Thursday, March 29, 2007
About A-Boot
I heard it. I really did. I had to strain my ears and really concentrate, but I definitely heard it.
"Aboot"
Someone was talking to me, saying how he was "about to head out for lunch", and I finally caught that subtle elongated O that foreigners say is typical of the Canadian accent.
I have heard it said that you can't hear your own accent. I'm not completely convinced that this is true in all cases. I've noticed, for example, that Scottish people can ratchet their accents up and down: a subtle brogue in casual conversation that turns into a roaring, booming timpani of r's and k's when they're excited, agitated or, most significantly, when they are doing a self parody. All of this suggests to me that they have some sense of and control over how their voices sound.
But while the Scottish may or may not have such an ability, most North Americans clearly do not. I'm pretty sure that almost everyone who lives on this continent thinks they talk TV Generic English.
It's a funny thing about the TV Generic accent. I have yet to find where it comes from. The United States is full of a bunch of funny little accents but none them sound the way people do on TV. It's not Midwestern, that's for sure. Average people on the East Coast sure don't tawk like dat. I used to think maybe TV English was Californian, but visits to California disproved that too.
Likewise, I used to firmly believe that everyone in English Canada outside of the Atlantic region spoke with a perfectly homogenized generic North American accent. Then, on a trip to Florida, I was haggling with one of those ubiquitous Orlando street-corner ticket vendors when he suddenly interrupted and asked if I was Canadian.
"Why, are we notoriously cheap or something?" I asked.
"No, it's just the way you guys talk. Those certain words - 'out' and 'roof' and so on."
I was astounded. Of course, I had always heard the gags about the alleged "oot aboot the hoose" Canadian trademark, but I'd always thought that just applied to people from Nova Scotia. I had no idea I sounded like that.
So since then I've been listening carefully to see if I can catch it. Finally, like a faint radio signal it came through. Sort of like a heavily watered-down, somewhat coarser version of a Scottish accent. Does that sound about right?
[Bob and Doug McKenzie - Twelve Days of Christmas]
Of course, none of this is to suggest that the great linguistic blight of TV Generic English doesn't exist. I think throughout the continent people's accents become more watered down as they become more educated and/or watch more TV.
On one occasion, I met a Newfoundlander who was studying law in Western Canada. Now, we Canadians, you know, love our Newfoundlanders. I think we all secretly wish that the whole country talked that way, 'cause it's so much cooler than generic English. But this guy had no accent whatsoever.
"Where's your Newfie accent?" I asked him.
"Back in Newfoundland," he said curtly. What a shame.
On the other side of the coin, there's your blog friend and mine, the inimitable FiL, born and raised in the USA but lived for a long time in the UK. Unlike so many North Americans, who stubbornly refuse to adapt to their surroundings, FiL clearly "went native" when he was in the UK and his voice still carries faint British inflections, making it tough to determine just where the hell his accent is from, like some sort of clever linguistic camoflage.
Good on him, I say. I think it's a shame we've allowed ourselves to be so totally homogenized and Walmartized on this continent.
And that's all I have to say aboot that.
What do you think? Got a favourite accent? Got a funny/sad/quirky accent story?
posted by Mentok @ 1:15 p.m.,
8 Comments:
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At 2:35 p.m.,
Library Mama said...
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I would do anything - absolutely anything - for a man with an Irish accent.
Oops! I forgot whose blog I was commenting on.
;-) -
At 7:07 a.m.,
mjrc said...
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i was one of those people who thought everyone on tv talked like me. really. until i moved away from ohio to new york and would call home and oh my god, the accent was so obvious. so then of course i feared that i sounded like that. and i probably do. all nasal and pinched.
you know what fascinates me? that a person can have the strongest accent when speaking but when singing, it disappears almost completely.
one last thing. i have a friend who was born in belgium to english parents and has lived in the states since he was 11. he has a definite british accent, which i think must come from living with his parents and speaking english at home during the formative years, as he's never lived in england. -
At 11:56 a.m.,
Grumps said...
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My mom's Ukrainian and my dad is Italian so my native tongue is broken English.
I never knew how thick my dad's accent was/is until several years after I moved away from home.
When my mom and grandma use to speak in Ukrainian to eachother, I would always laugh because occasionally they would slip in an English word or place name, but with perfect English inflection. -
At 12:50 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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LM - we'll have a discussion about me shelaighle on ;-)
marcy - yes, that is the weirdest thing in the world about singing, isn't it. My wife, Library Mama used to sing competitively and had a couple Italian tunes in her repetoire. Apparently, her accent was so good that Italian speakers would walk up and start babbling at her, thinking that she must speak their monkey language.
grumps - oops, sorry about the "monkey language" business ;-) Just teasing, you know. I know what you mean about slipping words in. Just today, I heard a couple Russian speakers; in the midst of a rapid fire conversation, one guy suddenly says "Deal or No Deal" and then keeps talking in Russian. I hope he was talking about the TV show! -
At 1:58 p.m.,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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You Canadian sons of bootches.
Even though I hate the British (because they try and correct American grammar...heck..we should try and correct their teeth)... some British accents are kind of cute.
Josie Lawrence for example. -
At 1:59 p.m.,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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Thanks for getting me hooked on those Chad Vader episodes. Have you seen episode 7 yet?
Oh..and the BSG Final really kicked ass. -
At 3:37 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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Ah, Hippo, you are the very soul of tolerance and diversity, aren't you? ;-)
Yes, the YouTube Chad Vader bits are a hoot. My favourite bit fr. Ep. 7 was when Clairssa casually says to Chad "More power to ya" and Chad ominously echoes "Yes! More POWER to ME!"
And yeah BSG finale v. good. Basically, season 4 is going to be one long final episode. They've already decided they're wrapping it up. -
At 5:02 p.m.,
Bathroom Hippo said...
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What? No more BSG after season 4?
That's insane! The show is very popular.
