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8 hours ago, Chuck said:

Back at the turn of the century.. *this one* :oldgit::D We visited friends in the small village of Gamblingay and they took us all over England for 3 weeks. We literally couldn't understand most people in Yorkshire..

What an unforgettable trip that was..

You know Chuck on the several trips I've made to the states one of the amusing things we experienced was the look on the faces of usually service people when they heard an Aussie accent. It was a running joke with my wife and I. You walk up to a shop assistant and speak very clearly but still in Australian and look at their eyes for a reaction.

90% hit rate on total confusion and a requirement to repeat. It got me analysing the situation because my wife and I can instantly switch modes to many many different accents and almost never require the speaker to repeat and all we could figure was that we have been exposed to a lot more different accents in our lives on a regular basis.

The best one was a young lady serving us at a McDonlads just outside Richmond Virginia..............a look like you'd expect from a fart in an elevator:) 

I even understood the guy at the food joint that asked me if I would like my Receipt.........pronounced, Re.....sip.....it in a southern drawl, no problem.

Ciao    

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5 minutes ago, docc said:

"Distinct cultures separated by a common language."

I must say docc that I do like the southern accent. In that great Burns brothers docco on the Civil War there was a southern historian name Shelby Foote from memory. I could listen to him all day talk about anything.

Ciao 

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3 hours ago, docc said:

I know this may (or may not) be thread drift, but this is, far and away, my most cherished US South'n accent of all time:

 

Perhaps one of the saddest songs ever written.   I have the version with Mark Knopfler.  

 

But she has another one just as sad.

 

Gawd, that woman can make you cry

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4 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

You know Chuck on the several trips I've made to the states one of the amusing things we experienced was the look on the faces of usually service people when they heard an Aussie accent. It was a running joke with my wife and I. You walk up to a shop assistant and speak very clearly but still in Australian and look at their eyes for a reaction.

90% hit rate on total confusion and a requirement to repeat. It got me analysing the situation because my wife and I can instantly switch modes to many many different accents and almost never require the speaker to repeat and all we could figure was that we have been exposed to a lot more different accents in our lives on a regular basis.

The best one was a young lady serving us at a McDonlads just outside Richmond Virginia..............a look like you'd expect from a fart in an elevator:) 

I even understood the guy at the food joint that asked me if I would like my Receipt.........pronounced, Re.....sip.....it in a southern drawl, no problem.

Ciao    

That's Ok, I'll bet none of us can understand anyone from New Orleans.  It's a native language that no one understands.

:huh:

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Accents are funny things. I grew up in a rural area in Lincolnshire, only about 40 miles from Stewgnu's place really but I never visited.

From the town of Newark where I went to school, to Lincoln was about 17 miles and had it's own accent.

My parents were from Nottingham, 40 miles away, & I could hear the subtle change of accent & local slang.

Sheffield & Yorkshire was only 40 miles but a huge leap in how different the language sounds.

If you watch the BBC the programs are rich with accents from different parts of what is a small country  :D

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2 hours ago, nobleswood said:

Accents are funny things. I grew up in a rural area in Lincolnshire, only about 40 miles from Stewgnu's place really but I never visited.

From the town of Newark where I went to school, to Lincoln was about 17 miles and had it's own accent.

My parents were from Nottingham, 40 miles away, & I could hear the subtle change of accent & local slang.

Sheffield & Yorkshire was only 40 miles but a huge leap in how different the language sounds.

If you watch the BBC the programs are rich with accents from different parts of what is a small country  :D

Whenever I watch the Isle of Man, I can never understand anything when they interview those guys.  Half time I can't even understand the announcers.   They should use subtitles.  

George Bernard Shaw's observation that “The British and the Americans are two great peoples divided by a common language."  Perhaps so are the Brits?

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I am a dialect speaker, and I have thick accent when I (try to) talk CCD (Common Civilized Dutch).
In my dialect I can hear if someone is from my small village or another village 10 kms away.

As far as foreign languages go: all of the stuff on Dutch TV is subtitled, so I've learned to recognize al lot of english and german accents. And peculiarities from several regions, which I gladly use to p*ss off the locals  :grin:
 

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17 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

I must say docc that I do like the southern accent. In that great Burns brothers docco on the Civil War there was a southern historian name Shelby Foote from memory. I could listen to him all day talk about anything.

Ciao 

Shelby Foote forgot more about The Civil War than most others thought they knew . He was incredible , his phone # was listed and he would talk to anyone . It was rumored ( and I hope this was true ) Everything he sent to the publishers was in longhand and was printed unabridged or unedited . He was a sacred among Civil War historians . 

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13 hours ago, LowRyter said:

That's Ok, I'll bet none of us can understand anyone from New Orleans.  It's a native language that no one understands.

:huh:

My wife's grandfather would host Cajuns up her every year to hunt and hang out , James Edward would go there and spend time with them too . when the Cajuns were up here they  made sounds NO ONE knew what they were saying ! 

 Back in the 50s everyone in W Ky went to Jackson , Mi. to work . A friend said they would come back and visit and you " couldn't understand a thing they was sayin' ".

 

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