Today’s blog post is a 2-in-1! Wow, you readers are getting more value! Aaaaanyhooow, I work with a lot of people from different nationalities, but mostly, I have 4 British work buddies (one who looks uncannily like Zac Efron, for you interested ladies), a few Aussies, and one Indian. Oh, and my boss’ partner is Scottish.
And to those who don’t already know, I speak English with a relatively flat accent. And also, my English accents tend to change depending on whom I speak to (wow, does this mean I have Peter Petrelli’s emphatic mimickry?). In the morning, I see my workmates and chat with them, typically my English accent for the day would be formed. Then in the afternoon, when I go to see the clients, I would carry this weird pastiche of accents with me and confuse the hell out of my clients.
Accents I am typically exposed to in a day:
- Mid-west American (from my housemate)
- Scottish (from my boss’ partner – it doesn’t really shound like Sean Connery spheaking)
- Manchester (from my British colleague – feels really rough and tumble)
- North London (from another of my British colleagues)
- Received Pronounciation (from yet another British colleague from the same uni as me. You really feel like he’s Royalty or something when he speaks)
- Queenslander (you can hear a drawl towards the end of sentences)
- General Australian (most of my colleagues speak with general aussie)
- Adelaidian (my housemate… dammit)
- Indian/Sri Lankan (my workmate – he speaks general australian, but lapses sometimes)
- Hongkie (from my immediate supervisor)
- Malaysian (my own… it only exists in the timing of words, not the pronounciation)
As a result of this messed up nonsense, sometimes my clients get extremely confused. There was once I met with an Irish lady, and after an hour of discussion, I ‘inherited’ the accent, and my next client had to endure me saying something like “to-die is tius-die, we’ll shet it up within 21 dies”, with every 2nd or so syllable ending on an upward accent.
It’s irritating me as well. And I have to spend a considerable amount of brainpower to keep it within one accent (and no, I do not have a “natural accent” to fall back to).
And then.. today I knocked my head while getting out of the car. It was a big bump on the head and for nearly 2 whole minutes my vision was noisy. Then when I was talking to my customers, I found it very difficult to control the mix of accents.
Bah.
Ok – now for part 2. So, I went to a shop to buy my friends their Christmas presents. It was after work, and my brain clearly wasn’t working anymore (but I could still count 4 + 4 = 10 in base 4). So here was the conversation between me and the storeowner
Me: Hey, can you help me for a bit?
Her: Sure. What are you looking for?
Me: It’s Christmastime, and I am looking to buy my friends some gifts. Any suggestions?
Her: (looks at me)
Me: (looks expectantly at her)
long pause
Her: I don’t know your friends. What are they like?
Me: Oh.. right. I forgot.
And so I described my friends (PhD in Cultural studies student and Masters in environmental studies student). To my surprise, she revealed herself to have a PhD. in anthropology. So she accurately chose something for me. Then she called a store assistant, who turned out to be a current Masters student in biology – and he picked the perfect gift for me.
I hope. I am frankly very bad at doing stuff like picking gifts. What’s a logical gift to me may turn out to be strange and a completely useless gift to the giftee.
But what was surprising was that someone with such high qualifications were working there. Maybe its a labor of love, since the shop only caters for niche crowds. Who knows eh?
