A couple years back while my peer Ben was trying to debug a code, he said " It's a bad ace". When I looked at him quizzically, he said ," Oh, its just a bad a$$ in a North Carolina accent" and I burst out in laughter. It was only after interacting with Ben for quite some time that the NC accent was making sense to me. He would often say in good humor ," Look at an Indian girl and a Turkish girl (my friend Susan) making fun of MY accent ".
After we had just moved to the US I had accompanied Tridib to Cary, NC when he had to go there for a training program. At the hotel, I asked the receptionist the directions to the gym twice, but couldn't understand a single word of what she said in her heavy southern accent. The only thing I could make out from her gestures was that the gym was up the hill we could see from the hotel. To save myself from embarassment, I walked outside, went up the hill and came back after sometime.
When I was a kid, growing up in India, the American accent was interpreted as speaking English really fast compared to the Indian accent which was slow and more in line with the Bristish accent. When I moved to the US, I encountered the reverse fact. The Americans thought Indians spoke English really fast. I now realize that Indians do tend to speak fast due to their native languages being spoken rather fast. The same is applicable for native speakers of certain European languages, when they speak in English. Even more interesting was knowing the fact that there is really no American accent. There is a Philadelphia accent and a North Carolina accent and a California accent and a Texas accent and more and they are all distinctly different.
As part of their preparation for the Visa interview at the American Consulate in 2009, my parents were regularly watching CNN to make sure they understood the interview officer's questions. When I asked my mother on how it was going she told me, " I can understand almost everthing else but I don't seem to undestand what George Bush's says". LOL..Does anyone? I told her about how he spoke in a heavy Texan accent and so it was not unusual for someone in her position to not understand what he says clearly.
However, all the knowledge about accents didn't foolproof me from further communication faux pas. While dictating an e-mail to an intern once, I said "full-stop" at the end of a sentence. After looking at me perplexed for about three times , he finally started typing FULLSTOP. It was then that I realized and said " Oh, I meant - Period" and there were more bursts of laughter. On another occasion, I told the same guy about someone I knew who had expired and he replied back saying "What are you talking about a person or a gallon of milk?"
After we had just moved to the US I had accompanied Tridib to Cary, NC when he had to go there for a training program. At the hotel, I asked the receptionist the directions to the gym twice, but couldn't understand a single word of what she said in her heavy southern accent. The only thing I could make out from her gestures was that the gym was up the hill we could see from the hotel. To save myself from embarassment, I walked outside, went up the hill and came back after sometime.
When I was a kid, growing up in India, the American accent was interpreted as speaking English really fast compared to the Indian accent which was slow and more in line with the Bristish accent. When I moved to the US, I encountered the reverse fact. The Americans thought Indians spoke English really fast. I now realize that Indians do tend to speak fast due to their native languages being spoken rather fast. The same is applicable for native speakers of certain European languages, when they speak in English. Even more interesting was knowing the fact that there is really no American accent. There is a Philadelphia accent and a North Carolina accent and a California accent and a Texas accent and more and they are all distinctly different.
As part of their preparation for the Visa interview at the American Consulate in 2009, my parents were regularly watching CNN to make sure they understood the interview officer's questions. When I asked my mother on how it was going she told me, " I can understand almost everthing else but I don't seem to undestand what George Bush's says". LOL..Does anyone? I told her about how he spoke in a heavy Texan accent and so it was not unusual for someone in her position to not understand what he says clearly.
However, all the knowledge about accents didn't foolproof me from further communication faux pas. While dictating an e-mail to an intern once, I said "full-stop" at the end of a sentence. After looking at me perplexed for about three times , he finally started typing FULLSTOP. It was then that I realized and said " Oh, I meant - Period" and there were more bursts of laughter. On another occasion, I told the same guy about someone I knew who had expired and he replied back saying "What are you talking about a person or a gallon of milk?"
So true....very funny read! Reminds me of our initial time in this country, especially at fast food places when they asked "for here or to go?" That used to go over our heads! Amrita
ReplyDeleteThanks Amrita...yes I too struggled with that in the beginning :-)
ReplyDeleteVery true! Indians do speak faster.....must be a result of the race and competition of 1.2 billion :-)
ReplyDeleteHaha...thanks for reading Partha da!
ReplyDeleteNice read!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Prarthana :-)
DeleteHow do you pronounce JONATHAN N JESUS. :)
ReplyDeleteHow do you pronounce JONATHAN N JESUS..:)
ReplyDeleteMy favorite accent is from NY & Boston .. Nice read. Yes we do speak fast..and some of us say wideo for video which took me a while to understand too
ReplyDeleteMy favorite accent is from NY & Boston .. Nice read. Yes we do speak fast..and some of us say wideo for video which took me a while to understand too
ReplyDelete