How's your blog going?

If she likes your looks, the opening line doesn't matter. So long as there is one.

If she doesn't, the opening line doesn't really matter either.

Very interesting. This lends support to the theory that one can meet people by a) leveraging common interests, b) "being oneself," and c) asking simple questions of the person you wish to meet.

3: Or that a British accent makes up for a multitude of sins.

3 is an innovative new analysis.

re: 4

It doesn't work so well if you are actually in Britain, although, admittedly, all British accents aren't created equal.

I did wonder whether the British accent would work the same magic on someone who herself had a pronounced accent, but since she's carrying his baby now, I guess the answer is yes. Another way to see the situation is as one in which the Asian woman is being characteristically polite, while hoping that the pale man goes away soon.

All that said, 3 is good.

I did wonder whether the British accent would work the same magic on someone who herself had a pronounced accent, but since she's carrying his baby now, I guess the answer is yes.

You should confirm the result. Rent some movies first, though, so you can make sure you've got the various intonations right.

Unf should totally do that experiment. He's married, so nothing's on the line, and he's a genius with accents. Unf! Unf!

make sure you've got the various intonations right.

I suppose it depends who you are trying to fool with the accents. For people who aren't freakishly accent attuned (i.e. people who aren't British) I'd imagine you can just copy Dick Van Dyke's sterling work or the work of Christopher Lambert in Highlander.

This is like the fourth post related to hot Asian women in the past week or so.

There was this one, the race-flirting one, the Old Spice ad one, the one about the Wingnut Lifeguard. Who knows, maybe more if I missed one here and there.

Well done.

For people who aren't freakishly accent attuned (i.e. people who aren't British)

British people are only freakishly attuned to British accents, which I suppose you can't fault them for. Irish accents seem to be an undifferentiated blur to them, and American accents are also hard. Americans, meanwhile, have a very difficult time telling Scottish and Irish accents apart, and also South African and Australian accents from one another.

In some circumstances -- and one would hope only for a fairly narrow age range -- the competitive advantage a non-local English-speaker accent gives you is absurd.

You can go here to train up on accents.

Another standard bad-actor give away is the inability to keep Welsh and Indian accents separate.

the competitive advantage a non-local English-speaker accent gives you is absurd

I don't know if I've mentioned before that I knew a guy who spent the first quarter of his freshman year at college pretending to be Australian. Was a huge hit, invited everywhere, asked to record people's answering machine greetings, etc. Americans are gaga for foreign accents.

Americans are gaga for some foreign accents.

Foreign english-speaking accents, I meant; sorry.

I submit to you that the stereotypes about Australian English, Indian English, Liberian English, and Nigerian English are quite, quite different from each other.

(I note also that there are fewer African immigrants in your part of the world, so if this didn't come up in Chicago, it may not have been on your radar screen.)

re: 11

Yeah, that's true, to an extent. Certainly re: Irish regional accents, I think. Although we can certainly tell Ulster accents from southern Irish accents.

It's not completely true as a wide generalization, however. I suspect quite a lot of Brits are really pretty good at identifying the major US accents because we are exposed to so much American TV and film.

Americans and the Scottish/Irish confusion think is very common, though, as you say.

re: 12

yeah, that's a good archive. I looked at http://web.ku.edu/idea/europe/scotland/scotland.htm once before trying to pick out which accent was closest to my own. Scotland 5 (although it's a female voice) is closest to my own area, I think.

I did think the accent subplot was one of the more entertaining parts of the froth of Love Actually, however. Way to riff on the stereotype.

No no, you're right, I'm being dense and imprecise.

Americans are gaga for foreign accents.

Yeah, exactly. On my first trip to America, as a 20 yr old, I was there as part of something where I had to speak in front of university crowds. I had a joke-ridden schtick and a strong accent. It was the first--and believe me the only--time that I had women more or less literally throwing themselves at me. On three occasions in two cities, after the relevant event and in the bustle of the crowd, I had women press pieces of paper into my hand with their phone numbers written on them. It was pretty funny.

I have a friend who has a distinct, strong Long Island accent. Now, to me this is unmistakeable. But every few months, somebody random person asks him if he's Australian. I actually didn't believe him until I saw it happen. And there's definitely an undercurrent of flirtatiousnes/salaciousness when they ask.

Gonerill, of course, having no interest in easy sex.

There's a Cockney actor in Portland OR who gets the royal and aristocratic British parts, because after all, who cares about the minute local distinctions made by the native wogs in America's foreign protectorates.

somebody

Cockney actor in Portland OR who gets the royal and aristocratic British parts

Hilarious. Does he at least change his accent when he does them?

21: And what was that accent exactly? (Scribbling notes)

I suspect quite a lot of Brits are really pretty good at identifying the major US accents because we are exposed to so much American TV and film.

I doubt this -- every Brit I've ever heard do an American accent comes up with the same televangelist-sounding kind of Texan thing. Maybe they can hear better than they can imitate, but I think we all sound kind of Texan to a Brit.

I suspect a fair amount of the charm of the English or other Commonwealth accent is that you all sound smart because you're talking about twice as fast as we do.

Gonerill, of course, having no interest in easy sex.

I never said that. Just because it was funny doesn't mean I had some kind of detached attitude about it.

every Brit I've ever heard do an American accent comes up with the same televangelist-sounding kind of Texan thing

I suspect that's because 1) it makes us sound dumber and 2) the more typical flat American accent is very hard to imitate.

I'm pretty sure he fakes an accent, but I've never seen him. He's a very cool guy and one of the best actors in town.

Good old IMDB. Here's the dialogue.

Colin: I have just worked out why I can never find true love.

Tony: Why's that?

Colin: English girls. They're stuck up, you see. And I am primarily attractive to girls who are... y'know, cooler. Game for a laugh. Like American girls. So I should just go to America. I'd get a girlfriend there instantly. What do you think?

Tony: I think it's... crap, Colin.

Colin: No, that's where you're wrong.
[smiling]

Colin: American girls would seriously dig me with my cute British accent.

Tony: You don't have a cute British accent

Colin: [excitedly] Yes I do! I'm going to America.

Tony: Colin, you're a lonely, ugly arsehole. You must accept it.

Colin: Never. I am Colin, god of sex. I'm just on the wrong continent, that's all.

you all sound smart because you're talking about twice as fast as we do

LB's idea of a genius.

Shit, this is the much better link.

Funny as it was, laughing-at-their-jokes foreplay would have been easy, probably saving time, upon which heavy demands were being made.

When I was 15, I swam for a summer in Bergen County with a couple of other friends. (With the TI guy, Ogged.)

The Northern girls LOVED us. I am convinced that it was entirely because of our southern accents.

But, seriously, ogged. Simply suggest stroke techniques to women swimming in adjcent lanes. (Slower women, of course.) Triathletes are desperate for help with their swimming.

Triathletes are desperate for help with their swimming.

This is totally true. I had a triathlete making goo-goo eyes at me last week saying "you're fast." Unfortunately, he was a guy just as hairy as I am.

Triathletes don't know how to swim, but it doesn't really matter, because the swim is only 10% of the event. Bastards.

And 35 supposes that Ogged has stroke pointers to give.

That is your in with hot women.

"Snap your hips" works every time. I'll be helping my gf and hot girls come over to ask for help bc they are trying a tri soon. My gf always laughs about it.

Ogged, memorize these words:

1. Snap your hips.
2. lower your head.
3. Front quadrant swimming.

If you can figure out how to say those words in a Scottish accents, even better.

"And 35 supposes that Ogged has stroke pointers to give."

Jake:

wrong, wrong, wrong.

35 only requires that the hawt women THINK ogged has stroke pointers to give.

I can't tell if Jake's snark indicates that he went to the pool this weekend, and didn't do a :42, or if he was too scared to go at all.

Kicking means nothing. Nothing, I tell you!!

Posted in the other thread. Went to the pool yesterday, just putzed around to warm up and did some 50s, :31 swim, :36 kick.

42:

really? only 5 seconds difference? amazing. I am a sucky kicker. Clearly the suckiest kicker on unfogged.

Time for Ogged to do the full body shave and get his time under :40.

Jake:

what were your events? How old are you?

I am amazed at your and ogged kicking.

:36 kick

You bastard!

I think I do :30 on the swim, but I'll swim it for time tomorrow. But you haven't swum in a while, right, Jake?

:36 is really fast kicking. I was thinking I could break :40 rested, but I think :36 is permanently beyond me.

Although gswift is right; if I shave, I think :32 is doable.

Turned 30 in December (man, I'm old!). Last time in the pool was my school's homecoming alumni meet in October. "trained" for that by swimming maybe 6-7 times in the couple of weeks beforehand.

Events were mainly 100 free, 200 free, 200 im, and occasionally 100/200 back. Passable at backstroke.

I couldnt kick :36 flutter kick with board in college. I have had the distinct honor of being the slowest kicker on every team. Flutter kick. Not dolphin. I can kick dolphin faster.

Not even 50 comments, and already this post has turned into swimming technique.

Enough with the Modern Love. Let's dissect the Washington Post's DateLab ("We'll pay for your evening out and a writer will interview you the next day"):

In which everything you've heard about French women apparently comes true

Tom: I got lucky on the Metro, so I was at the restaurant 25 minutes early. I'd brought a book by a friend of mine, about Papua New Guinea. I used to live there and thought it would be a good conversation starter.

Lucie: I cycled from work. The hostess brought me over to Tom. He was a good-looking chap. Tall, nice hair, blue eyes, nice smile. You know right from the start if there's potential or not. There was potential.

Tom: She was an extremely beautiful woman -- and French. She had a smoky French accent but also a hint of an English accent, which was phenomenal. And she was wearing an amazing top with a plunging neckline.

I was the fastest kicker on my team. I think it's the big feet. On the other hand, I was completely worthless with a pull buoy, and hated paddles with a passion.

Oh, Jake is a youngster. Of course he can go :36.

Jake:

I was the opposite. fast with pull buoy. Slow with kicking. Loved paddles.

Plus, I am old. Turn 40 this year.

Hot French women: boooring.

What size are your feet, Jake?

Unfortunately, he was a guy just as hairy as I am.

Everyone improves with experience. You don't have to marry him; maybe just a cup of coffee.

13. I hope I'm that fast when I'm 40. Of course, at the alumni meet, some guy who graduated a couple years before busted out a 1:42 in the 200. Bastard.

And this is probably why will did distance while I sprinted. At the end of my 50 kick I was completely spent.

When are we putting together the Unfogged Masters Relay Team?

Ronald Dworkin's swimming abilities are nothing to sneeze at either.

Bah, I give up on you folks. No help with my procrastination!

At the end of my 50 kick I was completely spent.

Ditto.

Unfogged Masters Relay Team

This would be great. Time to move to sunny California, Will.

That is the beauty of Masters. We simply meet at a meet. I'll swim fly or free.

I'll do back or free. Ogged can do breaststroke, since he apparently knows how to swim it.

You can't hurt me that easily, Jake; especially not when I'm politely not pointing out that apparently I swim a faster 50 free than you.

How does the breastroke kick compare with the others in terms of speed? I can't remember from back when I did swimming.

s

I haven't done it for time, but it should be the slowest, what with all the slowing down it involves.

Apparently knows how to swim breastroke is a compliment. As for the 50, I have two words: bring it. I have twelve visits left on my pool pass, and I'm not afraid to use them.

I think that the breaststroke kick is slower by itself, if only beacuse it's hard to really increase the tempo.

I should have phrased that differently: is its slowness relative to the other kicks slower than the full stroke is relative to the other strokes?

As for the 50, I have two words: bring it.

Excellent. This week I'll break :30, and you can do whatever it is that retired swimmers do with twelve visits. Get in shape, I think it's called.

You should post before and after pics of the body shave.

Break :30 in breaststroke? That would be impressive.

And maybe a pic of the pile of hair it generates. It'll probably be a foot high.

Not in the breaststroke, no. By the way, your friend O'Brien did write back with a couple of names, so thanks for that.

Luckily for me, you don't need to be in shape to swim a 50. I'd describe it as "knocking the rust off", or "remembering why I haven't swam much in the last 8 years."

Seriously, though, breaking 30 from a push in a 50 is pretty respectable. You should tell your mom!

Shall we name a date? Do you swim at Koret?

You should tell your mom!

My mom still doesn't understand anything beyond the "can swim / can't swim" distinction.

Dude, I'm not ready for the face to face. I still don't really know what I'm doing in the free. I was going to trash-talk self-reported times for a while. Then we can meet at Koret or somewhere (and no, I've never been there).

Also to note: the last time I dove off a block I was probably seven, and chipped my tooth on the bottom.

Backing down so quickly! It's all right, it just gives me time to get the feel for the water back. The trash talk shall resume later this week.

Koret is nice. Lots of deep water, and a real gutter.

My pool is 5 1/2 feet at the deepest, but that's ok, it just adds an element of danger to vertical kick drills.

I would be great if one of you made a run to TJ for some roids just to best someone on the internet.

"It", not I

And now I have to hop on the elliptical. I think I'm mere weeks away from fitting into my old pants.

I think I'm mere weeks away from fitting into my old pants.

Size 26?

18: One of my best high school friends was a foreign exchange student with the Aberdeen accent represented in Scotland 14. Poor girl, she went completely ununderstood until about six months in Kansas.

Manchester accents are pretty easy to pick up. Knowing whether someone is actually a Geordie is not easy for me. Edinburgh is pretty distinct from Glaswegian.

I'm pretty good at doing Foreign language accents, but I'm not good at doing English-language accents. My French accent is very good. The last time I was in France, some hotel workers were trying to figure out what part of France I was from. (I do have a French last name.) When I am tired, I start to speak German with a French accent, but otherwise I can do a decent German accent.

When I say, "How, Now Brown Cow," I sound, if not English, at least, mid-Atlantic; but it doesn't transfer to any other phrases.

82: Not the first half of the clip, but the last half.

Building on three, it helps to be in friendly-don't particularly-care-where-this-is-going-oh-look-a-bluejay kind of mindspace. But don't ask me how to get there. Transcendentally meditate or something.

The Beeblebrox maneuver is also recommended.

The search for the philanderer's stone continues.

87: Cute, eb.

don't you mean gambit?

Was that one of his mutant powers?

Until this thread, I used to read the swimming posts and think, "damn, Ogged must be fast!"

I had no idea you were talking about 50s.

That said, I think he still kicks faster than me.

83:
Geordie,if your define it as northeast in general, is easy. They all talk like Dixon in the Pynchon book. Where I find it difficult is distinguishing between the non-London SE accents.

Just after the invasion of Iraq, I once chatted up a girl in a bookstore in Chile. We ended up talking at a bar for several hours. She eventually told me that she didn't realize I was an American and in fact spoke to me in part because she thought my accent in Spanish to be Scandinavian or otherwise Northern European. What I'm saying is, I should obviously replace Wolfowitz.

I had no idea you were talking about 50s.

Hey, everything past fifty is about endurance.

Oh you don't have to tell me. But knowing that they're not 100s does make the times less godly sounding.

re: 92

I can tell East London/Essex accents from more general 'estuary' English but, other than that, I have the same problem. And my ear for accents is OK [I spent 4 years studying phonetics and phonology].

re: 82

Poor sod, people from that part of the country are regarded as incomprehensible by other Scots.

re: 27

I think there's a real difference between ability to imitate and ability to distinguish on hearing. I'd think most half-way aware Brits could identify at least 3 or 4 major US accent 'blocks', i.e. some vague and unscientific groupings like, 'American (general)', 'Southern (general)', 'Southern (deep)', 'Nu Yoik/Jersey', etc.

I could go quite a bit further than that, myself, I think. I could identify New England/Boston accents, and take a guess at a few other more specific ones if I was paying attention. I'd not be right all of the time, but I'd be right more often than random chance. If asked to imitate an American accent, on the other hand, I'm sure I'd come up with some half-arsed 'Texan' accent just like you're describing.

I would, though, be completely unable to distinguish, say, an average Californian from an average person from Illinois. I'm aware, as people have told me, that there is quite a lot of variation in 'GenAm' accents but it's variation I'm not able to pick up on.

Most Americans can't pick up on the variation in General American accents either, actually. It's there, but it's quite subtle.

It's there, but it's quite subtle.

There is nothing subtle about the Illinois/Chicago accent.

I would, though, be completely unable to distinguish, say, an average Californian from an average person from Illinois.

One of my Brit friend's exes once said, hearing my voice on an answering machine, "why are you getting phone calls from some woman who sounds like she's in Beverly Hills 90210?"

True, but the Chicago accent is no kind of General American. I assumed ttaM was talking about people from other parts of Illinois.

It only gets worse as you get out of Chicago; it's different, but no more subtle.

"Illinois" may have been a poor choice of place to single out, but I still assume he was referring to speakers of General American English.

re: 99

Yeah, I can identify certain kinds of stereotypical California accents, i.e. I can tell if someone sounds like an extra from Clueless, but I couldn't identify the 'Californian-ness' about some 40 year old bloke's accent.

re: 102

Yes, I just chose two random examples of places I knew to be separated by a lot of miles. I was generally referring to an inability to pick up on variations in 'GenAm'.

Ok, gotcha.

see the unfairness, ttaM? When it's successful and picking up girls it's a British accent, but if it was a homeless bum shouting curses, it would be a Scottish accent.

(this joke based on a longstanding ethnic gripe the Jocks have about the BBC's alleged reporting of the nationality of winning and losing athletes at the Olympics).

re: 106

if it was a homeless bum shouting curses, it would be a Scottish accent.

That's one of those stereotypes that's unfortunately based on fact. If some really aggressive beggar is hassling me in London, I can lay a pound to a pinch of shite that he'll be from Scotland. Unless of course there's some elite jakey school somewhere in King's Cross where the bums go to learn the accent.

When it's successful and picking up girls it's a British accent

(Smugly), in my experience, the Scottish accent* is the single most effective 'picking up girls' accent. So there are some positives to having an accent largely associated with violent alcoholics and dour politicians.

* for some accents anyway. Sounding like Sean Connery is a plus, sounding like Rab C. Nesbitt's younger, less articulate brother, less so.

Well, at least we're not talking about fucking swimming any more.

Perhaps the experts here can tell me: what is the specific accent of the Monty Python character explaining that sheep will never learn to fly?

I can pass for a Canadian, and my brother, who's a naturalized Canadian, can pass for native-born up to a point.

The "sheep learning to fly" character is speaking Generic Comic Rustic English. This has no real-world counterpart. Though I would be impressed if people managed to use it to pull.

Damn. He could also pass for generic comic rustic New England.

I was hoping for expert knowledge to impress people with -- "Oh yes, that would be South Devon, of course."

Please don't explain that there are no sheep in S. Devon. I have no idea where or whether South Devon exists. I take little interest in our dependent nations, except on comedy albums.

Generic comic rustic bears a loose but exaggerated resemblance to some of those rural south-west and central English accents.

Even bits of rural Oxfordshire have that sort of accent.

It's not just rural Oxfordshire - when I worked as a parkie in Oxford all my workmates sounded like that. I used to exaggeratedly copy their accents, then they would copy me copying their accents until we disappeared in a vortex of faux-rustic nonsense.
Rad skoi at noi', shapperds deloi'.
Rad skoi in morrnin, shapperds warrnin!
Good times.

One thing is for sure: the sheep is not a creature of the air.

A Canadian working in Scotland thought I had a Toronto accent.

Christ, I worked in the Post Office on St Aldates for a few months and was definitely picking up a dodgy Oxford accent. Fortunately I have now reverted to my native sahf lunnon.

Dsquared, do you have a Welsh accent? My partner left there as a baby, but whenever we spend more than 24 hours over the border, he becomes Welsher day by day.

whenever we spend more than 24 hours over the border, he becomes Welsher day by day.

My wife and I went up to Scotland for New Year a couple of months after we met. She says that, in a quasi- Jekyll and Hyde moment, literally the moment I stepped off the bus my accent changed.*

* I also shrank 5cm and started craving deep-fried foods.

That works for a lot of people calling home, too. I had an Indian friend in college who had an identifiably Indian but not terribly conspicuous accent by American standards; listening to him on the phone with his parents, though, I knew he was speaking English more because I caught the occasional word than because I could actually understand him.

re: 117

Yeah, there's lots of study of the phenomenon by linguists. It's still amusing when you hear a particularly dramatic example.

Dsquared, do you have a Welsh accent?

A touch of a North Welsh one which is invariably mistaken for Manchester or Liverpool.

I have, oddly enough, had my accent mistaken for english, but this was by an indian, so take it for what you will (I have a general american accent as befits my birth in southern california).

(I have no detectable accent as befits my status as the person speaking.)

Northern California and Southern California have different accents, but unfortunately this is only really important to the Northern Californians.

113: It has enormous difficulty with the comparatively simple act of perching.

The accent is similar to Generic Pirate, which is more or less West Country (Zummerzet/Devon).

I'm always pretty bad with accents. Partly this is just because the foreign language I have the most experience with is French, but I'm a Vermonter who learned French in the classroom and then spent a year over there as an exchange student. I had learned French with an American accent from the classroom accent, so that's how I spoke it over there. But now, whenever I drive two hours north into Quebec, I can barely understand them -- partly because I'm out of practice, but mostly because the Quebecois accent is so different from the mainland French accent. It sounds like they're all from Alabama.

It would be fun to have the people of unfogged record themselves speaking. I imagine we'd get quite a bit of accent diversity.

I think that I have a pretty standard American accent. I don't sound out of place in Boston, but I don't have a strong New England accent. I have a theory that regionalism in Massachusetts is dying out. It's still there in a place like Revere, but it's almost a class marker. Bill Weld doesn't have a strong New York or Yankee accent; his father's voice would have betrayed his social class much mroe readily.

My sister went to college in California, and people from there have no idea what New England accents sound like. They imagine that everyone says Pawk ye cah in Havad Square. A bunch of her classmates thought taht she was from California.

I have a sufficiently mild southern accent that people who have moved to this part of NC often express surprise that I'm a native southerner. I tell them that I, like much of my cohort, have the television accent: a sort of flat, unaffected Midwestern one. When I'm talking to people with more pronounced Southern accents, though, I'll gradually drop into one without realizing that I'm doing it.

I've got general newscaster American too -- when I was younger, there was something off about my accent in that people would ask where I was from, and would keep pushing for an explanation even after I said born and raised in New York to parents born and raised here as well. But that seems to have faded; no one's commented on how I talk for years.

I just got asked to record someone's voicemail message on the grounds that I sound identical to Patrick Stewart. I am vaguely flattered and also disturbed (he is about 35 years older than me).

Was the someone who asked you to record her voicemail message hott? If so no need to feel disturbed -- grab the ball and run with it.

No; sadly the someone asking was male, for one thing, and I think was more after geek points than hottness points.

But the accent definitely scores points with the opposite sex. I should record a Berlitz-style tape to help teo.

122: And then there's the central valley.

Re. British accents, I can identify (broadly) different regions, plus Manchester and East London, but one thing I don't understand is why it is that I can usually guess, correctly, that a given speaker is black. Any Brits want to explain what it is about black English English that sounds "different"?

I don't mean west Indian immigrants, either. I mean like, African ancestry + born in some London suburb.

Most Brits I know can pinpoint strong Southern accents and strong New York ones - but in my experience they can't really even place a New Jersy accent, even after seven or so years of The Sopranos. We had an American come over to give us a presentation in London a few weeks ago, and none of my British colleagues had even the slightest idea where she was from, even though she sounded as Jersey (New, of course) as the day is long. I think it's more the Vinnie Barbarino-type accent that they can identify. (I said she sounded Jersey with a bit of Philly, and got major plaudits when she said she'd lived in Jersey all her life, except for four years at Temple.)

As for me, I grew up with a weak southern accent and have been in the UK for several years, so am generally assumed to be Canadian, which of course I take as an insult.

Over here, having a very strong Southern accent would generally be considered to be hot by Brits.

132: I've wondered this too. Given immigration patterns from Africa to the UK, I usually assume that the person was actually born in Africa and came here late enough to not completely lose their native accent - but that's just a guess and clearly in your situation wrong.

#134: even if the person was born in London, they will have learned to talk by listening to parents and family, who will still have had an African accent.

#133: Brits consider a Southern accent to be hott? Not in my experience. The normal associations are either overweight tobacco-spitting redneck lynch mobs, heavily-made-up televangelists, or banjo-twanging inbreds.

135.1: I think that's probably the case, too, just as it is here in the States. It's kinda neat, though.

(That said, have just had a short convo with my Brit friend, who is half Algerian and therefore, by British standards, "black," in which he remarked that his black middle-class friends would piss themselves laughing at the question. I'm sure that there's an enormous confirmation bias operating in the observation.)

135: I don't think you're first point is true. We get our accents from our peers, don't we? (Something that's true even if Judith Rich Harris says it.) For instance, London-born children of American immigrants to the UK don't sound American.

I could imagine that living in immigrant-rich communities might make a difference, though: if many of your neighbours are recent immigrants from a country your parents came from too, maybe that would have an effect. Or would the accents of the more general community swamp that? I don't know.

On your second point, fair play - it depends on if the southern accent in question sounds genteel, or like a pig fucker.

I can usually tell the difference between Jamaican immigrants, African immigrants (who are mostly Nigerian) and "native Black British". I think the answer is that they all lived in some fairly small communities for quite a few years after the first Windrush immigration (this is borne out because it is actually a London and Midlands phenomenon; black people in the North have normal Lancashire or Yorkshire accents). Very young black Londoners tend to either have normal London accents or affected stage-Jamaican ones (I actually heard a kid last week correct his father's "fing" ("thing") to "ting").

(further to 138, if you watch the Mohammed Siddique Khan video, his accent is pure Yorkshire).

I agree with 138. In my neighbourhood, the black children of African immigrants either sound typically south London or "stage Jamaican", which is largely the same thing.

Following up again on 135.2: Scots, Irish, etc who have and raise their kids in London do not produce children with accents inflected with their parents' home nation.

Accents aside, the timbre of black voices is different from that of white voices, and pretty easily recognizable. I can also usually, but not always, tell when someone on the radio is Iranian or from the Far East, even when they don't have an accent.

re: 138

Yeah, the same (Yorkshire/Lancashire thing) applies in Scotland. Everyone has Scottish accents. I couldn't tell whether someone was asian, chinese, black or white from their accent alone (unless they were first generation immigrants).

142: They're only doing that 'cause Scottish accents get them laid.

138 et seq: you are all right and I am wrong. Though I do know someone of Chinese ancestry who used to have a Midlands accent, where he was born and bred, but lost it at university (Cambridge) and developed a slight HK Chinese accent instead. Which is just odd.

re: 143

Not so much while actually in Scotland. (and we are back to 5 above)

Surely it's possible to get laid with a Scottish accent in Scotland. Or does that explain what you're doing down here, ttaM? And which accent does get you laid in Scotland?

And which accent does get you laid in Scotland?

Mexican.

Has anyone sufficiently explained why accents can make ordinary people seem so witty?

re: 146

Yeah, I suppose I meant that a Scottish accent isn't more likely to get you laid in Scotland. Although, even that's false, since there are English people in Scotland, who are less likely, etc.

Verfremdung.

148: Americans believe that Brits are bright and witty, so when someone speaks with a British accent, we assume they are bright and witty.

We generally believe that Germans are humourless, so we don't impart wit to a person wiht a German accent.

151 doesn't work, I don't think. I think Southerners are big dummies (every last one of them!) but I still think they're funnier. African-Americans also seem funnier.

148: In the case of the British, it's saying 'cunt' a lot. Fun-nee!

152: Since your personal experience cancels out my personal experience, I conclude that there is no possible answer to your question. Science has failed us yet again.

Is there an implicature in 152?

your personal experience cancels out my personal experience

Damn, I knew I should have said "Northerners" instead of "I."

152: Northerners drive like this, but Southerners drive like this.

See, apo is funny.

It would be fun to have the people of unfogged record themselves speaking.

Huh. As always, or often, I lag behind the thread.

I find myself fascinated by the accents of people previously known online only. I'm a flat American newscaster accent, I think; yet I'm told by, say, Canadians, that I sound east-coast American; by American midwesterners that I sound New England (well, they can't differentiate).

To my own ear, an amalgamation of the places I've lived (duh), but I mean something more by that: I seem to absorb, or adopt, quite quickly, pronunciations I find interesting.

I spent time in Canada a couple of years ago and now hear some Canadian in my accent. The time I lived in the Boston area has left me with a barely detectable pronunciation of "Boston."

I'm reminded of the ways in which my handwriting has morphed over time; in college, I'd find myself admiring a particular glyph, and practice it. Stylee, baby: I like that "g," I will make my g's like that!

Josh Holloway (Sawyer in Lost)'s a Southerner, isn't he? I like his accent; that's how I read apo's comments in my head.

I'm not sure I'd be able to leave a message if faced (eared???) with a Patrick Stewart-a-like answerphone message. At the height of TNG popularity, a friend of mine was in Yonadab, a Shaffer play, playing the part which apparently Stewart played when the play was first on - I'd gone to see it, and PS was there in the bar, waiting to see it too. I was rather stoned, but managed to make my way over to him but was then struck dumb and just shoved a piece of paper and a pen at him like an idiot.

I seem to absorb, or adopt, quite quickly, pronunciations I find interesting.

I lived in Scotland (Cumbernauld) for a couple of years when I was little, and I still say Glasgow with a short a.

; that's how I read apo's comments in my head.

She totally wants you, Apo.

Josh Holloway

Wikipedia says he was born in California, but grew up in the Blue Ridge mountains in Georgia. His accent is a little heavier than mine. What's important though, is that you can barely tell us apart when we take off our shirts.

In between high school an college I did a year abroad in England, (in Somerset, actually). Two accent stories:
I was cast in a play, and thought I was very clever to discguise mt American accent as Irish, which i did passibly. One couple even came up to me after, the wife saying I was Irish, but the husband saying American. The fact was I went in an out of the Irish accent through lack of talent, if not effort.
Once were were slated to play the local trade school in rugby, and the posters read that we were up against the "Wurzels". Apparently a dialect comedy group, poking fun at the West country accent, which is the same accent Americans know as a pirate accent, all due to one actors portrail of Long John Silver. Arrgh.

I think I remember reading once that "Pirate" was an actual, identifiable local accent, but I'm DELIGHTED to see so many people confirming it.

Avast, me hearties!

(I'm assuming the Pirate argot is distinct from the Pirate accent?)

most of the best pirates were actually Welsh, I'm afraid to say.

A "Middlesborough accent" is a slang term for a bad cough, on account of the chemical works there.

168- Were or are Dsq ?

The best pirates these days are Malaysian and Somali, or so I've been led to believe.

Sierra Leone as well.

Pirate ships were autonomous anarcho-syndicalist collectives, so it makes sense that the best pirates (like the best shop stewards) were Welsh.

"The Wurzels" is also the name of a well-known Scrumpy and Western band, best known for their hit "Oi've Got A Brand New Combine 'Arvester".

Americans are gaga for foreign accents.

Meanwhile, Americans abroad are forced to fall back on chewing gum, nylons and Lucky Strikes.