (and it’s really not the best teacher guys!)
Was the Scottish man talking about glassing his sister in a pub in Australia?
MAYBE (but I hope not)
Will the English ever truly believe me when I tell them that no one really says ‘throw another shrimp on the barbie’?
PROBABLY NOT! (so please stop asking!)
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