At Yahoo! my boss was a dreamy Englishman with a sharp wit and sparkly baby blues who had a quick rise up the ranks from peon to management to VP of somethingorotherthatdoesstuffsomethimesbutusuallydoesn’t. This was certainly due to his being a talented businessman but his English accent didn’t hurt. My joke was that he was probably really from Pomona and that he put the whole thing on because American’s are such suckers for the Queen’s English.
Today I was taking a message for a colleague and the gentleman on the line said, “I’m sorry, where are you from?”
“I grew up in Las Vegas but I lived all over the west coast. Mostly Los Angeles.”
“I love your accent.”
I’ve gotten the, I love your accent a number of times and I know it is really dorky. . . Beyond sad really, but it never fails to make me happy. I know it’s superficial. I know it’s lame. I know it’s just because it is different. I also? Work really hard? To not fall? Into the uptalk? Trap? A lot of American accents slip into now.
Let’s just see if I can get a promotion out of how I stretch my vowels.
The American Accent I love is the 1930’s-40’s rat-a-tat-tat. Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday: “Now, get this, you double-crossing chimpanzee: There ain’t going to be any interview and there ain’t going to be any story. And that certified check of yours is leaving with me in twenty minutes. I wouldn’t cover the burning of Rome for you if they were just lighting it up. If I ever lay my two eyes on you again, I’m gonna walk right up to you and hammer on that monkeyed skull of yours ’til it rings like a Chinese gong!â€
Ah, if I could only talk like that.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Just what is your accent?
New Jersey, Wisconsin- Minnesota- Fargo type accent? No The soft South, the red neck south. You have None of those. Oh Ohio has theirs. You don’t have that. But westerners are clear as a bell - hmmm what accent I ask you?